Spain 1492 -a country in the hold of the horrors of the Inquisition. It is a dangerous time to be of a different faith: several hundred thousand Jews are expelled, given little time to flee, and slaughtered even before they can escape. Yonah, the thirteen-year-old son of a Toledo silversmith, sees his father and brother die these terrible days. But rather than renouncing his faith or leaving for another land, he decides to stay and honour his beliefs.

Thus begins Yonah's remarkable journey across Spain, zigzagging the country to avoid the agents of the Inquisition. It is an adventure wrought with danger, that finds him coming face to face with his father's killers, with a love unfulfilled amongst his own people in Granada, and leads him to his true ealling-as a healer and physitian.