Prométeme que serás libre

One morning in 1484, a band of pirates assault the small village of Llafranc. Ramon Serra dies trying to defend his family, but is unable to prevent his wife and daughter from being abducted. In his agony he asks his twelve year old son: “Promise me that you will be free”. After losing his family, Joan and his little brother travel to Barcelona. There, Joan works as an apprentice in the Corró family’s bookstore, who he soon comes to love as his new family. These are troubling times and the bookseller and his wife are burned at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition for defending the freedom of speech in literature. This new loss reasserts for Joan his deepest desires; to rescue what is left of his family, recuperate his home in Italy and to become a bookseller, but he finds himself accused of killing a man and is condemned to serve as a rower in the galleys of the feared admiral Bernat de Vilamarí. Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, Rome, and Genoa are the scenes of his odyssey. He soon participates as a galley slave and as a gunner in various battles, meeting extraordinary characters; he becomes involved in the intrigues and fights desperately for his love and to keep his promise.