A lawyer defends his childhood friend accused of killing his wife.

Hoping to entrap Maria von Gall, who runs a courageous underground railroad for Jews in France, the Nazis kidnap her son Thomas, a brilliant 11-year-old chess master. An exchange arrangement goes awry and he sees her die in a hail of bullets; but he is rescued by his American father, whom he has never met before, and who plans to flee with him to Spain. However, Queen Maria had solemnly entrusted her little pawn Thomas with a precious secret and a terrifying mission, and it was time for him to move. A pawn may become an important piece by slowly, quietly advancing all the way through the enemy's ranks. Or a pawn may die trying. Retreat is what a pawn can never do.

In a time of war and disease, a young officer gallantly tries to help a young woman find her husband.

Spain conquered the seas, found a new world and different realities than the one known in Europe. But a question needed to be answered with what they found in those new territories: do the Indians have souls? The Church, bound to protect and convert the natives and the conquerors who treated them like slaves and thought they were only merchandising, expose their arguments and reasonings at what would be known as the Vallidolid controversy. Between them, there's a cardinal hearing both parts and trying to get reasonable answers from this critical question.