This is a story on the dark age of forced conversions. It shows how nebulous the lines between religion and carnage can be.

When the joint forces of Portugal’s ‘Grocer’ King John III and the Holy See, with an eye on the market for spices and sacred crosses, set out to spread the message of love and compassion, they leave behind a deathly trail of murder and mayhem.             

The story begins on a hot, humid May morning in 1560. A powerful conversion brigade with a monstrous six-horse driven cannon raids the palace of the beautiful tribal Princess Darshana Kamya Kathodi in Yehoorwada.

The brigade’s temporal and spiritual leaders seem to be working at cross purposes. While the fat but ferocious Brigadier Antonio de Braganca’s aim is to gain his king’s favour, the kind and frail Franciscan Father Pascal Francisco’s goal is to win a higher place in God’s Kingdom. But what binds the cruel commander and the compassionate missionary together is their weakness for big conversion figures and the business for spices and sacred crosses.

The brigade bears the king’s conversion order for Princess Darshana and her people, sealed by the Holy See’s promise of a new heaven.

When Princess Darshana refuses to comply, she is raped and killed. But the indomitable, sometimes playful spirit of the young princess returns to seek revenge.

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