This is the forgotten Matter of Europe - a Song of Courtly Love and Betrayal, Adventure and Misfortune, sung by two Emperors, a Pope, a King, a Duke and two Counts. It is 1100 AD. In the east of Europe, battles are underway between Christians and Muslims, between Latin and Greek speakers, and between the Church and Crown. King Baldwin of Jerusalem, valiant knight and lusty bachelor, has wrested a sacred talisman from the Eastern Empire - the Palladium. With it, his kingdom and the civilisation it represents is in the ascendancy, and all fall before his sword. Yet he has a weakness - love - both for one woman, his mother, as well as his fellow man. Will it be his undoing? If it were up to Caesar Nicephoros Bryennius, Panhypersebastos, First Minister of the Roman Empire, Baldwin would not be the only one to fall. He schemes for the ancient crown of the Romans, and nothing can stand in his way. Nothing, perhaps, except his wife ... or himself. Four of Baldwin's knights, too, are struggling with their place in the world. Though they have risen high in Baldwin's service, their real love is questing after pilgrims. Thus they seek to lighten Baldwin's load, by offering him a service, while embarking on a great quest of their own. One that will lead them places that even they scarcely realise. Lowest on the ranks of society, below the common gaze, is Nicephoros' escaped slave, Jacob. He vies simply for freedom - the purest desire. Yet, in seeking to use the Palladium to achieve his goals, he stands to change the fate of all...
In Palladium Eastern Empires, Marc Lane weaves the myth of the Palladium into a tale of the dying days of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Set in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, one of the last great Emperors, the story of the Palladium is set against the backdrop of the dynastic struggle between his son John and his son-in-law Nicephoros Bryennius and daughter, Anna Comnena (future author of the Alexiad). Alexius faces plots by the Anemades brothers and Prince Aaron of Bulgaria, external attack by Bohemund of Antioch - and prevails against all with Palladian protection. Yet her fate is not to remain in the Byzantine sphere. Nicephoros - in league with a Papal legate Mavros of Amalfi - sends his Jewish slave Jacob forward to Jerusalem with the Palladium, to secure a means of seizing the Roman crown... This book is Part One - the events of 1106-1108, in the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land. Part Two (Approach the Throne) tells the story of the Palladium from the Holy Land to France, in the hands of four crusaders (and future Knights Templar), Godfrey, Hughes, Roland and Gondamer, against the background of the rise of France and Burgundy, the rebirth of trade at the Champagne fairs and the new monasticism of Bernard of Clairvaux.
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