Gardner F Fox

He grew into legend, this exultant young giant whom historians call Prester John, the blond, gray-eyed Christian knight, swordsman of fabled prowess, who roused the nomadic hordes of the waste country in a great crusade to capture the Holy Land. Prester John's bloody quest for power in the name of God ranks with those of Marco Polo and Genghis Khan. Gardner F. Fox, historian extraordinary, now identifies the fabulous Prester John as Sir John of Lincoln, a Knight Templar out of England, whose love for an Eastern princess, Shirzade, led him to glory. This great novel of the twelfth century echoes the barbarism, ecstasy, and cruelty of the time when men proudly gave their lives as monuments to their faith.

In the sweep of history, there is no era that can match, for sheer exhilaration and romantic adventure, the Renaissance of Europe. Here is a swashbuckling drama that captures that era with all its pageantry and vivid color. It is the story of Ilarion, a yellow-haired stableboy, whose sword had no peer in all of Europe. He was plucked from poverty by that dark genius, Cesare Borgia, most powerful man on the continent. From that moment Ilarion plunged into life with dizzying speed. Into court intrigue where whispers behind a cupped hand could mean death in the night for a man... Into the silken bonds of love and the favors of the Madonna of the Roses, highborn lady of Italy... Into savage battle beneath the banner of the bull, where rich cities toppled to the lances of Borgia...

Once she posed as a camp trollop to pry a colonel's secrets loose between kisses. At splendid balls she coquetted with redcoats-traitors unaware for the promise in her eyes. Posing as a ragged boy she fled through swamps, desperately eluding the King's death regiment-minutes ahead of her executioners. She was Mistress Debby Treat, the reckless, golden-haired Virginia beauty who gambled all of herself in the cause of liberty. Except for her heart. She gave that to a rebel soldier-who himself belonged to a Tory belle...