Restored to favour at court, King's Messenger Simon Merrivale accompanies an English delegation to Florence, the powerful centre of European finance, to negotiate a loan to offset King Edward III’s chronic debt.
A top secret plot, one to decide the fate of European control.
But the delegation has another purpose: to set up an Englishman, Henry Stapledon, Bishop of Dorchester, as an anti-pope in Rome. If they can succeed, they will undermine the papacy and strike a hammer blow to French support across Europe.
But one devastating betrayal will shatter their hopes.
When disaster strikes, Merrivale finds himself alone, isolated and with a dozen different factions out for his blood. With no way to go but forward, he must plunge back into the seething torrent of Florence’s cutthroat streets, and dangers greater than any he has ever faced before, if he is to survive.
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The fifth in the series so I do advise reading the first ones prior to this as there is some continuation of the narrative.
In this outing, Simon Merrivale, the King's Messenger is being sent to Florence with two tasks: chase up King Edward III's missing treasury funds from banker Donato de Peruzzi (to whom Edward III owed considerable amounts), and to install Henry Stapledon, Bishop of Dorchester, as an anti-Pope in an effort to undermine the French.
There is plenty of detail to ensure that the reader is captured by the authenticity and complexity of the period. Florence was a city where bankers and merchants replaced the old noble families as the center of power. There had been a revolution of sorts, with a French aristocrat and crusader, Walter of Brienne, assuming Lordship of the Republic. How did this happen - well it seems that since 1339, Florence had been in the grip of a severe economic crisis brought about by immense English debts to Florentine banking houses, and by astronomical public debts incurred in trying to obtain the nearby city of Lucca. The Florentine nobility looked to foreign powers to solve the city's seemingly impossible financial problems. Unfortunately, Walter ruled like a despot and was ousted after less than a year in power, and once again Florence was a city in turmoil.
MacKenzie ensure that there is enough mystery, intrigue, jealousy, betrayal, political and religious machinations to keep the reader suitably engrossed. For those with a penchant for historical fiction set in the 14th Century, this will not fail to keep you satisfied.
Books in the series:
- A Flight of Arrows
- A Clash of Lions
- The Fallen Sword
- By Treason We Perish
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