9th century Spain–an age of brutal battles to the death and dungeons equipped with thumbscrews and spiked boots. An age of perfumed harems where acts of love were spiced with the erotic mysteries of the Far East. A time when merchants, princes, thieves and whores, Christians, Islamic Arabs, Berbers, Yemenites, Greeks and Jews were trapped in an inferno of embattled peoples and faiths.

Only such an age could have spawned Alaric Tendisson – the mighty Spanish nobleman whose extraordinary capacity for love was matched only by the violence of his destiny [sic] and, thankfully, the positive resolution of his and everyone elses fate.