The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism

Hardcover

Non-Fiction

412

2018-06-26 18:07:01

In the latter half of the thirteenth century Christian Europe once more sought to prise the Holy Land out of the grasp of the Infidel. Tens of thousands took up the Cross. Some went for the greater glory of God, others for baser motives - driven by lust for power, for riches, for revenge.
Here then is the story of the seventh and last Crusade, as experienced by a young Spanish nobleman, Francisco de Montcada. And while Francisco is the hero of this novel, his tale is told by his former friend and acolyte, a venal and moderately trustworthy Cistercian monk named Brother Lucas. For Francisco has returned from the Levant a broken and seemingly possessed man. The Inquisition decrees that his tortured soul be exorcised and the task falls to Brother Lucas. Eschewing the Inquisition’s more usual methods, the monk sits with the silent emaciated knight in his cell and talks to him. Slowly, tentatively, Francisco begins to tell his story: of how he set out to free the soul of his dead brother; of the fierce friendship with his cousin Andres, and his love for that great warrior’s sister Isabel; of his fellow knights - the noble, battle-hardened commander Ramon, and the treacherous Don Fernando; of the heady triumph of the battle of Toron, and the courageous but ultimately doomed defence of the great crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers.

Harper Perennial

9780061189241

2006-06-06

1

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