|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
Travel back in time to late Ninth Century Anglo-Saxon Britain where
Alfred the Great rules with a benevolent hand while the Danish King
rules peacefully within the boundaries of the Danelaw. Trade
flourishes, and scholars from throughout the civilized world flock
to Britannia's shores to study at the King's Court School at
Winchester. Enter Concordia, a beautiful noble woman whose family
is favored by the king. Vain, willful, and admired, but ambitious
and cunning, Concordia is not willing to accept her fate. She is
betrothed to the valiant warrior, Brantson, but sees herself as far
too young to lay in the bedchamber of an older suitor. She wants to
see the wonders of the world, embracing everything in it;
preferably, but dangerously, at the side of Thayer, the exotic
Saracen who charms King Alfred's court and ignites her yearning
passions. Concordia manipulates her besotted husband into taking
her to Rome, but her ship is captured by bloodthirsty pirates, and
the seafarers protecting her are ruthlessly slain to a man. As she
awaits her fate in the Moorish captain's bed, by sheer chance, she
discovers that salvation is at hand in the gilded court of a
Saracen nobleman. While awaiting rescue, Concordia finds herself at
the center of intrigue, plots, blackmail, betrayal and the vain
desires of two egotistical brothers, each willing to die for her
favor. Using only feminine cunning, Concordia must defend her honor
while plotting her escape as she awaits deliverance, somewhere
inside steamy, unconquered Muslim Hispania.
Whispered by the wise and the learned. Talked of in hushed tones
round luminous firesides. Engraved by awestruck scribes in the
scriptoria of the Chronicles. Against all the odds, great King
Alfred defeated a vastly superior Danish army outside Chippenham.
This victory, the sages prophesied, would guarantee peace
throughout the land. Or so they thought. Two years later, Rigr the
Bastard, vengeful and seeking to claim his birthright, was defeated
in the wilds of East Anglia. His blood smeared berserker warriors
vanquished; no quarter asked for - no quarter given. Now, a further
two years later, the Vikings return. Noble Prince Sven instigates a
seaborne invasion, fuelled partly by blind rage when he discovers
that his brother, Prince Erik, has sworn fealty to the Anglo-Saxon
king. His own brother: A traitor and a fool. Erik's love, Lady
Gwyneth, attempts to stop the invasion before it starts by uniting
the two estranged brothers, but her scheming only succeeds in
making matters worse. Indeed, her interference guarantees the death
of thousands of warriors in the freezing, tumultuous North Sea. So
when the horns of Sven's monumental fleet of warships are heard off
the fogbound coast of Britannia, King Alfred - outnumbered,
outshipped and weary of the fray - must rouse his jaded Saxon
warriors and lead them to sea, to repel his most formidable enemy
yet. For a host motivated by the spilled blood of the fallen, the
spirit of black vengeance, and the delights of a warrior's reward
in Valhalla, is the most fearsome opponent of all. Alfred. Sven.
Erik. Gwyneth. Amidst the ferrous reverberation of a battle royale
- one or all must die, and the fate of a nation hangs in the
balance, one final time.
Two years have passed since Alfred the Great successfully defeated
Guthrum, King of the Vikings. The fair land of England is at peace.
That is, until the harmony is threatened by Guthrum's angry,
vengeful, illegitimate son, Rigr, who is hell-bent on usurping his
father's throne. Rigr demands his Birthright - an acknowledgement
that he is the sole heir to the Danelaw, but his father refuses his
claim. Rigr assembles his army; a motley, but formidable, cohort of
disenchanted warriors. Fearsome Guthrum, ruler of everything from
Kent to Northumbria, is made aware of the threat and conjures his
forces, meeting the rebellious host on the field at Thetford.
Thousands upon thousands of bloodthirsty warriors confront each
other on the sunlit, windless plains of East Anglia. The victors
will rewrite the course of history, and the fate of England is in
the hands of the gods of war.
King Alfred the Great has thwarted the Viking threat against his
kingdom of Wessex. Signing a treaty with the formidable Danish King
Guthrum, he succeeds in pushing the heathen army back to the
rolling fens of East Anglia. An uneasy peace holds sway: The King
establishes a standing army under Lord Richard, who takes command
of the citadel at Wareham. Richard and his army are accompanied by
his daughter, Gwyneth, an impetuous and reckless young woman - at
once striking, intellectually gifted, but dangerously vain and
imprudent. While Richard broods on the Viking threat, Gwyneth falls
in love with an enemy prince - only to discover that she has been
betrothed to a Saxon warrior twice her age. Refusing to countenance
her grim fate, she flees the fortress, but is soon kidnapped by a
Viking warrior and taken to the camp of King Guthrum while Saxon
search parties scour the land. In captivity, a hostage to fortune,
and the focus of political intrigue, Gwyneth is submerged in a
world of expediency, betrayal and black treachery. Slowly, she
realizes the truth is suspect, nothing is what it appears and her
reality cannot be trusted. And all the time, against this
background, she desires nothing more than to be reunited with her
dashing Danish prince.
|
You may like...
Widows
Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, …
Blu-ray disc
R22
R19
Discovery Miles 190
Karoo Food
Gordon Wright
Paperback
R300
R208
Discovery Miles 2 080
|