Cirrus@Austlit

'Byzantium stretches a weakening grip across Eastern Europe, trying in vain to hold onto all that has made it an empire. Tyrian purple, the unique dye that denotes its power, is held under close guard by the imperial house.

'However a Jewish merchant from Venice has sourced an illegal supply and Tobias the dwarf minstrel and his twin brother, Tomas, begin a dangerous journey to retrieve the purple and deliver it into the merchant’s eager hands.

'But is this supply as secret as they had hoped?

'Trade is cut throat, men are expendable, money is power and Constantinople provides the exotic backdrop during a time of scimitars and shadows.

'This is Tobias – the story of a minstrel and a broken life…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'The Church – powerful and moneyed.

'The Heretics – zealous and poor.

'Lyon – a city that might claim to cast the seeds of reformed thinking upon the world.

'Guillaume of Anjou, formerly an archer fighting with other Angevins in the Third Crusade, is now the manager of a successful merchant house. In his new position, he unwittingly steps into and out of the shadowed world of trade and secrets in Lyon.

'Guillaume carries the weight of a book in his hands – a book that may well light the flame of the greatest philosophical and spiritual change Europe will experience so that word and sword will cut a swathe through the fabric of life in Lyon.

'But he has also made an enemy who wants nothing more than revenge.

'He will fight for his life…'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Michael Sarapion, merchant and thief, returns to Byzantine Constantinople from which he fled the year before in fear of his life. In his company is Tobias, the dwarf brother of an icon thief and Ahmed, an Arab galley master with secrets.

'Michael is filled with grief and fury, intending vengeance for a treasure lost to him twelve years before. He must trust in priests, defy the empire and guard those dearest to him as he searches high and low because he understands that to restore what is rightfully his, he must kill . . . or be killed.

'In this final installment of The Triptych Chronicle trilogy, Michael, Tobias and the stalwarts of the House of Gisborne-ben Simon will slice a swathe through the Byzantine city, those who challenge them hard upon their heels.' (Publication summary)