Author(s): Tim Severin

Fiction

Rome, 799 AD. The Pope is viciously attacked in the street, by unknown assailants. Sigwulf, a Saxon prince who has been exiled to the court of King Carolus in France, is sent to Rome as a spy to discover who was responsible. There, he discovers a web of lies - the only clue to the attackers' identity is an intricate gold buckle in one of their homes, which Sigwulf links with a mysterious gold warrior flagon he finds in the home of the Pope's chamberlain. Could the attack have its source in even the highest levels of the church? Pope Leo had made enemies among the nobility on his rapid ascension to St Peter's Throne, and there are many who would see another in his place. Sigwulf believes the key to the plot in Rome may lie with the master craftsman who created the flagon, and his journey takes him deep into dangerous, uncharted Avar territory ...