Author:
Marcello Simoni
Publisher:
Newton Compton
Release Date:
04-11-2025
Anno Domini 1130, Christmas Day. Beneath the gilded vaults of Palermo’s cathedral, the Great Count Roger II of Hauteville is crowned King of Sicily by the antipope Anacletus II. Among the various Norman and Lombard lords of the South attending the ceremony stands Folco of Évreux.It is in this very setting that the young Ferracutus learns a shocking truth: if he wishes his wife Altruda and their newborn son to be freed from the Prince of Bari, who holds them hostage, he must assassinate the monarch himself. Yet driven by very different intentions, Folco will strive to seize control of his own destiny, even as the intrigues of his father-in-law, Baron Galgano Drengot, put the lives of his mother and sister in grave peril — and even threaten his little brother Abelard, who, still a child, will be sent away from Castle Sagitta to be raised in a monastery. But far darker clouds gather on the horizon. Roger II’s war against the rebellious South is about to begin — a true campaign of conquest from which Folco cannot escape, though his heart is torn in two. One half burns with the tormented love he feels for his wife Altruda; the other for a mysterious young woman he will meet in Palermo. Meanwhile, as the feud between the Ferracutus and the Drengot families deepens, a wholly unexpected figure begins to emerge from the shadows of Castle Sagitta: a deformed man of sinister temperament — the descendant of Galgano, long believed to be dead.