Joseph Scott Amis

Galien de Coudre, third son in a French family of minor nobility, was pledged to the Church at birth, schooled in letters, and trained in arms by his father and older brothers, all knights, but at nineteen years, a love forbidden compels his father to send him off to a monastery. There, his illusions about religious life are shattered, but he gains the friendship of a renowned architect and travels to a distant city to assist in the building of a great cathedral. In the surprising life that follows, Galien is drawn into the family profession of arms, and finds success, love, heartbreak, and utter despair. After years of adventure, danger, and battle in sacred and storied lands at the center of the world, he finds what appears to be lasting peace and happiness in the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, but in his final destiny, will he be compelled to again take up his sword and travel great distances over sea and land to fight battles that will shape the lives of his descendants for the century to come?