A Search for the King

Blondel de Nesle, troubadour and devoted servant of Richard the Lionheart, sets out across Europe after the king disappears on his return from the Third Crusade. Accompanied by his young page Karl, Blondel follows rumours from court to court, singing a song known to Richard in the hope that the imprisoned king will answer. His route leads towards Austria, where Leopold V has captured Richard and where the king’s freedom has become a matter of ransom, diplomacy and imperial politics.

Vidal treats the medieval legend as a comic historical adventure rather than a sober reconstruction. Blondel encounters romantic intrigues, grotesque nobles and supernatural dangers including a dragon, a giant, a vampire countess and wolf-men, yet his loyalty to Richard remains the story’s fixed point. The novel combines the historical captivity of Richard I with the imaginative freedoms of chivalric romance, turning the search into a journey through both twelfth-century Europe and the fabulous landscape created by later legend.