A Brightness Long Ago

by Guy Gavriel Kay Book 1 in the Children of Earth and Sky series.

First published 2019

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4.2(10,747)

Danio Cerra rises from a tailor’s household to an education and a position at the court of Count Uberto of Mylasia, a ruler feared as the Beast. His life changes when he recognises Adria Ripoli entering the count’s chambers with murder in mind. Keeping her secret draws Danio into the dangerous freedom Adria has chosen and into a network of courtiers, physicians, clerics and soldiers whose ambitions reach far beyond one city.

The larger struggle belongs to Folco Cino and Teobaldo Monticola, two celebrated mercenary commanders whose rivalry shapes the politics of Batiara. As alliances shift, tournaments become battles and private decisions acquire consequences no one can foresee, Danio learns how ordinary people are carried into the stories later told about princes and war. Inspired by the condottieri and city-state conflicts of fifteenth-century Italy, the novel is both a political drama and a meditation on memory, chance and lives briefly illuminated by history.