The Saracen

The Saracen is a two-volume historical epic set in the Mediterranean world of 1263–1266. Daoud ibn Abdallah, born to a crusader family but captured and raised in Egypt, has become a Mamluk warrior, Sufi initiate and covert agent of Sultan Baibars. He is sent to Italy with the Byzantine courtesan Sophia to prevent Pope Urban IV from forming an alliance with Mongol envoys from the Ilkhanate. Their mission places them against the French knight Simon de Gobignon and inside the factional politics of Lucera, Orvieto and the papal court.

Across Land of the Infidel and Holy War, espionage and personal rivalry become inseparable from the conflict between Manfred of Sicily and Charles of Anjou, the struggle between Ghibellines and Guelfs, and the advance toward the Battle of Benevento. Real figures including Baibars, Manfred, Charles of Anjou, Louis IX, Thomas Aquinas and Hulagu Khan share the narrative with fictional agents and soldiers. The series presents the crusading age from Christian, Muslim and Mongol perspectives, combining political intrigue, romance, religious conflict and warfare.