The Sword Brothers

by Peter Darman Book 1 in the Crusader Chronicles series.

First published 2013

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4.2(1,300)

Livonia, early thirteenth century. Conrad Wolff leaves Lübeck after a family injustice and seeks a new life in the crusader state being built around Riga. There he becomes associated with the Brothers of the Sword, the military order created to defend Bishop Albert’s expanding Christian settlements in the eastern Baltic.

Training for war draws Conrad into campaigns against Liv, Lett and Estonian communities resisting conquest and conversion. Rival rulers and neighbouring powers also threaten the fragile state. The novel presents the Baltic crusades through a young man whose search for security binds him to an order in which religious vows, military service and the acquisition of land are impossible to separate.