Cross and Crescent

Once Byzantium was the meeting place of East and West, the Holy City where subtle princes, rich merchants, and scheming priests built great monuments to the glory of God and their own ambition. But now, after centuries of power, the Imperial throne is in danger. The forces of Islam have attacked the Empire's borders from the East: they have captured Jerusalem, Christianity's holiest city, and all seems lost. From the West have come Jerusalem's saviors - the armies of Franks, Normans, and other Christians - who are willing to die to reclaim Jerusalem for Christ's faithful.
For the people who stand in the midst of this momentous upheaval, the arrival of the Crusaders sounds as a warning klaxon. For Leo Ducas, a man who was once a hairsbreadth away from assuming the Imperial throne but who has rejected that life, they represent hope and danger in equal measure. For his wife, Asherah, the beautiful and haunting Jewess who saved Leo's life so long ago, the barbarians are nothing but the murderers of her people. And for Binah, their bewitching daughter, a woman who holds the world's power in her grasp, they are but pawns in her own mysterious game. They will all play a dangerous game to save their homeland, from infidel and barbarian Christian both...and the things done in their various gods' names may condemn an entire generation.

Sequel to the 11th-century historical fantasy Shards of Empire (1996). The First Crusade is under way: A mixed force of Normans, Franks, and other northerners under Bohemond has assembled, intending to attack the Holy Land and wrest Jerusalem from the Turks. To Byzantine Emperor Alexius, however, surrounded by enemies, the Crusaders are just as threatening as the Turks themselves, so he engages linguist and warrior Theodoulos, adoptive son of his old friend and rival Leo Ducas, to accompany the Crusaders and report back. Alexius also appoints Binah, Leo's magic-powered adoptive daughter, to be a companion for his fiercely ambitious daughter Anna. Along the way, Theodoulos finds his own magic powers awakening (like his sister, he's the offspring of a goddess), and almost against his will he begins to like the barbarous but good-hearted northerners. As the Crusaders draw ever nearer to Jerusalem, Binah teaches Anna magic, while the latter schemes and plots and prepares herself to seize the throne when the opportunity presents itself. Though Shwartz's sympathies and interests manifestly lie with Anna, much of the book is simply a fictionalized account of the First Crusade. The upshot is schizophrenic and only moderately engaging. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.