‘Luca Baldi is an illiterate peasant, a scrawny wretch who has a seditious streak and who under normal circumstances would have been hanged or burnt at the stake long ago. However, fate, or God, has seen fit to smile on his miserable existence.’

And not only on Luca Baldi. After their stunning victory over the Romans, the Catalan mercenaries have become kings in the land of the enemy. Luca and his friends are enjoying the spoils of victory and basking in their new-found status. But dark clouds are gathering on the horizon and soon Luca, and the Catalan Company, will be sucked into the maelstrom of power politics. Old enemies with grievances to settle will target Luca himself and the Catalans will come up against a new foe – the daunting Empress Irene.

Fresh battles beckon for Luca, the Almogavars and the Catalan Company in ‘The Golden Lion’, the third volume in the Catalan Chronicles, the saga of a mercenary band that brought the Byzantine Empire to its knees at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Maps of the Byzantine Empire can be found on the maps page of my website.