Crusader's Torch Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro _Crusader's Torch_ is the second of Yarbro's novels about Olivia, the Roman woman who became the Count Sanct' Germain's truest love. — War is flaming all around the Mediterranean basin: battle rages on the islands of Crete and Cyprus. Saladin sits in Jerusalem, threatening Antioch and Tyre alike. Richard Coeur de Lion rules in England and France,... more » and the Pope talks of preaching a new Crusade.
It is the year 1189 A.D. Atta Olivia Clemens has been living in the city of Tyre for some time, but she dare not remain to face an occupation by Saladin's Islamic forces. Olivia has determed to return to the city of her birth... and her death: Rome, the Eternal. Sending her servant Niklos ahead to arrange for a suitable villa, she plans to close her house in Tyre, dispose of the goods she cannot transport, and then join him by fast ship. But nothing goes as planned, and Olivia is forced to make her way accompanied only by young Valence Rainaut, a Knight Hospitaler who, much against his will, has fallen in love with her.
All routes around and through the Middle Sea are fraught with danger to any traveller, and Olivia has special reasons to fear capture by the pirates and bandits and renegade Christian knights who flock to wars and rumors of wars; these two must make their desperate way, by sea and land, through a world torn by violence.« less