A Flame in Byzantium Author:Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Book club Edition with Dust Jacket — Five hundred years after she died to mortal life in the bloody era of Nero's Rome, Atta Olivia Clemens, beloved of the vampire St. Germain, must flee the security of her Roman villa; for the armies of Emperor Justinian, led by the noble General Belisarius, are advancing on the ancient capital to free it from o... more »ccupation by the Ostragoths. Justinian, from his seat of empire in Constantinople, is determined to retake all of Italy...as long as the price is not too high.
Olivia, to save what she can of her heritage, places herself under the general's protection. With her servant Nikolaos and the handsome young soldier Drosos, she undertakes the painful voyage to the City of the Golden Horn: Byzantium, Constantinople, where she is plunged almost immediately into the tortuous political intrigue of that time. For Constantinople is a city that claims to be Roman while embracing the ways of the Orient; a city where the tenets of Christianity are being hammered out by fiat, by philosophy, and by force of arms.
And worst of all for Atta Olivia Clemens, a city where women have lost all of their traditional Roman rights. For Olivia has very special needs if she is to survive...« less