About This Book
In Palladium Eastern Empires, Marc Lane weaves the myth of the Palladium into a tale of the dying days of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Set in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, one of the last great Emperors, the story of the Palladium is set against the backdrop of the dynastic struggle between his son John and his son-in-law Nicephoros Bryennius and daughter, Anna Comnena (future author of the Alexiad). Alexius faces plots by the Anemades brothers and Prince Aaron of Bulgaria, external attack by Bohemund of Antioch - and prevails against all with Palladian protection. Yet her fate is not to remain in the Byzantine sphere. Nicephoros - in league with a Papal legate Mavros of Amalfi - sends his Jewish slave Jacob forward to Jerusalem with the Palladium, to secure a means of seizing the Roman crown... This book is Part One - the events of 1106-1108, in the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Land. Part Two (due January 2013) tells the story of the Palladium from the Holy Land to France, in the hands of four crusaders (and future Knights Templar), Godfrey, Hughes, Roland and Gondamer, against the background of the rise of France and Burgundy, the rebirth of trade at the Champagne fairs and the new monasticism of Bernard of Clairvaux.
