Cross and Crescent

by Susan Shwartz

The tides of history are swelling and converging on Byzantium. It is the time of the first crusade and Alexis the Byzantine Emperor is threatened by the emerging Turks and Islam to the south and invading Christian Crusaders from the North. It is a time of excruciatingly bloody battles when either glory or death is easy to come by, but knowing who your enemy is can be the real trick. Leo Ducas, Alexis's old rival and himself once almost an emperor, had his life spared by Asherah, a mysterious Jewess, a sorceress and goddess, with whom he falls in love. War wages on and their adopted children Theo and Binah have the fate of the empire in their hands as Theo, a linguist and warrior, is sent by Alexis to live among the Crusaders and report back. Meanwhile his sister Binah becomes a powerful demi-god charged with protecting the emperor's daughter Anna, a fiercely ambitious girl scheming to take the throne with the aid of Binah's magic and back-stabbing assassination plots. Magic, mysticism,