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Prologue

Legend

Raoul Masson, squire to Conan de Burgh, burst in upon hisletters to his king in Paris

Startled, Conan de Burgh looked up

Raoul was in a rare state of anxiety

"They’re cohts who have long since surrendered have taken up their swords and shields again"

This area of fierce Calabrian tribes men, and yet, it was difficult at first to understand Raoul’s agitation Fighting to subdue the populace had often been brutal and costdone The townspeople were little able to h’s well horsed, trained, and steel-arh had reached his position of power through heated battle and tournareatly love peace and the riches of posterity He was known for the ht under the Norh hisscythes and hoes, he did not want the slaughter it would cause Even if a great nuain, they had been bested before and could be brought down again

He was puzzled The chain of co smoothly In the last year, he had proven to the people that they could live well beneath his rule To many peasants it mattered little where the man had come fro their necks, raping their wives, and stealing their entire produce

Conan frowned, rising, reaching for the heavy battle sword that never left his side

"What is their grief?" he asked Raoul

Raoul, a strapping young hter, hter I saw… I saw myself They were strewn… in pieces… across the field They say that it was the Lady Valeria, so they were told, and there have been the whispers… you must see yourself, you ainst you They are de that you act You have refused to see the evil in Valeria and François, ainst you François intends conquest even here, and she is with him"

Conan felt ill His heart sank

Valeria

He had coreat conqueror, proven, confident, and self-assured, but then found himself at a loss, shaken by his deep desire for the incredible daughter of the Italian reat waves of Normans, Paolo had astutely joined forces with the conquerors

The first time Conan had ridden to the Palacio Ratini, Valeria had stood out upon the balcony, and he had seen her, ebony hair bared to the sun, eyes huge and deep blue, face sculpted like the finest porcelain She had sreat party

He hadn’t known or cared

The great passion of his life had been born She ell bred, naturally, the daughter of such a e froht, natural, just like the nearly excruciating hunger that had grown between theth, bred hie, and the endless battle such a life required, he’d known innuhout his life, from the basest whores to the most refined nobility, and yet, he had never known anyone like Valeria She had been ed during one of the first battles between native lords and encroaching Normans, and was experienced, fully hter Intied cliffs and verdant earth of Calabria It was so hts that athe woe, a life of such never-ending fever and bliss