Spring 1192. Robin Hood and his band of men, travelling home from the Third Crusade, find themselves in the lush, wine-rich Duchy of Burgundy. When they are captured by a renegade knight, and taken across the River Saone to the rival County of Burgundy, they are plunged into a nightmarish world of treachery, deceit and cold-blooded murder. While the cunning Earl of Locksley plots and schemes to advance King Richard's cause in the two Burgundies, Alan Dale, his loyal lieutenant and personal trouvère, embarks on a private quest to rescue a damsel in distress and falls foul of the monstrous guardian of the Castle of Bones.
Autumn 1191 and Robert, Earl of Locksley, also known as the notorious outlaw Robin Hood, and his loyal lieutenant Alan Dale, are returning home fresh from victory in the Third Crusade. They decide to travel via the Mediterranean sea-route, despite the dangers of the imminent stormy season. Disaster strikes and Robin and his men are shipwrecked on the rocky coast of Crete. They must persuade despotic local tyrants to help them, outwit brutal pirate chieftains, and outfight an entire Moorish army to gain a fabulous glittering prize, wealth beyond the dreams of moneylenders, and carry it safely home to England – the Caliph's Gold.
In the theatre of war there can only be one victor . . .
August 25, 1689
The English Army is besieging Carrickfergus in Ireland. Brilliant but unusual gunner Holcroft Blood of the Royal Train of Artillery is ready to unleash his cannons on the rebellious forces of deposed Catholic monarch James II. But this is more than war for Captain Blood, a lust for private vengeance burns within him.
French intelligence agent Henri d'Erloncourt has come across the seas to foment rebellion against William of Orange, the newly installed Dutch ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland. But Henri's true mission is not to aid the suffering of the Irish but to serve the interests of his master, Louis le Grand.
Michael 'Galloping' Hogan, brigand, boozer and despoiler of Protestant farms, strives to defend his native land - and make a little profit on the side. But when he takes the Frenchman's gold, he suspects deep in his freedom-loving heart, that he has merely swapped one foreign overlord for another.
July 1, 1690
On the banks of the River Boyne, on a fateful, scorching hot day, two armies clash in bloody battle - Protestant against Catholic - in an epic struggle for mastery of Ireland. And, when the slaughter is over and the smoke finally clears, for these three men, nothing will ever be the same again . . .
