Medieval English

In the city of Kortufan, spies, assassins, mercenaries, arms dealers, rebels, smugglers, and informants do dirty deals dirt cheap. The Poxy Dragon is a rough bar outside the worst part of the medieval Silk Road. It takes serious courage just to walk into the place, not only from its reputation, but because of the rough clientele, questionable food, awful beer, and abysmal hygiene. Lots of taverns in Kortufan are home to ruffians and illegal dealings, but the Poxy Dragon is the proving ground for heroes - with a cemetery out back for the ones who don't make the cut.

For William Marshall, the greatest knight of the realm, serving royalty is an unpredictable business. Having survived the threat of beheading from Stephen as a child, Marshall rises from nothing to a place in court serving King Henry II. Accused of acting on his love for the beautiful Queen Margaret, William is saved by his trust and loyalty to the king. But the battle for the throne is relentless, and when Henry's own son John rises against him, William must decide if he can remain loyal to the crown.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed. The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma or 'duty' and moksha or 'liberation') takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'self') and the workings of karma.

After being set adrift at sea, baby Mordred is found by fisherfolk who raise him as their own. One day, a beautiful, magical lady appears to carry him back to his birth-mother's cold castle. There, alone but for his faithful dog, he comes of age and learns the horrible truth about his identity. Everyone knows Mordred as the dark, evil son who kills the noble King Arthur. But what would it be like to be born as Mordred, an unwanted child with a dreadful destiny?

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

Mr. Henty weaves a story of the life and times of King Richard the Lion-hearted that is yet to be equaled. Cuthbert de Lance, the hero of the story, is of Norman blood on his father's side and Saxon by his mother. By providing timely aid to the Earl of Evesham, Cuthbert is rewarded by being allowed to go to the Crusade as his page. He gains a reputation for valor and prowess due to gallant deeds, and his resourcefulness not only helps King Richard but aids Cuthbert in many a 'hairbreadth escape'.

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high. Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered.

Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into Catrine Jarman's temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think—that with them came people from the Middle East, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain.

When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.

By land and water shall it go home, and lie hidden in the floating stone until by fire it shall be raised again. Arthur has raised the sword and claimed his birthright as High King of Briton, determined to unite the many tiny kingdoms that make up his country. Now he sits upon his throne at Camelot with Merlin by his side, his most trusted adviser. But Merlin is growing old, and his sight is dimming. He knows that Mordred, child of Arthur's unknowing union with his half-sister Morgause, will be Arthur's downfall.

In the fair autumn of Our Lord's grace 1431, the nuns of England's St. Frideswide's prepare for the simply ceremonies in which the saintly novice Thomasine will take her holy vows. But their quiet lives of beauty and prayer are thrown into chaos by the merciless arrival of Lady Ermentrude Fenner and her retinue of lusty men, sinful women, and baying hounds. The hard-drinking dowager even keeps a pet monkey for her amusement. She demands wine, a feast.... And her niece, the angelic Thomasine.

Born on Christmas Eve, Arthur Pendragon is the illegitimate son of the married duchess Ygraine and Uther Pendragon, brother of a great king: a union Merlin arranged. But Arthur's birth is not welcomed by everyone: his father demands he be hidden until a legitimate son can be born, and Merlin is forced to give the babe to his own childhood nurse for safekeeping and go into hiding....

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader, Agamemnon.

In the pre-dawn hours of August 24th, 1305, in London's Smithfield Prison, the outlaw William Wallace - hero of all the Scots and deadly enemy of King Edward of England - sits awaiting the dawn, when he is to be hanged and then drawn and quartered. This brutal sundering of his body is the revenge of the English. Wallace is visited by a Scottish priest who has come to hear his last confession, a priest who knows Wallace like a brother. Wallace's confession - the tale that follows - is all the more remarkable because it comes from real life.

In the best-selling tradition of The Swerve and A Distant Mirror, The Verge tells the story of a period that marked a decisive turning point for both European and world history. Here, author Patrick Wyman examines two complementary and contradictory sides of the same historical coin: the world-altering implications of the developments of printed mass media, extreme taxation, exploitative globalization, humanistic learning, gunpowder warfare, and mass religious conflict in the long term, and their intensely disruptive consequences in the short-term.

At the end of the fifteenth century, Burgundy was extinguished as an independent state. It had been a fabulously wealthy, turbulent region situated between France and Germany, with close links to the English kingdom. Torn apart by the dynastic struggles of early modern Europe, this extraordinary realm vanished from the map. But it became the cradle of what we now know as the Low Countries, modern Belgium and the Netherlands. This is the story of a thousand years, a must-listen narrative history of ambitious aristocrats, family dysfunction, treachery, savage battles, luxury, and madness.

In this gripping story about the first wave of the plague, I Survived fans will travel to medieval England—a time of knights and peasants; cathedrals and castles—when the most deadly disease in world history sweeps across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. New York Times bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tells the story of how one girl finds incredible hope amid illness and grief.

Aristotle’s Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first fully intact philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory. The respected Greek sage offers an account of what he calls "poetry" (which the Greeks understood to literally mean "making"), examining its "first principles" and identifying its genres and basic elements, including what he terms drama-comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play - as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and iambic pentameter, which he always associates with wit.

Lady Eve Sotherby dreams of escaping her horrid life in England, yet she has nowhere to run. So when she spies a posting for a companion in the Highlands, she seizes the chance to disappear. She’s heard tales about the barbaric Highlanders, of course, but no one can be worse than the beast she once foolishly agreed to wed. And never mind that she doesn’t meet any of the requirements for the position: must have no family, must love the cold, and must know the healing arts.