The de Hautevilles are depended on by the Pope, feared by Byzantium and respected by the Holy Roman Emperor. Yet the greatest of the family has yet to make his presence felt. Roger, the youngest son of Tancred de Hauteville, shows promise not only a great warrior but as an even more canny politician.

It is he who will raise the family to the pinnacle of influence, not as vassals beholden to a greater power, but rulers in their own right. The path is not easy: brotherly love only goes so far and nothing has altered in the bubbling stew of Italian politics. There are enemies at Roger’s back as well as before him, battles to fight and defeats to be reversed, treacheries both secret and transparent to circumvent. But the loyalty of blood that binds this family of warriors together is still present and it is that, above everything, which will in the end be the catalyst that propels the name de Hauteville to the pinnacle of power.

JACK LUDLOW is the pen name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has had a variety of jobs, including selling everything from business machines to soap. He has always had an abiding interest in the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he drew upon for the many novels he has set in that period. The author of a number of bestselling books, he now lives in Deal with his wife, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.