Moments of History – serie

Rome 549 AD. Forced to flee the city, merchant Nicander and legionary Marius escape to a new lifein Constantinople. Determined to make their fortune, they plot a number of outrageous money-makingschemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet.Armed with an audacious plan to steal precious silk seeds from the faraway land of Seres, Nicander and Marius must embark upon a terrifying and treacherous journey across unknown realms. But firstthey must deceive the powerful ruler Justinian and the rest of his formidable Byzantine Empire in order to begin their voyage into the unknown.In an adventurous tale of mischief and deception, Nicander and Marius face danger of the highest order, where nothing in the land of the Roman Empire is quite what it seems.

1261. Oxford, England. An envoy returns from the land of the Tartars to meet with an English scholar and share a deadly secret. The two men vow that the knowledge of gunpowder must die with them as the consequences are otherwise too fatal to contemplate. 1290. After his quiet life is shattered by tragedy, blacksmith Jared begins a pilgrimage from England to the Holy Land. The adventure that follows sees Jared join a holy crusade and encounter men from distant Cathay who harbour the secret of huo yao. So begins one man's obsession with the powder of death and a king's resolution to change the very nature of warfare . . .