AustLit

'It is the year 1307 and the ancient Order of the Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon is in danger. The King of France and Pope Clement V are plotting its destruction, scheming to appropriate the Order's most sacred relic: an ancient mystery encrypted on the ring seal of the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. Jacques entrusts the sacred ring to his seneschal, Etienne de Congost, a battle-weary but incorruptible man whose task is to take the Seal to the farthest edges of Europe for safekeeping. While Jacques and his Templar brothers are tortured and left to die in prisons, the trusted seneschal travels through a world in ruin, overcoming Machiavellian plots and dodging Papal spies, only to find that the greatest test awaits him at his final destination... But will Etienne be strong enough to resist the temptations that guard the true power of the Seal? The answer comes almost 700 years later, by way of a writer who arrives at Lockenhaus Castle in Austria to research a book on the Templars. Together with an eccentric local woman, a mystic, the writer explores the history of the Seal, not realising that, at the same time, they are also untangling a web of destiny. A web that binds them both to the mystery of the Seal.' (Backcover)