1095
A city in the grip of crusade fever

Innkeeper Albert dies – minstrel Bertrand asks why

By the author of The Last Conquest and The Last Viking.

On Tuesday, 27th November, 1095, in Clermont, France, Pope Urban II made one of the most important speeches in history: he preached the First Crusade, and unleashed madness. Clermont had been pushed to the extreme of suffering by recent flood, famine, drought, and pestilence. Urban's speech drove it over the edge. In the midst of the frenzy, innkeeper Albert is found dead. Mayor Arnaud, desperate, asks his friend, the minstrel Bertrand de Montclos, to look into it, in an effort to stop the madness spreading...