Middle Age

Power and Faith, Love and War,

Magic and Adventure

into the heart of Europe in the year One Thousand

IL SEGNO DEL DRAGO (The Dragon's Mark)

Longanesi, February 1999

Year 999 – Winter * Year One Thousand – Springtime

"The Dragon! We saw the Dragon, on All Saint's Night. The end of all Times is above us, and the seven trumps of the Seven Angels are going to blast!"

It's just the prophecy of an old monk roaming around Chambéry's streets, thundering about judgement and impending punishments, or really that 999 Christmas shall mark the Millennium’s and World’s end? The merchants, gathered in town because of the customary Advent Fair, seem too taken up with their own business to pay attention to a voice foreshadowing only calamities. Neither can listen the newly-arrived travellers, anyone with his own history and a secret to keep, who find themselves gathered together out of interest, fate or necessity. To Amboise de Montsalvy, undisputedly renown scholar and physician, that’s the starting point of a long journey to take young Adelaisa from Burgundy, betrothed to Marquis Olderico Manfredi, to Turin’s Marchland. To Captain Colin Bois, clever and valiant mercenary, that’s the place where he’ll find another profitable hiring for himself and his men, ready to defend, against payment, Adelaisa and Amboise.

To the enigmatic Illait from Isley, foreigner and pagan, that’s the beginning of a long flight from the stake, and from the abuse of a Bishop willing to do anything necessary to steal away the secret of the druidic wisdom, whose keeper is Illait himself.

To any of these people Chambéry is the starting point of an adventure that shall lead them, through mountains and snow-covered paths, to brave dangers in thousands, by whose means everyone shall be able to test himself, to appraise his own courage and loyalty, dealing with puzzling events, suspended amongst reality and magics.

IL SEGRETO DELL’ALCHIMISTA

(The Alchemist’s Secret)

Longanesi, May 2000

Year One Thousand – Summer

The date set to Ambroise de Montsalvy is one that can’t be failed to keep: the third day after St. John’s Day, actually, he’s awaited in Cluny for Bishop Chaffre de Revard, who found the long-searched pretext to have him tried and chastised for his less-than-orthodox views.

While on his way to Cluny, together with his protégée Artemisia, Captain Colin Bois, and Illait from Isley (a young man gifted with mysterious powers deriving from druidic wisdom) Amboise receives a message that compels him to an unexpected detour: his former fellow student, alchemist Valentin from Auxerre, is living through the gloomiest anguish because, since last Christmas, he was forbidden to meet with his niece Agnès, novice into the Sainte-Madeleine from Vezélay’s convent.

That’s not all: from the cell where the young woman, dumb from birth, is held in custody, now often does drift away a melodious singing, spoken into an incomprehensible language.

The way to get at the mistery's solution turns out to be bristling with dangers and foes: Amboise and Valentin are imprisoned on a pretext into the palace of Hugo from Chalon, Auxerre’s Bishop; Artemisia must use diplomacy and cleverness to act inside Sainte-Madeleine, where she went to discover what did it happen to Agnes; Illait from Isley is obliged to appeal to his whole might in order to control the powers of Maude from Belley, the beautiful and enigmatic convent’s abbess; and Colin Bois is called to face his existence’s direst trial, having to defend with his life who’d been entrusted to him.

That June in Year One Thousand, fraught with ominous events, shall see many lives transmuted along the lines of the High Alchemic Work.

Die Kunst des Alchimisten

Das Drachenmal

Blanvalet Verlag - Random House Verlagsgruppe

June- December 2002

translation Helmut Splinter

Next to come out:

THE RAINBOW KEEPER

Year One Thousand - Fall

Southward Lyon and the rich diocese of Vienne, lies a land depleted by famine and sacks; here the Rhone River flows to Arles, into the sea. Along its banks stretches an harsh landscape of wooded endless hills, creeks, countless springs; there are only two safe places left for people to gather: the ancient Abbey of Manthes, and the merchant town of Epinouze.

From time out of mind, two dynasties would fight for power over this land - and to control the lucrative course of Rhone River: the House of Vion, who own the waterways, the castle, and the new village of Albon; the House of Boscozel, bearing rule on the region known as "Cote de St.André", that's gateway to Grenoble Diocese.

Amboise de Montsalvy is summoned there to try and cure a little girl, nephew of Boscozel's Lord: she lies comatose since her young sister was found murdered.

Together with Amboise come three companions: Artemisia, a young woman deemed his pupil; Colin Bois, mercenary captain; the inscrutable Illait from Isley, who's preceded by the dangerous reputation of being an unrepentant heathen, holder of the Druids' ancient wisdom.

Amboise de Montsalvy didn't mention to them some events happened twenty years before, when he stayed in those lands to plan Albon's wonderful castle and the village nearby - being an architect as well as a medician - by appointment of Guigues de Vion. Events that shaped his life, binding him tightly to the tragedy of lovely Alix from House of Vion - to the ferocious insanity of Rais, latest lord of Boscozel.

Rais welcomes Amboise's arrival, together with young Artemisia, as the long awaited omen marking his last possibility to win his foe's lands. Guigues de Vion, Albon's first lord, looks at the newcomers as means to settle his past's tragedies, to agree with his foreseen destiny of power. To Amboise, being back in these places means coming to terms with his own life.

Alas, when events still hang in unsteady balance, in Manthes shows up the monk Leon de Vezelay, who'd untiredly persecute Illait to avenge his former Bishop.

His arrival brings events to a head, exposing plots meant to confuse and conceal many truths: the true way Rais' little nephew died and what really happened twenty years before.

Amidst flights, ambushes, sieges, battles and fires, Illait from Isley shall stand a bestower of justice, who'll deliver to everyone his terrible gift: awareness.

From those events beginning the Count of Albon kingdom, until our days named Dauphiné.

THE BROKEN CHALICE

Year One Thousand - Winter

Jean Baptist Nansél chose a hermit's life since his adolescence; he retired into a cave on the high and wild mountains of Queyras, southward Embrun, important diocese ruled by the Bishop-Prince Aymon.

Nansél grew old in solitude, and unexpectedly receives the crowning achievement of a lifetime's dream: a Holy Relic, offered to him by an astonishing beautiful woman who can appear and disappear to his sight.

But the Relic, a Chalice - The Holy Chalice - is a tempting prize for many people, first of all Bishop Aymon, who puts the hermit in prison - and falls seriously ill.

Amboise de Montsalvy rushes to try and save him; as usual, he is escorted by young Artemisia, Colin Bois the mercenary captain, and Illait from Isley, holder of the Druids' ancient wisdom.

They are involved into a situation where nothing is like it seems: Nansél is just an instrument, and the mysterious apparition is very different from what the hermit thinks.

Out of devotion, the wolf-hunters of Queyras set him free, holding Artemisia, Colin and Illait as hostages; this coup de main tightens the first knot into a net woven a long time before - involving Soinette, teenager daughter of Risoul the Wolf, the hunters' leader.

The wonderful woman does exist in flesh and blood: she is Maude de Belley, forced first by her family to become an abbess, then forced to leave the convent of Sainte Madaleine in Vezeley - by Illait, whom she plans to bind to herself, forever.

Illait and Maude join battle, running through forests and snow-covered mountains, plunging into the young Druid's past and into a timeless place where anything can - or cannot - be real. It's a fight amongst the luminous and the shadowy sides of the Power - the same power that Illait and Maude possess - making them both persecuted into a world by now laboriously converted to Christianity.

Struggles don't spare even innocent people like Nansél, but the story shall end in a surprising way, with a great hope.

Nothing is like it seems.

Not for Bishop-Prince Aymon d'Embrun, who can please his people and himself with a false Relic, not for Maude, Artemisia and Soinette, the women who own the thin spark of Illait's life.

Light and darkness can merge, and then darkest shadow can become light. And bring Regeneration.