Publisher's Synopsis
It is May 1563. Set in Sweden, Finland and Livonia, nobleman Klaus Fleming is a twenty-something admiral on the brink of his career. He is in a relationship and has two young children, Karl and Olof, but can never marry their mother, as she is not a noble. King Erik XIV, not yet thirty, has been on the throne for three years. He feels undermined by his younger brother, Duke John, and retribution is swift, severe and murderous. The youngest brother, Prince Kaarle, is twelve. John was to write of Erik,