Publisher's Synopsis
Christmas 1377, and for Mariana, abducted and sold as a sex-slave at the age of fourteen, the Wheel of Fortune seems to have turned at last. Now twenty and in Paris, she is intent on pursuing the studies she began as a child. But then Jaquet, a fellow-student, is accused of murdering his alchemist uncle, and in order to save the poor boy she sets out to discover what really happened. Mariana's investigations bring her into contact with the highest and lowest in the land. She meets the Holy Roman Emperor, who is in Paris on a Christmas visit, and becomes friends with his daughter, Princess Anna, who later marries the boy-king Richard II and becomes Queen of England. At the opposite end of the social spectrum, Mariana is soon on familiar terms with the feared Albanian king of the Paris underworld and the abbesses of two of the city's most notorious brothels. She also manages to fall foul of the Church and has to leave Paris in a hurry - heading for England (but that will be another story).
