Queen of Swords (The Three Queens)

An epic adventure about Melisende, the oldest daughter of Baldwin of Jerusalem and heir to the Crusader Kingdom in the twelfth century. As a princess of the Franks with no brothers, the crown would pass to the man she married and then to her son. Melisende was a strong ruler who resented the law requiring her to marry rather than claim the crown in her own name. She wielded real power over Jerusalem, managing the complex politics of church and court. Many of the kingdom's finest knights served her personally and fought in her honor. Faced with the necessity of marriage to secure her kingdom, Melisende must navigate the tension between her own authority and a husband's legal right to rule. This novel tells her largely forgotten story from the Court of Jerusalem to Byzantium.