Caprice And Rondo - The House of Niccolo 7 (Paperback, Reissue)

With the bravura story-telling she brought to the Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett presents the House of Niccolò series. The time is the fifteenth century: the Renaissance world of trade, banking and war when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them none is bolder or more cunning then Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire. Winter 1474 finds Nicholas exiled in the frozen port of Danzig. His Machiavellian exploits have cost him friends, family - and untold riches. As the ice melts, temptations arise. Will he help the Persian prince Uzum Hasan? Or lose himself among the scented gardens of the Crimea? Meanwhile, from far away, his wife Gelis seeks the truth about her husband's life, only to discover the deceit of one of his companions - a bitter ghost from the past, intent on dispatching him to an abominable death.