The Unicorn Hunt - The House of Niccolo 5 (Paperback, New ed)

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.

1468. We are in Stewart Scotland, a small, venturesome kingdom full of musicians and merchants, subtle statesmen and brilliant pageantry, where Nicholas is building a new trading empire, to the puzzlement of his partners in Venice. He has a new wife, but he is not living with her. And unknown to most, he has a terrible betrayal to avenge, which will drive him from Scotland to the Tyrol, to Cairo, to Cyprus in pursuit of profit and vengeance.