Flavius Fettotempi: Into The Mouth of the Lion

The second book in the Flavius Fettotempi Series:

The die has been cast and Flavius, driven by the ghost of his publicly executed father due to the failed Revolt of St. Titus, has made a fateful decision. He intends to return to Crete, along with Ramazan, the famed pirate of the Black Ram, and confront his nemesis, the beautiful and brilliant Constanze Kallergis who is now the Duchess of Crete since the death of her husband. She has one goal as well, that of bringing Flavius under her charge, and will move heaven and earth to achieve it.

The eastern Mediterranean Sea in the 14th century was a cauldron of activity. The mighty Byzantine Empire was a shadow of its former self and its navy, once the mistress of the sea is now relegated to the ash heap of history as the Venetians and Genoese assert their dominance amidst the crumbling empire. Money was flowing into Italy sparking the Renaissance period, while that the same time, Islam, fragmented as it was, spread throughout the region and was challenging as well for supremacy of the sea as well as the lucrative trade routes it contained.

It is in this world Flavius Fettotempi began his journey in the first book of the series: Flavius Fettotempi, and here, in book II, he is continuing his saga, coming to grips with the reality of life in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a life of uncertainty, misery, and the specter of slavery, an all too real condition that affected hundreds of thousands of lives.