After the final defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the great naval battle of Lepant
o, it seems that Europe is safe. But one day Nicholas Ingoldsby is summoned to L
ondon for an audience with the Queen herself. He is to go on a diplomatic missio
n to Constantinople, the heart of the old enemy - and then onward, to a little-k
nown but rising power called Muscovy. Here the Russian Czar has just proposed ma
rriage to Elizabeth herself. Such a bold offer should be no surprise, for this i
s no normal leader: Ivan IV Vasil'evich is known to his people as Ivan the Terri
ble. But this rising new Christian power in the North has also caught the attent
ion of the Ottomans; and their allies, the wild Tatar horsemen of the Asiatic st
eppes, Russia's ancient enemy.
