Oath Of Fealty

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Elizabeth Moon's Kings of the North. For the first time in nearly twenty years, Elizabeth Moon returns to the thrilling realm of her superb Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy. Thanks to Paks’s courage, the long-vanished heir to the half-elven kingdom of Lyonya has been revealed as Kieri Phelan, a formidable mercenary who earned a title—and enemies—in the neighboring kingdom of Tsaia, where Prince Mikeli suddenly faces the threat of a coup. Acting swiftly, Mikeli strikes at the powerful family behind the attack: the Verrakaien, magelords steeped in death and evil. Mikeli’s survival—and that of Tsaia—depend on the only Verrakai whose magery is not tainted with innocent blood. Two kings stand at a pivotal point in the history of their worlds. For dark forces are gathering against them, knit in a secret conspiracy more sinister and far more ancient than they can imagine.

While the Crusades raged in the Holy Land, Europe, too, was torn apart by war. From England's Anarchy to the slaughter of the Albigensian Crusade, Kings, nobles and clergy all vied for power and wealth. Out of this bloodshed, however, arose one of the most honored ideals of history, the Code of Chivalry. With new troop types, historical backgrounds and accompanying maps and artwork, Oath of Fealty allows Field of Glory generals to take up arms in defence of honour, faith and liege lord.

Although this book was envisaged as a joint venture and bears the name of both Pollock and Maitland, it is substantially the work of Maitland. It was recognized at once as a masterpiece and has since been accepted as one of the great histories in the English language. In Maitland's lifetime Acton pronounced him the ablest historian in England. Plucknett said that 'everything he wrote exercises a deep fascination and a personal attraction'. To Sir Maurice Powicke he was 'one of the immortals'. Lord Annan, in the preface to his Leslie Stephen, called him 'perhaps the greatest of all professional historians'. To read The History of English Law, even many years after Maitland's death, is to feel at once the touch of a master.