It is the very text that we readers read, written by Brother Parvus, a lowly monk assigned to Sir Roger. The novel opens with the captain of a spacecraft reading the translation of an ancient text as he and his crew prepare to land on a planet in this empire long after the time of Sir Roger. Time passes, Earth achieves interstellar space capabilities, and once again Earth people are reunited in the future. Once there, Sir Roger and his band of resourceful Englishmen proceed to conquer the colony, and from there forge alliances, eventually defeating the Wersgor Empire and establish a space version of the Holy Roman Empire and new branch of the Catholic Church. He tricks Sir Roger, sets the ship on irreversible automatic pilot, and heads for the planet colony of Tharixan. But the captive Wersgorix has other ideas. With the spaceship in hand and a captured crew member to navigate, it’s Sir Roger’s intent to fly his force and townspeople and livestock over to France for battle and then on to the Holy Lands on a great crusade. Accustomed to doing battle by air and with advanced war machines, the Wersgorixs have lost the skill of close-in hand to hand combat, a deficiency that enables Sir Roger and his warriors to overrun the ship. Unfortunately for the Wersgorixs, they land in the small town of Ansby in Lincolnshire at the exact moment Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, has assembled a force to assist King Edward II in the Hundreds Years’ Wars. What happens when an advanced race of alien space marauders lands a scout ship on Earth in the year 1345 preparatory to launching an invasion? Not what you would expect in this thoroughly engaging and fast-paced space opera by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Poul Anderson.
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