The Tilecutter's Penny

from the bestselling author of The Circle and the Crosscomes Caiseal Mor's best novel yetRanging from the lush beauty of twelfth-century Ireland to the dangerous secrets of a desert fortress, this magnificent new novel set in the time of the Crusades will attract even more readers to this very special author.Caiseal's previous novels have brilliantly blended elements of history, adventure, legend and magic. In The Tilecutter's Penny all these elements are again strikingly in evidence, in a remarkable story that combines the ancient legends of the Holy Grail with a story of courage, love and intrigue. It is the time when the Normans ruled Ireland. In the Holy Land far to the east, the city of Jerusalem is fought over by Crusaders and Saracens. Among the Crusaders are the holy orders of the mysterious Templar Knights and their rivals, the Knights of St John the Hospitaller. These knights not only wish to keep Jerusalem from the hands of the infidel, they also wish to unlock the secrets of the fabled treasures within Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre -- the most revered site in Christendom.In a small Irish village, the chieftain lies dying. Mathuin is an old man now, but he once travelled to the Holy Land with his Norman lord, William Fitz William, and fought for Jerusalem. Now his heart is broken: Jerusalem has fallen.In the Holy Land Mathuin and William had become acquainted with the Templar Knights. William had been admitted as a postulant to the order, and when his old friend Mathuin dies, he decides it is time to devote his life to prayer and contemplation. The running of his estate he leaves to his son Robert, a pious young man. His other son, Rufus, is a disappointment to him: a young man concerned with little but his own ambition and pleasures -- and little thought for those who get in his way. It is not long after William's retirement to the seclusion of the abbey that Robert decides he, too, must leave his home and fight in the Holy Land as his father did before him. And he convinces Mathuin's son Donal to accompany him.A tilecutter from the East has been employed by William to create beautiful mosaics depicting the Holy Land in his chapel. Although Donal is reluctant to leave his home and his wife Elish to go on a Crusade, he is fascinated by the tilecutter's stories. Before Donal leaves, the tilecutter cuts a penny in half and gives one piece to Donal, and one to Elish. The penny will be Donal's messenger: if Elish receives his half, she will know that he is dead.Not long after Donal and William's first bloody battle in the Holy Land in the army of Richard the Lion Heart, they become trapped in the desert fortress of Mont Salvasch.The fortress belongs to the Knights Templar. But all is not as it seems, and they soon discover that the young Geoffrey d'Acre is also a prisoner. Geoffrey has undergone the Templars' terrifying initiation, but the knights believe that he is withholding information from them of the most precious kind: the location of sacred treasures from the Holy Sepulchre.Meanwhile in Ireland, Rufus takes to the role of lord with gusto. He begins to hatch a plan that will maintain his present power despite his brother -- and despite his father's wishes. In Donal's absence, Elish becomes more involved in the running of the village and the estate, and it is with concern that she sees a Culdee -- a follower of old ways -- persecuted and hunted. But she must also deal with Rufus's ambitions, which include his ambition to make her his own ... Before the two halves of the tilecutter's penny can be rejoined, both Donal and Elish must summon all their courage and daring to survive.The Tilecutter's Penny is a rich and gripping story of action and adventure, love and betrayal, and legendary treasures which some will risk anything to obtain.