[Tudor Crimes 04] • The Condottiero · A Tudor Deceit

King Henry's patience is growing thin, and Thomas Cromwell decides on a dangerous ploy. In the face of opposition from Sir Thomas More, he arranges a diplomatic embassy to visit Pope Clement in Rome. Though, nothing is as it seems, and Will Draper, together with Tom Wyatt and their friends find themselves pitched into a plot to deceive the Holy See. Clement is a Medici, and lives in a world of treachery, and deception that puts family before the church. He is against the king, but must be brought to do his bidding, using bribery and cohersion. Whilst Tom Wyatt, poet and diplomat, undertakes to effect a change in the Pope's views, Will Draper must deal with the wily old Doge of Venice, Andrea Gritti.

The Doge has little care for English politics, but knows how to twist and turn any scheme to suit his own ends. Venice is under threat from a secret alliance between Pope Clement, and Malatesta Baglioni, a notorious war lord ... condettiero ... and the Doge sees the English as perfect pawns in his game of war. Will Draper begins to realise that Thomas Cromwell is using him to support the Venetian faction, and disrupt Clement's plans. He is faced with a simple, though almost impossible task; march from Venice with a rag tag troop of volunteers and foreign mercenaries, against a professional army of twenty five thousand men, and defeat them. Along the way he will meet with an array of characters, all intent on gaining their own ends. The beautiful young Pippa, who wishes only to visit vendetta on the condottiero, Ignatius Loyola, a fiery priest, ready to change the Catholic world, Edward Wotton, zoologist and Cromwellian spy, Andrea Gritti, the ageing Doge of a once mighty empire, Alessandro Medici, Duke of Florence, and Malatesta Baglioni, the last, great condottiero. Treachery and vengeance abound, in this the exciting fourth installment of TUDOR CRIMES. All three volumes to date are available through Amazon.

“Never mind, I will tell you. I wrote it down, word for word, because it amused me so much. He said: ‘Malatesta Baglioni is a good for nothing, full of shit, penniless brigand, and the misbegotten son of a whore.’ “

“Not a close family then?” Will says, and cannot help but laugh out loud.

“A week later, the man was dead, under dubious circumstances.” The Doge closes his diary. “The elder brother was suspected, of course, as he inherited the title, but within a month, he succumbed to a bout of mushroom poisoning.”

Italian politics can be every bit as dangerous as the Tudor court's, and as deadly as a scorpion's sting. Anne Stevens' romp through the court of Henry, and Tudor times in general continues without let up.