King and Emperor (Hammer and the Cross)

"Iron Franks, he thought. And Greek fire. It will take more than the courage of the ghazis to defeat those together.  Far away, in his sleep, the King of the North felt a pang of warning, a chill that seemed to strike up from the ground beneath his stout-timbered bed and
down mattress..."

With each new volume in this most interesting of series, new people places, and religions have come into play. Even with my woefully depraved level of historical awareness I can appreciate the detail, the religious nuances and the implications the changes sweeping the world offer.

"What harm did it do, what she and he did between them when the nights were cold? The bishop was wrong, thought the priest with the first flare of independence his life had ever known..."
This final volume sees the biggest shake-ups yet, and the true grandeur of the series swings into effect as a result. Each big revelation - the use of mathematics, of printing, of calculating and figuring and measurement and writing - all of these things is ushered in on a wave of action so gripping in its intensity that I found it very difficult indeed to stop thinking about it, even when I was doing other things..

I felt a little let down by Shef, toward the end of the book. The fight did seem to go out of him; but more than that, his poise and bravura seemed somehow diminished. To compensate, I suppose the rest of the people - the common folk who'd laboured hard without visitations from the Gods, carried on his teachings. Shef was a great catalyst for them, and if that's how he chose to play it, who am I to criticise?

This was certainly a series to get your teeth into, with plenty to ponder and much to think over.