"Winter, 1474: In the frozen port of Danzig, Nicholas de Fleury, one-time soldier, merchant, and banker to kings, leads his raffish companions on frivolous, drunken adventures that give little indication of the dark and complex events that have brought him among them - his activities as a spy; his shifts of allegiance from the Duke of Burgundy to the Holy Roman Emperor, and back; the mischief-making at the court of Scotland so vicious that his disgusted friends cast him into justifiable exile.".

"Now, as the ice melts in Danzig, Nicholas must decide his own future: Will he make a new life working for the Italian colonies of the Levant? Or assist the great Muslim prince Uzum Hasan in his stance against the Turks? Will he remain in Poland, trading and fighting, or lose himself in the secret, scented gardens of the Crimea? In fact, he could appear to be doing any or all of these things while engaged in his private search for a lost fortune in gold..."--BOOK JACKET.