David's business is a shambles. The trade in indulgences is dead and the bones of heretics smolder on the auto-da-fe'. All because of that mad monk, Martin Luther. What a prigg.

David is a merchant of deceit, a poet of lies. A dwarf, he claims to be a prince of a lost tribe of Israel. Along with his manservant Diogo, an actor, the masquerade delights the citizens of Rome. The food and beds are warm, the ladies plump and willing. The Jews of Rome whisper that David is their Messiah. The time is right for Christendom to join a powerful desert tribe to rain down death and destruction on the Muslim Turks. How could Europe not prevail?

In faraway France, a warlord struggles to regain his honor. He's the Duke of Bourbon, the victor in a great military conquest who has lost his family fortune. Bourbon turns traitor and joins his sworn enemy, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. But the mercenaries he enlists are unpaid, underfed, and poorly shod. The money to pay their wages is in Rome.

Richly researched and irreverent, this story weaves actual historical characters and institutions into a wry tale of three men, each on a quest for fame and fortune.