Title: The Frankish Kingdoms Volume 1 Twice You Will Die and Volume 2 The Fury of Fredegund - Eric Fouassier - book
Summary :
Twice you will die
Rouen Palace, in the year 569. Galswinthe, the young wife of Chilpéric, one of Clovis's three grandsons, dies of suffocation in her room. Barely had the crime been committed when her assassin was stabbed by a mysterious assailant. When Queen Brunhilde of Austrasia, Galswinthe's sister, commissioned Arsenius Pontius to shed light on this assassination, the young Gallo-Roman scholar had no idea that he had just plunged into the heart of the fratricidal struggles between the three heirs to the Frankish kingdom. With the first volume of this diptych on the Merovingian kings, Éric Fouassier offers readers a formidable historical thriller and sumptuously resurrects this dark age that founded France, where murder, sex, and revenge were all instruments of power.
The Fury of Fredegund
Autumn 575. Since the death of Clovis, the Frankish kingdoms have plunged into instability, divided between three heirs who are fighting to ascend the throne. When the ruler of Austrasia is assassinated, his widow Brunehilde finds herself imprisoned in enemy territory, separated from her children. She will have to use every stratagem to survive the fury of her rival Fredegund, who will stop at nothing to establish her power and eliminate those who stand in her way.
It is in this tense context that the young Gallo-Romanian Arsenius Pontius is called to Tours by his godfather, Bishop Gregory, to elucidate mysterious events with the help of his companion Wintrude. But soon, political turmoil catches up with Arsenius and Wintrude, and could well separate them forever.
Combining historical rigor and novelistic inventiveness, Éric Fouassier sumptuously recreates this dark age that founded France, where murder, sex and revenge were all instruments of power.
