It is 846 AD and what was once the great Empire’s capital city lies ruined and semi-abandoned. Even so, Rome remains eternal as the seat of the Pope and the place wherethe bodies of Peter and Paul, the apostles of Christ, lie at rest , surrounded by great riches. The Church hoards great treasures. And pirates and Saracen corsairs beyond the sea plot to attack and sack the city to get them. In the meantime, rumours of magic and the trumpets of war can be heard throughout the Mediterranean. People’s only common goal is to proper and survive. And so they live their lives and scrape by, from the Pope to a byzantine dancer, a Viking chief to an alchemist willing to sell the most sought after secret to the highest bidder: the formula for Greek fire. A novel about the most dramatic event in the history of medieval Christianity: the sack of Rome.