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The Order of the Knights of St. John had a long and storied history of defending the places declared holy by the Church and protecting pilgrims who traveled to those sites. Bound by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty, they established the great Hospital, a guest house, in Jerusalem. The Knights Hospitallers, like the Templars, became a military order which established castles to defend against Moslem armies at Acre, then Crete, then the Island of Rhodes where they withstood two terrible sieges by the Turks. They obtained honorable terms from Soleiman the Magnificent and retreated to Malta where they successfully resisted every attempt of the Muslim invaders to destroy them.
The story begins during the War of the Roses in England, but the hero Gervase Trentham soon joins the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. A man dedicated to God's service and pious in his personal life, Gervase uncovers a plot and saves the coast of Italy from the Muslim corsairs and is knighted by the Grand Prior. After doing time in a Tripolitan dungeon, the English knight draws his sword in the bloody defense of Rhodes. He finds himself in a tough position desiring marriage but having taken a vow of chastity. In the end, it is the Roman pontiff that gives him the break he needs to wed.
