This history-based tale behind the legend of Good King Wenceslas is a thrilling journey through 10th-century Bohemia. Wenceslas devoted his life to charity-but this is no happy Christmas fable.

Duke Boleslav, brother to Wenceslas, reveals to his young son his own life's dreadful tale, and why this boy must dedicate his life to his father's salvation.

Pagan priests vie with one another and with the growing power of Christianity. Prague is a trading center with an important slave market, a thriving iron industry, and is a crossroads of far-reaching trade routes. It is growing in wealth, yet threatened by jealous enemies and forces, both external and within its borders.

These are times of struggle and competition. The Franks seek domination through military and religious power, and smaller peoples are conquered or forced to find a way to survive.

This chilling new story of a dark age paints a tale of murder, betrayal, loyalty and mankind's need for spirituality.

History and this writer's imagination take Boleslav through a world of cruel despair and hope as the duke's power-driven mother coerces him to commit the unthinkable.