Quentin Durward

Seeking a future beyond his impoverished Scottish home, Quentin Durward enters the service of Louis XI of France. At the royal court, quick observation may matter as much as skill with a weapon. His assignment to escort the Burgundian heiress Isabelle de Croye draws him into the dangerous rivalry between Louis and Charles the Bold. The journey leads through a world of secret instructions, shifting alliances and threatened rebellion. Isabelle is treated as a prize in political bargaining, while Quentin must decide how far obedience can be reconciled with honour. Against the setting of fifteenth-century France and Liège, Walter Scott contrasts a young soldier’s straightforward courage with the calculations of rulers who turn other people’s lives into instruments of power.