Читать книгу The Fire - Katherine Neville - Страница 5

In AD 782, the emperor Charlemagne received a fabulous gift from Ibn al-Arabi, the Moorish governor of Barcelona: a gold and silver, bejeweled chess set that today we know as the Montglane Service. The service was rumored to contain a secret of dark, mysterious power. All those obsessed with power were determined to obtain the pieces. In order to prevent this, the Montglane Service was buried for nearly a thousand years.

In 1790, at the dawn of the French Revolution, the chess set was exhumed from its hiding place, Montglane Abbey in the Basque Pyrenees, and the pieces were scattered across the globe.

This move launched a new round in a deadly game, a game that threatens – even today – to light the match that will set the world aflame…