The Price of Loyalty
By Malve von Hassell
Publication Date: August 21st, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 379
Genre: Historical Fiction
In a time of kingdoms and crusades, one man's heart is the battlefield.
Cerdic, a Saxon knight, serves Count Stephen-Henry of Blois with unwavering loyalty-yet his soul remains divided. Haunted by memories of England, the land of his childhood, and bound by duty to King William, the conqueror who once showed him mercy, Cerdic walks a dangerous line between past and present, longing and loyalty.
At the center of his turmoil stands Adela – daughter of a king, wife of a count, and the first to offer him friendship in a foreign land. But when a political marriage binds him to the spirited and determined Giselle, Cerdic’s world turns again. Giselle, fiercely in love with her stoic husband, follows him across sea and sand to the Holy Land, hoping to win the heart that still lingers elsewhere.
As the clash of empires looms and a crusade threatens to tear everything apart, Cerdic must confront the deepest truth of all-where does his loyalty lie, and whom does his heart truly belong to?
A sweeping tale of passion, honor, and impossible choices-perfect for fans of The Last Kingdom and The Pillars of the Earth.
Excerpt
The Art Of Hunting With Birds Of Prey
And in September, O what keen delight!
Falcons and astors; merlins, sparrow hawks;
Decoy birds that shall lure your game in flocks;
And hounds with bells; and gauntlets stout and tight.
Folgore da San Geminiano (12th century)
Usually, Adela loved September.
During harvest season, the air was rich with the scent of ripened apples. Other fruits were swelling on the trees. Her favorite were the fragrant golden green pears. She didn’t care for the drink that the monks made from pears called poiré, but stewed pears were wonderful. Best of all was eating the pears fresh so that the sweet juice would run down her chin. From the window in the room where they had their lessons, she could see carters trundle oak barrels through the town on their way to the cider mills. The sight of the well-worn oak encased in bands of iron made her think of the dense, pungent odor of wet leaves in the forest during a hunt.
When the sisters allowed the girls to walk into the town on market days, they would marvel at the stalls overflowing with apples—red, golden, even green. At the abbey, some Benedictine monks, mostly occupied with brewing ale, worked on fermenting apple cider. The nuns complained that the monks spent too much time experimenting, using different types of barrels and extending the time of fermentation. Then, when they were finished, they tried out the fruits of their labor and would get drunk. The nuns locked the girls away during those days. Adela had to pinch herself from laughing at them. She had watched them sing and sway with abandon in the cloister hallway, their habits slipping and smelling strongly of spilled cider. Evidently, they enjoyed it as much as the monks did.
September meant crisp mornings and clear days warmed by the sun. On days when she was not at the abbey and her father was at home in Caen, he allowed her to come along on hunts. Her father showed her how to fly her merlin. While everyone in the castle feared his harsh, grating voice when he lost his temper—and this happened frequently—he never once raised his voice when teaching Adela during a hunt. He was always patient when showing her how to handle her bird, when to remove the hood, and how to use the lure.
“Why can’t I fly a falcon?” Adela asked, enviously eying the peregrine falcon her father was training for Henry. She liked the bird’s nearly white throat above the mottled black and white belly and its stark yellow-ringed eyes. Her kestrel looked less dramatic, with its soft golden-brown plumage with black spots and black-tipped tail; she had named it Doucette for her best friend at school.
“Children fly kestrels,” her father responded. “Falcons are for kings and emperors. When you are a lady, you can fly a merlin. That’s the order of the world. You should know this by now. Repeat the list for me.”
“How often do I have to do this?” Adela protested.
“Until you remember.”
Malve von Hassell
Malve von Hassell is a freelance writer, researcher, and translator. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Working as an independent scholar, she published The Struggle for Eden: Community Gardens in New York City (Bergin & Garvey 2002) and Homesteading in New York City 1978-1993: The Divided Heart of Loisaida (Bergin & Garvey 1996). She has also edited her grandfather Ulrich von Hassell's memoirs written in prison in 1944, Der Kreis schließt sich - Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft 1944 (Propylaen Verlag 1994).
Malve has taught at Queens College, Baruch College, Pace University, and Suffolk County Community College, while continuing her work as a translator and writer. She has published two children’s picture books, Tooth Fairy (Amazon KDP 2012/2020), and Turtle Crossing (Amazon KDP 2023), and her translation and annotation of a German children’s classic by Tamara Ramsay, Rennefarre: Dott’s Wonderful Travels and Adventures (Two Harbors Press, 2012).
The Falconer’s Apprentice (namelos, 2015/KDP 2024) was her first historical fiction novel for young adults. She has published Alina: A Song for the Telling (BHC Press, 2020), set in Jerusalem in the time of the crusades, and The Amber Crane (Odyssey Books, 2021), set in Germany in 1645 and 1945, as well as a biographical work about a woman coming of age in Nazi Germany, Tapestry of My Mother’s Life: Stories, Fragments, and Silences (Next Chapter Publishing, 2021), also available in German, Bildteppich Eines Lebens: Erzählungen Meiner Mutter, Fragmente Und Schweigen (Next Chapter Publishing, 2022).
Her latest publication is the historical fiction novel, The Price of Loyalty: Serving Adela of Blois (Historium Press, 2025).
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