The final tournament of the century was a glorious sight here in Champagne. Unless you have been privileged to see the colourful pavilions, the brave pennants, the sleek horses and to hear the cheerful noise of the vendors of all manner of goods - unless you have walked amongst the sideshows of freaks and jugglers, stilt walkers and tethered bears whose beady little eyes follow you, unless you have seen and heard all this, you cannot imagine how young Amaury de Montfort felt the morning he woke up on Count Thibaut's estate that first week of Advent in the year of our Lord 1199.

Peering over the battlements of Thibaut's castle, the little boy could not know the effect this tournament would have, not only on his life and that of his family, but eventually on the lives of many thousands of innocent people who would die rather than give up their beliefs.

Everyone who was anyone was present at this tourney. After all, Thibaut was cousin, brother and nephew to kings and could easily afford the cost of mounting such a spectacle. Amaury himself came from a long line of illustrious warriors in the Ile de France and he was related, through his grandmother, to the Earls of Leicester in England. The whole of the flower of French knighthood was present and there was even a rumour that the Pope himself had sent one of his legates to preach a special message here, for it was the beginning of the Feast of the Nativity.

The novel, The Dove and the Devil, is the story of the events that were set in motion on that winter's day when Simon de Montfort, Amaury's father, first answered the Pope's call to a Crusade. He never made it to the Holy Land and the reasons why he didn't were what drew him to the attention of Pope Innocent the Third. Innocent was pleased to put this faithful son of Holy Mother Church in command of the first army ever to fight Christians in a Christian land!

The holocaust which followed when de Montfort swept with his armies into Occitania ensured that a million souls would be wiped off the face of the scorched earth of that part of France, which we now know as Languedoc, and the modern notion of genocide would be born.

The novel weaves between the lives of the noble de Montfort family in the north and the humbler family of the heroine, Maurina, in the south of the country. Maurina is a Cathar, a believer in an alternative set of Christian beliefs. She is one of the people de Montfort is intent on destroying. By the time de Montfort and his armies invade her country, Maurina is growing up and can recognize that the clash of cultures will benefit no one. The extreme cruelties, perpetrated by both sides, will change the face of her beloved Occitania forever.

Her life becomes inextricably bound up with the life of Guy de Montfort, Amaury's younger brother, whose political and religious views are not entirely in harmony with those of the rest of his family. The budding friendship of the two young people is torn apart by political and religious considerations but it is a testament to how youth can have hopes that things might change in the impossible world in which they live.

The Dove and the Devil is the first part of the de Montfort trilogy. Part two, The Dove in Flight will be available towards the end of 2007.