So what's next you ask in the Kahana Chronicles series. Well, next is book 5. Wait you say, the last one to be published was book 8 and now you're following with book 5. What's going on?
Welcome to New Math. The actual reason is that I never know what compulsion or story-line is going to pop into my head at any given time. Book 1 actually will at some time in the future but not yet. All I can say is that Zutra was screaming to get out and it's one hell of a story. And you probably never even heard his name before even though he changed the world. Following his death there was a virtual pact between the Byzantines, the Sassanids and I'm afraid to say it, even the Rabbis to ensure that his story never was repeated. The name Zutra was synonymous with freedom. It was a call sung loudly by the 400 that were one of the most feared military units with their dervish style of fighting. And to the two women that shared his life it infused one with love and the other with hatred.
The success of Zutra and his renegade Byzantine general Patricius were an embarassment to them all as he forged his own kingdom along side the Tigris River, a kingdom that remained free for 7 years only to brought down by the betrayal of his father-in-law, Reb Hanina and the other rabbis that had dedicated their live to stipping the power away from the Exilarch. This is the story of one man that took on the world and for a few short years actually defeated it. There are no punches pulled in the telling of this story. What he did and what was done to him are all historically accurate. And those that still were responsible for his death and the death of his father, the extermination of a kingdom, and the extinguishing of freedom are not going to be happy about it.
Below is a brief synopsis of the characters that played such an important role in this insurrection and its subsequent demise. Let's hope that Zutra can find an agent bold enough to represent it because they will find themselves under attack from several oganisations that still would like to see these events remain buried!
Mar Zutra Kahana, was born around 480 in Mahoza, which today would be located in Iraq. He was the hereditary Exilarch, indicating that he was the rightful king in exile and both a royal descendant of King David and a priestly descendant of Aaron. In 496 when he was sixteen years old, he watched as his father Huna was crucified by the Persians and in 498 he lead a revolt in which he won the freedom of the people he ruled over for seven years.
Julius Flavius Patricius was born around 445, the son of Aspar, the Consul of the Byzantine Empire, becoming Caesar under the Emperor Leo in 470 and considered next in line for the throne. In love with Leo’s daughter Ariadne but married to her sister Leontia, Patricius had to flee for his life in 471 when his family was accused of treason and Leo had his father and brother slain by what is commonly referred to as the Revolt of the Palace Eunuchs. For twenty-five years he became a soldier of fortune in the orient until one fateful day in 497 when he escorted the daughter of the Emperor Hsiang of China to the city of Mahoza.
Princess Ti-Ping, the young and beautiful daughter of the reigning Chinese Emperor of Northern Wei who was offered to the young Exilarch when he assumed his throne in order to forge an alliance between the eastern and western worlds. Though initially a marriage of diplomacy as the Empire of Northern Wei was constantly under attack, what resulted was a passionate and genuine love that became a modern tale of star-crossed lovers and the bane of Great Shah's existence as he attempted to regain the Persian throne.
The Lady Avital, betrothed to Zutra as a young girl but married instead to Zutra’s widowed father at the insistance of the leaders of the religious community, she bore the old Exilarch a son, and soon after became responsible for the death of Zutra's father. Unable to accept her marriage to his father, Zutra forced the Lady Avital, now a widow into a marriage as his second wife, only to find that doing so, he took the mechanism to his own demise into his bed chambers.
Ariadne, Empress of Byzantium, who had been engaged to Patricius son of Aspar only to have the engagement broken by her father the Emperor Leo and her hand in marriage given to Zeno, a man she hated and despised, while her betrothed was then married to her younger sister Leontia. As the real power behind the throne, she not only plotted against her husband but once he was dead, she used her power and influence to name the next emperor, whom she married thereby retaining her influence and power over the Empire. Twenty-five years later, she finds herself torn between the love she still bears for the only man she ever truly loved or to hold on to the throne as the most powerful woman in the world.
This is their story; this is my family's story.
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