The world of the 13th century. Similar and at the same time not similar. Vandals professing the Arian heresy built their kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. Instead of the German principalities and France, there was a huge kingdom of Menger, ruled by the Catholic Church. Rome, cursed by the apostle, is completely destroyed by an earthquake. The Papal Curia has been seated in the city of Avigno since the first centuries of Christianity. And the entire territory from Cairo to Constantinople belongs to the mighty Eastern Empire. The Mongols perished in China and the ferocious Slavic nomads reign supreme in the Sarmatian steppes. There are also many noticeable and not very noticeable differences, which generally change the picture of the world of the Middle Ages familiar to us. At the center of the novel is the fate of an adventurer who by force seized the ancient throne of the Vands and began to unite the fragmented principalities into a single kingdom. However, a Crusade against the Arian heresy has already been proclaimed in Avigno, and knights sew crosses on their cloaks. The novel traces the transformation of the main character from a young adventurer dreaming of power to an old tyrant who decided that the general happiness of his subjects can only be achieved with fire and sword. Having captured a powerful artifact - the legacy of the ancient Vandal king, the king's army becomes invincible. The king enforces a cult of personality and fervently believes in his righteousness and justice. But at the end of his life, everything changes, and the hero’s inner world begins to collapse, and with it the hopes that people can be made happy, even by force of arms. The narration is interspersed with inserts from a history textbook of that world, written eight centuries later. From them you can learn about the further development of this civilization, as well as find refutations or unexpected interpretations of the main events of the novel