There is an extraordinary, inexplicable by rational arguments, attractiveness in the very idea of spiritual knightly service. The image of an unshakable warrior sacrificing himself to fiery faith in Christ and the Mother of God is sung in great epic poems and verses; This image is often accompanied by sublime legends about the secret knowledge that was acquired by knights in the East during the Crusades - it was then that almost all military monastic orders arose. Glorified for their courage, their mysterious and tragic fate, the Knights Templar, the St. John the Hospitallers, the Brothers of the Sword, the valiant “guardians of the Holy Sepulcher” appear before the reader on the pages of Wolfgang Akunov’s new book in the most complex historical collisions of that distant era, when they faced each other in brutal confrontation peoples and religions, highly spiritual aspirations and political calculations, courage and deceit. This book itself, in a certain sense, continues the centuries-old traditions of knightly literature, with its epic scale and romantic intransigence of emotional assessments, introducing the reader into that unusual world where prayer was equivalent to military feat. The book is published in the author's edition.