I went into this with slight trepidation, I have loved other books written by Geoffrey Trease and have great respect for his philosophy of historical fiction but was wary that covering a religious order in opposition to a non-white enemy might lead to a reflection of the racism involved. I will return to this concern later.

This is not a story of knights and battle, although both of those do feature, the book focuses around youthful hopes and aspirations. Dick Stockton at 15 wishes to be a member of the Knights of St John and travels to Rhodes to experience their life. The book is viewed through his eyes and there is a lot to empathise with in how he mature, his naivete lessening as the book progresses. I particularly relate to his statement that "I suppose I was older, too. I did not feel it, deep down inside me".

Illustrations are by David Smee and while many didn't particularly move me I love the picture below of a "cathedral" under the streets of Constantinople. Another picture was well placed and drawn to give a subtle clue as to how the plot would advance, something I felt very clever for spotting. This depth of interaction between text and pictures was relatively rare but I really appreciated that bit!

Another pleasing note is the way he occasionally reflects back on his current circumstances, usefully adding perspective. The story is gently told with little sense of urgency, although the pace picks up towards the closing chapters. The characters are on the whole well rounded, I particularly liked the forthright and strong willed Dame Eleanor whose overbearing personality is softened somewhat as a woman making her way in a man's world. Tamsin, the main female character of the book, suffers slightly from a lack of depth. She is a "strong female character" who never escapes the orbit of men to develop as a character in her own right. In many ways this is reflective of the time but the other Trease books that I have read give more agency to their female characters.

I said I would return to the issue of race. This is an something Trease was obviously aware of when writing. He goes out of his was to present Christian parallels when abuses from the Turks are discussed. An example of this is when Dick reaches Constantinople and finds, to his surprise that many Christians have Christian slaves. His observation is of slavery as a capitalist phenomena, highlighted in his wry comment "Business is business, property is property." While the book has many examples of white men acting dishonestly it lacks the counterpart of a humane portrait of a Turkish character. While this was something I wanted to happen it would have felt forced, at no point in the narrative would Dick have struck up a friendship with a Turkish character, the opportunity does not arise. The one area where I felt ideas of the Turks as other crept in were in scenes of battle where they became almost animalistic. I am keen to compare this to Trease's depictions of white opposition forces to see if it is a consistent attempt to portray the savagery of war or something darker.