Prester John, The Infidel Pope

The Pope sits in Rome, right? Old, pious, sedentary. Surrounded by a fossilized collection of cardinals. But what if someone claiming to be the true Pope was younger, virile, commanding an army of barbarous tribesmen in Kafiristan? That was the dilemma presented to Pope Alexander in 1177, and the premise of Prester John, The Infidel Pope. Legend has it that Alexander did in fact learn of this rival for the leadership of Christendom and that he dispatched a letter to Prester John. In our story, the letter is delivered by Father Phillip, recently ordained after the death of his wife and the hoped-for seclusion of his daughter Arabella in a convent. Arabella, of course, will have none of it, so she disguises herself to accompany her father and meet this heathen. A man who claims to be the heir of the Apostle Thomas. A man who has three wives and who assumed his Holy See not from a puff a smoke, but after an exchange of spears at twenty paces with the former, now deceased, Pope. A man like no one else she's ever met and with whom she falls in love. But the Prester faces a challenge to his position as well and to the Christianity of his kingdom. Loukes, the leader of a band of dissident chieftains, has converted to Islam and seeks to oust PJ and expel his fellow Christians. John must survive the rite of succession and the uprising fomented by Loukes. And if these challenges are not enough, what to do with Arabella, for he, too, has fallen in love, against the wishes of her father Phillip.