The Emperor has fled...the Turks are coming...they'll be here any hour...it's a disaster....Rumors of an invasion that would imperil Christianity in Europe swept Vienna, throwing the city into turmoil as hundreds of refugees poured out of the city gates. Only a few days before, Franz and Caspar, trumpeters in the Abbey of Heilingenkreuz, had celebrated Kirmes, the joyful anniversary of the dedication of the ancient Abbey. With Caspar's cousin, Barbara, and Maria, the innkeeper's daughter, they danced and sang and feasted at the huge banquet that followed the Kirmes Mass. But now all memories of the festival were forgotten as the four friends were separated by the evacuation of Vienna. Franz and Barbara stayed in the city to help prepare for the expected siege, Caspar returned to the Abbey to lend the monks to safety, and, as the Turks rode through the outlying villages, Maria was taken captive. Finally the invaders reached the city itself, and overnight a camp of 25,000 Turkish tents sprang up outside the walls, surrounding Vienna like a huge death-dealing crescent.

Hertha Pauli, a native of Vienna who is now a citizen of this country, re-creates one of the most exciting periods in Vienna's history in this fast-paced story of four friends who shared the fight for the liberation of their city during the anxious summer of 1683.

From the dust jacket