Under the Rose

In the glittering courts of Renaissance France, where a jest can be as deadly as a dagger, Triboulet rules as the king's favored fool. His hunchback and sharp tongue have earned him a peculiar kind of power, but when a new jester arrives from the Duke of Friedwald, the balance of wit and menace shifts. Meanwhile, a princess trapped in the machinery of political marriage schemes to claim something the court rarely offers: true love. As wedding bells approach, Triboulet finds himself the keeper of secrets that could topple thrones, his clever wordplay the only shield between survival and ruin. Isham crafts a world where fools speak truths that nobles dare not whisper, where every jest hides a blade, and where love blooms in the most dangerous soil of all: the royal court.