The Four Quarters of the World — Karen Mercury

Abyssinia, 1866. The crazed (some say) but dynamic Christian King of Kings has taken power as Tewodros II. His vision: to reunite Ethiopia under one crown, one God. To that end he moves his massive, gorgeously arrayed army from province to province. But rebellion is continuous and, in the end, he is Emperor of only the remote and inaccessible rock Magdala, where he holds political prisoners, spouses, and relations he's tired of and fifty Europeans. Into the barbaric and breathtaking kingdom comes American adventurer, linguist, and ethnologist, Captain Ravinger Howland. Becoming Tewodros' right-hand man, Ravi is allowed all the privileges of a royal son: concubines, armory, all the raw beef he can eat but not the returned Queen of Sheba. American doctor Delphine Chambliss, Tewodros believes, is the reincarnation of Makeda from who all Abyssinian kings are descended. But even as Ravi begins to question Tewodros' sanity, he falls for the bitterly bereaved Dr. Chambliss. And now, as the kingdom crumbles, Ravi and Tewodros lock horns over the woman in a battle to the death.