Lymond chronicles

"In 1547 Scotland is clinging to independence after a humiliating English invasion. Paradoxically, the country's freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapegoat nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, with a scholar's erudition and a wicked tongue. Clawing his way back into a country that has outlawed him, and to a family that has turned its back on him, Lymond will prove that...

Having refused a commission from the dowager queen of Scotland, Lymond turns mercenary, heading to Malta to observe the crusading order of Knights Hospitaller of St. John, a brotherhood of monks sworn to defend Christendom with swords instead of sermons. The knights' beloved leader, Sir Graham Reid Malett, is devout and charming, and openly declares it his mission to turn Lymond from his mercenary ways and bring him into the order. But as the Turkish...

Fifth in the legendary Lymond Chronicles, The Ringed Castle leaps from Mary Tudor's England to the barbaric Russia of Ivan the Terrible. Francis Crawford of Lymond moves to Muscovy, where he becomes advisor and general to the half-mad tsar. Yet even as Lymond tries to civilize a court that is still frozen in the attitudes of the Middle Ages, forces in England conspire to enlist this infinitely useful man in their own schemes. -- from Amazon.