Anderson, Poul. Rogue Sword. 1960. Zebra, 1980. Source: Bookshare.
Poul Anderson is best known for fantasy and science fiction, but in Rogue Sword, he turns his hand to a swashbuckling historical novel. Lucas Greco is an early 14th-century soldier of fortune who joins the Grand Catalan Company in its Byzantine campaign. Along the way, he earns fame as a soldier and lover. His life changes when he falls in love with a Muslim slave girl. The book is a creature of its time with all the strengths and weaknesses one associates with Anderson. However, if you put aside your understandable distaste for some of its dated elements, the adventure still entertains.
Here is a passage that reminds me a bit of Hemingway, who must have been a role model for Anderson: “If a man is fortunate, there are a few pure moments in his life. They do not last; the doubts and fears, guilt, loneliness, all the grubby little weaknesses return; but he has those instants and knows life is joyous.” ( )

Ever since I first heard the song "My Five Gold Rings Were Dearly Bought" I have been fascinated by the story of the Catalan Grand Company, mercenaries from Catalonia in the service of the declining Byzantine Empire in the 1300s. When their commander was treacherously killed by the Byzantines, they set up on their own, and after rampaging through what was left of the empire took the duchy of Athens from its Frankish rulers. The song left me sympathetic to them, but in this book most of the come across as a vicious gang of ruffians. The hero here is not a Catalan but Lucas Greco, a half-Cypriot adventurer who begins by escaping a powerful cuckolded Venetian, then (in a period passed over except for flashbacks) improbably traveling all the way to China and back (with significant time in Muslim Central Asia en route) returning to Byzantuim where he rescues a pagan slave girl from the same Venetian and joins the Catalan company,but dumps the girl who loves him in favor of a dubious Catalan noblewoman ( a part of the story I dislike). He finally returns to rescue the former slave from the Venetian and they go off together, but it is a bittersweet ending. ( )