Seated beneath the red silk canopy in the stern of the royal barge as it skims across the smooth waters of the Bosphorus, Marianna, now the Princess Sant' Anna, sets forth on her most perilous adventure. Her former lover, Napoleon Banaparte, has sent her to seek out the legendary Sultana, the Queen Mother of the Ottoman Empire, who is French born and the Empress Josephine's cousin, and enlist her help in bringing Turkish help in France's still-secret forthcoming invasion of Russia.In exotic Constantinople, Marianne is pulled deeper and deeper into political and emotional turmoils. For the mysterious masked Prince whom she had married but thought dead is very much alive. And her true love, the American Jason Beaufort, lies wounded and in peril of his life while his stalwart ship, The Sea Witche, is threatened with destruction.