Blood Red Sea

Since the Dark Ages it had been called the Mediterranean: the sea at the centre of the earth. The Romans had called it Mare Nostrum, Our Sea, and such arrogance was no more than the truth, for it was Rome alone that ruled her.

Now, in the sixteenth century of the Christian era, the Papacy still called her the Roman Sea, but it was wishful thinking. There was only one great power in the Mediterranean, and it was no Christian power. In its relentless conquests it carried the rayat al-sawda, the black war-banner of Islam. It was the Empire of the Ottoman Turks. .