The Spider's Garden

A barber-surgeon's steady hand catches the eye of France's most dangerous king. Plucked from obscurity and thrust into the lethal court of Louis XI in 1463, Jacques Monteil discovers that healing the powerful is far less perilous than knowing their secrets. As feudal lords conspire to tear the kingdom apart, Jacques must navigate a web of spies, double agents, and whispered betrayals — where one wrong word means the executioner's block, and trust is the deadliest currency of all.