The Ringed Castle
Dorothy Dunnett
728 pages
published in 1971

The penultimate book in the Lymond saga, this one is set half in Russia during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, half in England with a slight interlude in Scotland. As in the previous novel, part of the storyline follows Philippia of Somerville, who starts as a lady in waiting of the English queen Mary Tudor.

Philipia, who got married to Lymond in order to protect her virtue at the end of Pawn in Frankencense is now looking for Lymond's origin in Scotland and England. Lymond on the other hand is content to start a new life in Russia, at the court of Ivan the Terrible, as head of his army. Together with a small cadre of excellent mercenaries he's building up Russia's first standing army. At the same time the English, having previously established trade relations with Russia are back with another expedition and intrigues mount at court and outside of it.

Lymond may have his plans and ultimate goal in mind, but that does not mean he gets the chance or opportunity to pursue them for long. The tsar commands him to go along with his embassy to England, where things quickly take a turn for the worse...

I must say that though I had great hopes for this volume of the Lymond saga when I started, I was disappointed with the ending. I think I got bored with the whole sodding mass of it, read too much out of a sense of duty, too little for pleasure. In retrorespect I would've done better to have spread out my reading of these books, instead of reading three of them back to back.