A vivid double biography of two fearless early medieval queens. ''Brings the Merovingian empire to thrilling, bewildering, horrifying life'' Helen Castor ''Restores two half-forgotten and much-mythologized queens to their proper place in medieval history'' Dan Jones ''Fredegund and Brunhild have finally found a worthy champion'' Literary ReviewBrunhild was a Visigothic princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades. The two queens commanded armies, developed taxation policies, established infrastructure and negotiated with emperors and popes, all the time fighting a gruelling forty-year civil war with each other. Yet after Brunhild and Fredegund''s deaths, their names we
