A nineteenth century circus troupe, including a beautiful aerialist, a lion tamer, a strongman, a gypsy fortune-teller, and a sideshow, tours the post Civil War South and the courts of Europe.
"Of the things I might expect to see coming along on the heels of a war, a circus sure ain't high on the list..."
So spoke Zachary Edge, a colonel in the cavalry of the Confederacy, who was there when the South surrendered at Appomattox.
But there it was: Florian's Flourishing Florilegium of Wonders - a Southern show for Southern people - and he was offered a living as sharpshooter star of the circus.
From post-war Southlands through the Russia of the Tsars and the Austria of the Hapsburgs to the Paris of Napoleon III under siege from the guns of Bismark's Prussia, Colonel Zack is a man riding through a world on the brink of history...
