A novel by Michael Moorcock. The main character is Rickhardt von Bek, of the von Bek family central to some of Moorcock's other fantasy novels, notably The War Hound and the World's Pain, The City in the Autumn Stars, and The Dragon in the Sword. The novel is a memoir of a dying, demented man. Von Bek recalls his time with a loving whore in an upscale brothel in a German city far from the front lines of 19th-century war. A very erotic and moving tale.