This is a book of four novellas, each narrated by a different character and each outlining an incident in the life of Gaheris, one of the five Princes of Orkney, sons of King Lot who rebelled against King Arthur. The Serpent Rose and The Rose Knot, the first two novellas have been previously published, and I have read both, but I was glad to revisit them and then continue on to the final two. The Orkney boys are - in birth order - Gawain, Agravaine, Gareth, Gaheris and their half-brother Medraut. Gawain is the most famous, of course, and Gaheris seems unremarkable in comparison, but here Kari Sperring brings out his importance to Arthur, the Round Table and those around him. The Orkney brothers are hot-tempered and argumentative, and  Agravaine, in particular, doesn't like Gaheris and takes every opportunity to make that plain. Gaheris, tall and powerful, has the Orkney temper, but we mostly see him overcoming it. Even Arthur remarks that he is a man made for peace in a time of war. Each novella is narrated by a different character, Gaheris himself, Llinos, his brother Gareth's wife, Thorn, a half-magical woman who recounts meeting Gaheris, and Gawain whose account is sad and self-recriminatory. The Sepent Rose recounts the story of Lamorak, his infatuation with Gaheris is a problem and Lamorak's eventual downfall.  The Rose Knot tells of Ghaeris and Llinos's brief, illicit relationship, eventually resolved. In the third novella, the half-magical woman, Thorn recounts meeting Gaheris as his brother's squire, and the second time when he comes to her domain in rags and lifts an ancient curse. The final novella, ten years later, has Gawain blaming himself for the consequences of Agravain's rebellion against Arthur. It ends just as the battle of Camlann, Arthur's final battle, is about to begin. Kari Sperring's prose is fluid and elegant, her  research into the original sources (recounted at the end) is impeccable. I love this book.