My Holy Satan (The Testament of Man #11) by Vardis Fisher

MY HOLY SATAN

Vardis Fisher's most compelling novel from his famous Testament of Man series is a thrilling portrayal of one of the basest ages of civilised man -- a time when the Inquisitor was omnipotent , when the refinements of torture were saved for those few brave men who dared to speak the truth about the vice, filth, and greed that flourished, the wholesale rape and adultery that took place under official sanction.

Richard, a young serf, is such a man. Menaced by the pitiless might of the feudal system, embodied in Baron Guillem--and his Baroness, who becomes Richard's lover--he faces the Inquisition and its terrible tortures in one of the most vivid accounts of human degradation ever written. How human hope and the human spirit manage to triumph in spite of the forces of darkness in the theme of this magnificent story.