1. Historically an a+ as to my opinion, being no medieval scholar.2. Plot, predictable and complex at the same time. You know so and so is going to get it, you just don't know how or when, but the alternatives suggest themselves.3.WORDY my GOD it is reminiscent of Dickens, who according to someone I know wrote in installments and so got "paid by the word". It was a good book, but I scanned whole paragraphs at a time to avoid the tedium of reading them and find out what the flip happened. To the books credit, again, I DID want to find out, but, it was hard going. It would have been a great book if it were 2/3rds shorter.M