The Arbitrary Sword takes the reader to a small village in Ottoman Turkey where Victoria, an Armenian girl, lives with her parents and with Nikol, a young rebel fugitive. The story opens in 1895 during an outbreak of violence and it is here that Victoria first witnesses the hatred the Turks hold for her people. Victoria's early life is spent in the protected heart of her family but as she moves from childhood to adulthood - from innocence to maturity - if she is to survive, she must triumph first over personal disasters and later over the government's mission to rid itself of the Armenian population in Turkey.