A darkly compelling novel of the single-minded pursuit of justice and of a man whose major crime was seeing all too clearly the shape of the war that was to come and how it would destroy the very monarch that it was his duty to protect. It presents in vivid and unforgettable detail, a world of charm and enchantment facing disaster and is a brilliant dstudy of the inflexibile reasoning of men who would murder for ita nd who would, within the decade, see it crumble and disappear.