A young man with divided loyalties at the outbreak of the English Civil War sets out to solve a murder. Along the way, he has to question his own identity and that of his eldest brother. He is also drawn to two very different women. His quest takes him from an Oxford college to Caerphilly Castle, to London's least respectable quarter and then to the battlefields of Edgehill and Newbury, with an excursion into Gloucestershire, where he is in more danger...