"For Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide's nunnery, Cristiana is at first simply a duty among others, a puzzle but nothing more. Then questions rise and troubles deepen and turn deadly. Beyond the holy peace of St. Frideswide's, England is being drawn toward civil war by a struggle between the corrupt men who hold power around the king and those who oppose them. Frevisse's cousin Lady Alice is married to the duke of Suffolk, the man closest to that royal power. Cristiana's brother Sir Gerveys, seeking his vanished sister, is loyal to Suffolk's rival, the duke of York. Cristiana, to secure her freedom and save her daughters, must use a secret entrusted to her by her husband as he was dying - but it is a secret that could bring down those lords nearest the king and destroy, rather than save, those most dear to her.".