The Prophecy of Death

1325:

England is in turmoil. King Edward ll is weak, his bloody reign staggering towards disaster. He has rejected his wife, Queen Isabella, and yet he still relies on her; she has been sent to France to negotiate peace with her brother, the French king, Charles IV.

King Edward knows his reign rests upon a knife edge, but his belief in the Prophecy of St Thomas's Holy Oil gives him hope; it is said that a king who is anointed with the oil will be a lion amongst men. He must have it.

Meanwhile, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend, Bailiff Simon Puttock, return from France with an urgent message for King Edward. But the pair find themselves at the centre of a deadly court intrigue involving the most ruthless men in the country. In court politics, nothing is as it first appears...