The second book in the world-famous Lymond Chronicles, which bring to life sixteenth-century history through the eyes of one man: Francis Crawford of Lymond. Menaced by England and riven by internal discord, Scotland in 1548 clung to a single hope of survival as a nation - an alliance with France to be sealed by the betrothal of the five-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin. But once in France, Mary suffers a series of ominous 'accidents'. The one man Mary's mother, the Dowager Queen, feels she can trust to procter her daughter, now seven, is Francis Crawford. Lymond is dispatched to France and embarks upon a nightmare game of hide-and-seek at the very heart of the glittering, decadent court of Henri II.