The Elizabethan world is in flux. Radical new ideas are challenging the
old. But the quest for knowledge can lead down dangerous paths.
London, 1594. The Queen's physician has been executed for treason, and
conspiracy theories flood the streets. When Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox
physician and unwilling associate of spymaster Robert Cecil, is accused
of being part of the plot, he and his new wife Bianca must flee for
their lives.
With agents of the Crown on their tail, they make for Padua, following
the ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena. But the pursuing
English aren't the only threat Nicholas and Bianca face. Hella, a
strange and fervently religious young woman, has joined them on their
journey. When the trio finally reach relative safety, they become
embroiled in a radical and dangerous scheme to shatter the old world's
limits of knowledge. But Hella's dire predictions of an impending
apocalypse, and the brutal murder of a friend of Bianca's forces them to
wonder: who is this troublingly pious woman? And what does she want?
'No-one is better than S. W. Perry at leading us through the squalid
streets of London in the sixteenth century.'
Andrew Swanston
