As Sir John de Wolfe recovers from the broken leg inflicted at the end of CROWNER'S QUEST, he finds himself embroiled in a strange death at Ilfracombe when a wreck is washed ashore with a corpse aboard. Soon involved in investigating piracy and murder, he is distracted by a stalker in the dark streets of Exeter. But this desperate man proves to be an old Crusading acquaintance of Crowner John, now a renegade from the illustrious Order to which he belongs, on the run from their vengeance as he has threatened to expose a secret that could shake Christendom to its roots. As John tries to help the man, the plot thickens until he is risking the enmity of the Pope himself and must finally use his involvement with the pirates to save his life.