Sometimes we forget that espionage and double agents in the highest echelons of power are not only a sign of our time, but that the secret struggle for state secrets has existed as long as state power itself. The famous modern British detective master Paul Dougherty, in his next historical thriller, turns to one of the medieval “spy scandals” that really broke out between England and France, and builds his own version of events seven hundred years ago... Hugh Corbett and his servant Ranulph have to find out how everything the secrets of the English king Edward I almost instantly become known at the court of the French king Philip IV the Fair, and expose the mysterious and sinister spy, in whose hands are the strings leading both to France, hostile to the English, and to rebellious Scotland and obstinate Wales...