As Lahore's rose-scented air is rent by political feuding and tension, Mariana Givens must choose between her beloved little stepson and the life she has always known. Two years earlier, in 1838, Mariana became the guardian of three-year-old Saboor. They now live in Calcutta with her aunt and uncle, but Mariana is ostracised by the British community for her impulsive marriage to Saboor's native father. Her relatives insist she return to Lahore, a journey of over a thousand miles by river and on horseback, to ask for a divorce. This will mean giving up Saboor, but it may allow her to find a British husband and have a life of her own. Once in Lahore, as violence swirls around her, she is drawn towards the spiritual culture of her husband's Muslim family, and begins to wonder if she can bear to be cut off from them forever.