The year is 1557 and Francis Crawford of Lymond must serve the King of France for a year before he can return to Russia, where he believes his destiny lies. Yet the astrologer John Dee has said: It is not one thing you seek, but two; and the place for neither is Russia. Lymond, exercising his formidable military talents against the English, has no desire to discover the meaning of this prophecy. But Philippa, his wife-in-name only, has. And she devotes her days to a hazardous search for the truth about the past, and the future, of her enigmatic husband.