1592: Sir Robert Carey is having to step carefully in London where he has just punched his father's powerful colleague, Vice Chamberlain Heneage, on the nose.

Lawsuits are abounding, multiplying like locusts, and Dodd wants vengeance too.

However there is a strange shortage of lawyers at the Inns of Court. The best Carey can find is a nervous oddity called James Enys who is a barrister with no practice or money and is scarred by smallpox. He has his own agenda and is almost certainly a spy - perhaps for Heneage himself.

Worst of all, somebody has arrived in London who is the very last person Carey wants to meet - his redoubtable and buccaneering mother.