April 1193. England’s King Richard Lionheart languishes in a German prison, and treason scents the air. Richard’s younger brother, John, seizes Windsor Castle, and Dowager Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine summons her trusted personal “queen’s man,” Justin de Quincy, to do the impossible– mediate a truce with her rebel son.

Eleanor of Aquitaine sits on England's throne.  At seventy, she has outlived the husband with whom she had once scandalized the world.  But has she also outlived her favorite, her first-born son?  Richard Lionheart, England's king, has been missing these last months.  It is rumored that he is dead. Only a letter, splattered with the blood of a dying man, can tell her if Richard still lives.