England in the reign of King John - a time of beauty and squalor, of swift treachery and unswerving loyalty. Against this violent background, the story of Harry Talvace, master mason, unfolds.

(2nd book of The Heaven Tree trilogy) Young Harry Talvace, the son of Ralf Isambard's master-builder who raised the great church of Parfois and was put to death by his jealous patron, has grown up at the court of Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales. Deep in his heart he nurses a desire for vengence, and when Harry become innocently involved in the tragedy which strikes Llewelyn's marriage he sets out to avenge his father's death. Alone he makes his way to Parfois to challenge Isambard. But enmity can prove as complex as love, Harry discovers, as in his turn he falls under the spell of the old warrior.

This is the third and concluding volume of The Heaven Tree series. In the castle of Parfois, glaring down over the debated lands of the Welsh border, young Harry Talvace is held prisoner by his father's sometimes patron and later destroyer, Ralf Isambard. Captive and captor, bound together by implacable hatred and reluctant affection, seem domed to stalemate. Then the threat of civil war in England lays Isambard open to his enemies, and the story reaches a strange and violent climax. The principal characters are drawn together in the final siege of Parfois under the towering shadow of the first Harry's master-work, the great church he gave his life to finish.