In the year 1061, before William the Conqueror wrested England from the Saxons, two other Norman Conquerors - Robert Guiscard and Rogier of Hauteville - were wresting southern Italy from the Byzantines and the Muslims. Bernfrieda, half-sister and handmaid of the lady Fredesenda of Hauteville - the noble mother of Robert and Rogier - is living her last years peacefully with her mistress at the Abbey of Santa Eufemia in southern Italy.

At the abbey, Bernfrieda spends long hours in the scriptorium copying the lives of the saints with her teacher, Brother Gaufredus. When the monk Amatus visits Fredesenda to gather information about her noble son Robert, Bernfrieda realizes that her beloved mistress will be no more than a name in Amatus's chronicle.

Stung by this realization and the open disdain in which Brother Gaufredus holds all that Senda had accomplished, Bernfrieda decides to write a chronicle of her own to tell "all that Amatus's chronicle will leave out."