Set in exquisitely civilized London of the early seventeenth century, this is the second book of the acclaimed seventeenth-century English trilogy about the physician and priest Nicholas Cooke.

It is 1617, and Nicholas, now in his mid-thirties, is living in a small parish within the walled city of London; the annulment of his marriage and loss of his children a few years before have left him alone. On a wintry day he comes to the assistance of a young man, Thomas Wentworth, a landowner from Yorkshire, who has fainted in the snow outside his house.

The two become close friends and, joined by several other gifted acquaintances, they form a science society with an extraordinary and beautiful woman called Cecilia who is educated in law. She will marry one of the men and love them both, at various times bringing them together and driving them apart.

Nicholas is both a dedicated priest and a serious researcher, determined to build a successful magnifying instrument. The young hothead Wentworth goes another way, rising to become the King's most powerful minister, upholding the divine right of the sovereign against the growing animosity of gentry and landowners. The devoted friends who form the science society will in time be divided by religious controversy over the struggle for power between landowner and crown, and finally by the English Civil War.

Both Nicholas Cooke and Thomas Wentworth will face the loss of everything they love, including their lives, in their determination to preserve their world.