It was in the year 1500 that Janifred Partridge married Matthew Beare, a tin miner, and went with him to live in the very heart of Dartmoor, where she found the life harsh and lonely. The moor men were hostile towards her, and accused her of treachery because of her kinship to Samuel Hatherleigh, the hated Assay Master. Her only friends were a wandering friar and Nick Coombes, the handsome but mysterious packman. Then tragedy struck and Janifred found her life threatened.