Nicholas Barber is a twenty-three-year-old priest who, fearing the wrath of the bishop for breaking his vows of chastity, takes up with a troupe of traveling players. Coming to a small town in the middle of winter, the troupe puts on their usual morality play but gets caught up in a drama of a different kind: a murder has taken place, and a mute-and-deaf girl stands condemned, awaiting execution.

Seeing an opportunity to attract a larger audience than ever, the players go through the town collecting information about the murder, which they weave into their next performance. As they perform, the story takes on a life of its own. Soon they learn that their drama is far closer to the dangerous truth than they originally imagined - and they are summoned to perform for the local potentate, the powerful Lord de Guise, who has his own reasons to be interested in their version of events.

1. Bringing fourteenth-century England to vibrant life, Barry Unsworth deftly shows us a time that is far off yet strangely familiar, where underneath medieval trappings lie the same corruption and moral dilemmas we face today.