Nicholas and Bianca have finally wed, off the page before book 4 starts. But married life doesn't imply a settled existence because an enemy from Nicholas' past (book 1) sends an anonymous letter to various people in the government accusing him of being a co-conspirator in a plot to murder Queen Elizabeth I. Robert Cecil, who employed Nicholas as an agent in previous books, manages to shield him briefly from powerful enemies such as the Earl of Essex, but advises him to go abroad until he can be exonerated. So Nicholas and Bianca set off, initially for the Low Countries, leaving Rose and Ned Monkton to supervise the rebuilding of Bianca's inn, the Jackdaw, which was destroyed by arson in the previous story.

Unfortunately things become too dangerous for the pair to remain in their initial city because Nicholas manages to be a bystander to a double murder involving one of the Spanish overlords. They rescue a strange woman called Hella Mass, seemingly another witness and already in trouble with the authorities, and take her with them on their journey to Italy, following the pilgrim way to Rome (though with the intention of leaving her to travel on while they go to Bianca's native city of Padua). Hella soon starts trying to drive a wedge between them, using her uncanny premonitions and playing on their private fears. She is a religious fanatic who believes the Last Judgement is at hand, but also seems bent on breaking up their marriage and claiming Nicholas for herself.

I had a few problems with the story, apart from finding Hella loathsome and Nicholas' forbearance of her tiresome and wilfully stupid. Firstly, the murderer's identity was pretty obvious, which made me impatient with the main characters' inability to even suspect it. Secondly, when they were followed from one place to another by a mysterious man, I guessed his identity from something said by another character. The reasons he eventually gave to explain his behaviour were unconvincing to say the least. In light of all this, I found the story dragged out and unnecessarily convoluted with only the 'meanwhile back in England' parts, as Ned and Rose suffered the fallout from their employer's departure, to add some interest. The odd typo was intrusive also, especially when what was obviously meant to be 'conversation' became conservation at one point.

All in all, I didn't really enjoy the book, especially as a semi-regular character was killed off. There was a hint at the end that the series might continue in the Italian setting, but I'm not sufficiently interested to continue, especially as out of the series so far I've only really enjoyed book 2. So I can only rate this as an OK 2 stars. ( )