On their way to a great feast hosted by the de Courtenays, Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King s Peace, and Bailiff Simon Puttock pass by a clearing in the woods where they find the murdered corpse of Sir Gilbert, a Knight Templar and old comrade of Baldwin s. The situation is confounded when a decapitated body is found, and Baldwin and Simon s suspicions that the two deaths are linked seem to be well-founded when Baldwin himself is viciously attacked. Baldwin and Simon find themselves caught up in one of the most baffling investigations they have ever come upon, in which the participators will stop at nothing to achieve their sinister aims...