Mike Grady

These stories have accumulated over the years, and have become fictions rather than memoirs, transformed by a novelist's inability to stick to the truth. The characters appear in each others' stories, giving a picture of an entire community and a beautiful landscape.

London, December 1563. England is a troubled nation. Catholic plots against the young Queen Elizabeth spring up all over the country. At his house in the parish of St Bride, the herald William Harley receives a book from his friend Henry Machyn. But Machyn is in fear of his life, claiming that the book is deadly.