In the years when the beautiful boy-king Richard II is beset by enemies from his own court, when Chaucer is penning his famous Canterbury Tales, and when the notorious Kathryn Swynford is making out with the most powerful man in England, Hildegard is sent on a secret mission to bring back the legendary Cross of Constantine to York, its original home. But dangerous enemies are determined she will not succeed. Alone in the icy hell of the Alps, pursued by a deadly assassin, her courage and instinct for crime-solving are all she has between herself and a violent death. Meanwhile the plot to depose the king continues...When Richard lost his little velvet slipper during his coronation, the rumour-mongers said it was a portent that he would lose his crown to a usurper. Now the story of the turnshoe continues. It begins before Martinmas when the rains sweep throughout Europe bringing floods, murrain and the Plague. Bodies are piled outside town gates. Open pits are covered in quick lime. Beggars, roaming the countryside searching for food, find only death. And after many twists and turns, Hildegard's mission itself is fated to end in death or destiny.