Thursday, 12th October, 1592. Eighteen days after the action closes in An Air of Treason, courtier Sir Robert Carey and Carey's surly, larcenous, and loyal henchman Henry Dodd, Land Sergeant of Gilsland, are back in Carlisle and the Debateable Lands -- the Border country, the Wild North, the land of the hot trod where the thieving, feuding reiver clans are "English when it suited, and Scots at their pleasure." A Chorus of Innocents ushers forward...

After his hair-raising adventures in London, Sir Robert Carey has finally tracked down Queen Elizabeth, who is about to make a state visit to Oxford. But instead of giving the Courtier his much-needed warrant and fee for being Deputy Warden of the West March with Scotland, Her Majesty orders him to investigate the most dangerous cold case of her reign--the mysterious 1560 death of Amy Dudley (née Robsart), unloved wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester....