1592: Sir Robert Carey has finally got his Warrant as Deputy Warden of the West March of England - and also a command from the Queen that he finds out if there really is a conspirac against the King of Scotland's life. The pursuivant, Simon Anricks, arrives to help him decide about going back to Scotland - where Carey was tortured by Lord Spynie and Sir Henry Widdrington, abusive husband of the woman Carey loves. A brand new Court suit in the Scottish style tips the balance, subsidised by Anricks. Carey heads for the Scottish Courts in Edinburgh, with his two servants, one of whom is secretly an Elliott, the men of the Carlisle Guard and Sergeant Dodd, who is enraged with Carey for letting the Elliotts escape massacre. Christmas at King James's Court is awash with alcohol and conspiracy. The entertainment is a public disputation about whether the Sun goes around the Earth, as all sensible people know, or the Earth around the Sun, which is blasphemous nonsense, held only by Anricks. Not one but two assassination plots are aimed at King James - which would remove Elizabeth I's successor and plunge England and Scotland into civil war.