It's late August, 1592. Sir Robert Carey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth from the wrong side of Henry VIII's blanket, remains at his post on the Borders at Carlisle. He has at last been confirmed by his monarch as Deputy Warden and is still deeply in love with Lady Elizabeth Widdrington while despising her elderly, abusive husband (will the man never die?). Carey remains estranged from his dour but lethal henchman, Henry Dodd, after Carey decided, much to Dodd's bafflement, to take the high road during an incident at Dick of Dryhope's tower and 'honourably and skillfully avoided the bloody-pitched battle'.

The King's courts are full of sycophants, former lovers bent on revenge, a would-be assassin, a toothdrawer (and philosopher, too) who all gather in Edinburgh, where a great debate on the differences between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems, and a demonstration of the planets will be staged. Then a clash of spheres mirroring the same at the human level ensues...