The St Scholastica's Day riot drives terrified Oxford scholars to seek refuge in Cambridge. Their arrival threatens an already fragile academic peace, and within hours two of the displaced men are dead.
Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael find evidence that the Oxford violence may have been deliberately provoked. With an archiepiscopal visitation approaching and a colleague accused of several murders, they must reconstruct events in both universities before the Crown and Church punish Cambridge for harbouring men suspected of sedition.