After humiliating a fellow inquisitor at a trumped-up witch trial in Northern Italy, Brother Jacobus of Vienna has his intellectual curiosity piqued by rumours of strange events in Northern England. In defiance of the cardinals in Avignon, Jacobus travels to Berwick where he finds a land in disarray, beset by Scottish raiders, eccentric Franciscan friars and talk of demons in the woods. Can he solve the mysteries that abound and keep his faith and reason intact?