It's 1066. The old king lies dying and England is without an heir. Four war-lords are eyeing up the prize. Four women stand to gain or lose from the result. What must they do to survive?

Queen Edith, childless, about to be stripped of her position in the court, supports her brother Harold Godwinson's bid for the vacant throne in an attempt to keep some of her power.

Eadgifu Swan-neck, Harold's Anglo-Danish wife of twenty years, sees her place taken by a new Christian wife -

Ældyth, formerly Queen of the Welsh, who is the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, now forced to marry Harold. It's the price both women have to pay for the support of Ældyth's brothers, the powerful earls of the north, to put Harold on the throne.

At the centre of it all is Hannë, princess of Denmark, a gifted musician, captured as a slave and given to the English court as a gift. She is disguised as a boy for her own safety, playing her lyre every night in the hall, never sure from one moment to the next, what will become of her.

Kathleen Jones was born and brought up on a hill farm in the English Lake District and is a Sunday Times best-selling biographer, whose subjects include Christina Rossetti, Katherine Mansfield and Catherine Cookson. Her award-winning account of the lives of the women associated with the Lake Poets, 'A Passionate Sisterhood' was a Virago Classic. She has also written three historical novels, one of which was a Historical Novel Society Book of the Year, and four prize-winning collections of poetry. Kathleen lived for ten years in Africa and the Middle East, where she worked in broadcast journalism. Since then she has written extensively for BBC radio and contributed to several television documentaries. She has taught creative writing and women's studies in a number of universities, and became a Royal Literary Fund Fellow in 2007.