The town of Rotherweird, independent from the rest of England since Elizabeth I, has resumed its abnormal normality after a happy ending to the travails of summer. But is it really all over? Disturbing omens multiply: a funeral delivers a cryptic warning; an ancient portrait speaks; the Herald disappears - and democracy threatens the covenant between town and countryside. An intricate plot, centuries in the making, is on the move. Everything is pointing to one objective: the resurrection of Rotherweird's dark Elizabethan past, and to one date: the Winter Equinox.