In the summer of 1523, the weather has turned hot and the sweating sickness has returned to London to provide a fertile breeding ground for terrible murders and the most treasonable conspiracies. King Henry VIII has moved the court to Windsor, where he slakes his lusts while the kingdom is being governed by his first minister, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

Wolsey, however, is not having an easy time. Someone is sending the king threatening letters from the tower, despatched under the name and seal of Edward, one of the princes supposedly murdered there, and demanding that great amounts of gold be left in different parts of London. Henry VIII is truly terrified - and also intrigued by the mysterious and grisly murders occurring among the hangmen of London, whose guild also happens to meet in the Tower.

Wolsey has only two people to turn to: his beloved nephew, Benjamin Daunbey, and Daunbey's faithful servant, Roger Shallot, who reluctantly agree to go to London to unmask the blackmailer and end the macabre murders among the hangmen. And at the same time they must confront the mystery of the Princes of the Tower - an ancient murder which still haunts the English throne. When King Henry threatens that, unless the mysteries are resolves, Shallot will hang from the highest scaffold in the kingdom, the pressure mounts for Benjamin and Roger to find the answers - whether they be in London's foul alleyways or among the gorgeous splendor of the Tudor court.