Geoffrey Chaucer - poet, diplomat and sometime spy - is newly returned to England from a successful mission to Florence. Scarcely has he set foot on the London wharfs than he is despatched to the Devon town of Dartmouth. The Santa Giovanni, a ship from Genoa, has been wrecked and its cargo stolen, and a treaty with the Italian city is at risk.

Dispatched to Florence in 1373 in order to secure a loan for Edward III's campaign against France, poet and diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer encounters resistance from the banker's blind brother and ambitious secretary, a situation that is further complicated when the banker is found murdered. By the author of Chaucer and the House of Fame.

Sent on a diplomatic mission to France to persuade a powerful nobleman to remain loyal to the English king, medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer finds himself in the middle of furor when his host, the Comte de Guyac, is killed in a hunting 'accident' and he must uncover the culprit before he is accused of the crime.