In the turbulent realm of Norman England, a young nobleman discovers that his identity is the link to an incredible mystery. Hugh Corbaille has just lost the person he cares for most in the world, his adoptive father, the Sheriff of Lincoln. While Hugh's grief is still raw, he is approached by a visiting knight with an unbelievable tale: Hugh may actually be Hugh de Leon, sole child of the Earl of Wiltshire, mysteriously abducted thirteen years before on the day of his father's murder. With no memory of his early years, Hugh sets out to find the truth. He soon unearths a web of death and intrigue beginning in the lost days of his childhood when he may have witnessed the stabbing of his birth father. Tormented by this tragic puzzle, Hugh must turn to the mother he has never known, a court of strangers, and the young woman whose sympathy and healing are his one support, to try to piece together his splintered past and put an end to a reign of danger and deception.