Amidst the trembling peace of England in 1601, the dying Queen Elizabeth I’s throne hangs in uncertainty, with the specter of religious war looming as her legacy. The favored successor, King James VI of Scotland, carries the hope of continuity but also a potentially devastating secret that could throw the kingdom into chaos. With whispers of Catholic sympathies, James is an enigma that the realm’s spymasters cannot risk to leave unsolved. In this high-stakes game of political intrigue and espionage, enter Mahmoud Ezzedine, the sole Muslim in a foreign land, torn from the Ottoman Empire and desperate to return to his family. Recruited by the wily Geoffrey Belloc, Ezzedine becomes an unexpected piece on the chessboard, tasked to unravel the true faith of a king. Arthur Phillips crafts a tale of deceit, conviction, and the quest for truth, as one man’s search for home leads him into the web of history’s most precarious moment.