This is a story of persecution & poetry love & war set in thirteenth century southern France. A troubadour Bertran witnesses the brutal murder of the Pope's legate & risks his life to warn others of the war that he knows is certain to follow this act. The lands of the peaceable Cathars
- deemed heretics
- are now forfeit & under threat from crusaders who have been given authority by the Pope to take the Cathar domains by force. But the Pope is trying to track Bertran down & so is somebody else: Elinor a young noblewoman in love with Bertran but facing a loveless arranged marriage flees her family & becomes a minstrel herself. Soon both Bertran & Elinor find themselves enveloped in a rising tide of bloodshed that threatens the very fabric of their society.