Earth was but a distant memory, lost in a cataclysm which rocked even the domed cities on Mars and had profound social and spiritual effect on the furthest planets colonised by Man. Once called New Britain, Britannia was the last remnant of a new British Empire, governed by the last in a long line of royalty which had made its bond with the Land of the home world. New Planet, New Rules.

When Henry IX dies childless, the Crown falls to his cousin Stephen, first generation Britannian and last male heir of the Windsor family, who is of a spiritual line older still. Together with his soul-friend Richard Watkins he must learn the ways of the Land in which the vegetation is all tinged with blue, three moons hang in the sky, and even the boiling point of water changes at the whim of the weather.

He must also manage to stay alive long enough to find out who has systematically been killing off his family, and why.