Nicholas is at his coldest and most manipulative in this volume, the charm he deploys to win over the young court of Scotland is so obviously an act of ruthlessness to the reader, but what is he up to in the wake of the double shock and trauma of grief and betrayal the blew his world apart at the end of Scales Of Gold? How can Gelis use her own child in a game of such sadistic cruelty, and why? 

There's an odd sense of dislocation about this novel, or disassociation, perhaps since the geography is much, much clearer than the characters. It's very much a novel of concealment, if it's your first read-through. The motives, means and ends of the two central protagonists in their horrifying feud are kept hidden throughout, sometimes glimpsed and hinted at, but this is the only book, in the series, I think, that does not end with some stunning twist, revelation or reversal. That is delayed by Godscalc's death, the story diverted to other arenas, and becomes a pursuit, of lost gold and a hidden child.