June 1645.
After their rout at the battle of Naseby in Northamptonshire, King Charles' forces are in disarray, their last hope the loyal hardcore in the West of England.
Colonel Hollie Babbitt, following the Army of Parliament westwards, has a degree of sympathy for His Majesty. His own troop of rebels, Anabaptists and horse thieves is in almost perpetual disarray....

But with the creation of the New Model Army, Hollie is being forced to make his own last stand, as a spokesman against this new inflexible regime. And of the two men who've been at his back since the beginning of the wars, the volatile Russell is invalided out after a mysterious incident at Naseby, recuperating under the watchful eye of the mending-est lady in Essex. And Luce is much occupied with his own budding friendship with enigmatic Trooper Gray, and a future after the war that doesn't involve killing.

Love, in both likely and unlikely places. Death. Bubonic plague. An epic poem about the battle of Marston Moor. Blood, fire, politics, intrigue, and ember tart.

It'll all end in tears.... possibly.