St Andrews, 1563. In a town gripped by Reformation, a baying crowd awaits the execution of Pierre de Chastellart, a French Huguenot poet. From afar, Mary Queen of Scots watches his tortured figure declaim Ronsard's 'Hymn to Death'. But why is the young man being publicly beheaded for high treason? This lyrical and violent novel follows Chastellart and Mary between a France descending into religious warfare and a Scotland of wolves and witch-burnings, whose populace is whipped up by the preacher John Knox. Aspiring poet and secret lover of an unattainable Catholic Queen, Chastellart is caught in a deadly web of international courtly intrigue. As the besieged Mary exclaims: 'Toleration cannot last!'.
