The King at the Edge of the World

1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying without leaving an heir. The main candidate for the throne is James VI, King of Scotland—but there’s one problem. The queen’s spies, hardened by long religious wars, are afraid that James is not who he claims to be. He says he’s faithful to Protestantism, but perhaps secretly he is Catholic; in that case, forty years of suffering will be in vain—which threatens new bloodshed. Time is running out, and London faces a practically impossible question: how to check what James truly believes? Then the queen’s spy Geoffrey Bellock finds a way to get inside the future king’s soul. He hires Mahmoud Ezzedin, a Muslim physician who became a victim of intrigues in his homeland and was thrown into England during the last diplomatic mission from the Ottoman Empire. Ezzedin is a stranger on this cold, rainy island. Local quarrels don’t matter to him—he will do everything to get back home, to his wife and son.