Robertson Davies is Canada’s leading writer, a master of intricate plots and riddles, one of the best storytellers in English-language literature. He made it to the Booker shortlist and, late in life, was almost awarded the Nobel Prize — but even after remaining forever among the nominees, he earned the status of a world classic. The inheritance of the wealthy patron and collector Francis Cornish attracts characters of the widest variety, if not outright irreconcilable: Simone Darkur — a kind priest and scholar; Clement Hollier — a professor, an expert on the dark aspects of medieval psychology; Parlabain — a monk-turned-religious and scandal-maker; Arthur Cornish — a young businessman appointed executor of the will; and also Maria Magdalene Feotoka — a beautiful aspiring student with an uncanny kind of power over them. Has she perhaps cast a spell over them with her charms? People say, after all, that all gypsies are witches…