Publisher's Synopsis
It is AD 1268. The English university city of Oxford is forced to play host to the Tartars, people from the East whose fierceness is legendary, and whose deeds have wreaked havoc in France and Germany. This time they claim their mission is a peaceful one - they merely wish to gain an audience with the king - but are they to be trusted? Their arrival creates a sense of foreboding: whilst the Tartars stage a banquet outside the city walls, the town is unusually quiet. No-one, however, except the Tartar ambassador himself, falls victim to evil. When he is found dead, it looks like murder, but how could it have been done, except by magic? On the case once more, Regent Master William Falconer, a committed questioner of facts, soon has cause to question the validity of his methods. And even when he thinks he's solved the case, he still has to trick the murderer into giving himself away.
