Pevensey: autumn 1900. A retired Latin teacher is found dead in strangely disquieting circumstances. His doctor, the young and impetuous Hugh Merridew, calls in Eleanor Bright, the elder sister of his best friend, convinced that she is the only person in England capable of deciphering an intriguing document that he has seen fit to remove from the dead man’s papers. Unable to shed any real light on the matter–and increasingly worried about Hugh’s emotional state–she calls upon her superior, the eminent historian, Professor Randolph Withey, who relates the death to the mysterious purpose of the Saxon Shore forts and the meaning of history itself.