Books – hundreds of them. Side by side they crowd the shelves with their leather-bound spines. This is where the world is recorded in print – recorded for the few noblemen who, on behalf of the King, rule the land and sit in judgment upon everyone else.
Here on the shelves, the Bible is flanked by statute books, tomes on antiquity and works by Shakespeare, but also books on the Day of Judgment, demonic possession and the Devil’s many guises as well as plays about witches’ covens.
All these works provide information for the fewer than thousand men who carry out the King’s decrees and rule his subjects with an iron hand – deciding whether each one of them is keeping to the virtuous path laid out by God or have strayed from it to follow Satan.
The manors are scattered across the entire country, their owners interlinked by marriages and strong alliances. These are the people wielding the power to accuse and condemn – and if you clash with one of them, no one can predict your fate. Because the law is open to interpretation, and in the fight between good and evil, someone is bound to get caught in the fateful crossfire.