Let the king be king! Why is the High King of the Human kingdoms not doing his job - and thereby allowing the Church to fill the power vacuum in the human lands of Alanda? This is a matter of some concern to Nightingale and her friends: the Church is becoming ever more overtly hostile to non-human sentients (of which there are several species in Alanda) as well as to anything that that it does not at least indirectly control, such as gypsies and Free Bards. To discover just what is going on, she will join forces with T'fyrr, a birdman with the vistage of a raptor and the voice of an angelic choir. And before the King - and through him the gypsies, Free Bards and non-humans of the twenty kingdoms - is saved they, the Eagle and the Nightingale, will have become if not quite lovers then far more than friends.