The year is 1645, the place England, a land torn apart by five years of civil war. Jacob Sedgewick a young Parliamentary officer saves the life of a beautiful young woman Mary Honeywell. She follows him into the southwest accompanied by her godfather, an ageing parson to discover if her father and brother who were impressed a year ago into the Royalist armies still survive. Jacobs elder brother Ethan Sedgewick, a broken man, is returning from a war devastated Europe where he has fought as a mercenary soldier for ten years, seeking to discover if his younger brother still survives. Will these people whose lives have been thrown into disarray by war find each other?