After seven years warfare in France, Edward III's army risk being cornered at the river Somme and resolves to return home if possible, before his exhausted army is lost. Sir -now brother- Thomas finds his gay lover, brother Mathias, unwilling to continue their 'criminal' carnal affair, as he still withholds his secret, after they are seen in bed by nun Meir, who follows Caris's charitable advice to keep still about their inappropriate love. The Black Death meanwhile raged trough southern Europe, wiping out Merith's family, so he abandons his flourishing Florentine architecture practice to return home, hoping to get Caris. Prior Godwyn confiscates a testamentary donation for the nunnery to build a hospital, so the superior sends Caris, who is to run it and once cured the king's arm, to France to secure a royal order, and hence witness the horrors of war and pest.
—KGF Vissers