An aide to the Tudor queen faces treachery—and accusations of witchcraft—in this series of "intelligent, historically accurate Elizabethan-era whodunits" ( Booklist ). Ursula Blanchard is rudely shaken on receipt of a threatening letter from the exiled Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland, whose treasonous plot against Elizabeth I Ursula helped foil a few months previously. Ursula dismisses the countess's letter as idle threats, but then a series of strange events rocks Ursula's household—and Ursula herself is accused of witchcraft. Could Anne Percy really be orchestrating a plot against Ursula from her exile in the Netherlands? And, if so, how can Ursula prove it before she is hanged as a witch? "Ursula is the essence of iron cloaked in velvet—a heroine to reckon with." — Kirkus Reviews "[A] sixteenth-century mystery series as complicated and charming as an Elizabethan knot garden." — The Tampa Tribune