Ximene’s adventures lead her into danger and romance. We meet her when she is a virtual prisoner in the Château de Foix and learn that she is being auctioned to the highest bidder, but that is only the start of her adventures. These were turbulent times and she manages to get herself involved in every significant event.

She has the highest expectations of fulfilling her destiny, which she has been programmed to believe is to recreate the state of Occitan, destroyed one hundred years earlier during the genocidal Albigensian crusade.

Her objective is to then use Occitan as a haven for those who espouse the Cathar faith a radically different form of Christianity, if indeed it is Christian at all.

She is confident that she will find a soulmate who will help her achieve her objectives, but will it be the Black Prince, heir apparent to the english throne or will it be John Stanley, the young squire in the Prince’s service?

Ximene find’s herself draw towards John  and begins to question everything about herself and her destiny.

After her escape from the Château de Foix, in quick succession; she rescues John Stanley from certain death,  nurses him back to health, finds her family’s treasure, facilitates a truce between England and France, and rescues her close relatives from civil war in Castille.

Her descendants go on to play a key role in the Wars of the Roses

Everything in the book is historically accurate with the exception of Ximene herself and her romance with John Stanley.