1578. A ship from Rostock arrives in Tallinn loaded with printed copies of Balthasar Russow's «Chronicle» - the culmination of our hero's life's work. But though it is an instant success, as it was in Rostock and other German cities, not everyone is happy to see it published. A group of local gentry denounce it to the town council as «a book of the most heinous falsehoods and slanders in the world» and lobby for Balthasar to relieved as pastor of Holy Ghost Church.

But all is not lost. Balthasar may call on a powerful ally - if he is willing to pay the price.

In this final volume, fierce storms, along with famine, war and plague, continue to be loosed upon Livonia. Balthasar's personal life, too, is fraught with turbulence and loss, much of it stemming from his own jealousy and suspicion.

«A marvellous novelist» - Doris Lessing
«Heir to the great Russo-European 19th-century novelists; his fiction has Tolstoyan sweep» - Fiona Sampson
«No stranger to oppression himself. Kross writes about it with a poignancy devoid of anger» - Adam Zamoyski