It is 1268, and Oxford is forced to play host to the Tartars, a tribe from the East whose fierceness is legendary, and who, after having played havoc in France and Germany now cross the English Channel under the banner of peace. Their arrival, little welcome by the people of Oxford, creates a sense of foreboding and when the Tartar ambassador is found dead it looks like murder, or magic? Master William Falconer, the committed scientist, know, or thinks he knows, a rational explanation must lay behind the emissary's death, but before the mystery is solved he has to quesiton the soundness of his methods."--Page 4 of cover.