Jonas Penrose has been a performer at the Globe Theatre in London since he first arrived as a boy player to take the roles of women in the days of William Shakespeare. Those parts are now long behind him and he wants to see his own plays performed on the stage. As a fresh bout of Plague forces the theatre to close, Jonas becomes caught up in a political intrigue every bit as dangerous as the disease that once left him an orphan. In fear of his life, and charged with carrying a secret government letter, he travels to Ireland in the hope that there one of his plays may be performed in public for the first time - if only he can survive to see it.