As late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. A trio of outsiders -- two men and a dangerously magnetic woman -- arrives on the woodland borders and puts up a make-shift camp. That same night, the local manor house is set on fire. Over the course of seven days, Walter Thirsk sees his hamlet unmade: the harvest blackened by smoke and fear, the new arrivals cruelly punished, and his neighbours held captive on suspicion of witchcraft. But somethi...