Spring comes to Merovingen... and plots begin to grow - as tangled as the strange new plants proliferating in tire backwaters of the City of a Thousand Bridges, as dangerous as the ferment of religious mania that threatens hightowners and canalsiders alike... ~In debt to the hightown Boregys, approached by the Boregys" rivals, and blackmailed by the fanatic Sword of God, Thomas Mondragon faces a narrowing circle of enemies as he is bound still more tightly in the affairs of the great Houses. Even the dark demimonde of the canals has become unfriendly territory for a man the Sword is seeking either to use - or to destroy.