1812.  Bored with the mundane commitments of his new role as the Duke of Penrith’s agent in the northern town of Woolbridge, returning soldier Raif Jarrett is having second thoughts about civilian life.    Local mill owners are bringing in machinery and some agitators are urging the workers to protest.   As the Easter fairs come to town, the local magistrates fear riot and the military is called in.    Raif finds himself a reluctant host to a young relative, a sickly would-be poet of radical views, just as a disreputable old flame inconveniently appears to ruffle the genteel Miss Henrietta Lonsdale’s feathers.   When a salesman is found dead in his bed, Jarrett finds no-one supports his suspicions, but then a radical is brutally murdered out on the hillside.      As his past catches up with him, Raif Jarrett must decide what price he is prepared to pay for justice.