Beckstone is a general novel set in 1712 on a fictional tenant farm in the Yorkshire Dales. The farmer, Will Black, is deeply in debt when the factor, Josiah Fitchet, turns up to claim back rent for the owner, a wealthy baronet. With him is the baronet's grand-daughter, Madeleine de Courtenay, his only relative but not his heir because she is female, although she does appear to have the promise of a dowry in spite of her relationship with her grandfather being dreadful. Madeleine is an army brat, whose mother, the knight's daughter, chose to marry a Huguenot soldier in the Duke of...

Soon after the death of her father, chieftain of a small Scottish clan, fourteen year old Ailie is married by proxy to a Flemish knight, the Count of Aucun. Now she has travelled to meet him just outside the city of York (Jorvik) to have their marriage blessed in the minster. But Jorvik is the wrong place to be in 1066, the year of four kings of England, because the next day, just south of the city, the last battle but one will be fought between the English and the Danes, just three weeks before the Battle of Hastings. The Battle of Fulford takes place on Wednesday the 20th of September in...

In 1065 a freak snowstorm comes early, blocking the passes through which a group of Flemings, led by the Count of Aucun, has ridden from the east into a valley in central Scotland. The count intends to offer the return of the clan chief's two sons, captured while fighting, for a ransom. Since the clan uses barter and has no coinage, a face-saving solution is for the count to accept their clever younger sister, thirteen year old Ailie, as his bride; but she is also being courted by an Islesman, Kenneth, who is intent on gaining control of the lucrative trade route which passes through the...