Young Forktongue Davy has visions. Epilepsy, his Ma calls it, and they mean hes barely able to help around the family farm. But something about the lad, weakling though he is, is attracting attention. The menacing stranger, who might be the angel of death himself; the inhabitants of the women-only community at Wycombe, whose reach extends over the whole of the Chilterns; Daniel from the mysterious Guz. They all want Davy for their own reasons. But what use can he be to anyone? How can he be the key to the coming war between Father John in the North and the women of Wycombe. He has visions of flight, but how can flight ever be possible in this shattered world, where technology has almost wholly reverted to pre-industrial levels?.