In this fantasy of manners we have two displaced young kings, one shopkeeper's daughter who went away an ugly duckling and returns five years later a beautiful and highly skilled swan, and a young queen who is master of all she surveys... until she isn't. The result is the last summer of love and adventure on the eve of cataclysm.

The Wicked Skill, from a poem by John Donne, duels and dances with discovery of the many facets of love—set against a background of revolution, one conducted through manners, the other by swashbuckling youths who think life is a game...