Artemesia finally escapes the prim and proper world of finishing schools and sets out to win her mother's title as pirate queen of the seas until she meets her match against Goldie Girl, the treacherous captain of the pirate ship "Enemy."

Artemesia, having escaped the hangman's noose and married her true love, finds life ashore a bit boring after her adventures as a pirate queen, and does not hesitate when the government of England, at war with France and Spain, offers her a ship in exchange for her service in harassing the enemy.

While traveling through early seventh-century Britain trying to stop an impending war, Essa, who bears the blood of native British tribes and of the invading Anglish, discovers that his mother is alive and he, himself, is a prince of the northern kingdom, but he has loyalties and loved ones in the south to whom he is compelled to return.

In the late seventeenth century, fifteen-year-old Kit, driven to desperation by the starvation of one brother and the mistreatment of his simple-minded twin, realizes his dream of becoming an apprentice in London but feels drawn by duty to return home to Essex.