Thomas Wingfield, an Englishman, records his two decades among the peoples of Anahuac, telling how he reached the New World, became involved with the imperial court and its ceremonies, and fell in love with and married a noblewoman of the ruling culture. He describes his rise in local esteem, encounters with ritual and prophecy, the arrival and violence of European conquerors, the siege and fall of the capital, suffering, captivity, acts of vengeance, and a narrow escape that borders on resurrection. Interwoven are themes of cultural collision, loyalty, love, fate, and the human cost of conquest.