Invading a prosperous neighbouring country brings its own set of problems: maintaining power at home while your back is turned, distributing the loot among your supporters while holding most for yourself, keeping the remnants of the defeated army at bay, taking control of the native estates and squeezing out ever-increasing taxes and, all the while, placing a resentful population firmly under the thumb.
Gilbert of Bayeux, orphan, a young, natural administrator, brilliant linguist, is called to Winchester from Normandy to oversee the theft of lands from the English who fell at Hastings. He finds his Lord, bishop Odo, the new king's half-brother, is the most avaricious and devious of all the invaders.Gilbert witnesses or takes part in many of the events through to 1110 which affect the city: the propaganda of the Bayeux tapestry, the murder of the established clergy and nobility, Domesday Book, the building of the cathedral, the treaty of Alton that decides the future of the kingdom.
Struggling to survive amid vicious politics, Gilbert meets his great love, Ailgifu, a strong-willed mead seller and keeper of bees from Medstead, who despises everything the Normans stand for. As Gilbert feels his sympathies sliding towards the English, his Saxon servant, Lēofric, gradually embraces the martial allure of the newcomers.
Heal brings alive the conflicts of love and ethics that abound as Winchester deals with the conquest.