Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year, 1999. Winner of the Costa First Novel Award, 2008. A Radio 4 Book Club Selection. In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Clair understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.