When the two cloaked horsemen come riding pell-mell down the rain-spattered street, Tansy Marsh wonders why the rich, belated travelers have selected her father's inn, with the ostentatious sign of his more successful rival hanging so invitingly across the way. But Robert Marsh's sign of the White Boar carries the badge he fought under with Richard III when the King was Duke of Gloucester, and with the cohorts of upstart Henry Tudor threatening a renewal of the long, tiresome civil wars of the red and white roses, the King's riders are seeking only faithful friends. As a result of their coming, greed and pathos, kindly humor, tragedy and tender love will have their day at the White Boar Inn, which is to become notable, infamous and sensational in turn because the King spent his last night there in his richly carved traveling bed.