Fingal, the Celtic hero, betrayed to the Angles led by Aeric The Axe is murdered. Meanwhile, Roderich, the governor of Strathclyde, preparing to make himself a king by marrying the daughter of the king of Ulster, Langoreth O’Neill has his own daughter Melangall, a disappointment to him, banished to the farm of a serf in the loch lands.
Fingal’s daughter Ethne, with the aide of retainer Domlec sets off after the Angles to avenge her father and seek help from the Picts. However, the Angles are having their own difficulties - their ship is been stolen by a Friesian merchant Aldric who had been kept captive by Aeric. When the ship is struck and sunk by a loch monster, Aldric and slave girl Hretha determine to have their revenge on Aeric.
To complicate matters, double-dealing Tudwal, the betrayer of Fingal, for the chance to marry Roderich’s daughter Melangall, also sets off to find Aeric and kill him. Roderich meanwhile left behind to negotiate his marriage terms, finds himself agreeing that once married to Langoreth and proclaimed king, she will set off to Rome for good with her monk Oran, and be supported by Roderich for the rest of her life.
Finally, Roderich’s retainer Dyfnwal, the gentle giant who Melangall loves, realises that unless he does something tp straighten matters out, the country will sink further into ruin.
AD 575 – a shipwrecked band of Romans are escorting the reluctant widow called Hennini to her destination beyond Hadrian’s wall, where she must marry the mercenary chieftain Cathen. While crossing Hadrian’s wall the Roman’s are violently attacked by a roving ban of Angle soldiers.
Meanwhile Fingal has fallen on hard times. He is so poor that he cannot afford oxen to pull his plough, so when he finds the stranger Domal offering him money to search for the abducted bride, Hennini, Fingal accepts the challenge. However, Cathen is an ugly money grubber who has fought with Fingal before, and they are uneasy partners as they work together to defeat the abductor, Aedgar, chief of the angle band, who they see as the common enemy.
While searching the countryside Fingal and Domal come on the shipwrecked Greek monk Regulus, who is also searching for Hennini because she has his precious lost cargo of the bones of St Andrew, the first Apostle of Christ. Regulus, Fingal and Domal go together to seek out Hennini, whose value has increased because she has the bones. Now they are involved in a cat and mouse chase to get the bones before the Angles seize them. Fingal is frustrated by the Picts who end up with the bones, but they grudgingly return them to him because they would rather see him win than the Angles. In the end the bones are settled in Scotland with saint Mungo.
