Hannah Verde and her father are Jews who have escaped the Spanish Inquisition by moving to England where her father sets up his printing business. There she meets Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, who introduces her to the court of King Edward VI as a "holy" fool, because Hannah can sometimes foretell the future. She stays at court after Edward dies to serve Queen Mary I and at the same time is also accepted by her half-sister, Elizabeth. Hannah soon finds her loyalties divided and she is at the center of the intrigue to replace the Catholic Queen Mary with the Protestant Princess Elizabeth.
