Kay is an orphan seeking to better his lot, whose rise is aided by a glib facility with words and a prudent distrust of his fellow men and hampered by a soft heart and his own temper.

Apprenticed to a scrivener, he loses his position through a tavern brawl; later, he fortuitously acquires a knowledge of buried treasure, whose location he trades to Prince John in return for preferment.

Margaret Wallace, reviewing the novel for the New York Times, called it "a more than usually mature story" for its genre, "full-blooded and thoughtful" and "as exciting and filled with adventure as anything ever conceived by Sir Walter Scott ."

She noted that the author did not share the "illusions concerning the romantic glamour of the Middle Ages" common to such stories, and so, unlike most, it was not suitable for children.

[1] Kirkus Reviews notes that the book, "[t]hough less idealistic and romantic in handling, ... might appeal to the Jeffery Farnol market.