Margaret sends him, along with Raimbaut and Laprada, to the rogue Union colony of Noucatharia to get to the bottom of several coincidences, including the whereabouts of a possible psypyx of Shan, and to find out who keeps trying to kill him.
An aggressive alien aintellect-run invasion overwhelmed their defenses and killed everyone not in hiding—their goal being to destructively holograph brains, deconstruct aintellects and send back those memories and experiences to their home planet to be consumed as entertainment for their dependent organic creators who had isolated themselves in virtual reality.
Raimbaut is quickly cleared of charges and Shan is eventually implanted in Margaret's brain—but Giraut is found guilty of assisting the aintellect conspiracies in escaping from Noucatharia.
The only thing left is for him to be executed to permit his public beheading to serve as a unifying story for future generations, as contact is made with the aintellect-run Union colonies.
Publishers Weekly stated: "Rich with glowing resonances of medieval Languedoc, the inspiration for Barnes's convincing Nou Occitan milieu and language, this final chorale of a long and brilliant SF symphony reprises some of his most intriguing characters".
"[2] Roland Green of Booklist called the novel "vastly underrated" and opined that it was written in a "graceful, fluid manner that considerably surpasses the level of writing in, say, most current mainstream thrillers".