Commemorative procession celebrating the eighth centenary of the inbreak of Lisbon from the Moors in 1147 by the forces of D. Afonso Henriques with the help of the Crusaders en route to the Holy Land.
Stevie Carson, a newspaper reporter, and Danny Butler, the "morgue" manager on the same newspaper, set out to track down the killer of a colleague, a book-reviewer who was involved with a group of rare book forgers and whose sister has been convinced her editor-fiance, Bill Monroe, killed him.
A virtuous Spanish princess becomes queen of Portugal, and soon is affected by the social struggles and the reckless fight to power between the king's faction and that of his son's.