This astonishingly erotic and ironic novel is set in vaguely medieval times, but the tone is starkly modern. A young gentleman is travelling on horseback, and stops by a river to rest and bathe. As he is lying there naked after bathing, three maidens appear and, trying to avert their gaze from the young man's many charms, they tell him the story of their recently widowed mistress, who is dying of grief. She can only be saved by a man who fulfils three conditions: he must be the son of a king, a great physician, and a virgin. Since he more or less fulfils these conditions, the young man duly goes to the castle where he saves the queen, who immediately falls in love with her saviour. But are the maidens, the queen or the prodigious physician what they seem? In this novel, nothing is certain and nothing is ever entirely over.