The daughter of a Venetian musician, Aemilia Bassano crosses paths with an impetuous playwright named William Shakespeare and begins an impassioned but ill-fated affair. A decade later, Queen Elizabeth is dead, and Aemilia is now married to a fool. Like the rest of London, she fears the plague. And when her young son Henry takes ill, Aemilia resolves to do anything to save him, even if it means seeking help from her estranged lover, Will --- or worse, making a pact with the Devil himself.