In a summer dawn of 1583, after months of waiting on the island Macao, Father Matteo Ricci set foot at last on the mainland of China—that vast, forbidding country which had refused countless Westerners before him. Dressed in Buddhist robes so as not to offend the Chinese, and with his servant, the homeless, nameless boy he had found starving in Macao, Matteo Ricci journeyed to Siuching. There the Emperor Wang P'an, curious to see for himself this foreign priest with his famous collection of clocks and astrolabes, had granted Ricci land for his mission.

Despite the Emperor's protection, Father Ricci faced suspicion and finally outright threats to his work, and in his loneliness he turned to the eager, devoted boy who served him. But Ricci never learned of the bond that was growing between his servant and Jade, the Emperor's niece—until the night the boy was reluctantly drawn into an adventure with her which threatened the life of the mission and the master he loved.

Madeleine Polland tells this moving story with its unforgettable climax and a brilliant and varied tapestry of life in sixteenth-century China.

From the dust jacket