Fourteenth century physician Alejandro Canches, caught performing a forbidden autopsy in his Spanish homeland, flees through Europe at the time of the Black Death to escape execution. But when he arrives in the Papal city of Avignon, he is conscripted to serve as a Plague Doctor, and sent against his wishes to the court of England's Edward III.

Unfolding in a dramatic counterpoint is the story of American medical archaeologist Janie Crowe, in England at the turn of the twenty-first century to recover from the tragic loss of her family. She digs up a medieval artifact as part of her research, and unwittingly releases a deadly plague bacteria on an unprepared world.

In a future where antibiotics are useless and a past where death is an everpresent fear, these two unwilling heroes are linked by history and defined by circumstance. Here are their stories -- the plague tales.