The Patriotic Knights

1903: Mary Mackenzie makes an epic journey to Manchuria to wed her dashing fiance Richard Collingsworth. But the region is on the brink of war, and Mary's life proves very different from what she imagined.

1938: Robert Oppenheimer's life is changed by the discovery of nuclear fission and the appearance of Kitty Harrison.

A new start in Yonville coincides with the discovery that Emma is pregnant and the introduction of Léon Dupuis, a handsome and passionate law student who quickly becomes Emma's close companion and confidant.

1943: Oppenheimer is director of Los Alamos, but his past Communist associations alert the FBI.

Emma continues a double life of extreme contrasts: stolen time spent with her lover Rodolphe and writing to or dreaming about him, the counterpoint to domesticity. Charles' love for Emma renders him oblivious to her faults and his pride obliges him to indulge her naïveté in frivolities beyond their means. The Draper, Lheureux, supplier of these luxuries, increases profits by luring customers into his web of usury. As Emma's spending expands into expensive presents for her lover, Lheureux's debts mount.

On his father's instructions, Mary's son has been abducted.

Helmer goes to Haiti which angers his gun-wielding girlfriend, Judith may be pregnant with a ghost, Mrs Drusse reburies Mary's remains but her troubles are only just beginning, and Operation Morning Breeze turns into a farcical disaster.

May 1945: The European war is over but the war with Japan continues. Oppenheimer discusses the use of the almost completed atomic bomb with the secretary of War. His colleagues have misgivings.

1879-1883: Arturo Prat's life, the War of the Pacific, and the battle that made him a hero for the nation, at his life's cost.