A Safe Conduct is set in a decaying German principality, on the brink of the Reformation and when Renaissance ideas are filtering through to a governing class still largely medieval. The Graf, in his Castle, is entrusted with political and social responsibilities; but it is an age in which new beliefs and codes are sweeping the land. Suspected of wife murder and apparently bereft of emotion, he is now harassed by an historical accident: a Children's Revolt. Nominally led by a witless, outcast shepherd boy, but manipulated for his own chilling motives by a handsome young youth, the young rebels swiftly attract an influx of bandits, refugees, dissidents and desperadoes.