During the plague year of 1358, Heron, a French student, decides to walk to the sea and then to seek passage to England. His journey symbolizes freedom, as he turns his back on both the ruling oligarchy and the peasant armies forming all over Europe. He travels through a chaotic wasteland, where armies clash for unknown reasons, where the barren countryside is plagued by robbers and warlords. He meets death, destruction, and famine before finally finding Claudia, the daughter of a medieval lord. Heron's quest, stemming from a desire to create an ideal world out of a violently cruel one, leads him through despair and danger, before delivering him to love. Originally published in 1961, A Walk with Love and Death was the third novel by Hans Koning (Koningsberger) and was directed as a film by John Huston in 1969.