When a woman's skeleton is discovered in a local potter's field, Cadfael must find the culprit before he himself is found lynch by an angry mob.

Suspicions abound when a young man turns up at Shrewsbury Abbey wanting to join as a novice and the half-burnt body of a missing cleric is found.

In the summer of 1144, a strange calm has settled over England. The armies of King Stephen & Empress Maud, the two royal cousins contending for the throne, have temporarily exhausted each other. On the whole, Brother Cadfael considers peace a blessing & agrees to accompany a friend to Wales. When Cadfael is captured by an army of Danish mercenaries, he finds himself in the midst of a brotherly quarrel that could plunge an entire kingdom into deadly...

Suspected of robbing the town goldsmith, a young juggler seeks refuge at the abbey where Brother Cadfael is given the job of keeping an eye him while the authorities investigate. But things become more complicated when the goldsmith's neighbor is found floating dead in the river.

In the sunny month of August, A.D. 1141, Brother Cadfael is presented with a double mystery set against the larger drama enacted by King Stephen and his arch-enemy, cousin, and rival claimant to the throne, the Empress Maud. In the bloody struggle for the crown, Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester and papal legate, is drawn into a contretemps that will result in a town laid waste, a nunnery burned to the ground, churches razed, and the priory of...