Easter 1201. Following a treaty between King John and King Philip of France, England is at last at peace. Alas the same cannot be said for Saint Edmund’s Abbey. The pope’s new legate has arrived determined to stir up controversy. For Abbot Samson this brings the possibility of a new ally against an old enemy. But his intrigues lead to disaster with Brother Walter being placed in mortal danger and a full-scale battle in the nearby village of Lakenheath.
In the middle of all this the legate’s clerk is murdered and a London merchant is wrongly accused. In desperation the man is granted sanctuary at the abbey’s shrine, but it is only a brief respite. The whole weight of the judiciary and the church are against him.
Amid rape, religious bigotry and trial by combat Walter has to find the real murderer before a terrible injustice is done and the wrong man is hanged.
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