Whose was the hand that poisoned Godfrey Bowyer? Bradecote and Catchpoll are on the trail of the killer.
January, 1145. Godfrey Bowyer, the best but least likeable bow maker in Worcester, dies an agonising death by poisoning. Although similarly struck down after the same meal, his wife Blanche survives. The number of people who could have administered the poison should mean a very short investigation for the Sheriff's men, Hugh Bradecote, Serjeant Catchpoll and Underserjeant Walkelin, but perhaps someone was pulling the strings, and that widens the net considerably. Could it be the cast-out younger brother or perhaps Orderic the Bailiff, whose wife may have had to endure Godfrey's attentions? Could it even be the wife herself?
With Bradecote eager to return to his manor and worried about his wife's impending confinement, and Walkelin trying to get his mother to accept his choice of bride, there are distractions aplenty, though Serjeant Catchpoll will not let them get in the way of solving this case.
August 1144. Osbern de Lench is known far and wide as a hard master, whose temper is perpetually frayed. After his daily ride to survey his land, his horse returns to the hall riderless, and the lifeless body of the lord is found soon after.
Was it the work of thieves, or something closer to home? With an heir who is cast in the same hot-tempered mould, sworn enemies for neighbours and something amiss in the relationship between Osbern and his wife, undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, the wily Serjeant Catchpoll and apprentice Walkelin have suspects aplenty.
July 1144. Ricolde, 'the finest whore in Worcester', is found butchered on an island a few miles up the River Severn. How did she get there, who killed her, and why? Uncovering details of her life and her past reveal a woman with hidden depths and hidden miseries which are fundamental to the answers, but time has cast a thick veil over the killer's identity. The lord Sheriff's men have a trail that went cold over two decades ago, and evidence that contradicts itself. In a place Catchpoll knows inside out, he finds things new even to him, and then the case becomes personal.
June 1144. When the naked corpse of an unknown man is discovered and the Prince of Powys's messenger fails to reach Earl Robert of Gloucester, Bradecote, Catchpoll and Walkelin head to Wales to confirm his identity, and piece together evidence that the dead man deserved a noose rather than a dagger. Retracing his steps leads them to a manor with a sarcastic lord, a neglected wife, a bitter mother and a fevered brother, all amidst folk who do not want the truth uncovered. The lord sheriff's men have to unravel a knot where the law and justice seem to be in opposition.
January 1144. Hugh Bradecote does not want his betrothed heading off on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Eadgyth at Polesworth, but the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy and his entourage of monks seem Heaven sent as escorts, right up until they are captured by a renegade who wants his forger out of the lord Sheriff's cells; a renegade who loathes the Benedictines, and kills for pleasure. Against a backdrop of a hard winter and even a frozen River Severn, Bradecote and Catchpoll are struggling to rescue the clerics, and Christina, before a psychopath does his worst, the lord Sheriff loses patience, and Bradecote cracks under the pressure.
October 1143. A mysterious archer who kills cleanly and 'dissolves' into the forest, a missing train of pack mules on the salt road from Wich, and a lord in the wrong place at the wrong time, mean a crime the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire cannot ignore. Bradecote, Catchpoll, and the eager Walkelin, are hunting a killer and a gang, and whoever is giving them orders. They are not helped by a reeve keen to keep his position, a lord with his own ends to serve, and a distrusting and vengeful widow with a haunted past, to whom Bradecote is increasingly attracted.
The much-feared and hated Eudo – the Lord Bishop of Winchester's clerk – is bludgeoned to death in Pershore Abbey and laid before the altar in the attitude of a penitent. Everyone who had contact with him had reason to dislike him, but who had reason to kill him? The Sheriff of Worcestershire's thief taker, wily Serjeant Catchpoll, and his new and unwanted superior, Undersheriff Hugh Bradecote, have to find the answer. And as the claustrophobic walls of the Abbey close in on the suspects, the killer strikes again…
