In the summer of 1138, war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud takes Brother Cadfael from his quiet garden into a battlefield of passions, deceptions, and death. Not far from the safety of the abbey walls, Shrewsbury Castle falls, leaving its ninety-four defenders loyal to the empress to hang as traitors. With a heavy heart, Brother Cadfael agrees to bury the dead, only to make a grisly discovery: ninety-five dead bodies lie in a row--the extra victim cruelly strangled, not hanged...
From the community