"In the summer of 1138, war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud takes Brother Cadfael from the quiet world of his 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: one extra victim that has been...

St. Peter's Fair was a grand event, attracting merchants from across England and beyond. With the pause in the Civil War during the summer of 1139, the fair would bring some much-needed gaiety to Shrewsbury.

But a wealthy merchant is found murdered in the river Severn. Brother Cadfael offers to help the merchant's niece, Emma; but while he searches for the killer, two more men are murdered—like her uncle, apparently for the valuables

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The winter of 1139 will disrupt Brother Cadfael's tranquil life in Shrewsbury, as raging civil war has sent refugees fleeing north from Worcester. Among them are two young orphans from a noble family and their companion, a young Benedictine nun. The trio, never reaching Shrewsbury, have disappeared somewhere in the wild countryside.

Cadfael feels afraid for these three lost lambs, but another call for help sends him to the Church of Saint Mary.

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In the year of our Lord 1141, civil war over England's throne leaves a legacy of violence—and the murder of a knight dear to Brother Cadfael. In the spring, a flood of pilgrims comes to the celebration of Saint Winifred at the Abbey, carrying with it many strange souls...and perhaps the knight's killer.

Brother Cadfael's shrewd eyes see all: the prosperous merchant who rings false; an angelic, lame boy and his beautiful, dowerless

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A despised priest is drowned in a pond in this medieval mystery filled with “lively period detail” (Kirkus Reviews).
In a mild December in the year of our Lord 1141, a new priest comes to the parishioners of the Foregate outside the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Father Ailnoth brings with him a housekeeper and her nephew—and a disposition that invites murder.
 
Brother Cadfael quickly...

The year is 1142. England is in the iron grip of civil war, and within the sheltered cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, there begins a chain of events no less momentous than the upheavals of the outside world.

First, there is the sad demise of the Lord of Eaton, whose ten-year-old son and heir, the young Richard, is a pupil at the abbey. The boy refuses to surrender his new powers to his formidable grandmother,

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