And so Owen Archer finds himself heading a deputation from York to Fountains Abbey, to win support for Wykeham from the powerful abbots of the Cistercian order. Ignoring the advice of his apothecary wife Lucie, he chooses his old comrade Ned Townley to lead the fellow company to Rievaulx. There has been a mysterious drowning at Windsor, and Ned travels under suspicion of murder; Owen hopes to prove his innocence.
His trust is quickly betrayed when trouble erupts in Ned's party only days out of York and first a friar, then Ned himself vanish, jeopardizing the entire mission. The cause: another death at Windsor, this time in the household of Alice Perrers, the King's cunning and ambitious mistress.
So far from what seems to be the root of the trouble, Owen must rely on John Thoresby, at Windsor in his role as Lord Chancellor, to discover more. Initially pleased to have the chance to lock horns with his old enemy Alice Perrers, Thoresby soon regrets his involvement as he realises quite how dangerous it might be ...
© William Heinemann 1996