A wealthy landowner is poisoned while staying at the abbey, and when Brother Cadfael is called upon to identify the poison, he is shocked to discover the victim's wife is his own childhood sweetheart.

Brother Cadfael finds himself caught in the crossfires of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud, and when he's called upon to bury 94 rebel soldiers and finds one corpse too many, it sets him on a murder trail.