Tom, Mia, and Oliver are the victims of a gang of bullies, who waylay them on the way home from school. It's not at school, so the teachers wouldn't be able to help, and they don't want to tell their parents, so there's only one option: to pay up. At first. But as the pressure builds more and more, a terrible suspicion begins to surface: could one of the three friends be helping the bullies? And if so, just who is...the traitor?
Shrewsbury, 1139. The bloody civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud has swept through the country towards the rural security of Brother Cadfael’s monastery. The citizens of Worcester have fled, among them two orphaned children of noble stock, together with their tutor, a young nun. A Benedictine monk in whose care Lady Ermina...