In the summer of 1358, Matthew Bartholomew joins commissioners sent to Peterborough after its unpopular abbot disappears. Behind the monastery's imposing façade, competing factions are already manoeuvring for control and several people have reason to prevent the abbot's return.
The town is equally divided, especially over profitable shrines and the relics that attract pilgrims. A murder at the grave of a condemned criminal now venerated as a miracle worker draws Bartholomew and Brother Michael into the struggle, where religious devotion, commercial interest and monastic ambition are inseparable.