The beautiful Galena has married the much older Ambrose, but their failure to conceive makes the marriage increasingly fraught. After seeking help connected with Hawkenlye’s healing waters, Galena becomes pregnant and then falls dangerously ill, and the circumstances suggest that someone has tried to poison her.
Abbess Helewise and Sir Josse d’Acquin investigate a household in which fertility, inheritance and desire carry unusually high stakes. Medieval ideas about medicine and conception sit beside more practical questions of motive and opportunity as the pair uncover what lies beneath the apparently respectable marriage.
