On the road towards Oxford, Hugh de Singleton notices crows feeding beneath an oak and discovers the body of a young Benedictine novice. The lad has been missing from a nearby abbey for four days, yet the corpse is disturbingly fresh and bears a stab wound in the back. Plague has been reported in the district, but disease cannot explain the killing. The abbot asks Hugh to investigate, placing him inside a closed religious community where obedience, discipline and private loyalties make straightforward questioning difficult.
The case centres on the practical world of a medieval monastery: novices under authority, movement between abbey and countryside, fears of epidemic disease and the legal independence enjoyed by powerful religious houses. Hugh must balance respect for ecclesiastical hierarchy with his habit of testing claims against physical evidence. The title’s “agreement” becomes part of a mystery about what institutions promise, conceal and demand, while the broader setting remains the Oxfordshire world of Edward III’s later reign.
