Alan, the beadle of Bampton, vanishes after setting out at dusk to enforce the manor curfew. Two days later his mutilated body is found beside the track to St Andrew’s Chapel, his throat torn open and his face and hands deeply scratched. The coroner proposes a wolf attack, but Hugh de Singleton is troubled by details that do not fit, especially the lack of blood at the scene. As bailiff as well as surgeon, Hugh must discover whether Alan was killed where he lay and why someone might have wanted the unpopular official dead.
The case develops within the tightly regulated life of a fourteenth-century manor, where curfew, tithes, church discipline and the duties of local officers affect ordinary villagers every day. Hugh’s medical experience lets him challenge a plausible but convenient explanation and treat the corpse as evidence rather than merely as the end of a life. The investigation also deepens the recurring tension between official authority and local resentment that runs through the Chronicles during the reign of Edward III.
