Autumn 1372. Edward, the Black Prince summons Hugh de Singleton to Kennington Palace because the illness Hugh treated during the French campaign has returned. While Hugh is in the prince’s household, Sir Giles—the knight who escorted him to London—collapses at dinner and dies from poison. Giles is widely disliked, yet Prince Edward remembers that he stood firm beside him at Crécy and insists that the death be investigated. Hugh must therefore find a murderer among people for whom the victim’s past service matters less than his more recent enemies.
The novel shifts the series into royal London under Edward III. Kennington Palace, courtly obligation and the memory of the Hundred Years’ War shape the investigation, while Hugh’s access depends upon the Black Prince’s personal favour. Sir Giles’s reputation reaches back to the Battle of Crécy in 1346, linking an intimate poisoning to the heroic military memory on which aristocratic status could rest. Hugh again has to reconcile medical evidence with a social hierarchy in which honour and patronage carry legal weight.
