Bampton, autumn 1367. A badly beaten chapman is discovered beneath the porch of St Andrew’s Chapel and dies before he can explain who attacked him. When an old, corroded coin is found in his mouth, Hugh de Singleton suspects that the object is more than a curiosity. His search for the dead merchant’s assailants leads through travelling trade, robbery and the influence of men wealthy enough to obstruct an inconvenient enquiry. Hugh’s old enemy Sir Simon Trillowe is among those who complicate the case.
The mystery draws on the mobile economy of late medieval England. Chapmen carried modest goods between communities, monasteries controlled land and resources, and coins could pass far beyond the circumstances in which they were struck. Hugh’s investigation also involves a kidnapped young woman, an overbearing abbot and a suffering monk who needs his surgical skill. These strands place crime, commerce, monastic authority and medicine within the everyday pressures of Edward III’s England rather than treating the medieval setting as decorative background.
