Cadfael’s best assistant, Brother Mark, has been reassigned to care for the leper colony outside Shrewsbury, so Cadfael has been struggling along trying to train his new assistant, Brother Oswin, who is willing but all thumbs. In any case, even the lepers are enthralled by the upcoming event at the abbey, the marriage of Huon de Domville and Iveta de Massard.
Cadfael is just as interested to watch the principals arrive the day before the wedding as anyone else. He is surprised to see that Huon de Domville is nearly 60 years old and looks hard and dominating. Iveta de Massard’s guardians, the Picards, seem calculating and shrewd, but Iveta herself is beautiful, very young, and looks as innocent as a child. The watching monks and lepers feel sorry for her.
A little later, Cadfael interrupts a meeting between Iveta and Joscelin Lucy, a young squire in Domville’s service. They are in love, and Joscelin is trying to convince her to run off with him. After Agnes Picard removes Iveta, Joscelin tells Cadfael that Iveta is the granddaughter of the famous knight Guimar de Massard, who was captured during the Crusades and died but was so revered by his captors that he was buried by them with honors. However, she was left an orphan, and her guardians have been milking her estate and are marrying her off to the highest bidder.
Later, Domville accuses Joscelin of theft and produces a necklace from his saddlebag. Joscelin escapes the sheriff’s men and is hidden by his fellow squire Simon. However, later he creeps away from where Simon has hidden him and is helped by a tall old leper to hide in the leper colony.
In the evening, Domville goes off on his horse and fails to return for the wedding. He is found strangled. Cadfael finds a rare plant in his hat, one that grows only a few places in Wales, and asks permission of his abbott to try to find where Domville went. Of course, everyone assumes he was killed by Joscelin, and the hunt is on.
The plot of this novel seemed awfully familiar to me, similar to that of both Monk’s Hood and One Corpse Too Many, in which an innocent young man is being framed. Further, the story didn’t have very many secrets for me, and especially I spotted a secret identity as soon as the person was mentioned. I also knew who the person framing Joscelin was.
One facet that I have found interesting in this series so far is the historical background of the war between King Stephen and Queen Maud, but nothing much is going on during this period. This is all to say that I’m willing to continue this series, but this is the first book in it that has disappointed me a little.
What? Me Read? 