This is book 16 of the "Brother Cadfael" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Three Cadfael short-stories, from before he joins the abbey. They seem to date back to early in the writing of the series, though I hadn't encountered them until I saw this book (1979, 1981, 1985). They all feel strongly like the books, though; she seems to have had Cadfael figured out from the beginning. (Of course this isn't an early writing project in her career.)

The book is illustrated with color plates, in a somewhat annoying pseudo-medieval style. Since I haven't studied the real thing systematically, maybe I'm off base; but what I see in many of them is modern perspective rendering of the architectural details surrounding the figures, and then a very stylized rendering of the human figures. Although there's one where a tile floor is rendered as if seen straight from above.