This is book 8 of the "Brother Cadfael" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

The eighth Brother Cadfael novel. A British edition, with a very nice all-text cover based on illumniated manuscript.

A tale of a twisted family, and of political intrigue.

It's not enough that King Stephen and the Empress Maude are fighting over who rules England; a couple of Earls set themselves up as independent kins too. And young and ambituous men are won to their cause by promise of promotion.

And so a messenger of the Bishop of Winchester is murdered. Then we have a brief farce where a series of people find somebody disposing of the body, and believe that person to have committed the murder, and take over the task to protect the person. Which we finally learn of towards the end, when we're unwinding all the false beliefs people have picked up.