Popular local priest, Father Adam, has died, and is replaced by the strict, even heartless, Father Ailnoth. A young girl, Eleanor, comes to Cadfael asking him to give her confession. When he says he cannot, she reluctantly goes to Father Ailnoth, who refuses, and hounds her out of the church. The next day she is found drowned in the mill-stream, an apparent suicide, but so is Father Ailnoth, but his death is definitely murder. Abbot Radulfus charges Cadfael with investigating the deaths, before they reach the attention of King Stephen, in case doubts as to the town and church's loyalty to him cause unwanted attentions from his supporters, and drags Shrewsbury into the civil war. But it may already be too late.