The summer of 1276 at Tyndal Priory is passing peacefully until a villager's corpse is found floating in the millpond. The murder victim, a newcomer, was greatly disliked in Tyndal. Yet no villager wants to see one of their own hanged for the deed. Fingers quickly point to a trio of Jewish refugees—husband, mother-in-law, and very pregnant wife—forced to take shelter while relocating under the provisions of King Edward's Statute of the Jewry. Riots loom; threats against the Jews mount. Eleanor and Ralf have little time to gather evidence before popular opinion rules the murder solved. But when the prioress' maid Gytha joins the suspect list, the inquiry takes an even more troubling turn. Murder investigations are always grim, but this one grows as ominous as a North Sea storm....