Five years ago in the village of Melford, a local lord was executed for a spate of vicious murders. But now other young women have been found violated and garrotted, and the dead lord's son, Maurice, insists that a miscarriage of justice has taken place. Meanwhile, someone who believes in Sir Roger Chapeley's innocence is exacting his own kind of justice as, one by one, the leaders of the jury which sent the lord to the gibbet are brutally murdered.

Maurice Chapeley's appeal to the royal council is answered when Edward of England sends his chief clerk to Melford to discover the truth. Hugh Corbett, with his faithful servants Ranulf and Chanson, faces the difficult task of unveiling the secrets of a distrustful community tormented by murder. Seeking connections between the deaths, Corbett realises that for many years a serial killer has terrorised the villagers. But Corbett believes there could now be two killers, one preying on corrupt jurors, the other on vulnerable women, and anyone else who might stumble across his true identity...