The Leper of Saint Giles (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #5), Ellis Peters. New York: Mysterious Press/Open Road Media, 2014 (Originally published in 1981).

Summary: A wedding arranged between two landed families between a powerful old baron and an orphaned girl in charge of her avaricious uncle and aunt fails to happen when the groom doesn’t show because he lies murdered along a trail.

The abbey in Shrewsbury is to be the site of a wedding representing two landed households. Baron Huon de Domville is a cruel, overweight man of sixty, as evident in his treatment of the poor and the lepers watching the procession. His bride, just turned eighteen, is Iveta de Massard, orphaned as a child and raised by an aunt and uncle, the Picards, who stand to gain from the lands her father held as part of the marriage bargain. Needless to say, they are protective of their “investment.”

They have reason. The beautiful girl has inspired the love of one of Domville’s squires, Joscelin Lucy, the son of another landowner. The couple arranges a tryst in Cadfael’s workshop. He stumbles upon them, to be followed shortly by the aunt, Agnes. He tries to cover for them but Agnes knows. She tells Domville who sends Joscelin packing. Before he departs, Domville discovers a necklace missing that he was going to give Iveta. It is found in Joscelin’s bundle. Though he claims innocence, he is arrested by the sheriff, but escapes. He eludes a manhunt, sheltered first by another squire, Simon, and then after near capture, in the leper colony of Saint Giles, helped by a mysterious leper, Lazarus, and a boy, who provides him with the leper’s garb.

Meanwhile, the wedding goes forward. In an interview with Abbot Radulfus, Iveta asserts that she is freely entering this bond, although Cadfael and Radulfus have their doubts. The bride is at the altar, but no groom. They learn that the previous evening, Domville had ridden out of the Abbey with Simon for a ways sending him back so he can go on for a ride down a forest path. A search party including Cadfael finds him sprawled out–dead. Someone had strung a cord across the path, and then when he was stunned and unhorsed, strangled him.

Given that Joscelin was openly at enmity with the Baron, and still at large, he becomes prime suspect and object of an intensified search. And Brother Mark, now at Saint Giles, has his suspicions of the latest addition to the colony. Cadfael, trusted by the Abbot to search for the true killer is in a race against time. Will he find the true killer or at least absolve Joscelin before he is found out? The question is, where did Domville spend his last night? The one clue is rare flowers in Domville’s hat. Find the flowers, find where he stayed and see where that leads. The other clue is that the killer was wearing a ring with a large stone, that in the act of strangling left its mark on Domville’s neck. And the killer apparently knew where Domville would be.

Peters continues to develop the character of Radulfus, who can use his authority in a commanding, yet never rigid or closed fashion. A new character replaces the capable Brother Mark in Cadfael’s workshop, the bumbling but good-natured brother Oswin, clearly a trial to Cadfael’s holiness! The bond and wise counsel between the leper Lazarus and Joscelin, and their care for the near-orphan Bran is beautiful to behold and we wonder if it is to be disappointed. Finally, we see the plight of women in Iveta–rich in inheritance but powerless to control it, a pawn of others. And yet we see her act with resourcefulness within these constraints. But will it be enough to reunite her with Joscelin and will they be able to prove his innocence?