Ashes to Ashes

Hugh, a medieval surgeon in Bampton, and his wife Kate and their children go to the Midsummer's Eve bonfire. The next morning, the sound of the passing bell from St. Beornwald's church pulls Hugh away from home and calls him to an urgent matter. Farm workers gathering ash to spread on their fields have uncovered charred human bones. Meanwhile, several men from Bampton and the surrounding villages have vanished in recent days. Most are found again, some alive and some dead. Hugh eventually establishes that the remains belong to a bailiff from a nearby manor, a man someone killed and then burned to hide the crime.

Bailiffs were rarely liked. They set the labour that tenants owed, gathered rents, and held people to their feudal duties, so many peasants had reason to resent them. Hugh asks whether an angry tenant committed the killing, but he soon finds that this explanation does not hold. The true motive lies elsewhere.

The story is set in the English countryside during the Middle Ages, where village life, manor obligations and local rivalries shape the investigation. It suits readers who enjoy a detective story rooted in its historical setting.