A Gift of Sanctuary

The Owen Archer Series #6
Through the wet spring of 1369 Owen Archer and Geoffrey Chaucer while carrying out a mission for the Duke of Lancaster in Wales are also escorting Owen’s father-in-law and the archbishop’s secretary on a pilgrimage to the sacred city of St. David’s.
England and France are at war, and the southern coast of Wales is vulnerable to invasion – Owen and Geoffrey are to recruit archers for the duke’s army and inspect his Welsh fortifications on the coast, while quietly investigating whether the duke’s steward at Cydweli Castle is involved in a French plot to incite rebellion in Wales.
But trouble precedes them in the cathedral city of St. David’s. On Whitesands Beach beyond the city a young man is beaten and left for dead, then spirited away by a Welsh bard. Shortly afterward a corpse clothed in the livery of the Duke of Lancaster is left at the city gate, his shoes filled with white sand. Meanwhile, at Cydweli Castle, a chain of events begun by the theft of money from the castle’s exchequer ends in a violent death of the priest and the disappearance of the steward’s beautiful young wife. Owen and Geoffrey begin to see connections linking the troubles in city and castle, and learn they must unravel the complex story of betrayed love and political ambition to prevent more deaths.