The Pilgrim of Hate Author:Ellis Peters Tenth mystery in Peter's remarkable series of medieval suspense novels featuring tghe incomparable Benedictine monk/sleuth Brother Cadfael, tghe author skillfully weaves the strands of three separate but equally compelling stories into a single drama of unusual hue and complexity of design. — It is A.D. 1141 a year that brings a tide of pilgrims ... more »to the Benedictine Abby at Shrewsbury. The occasion is a joyous one - a celebration in honor of St Winifred, whose sacred relics were transferred to the abbey from Wales four years earlier. Having had more than a little to do with that adventure, Brother Cadfael now casts a bemused but fond eye upon the cast of beggars, supplicants, crooks, cripples, and good plain folk who now congregated at the shrine of St Winifred in the hope of miraculous cures.
Meanwhile, far away in embattled Winchester, a knight, supporter of the Empress Maud (who campaigned against Stephen for the throne of England), is mysteriously murdered. But this seemingly disparate event, Cadfael begins to suspect, may be connected to the arrival at the shrine of a pair of pilgrims: a young man who has walked for many miles barefoot and in great pain, and his companion, another youth who appears to be his protector. That the two are bound to each other with an unusual and insettling intensity is obvious, but are they also bound to the murder in Winchester?
As Cadfael ponders these mysteries, St Winifred takes a hand in the game with a miraculous cure. And love blooms between two young pilgrims, one of whom may be the murderer.
With all the perspicacity and good humor we have come to admire and expect of Brother Cadfael, he goes about the business of unraveling the sticky skein of suspects and motives, hunches and clues, to solve the mystery of one tragedy and to prevent another.« less