A Map of Lost Things

1196. King Richard is at war in Normandy, England is ruled by a Justiciar, and the King's own coroner rides circuit with a writ that outranks sheriff and bishop alike.Sybil Longford is the King's Inquest's chief coroner — a woman who reads a death scene the way a clerk reads a tally: the water-stain that does not match the story, the second kind of ash on a sleeve, the seal-ring dent in a wax that was never meant to be opened.In the cathedral city of Melcombe, four churchmen die in a month, each death looking different, until Sybil sees the one thing all four share: a detail that should not be there. The trail leads to a ten-year-old kiss, a sealed map hidden in a reliquary, and a lost royal demesne that could shake the succession itself.She believes in truth. She also believes in soup that is still hot. Both will be tested before the week is out — the Justiciar's writ gives her six days.A medieval mystery in three volumes: the cloister, the court, the orphanage.