A Play of Piety

Te player Joliffe assumes many roles on stage, to the delight of those he entertains. Now, in the company of a troupe of traveling performers, he finds himself cast in the role of sleuth...

In harvest time of 1436, the troupe's leader has fallen ill, leaving his players to find what work they can while he recovers in a charity hospital. Working in the hospital, Joliffe unfortunately has to deal not only with patients but with domineering Mistress Cisily Thorncoffyn, a widow taking advantage of her family's donations to the hospital to make a drawn-out visit. Expecting to be endlessly waited on for her mostly imaginary ailments, she soon has too many people wanting her gone—one way or the other.

But she is not the first to die. Nor the second. Only when a third victim is poisoned does Mistress Thorncoffyn begin to loudly insist the fatal dose was meant for her. With so many suspects wishing her ill—if not outright dead Joliffehas no choice but to find out whose anger has turned to murderous hatred and whether, having missed their target, they mean to try again...