December 1211. After thirty years as abbot of Saint Edmund's, Samson is dying. Before he takes his last breath, however, he calls Brother Walter to his bedside in order to recite the tale of the Green Children of Woolpit. This is a well-known local legend about two children who were found wandering in a Suffolk field half a century earlier. Samson also reveals he has recently been visited by a mysterious woman who claims a murder is about to take...