Path in the Dark

A bastard novice flees the cloister-and runs straight into a nest of knives. Eighteen-year-old Donald has hidden his Scots tongue and his anger at Lanercost Priory for a decade, until a brutal scourging and a secret letter expose the truth: the Bishop of St. Andrews paid to hide his own illegitimate son among the monks. With vows looming, Donald escapes into the late-winter roads and reaches Carlisle, where a single torch-lit rescue binds him to a wounded knight and a household plagued by "accidents".
In the past year, there have been two deaths, and now an alleyway ambush. Guarding the grieving lady and carrying word to the sheriff, Donald finds suspects at every turn. As rumors of Robert the Bruce's uprising swell on the northern wind and his unclaimed father schemes from a bishop's hall, Donald stumbles across the dangerous past that threatens to destroy the entire de Awnes family and puts his own life at risk .