Historical novel, first of a trilogy, set in south-east Wiltshire in 1633. Robert Penny, a twice-widowed father, returns to the parish of his birth with his eleven-year-old son Samuel. Struggling to find food for the table, Robert quickly becomes burdened with the unpaid duties of Parish Waywarden inheriting a legal responsibility to survey and maintain the parish highways or answer to the Justices. As he commences this onerous task, he discovers a young woman's body in a highway ditch. Whilst Robert Penny tries to rebuild his family reputation and regain the pew in church, will he instead be charged with the murder of this stranger to the parish?