Former crusader turned bone-pedlar Richard Straccan is up to his neck in trouble. The woman he loves has been accused of sorcery and is in mortal danger, but he cannot go to her. Nor can he abandon the stranger found unconscious in the street. He has lost his memory, so how can he defend himself against the charge of murder at a trial in which the only other witness is the corpse? Then there is the King, whose demands will lead Straccan into still greater peril. Straccan is trying to track down the Pendragon Banner, a priceless relic sewn by Guinevere for King Arthur, but it has been lost for seven hundred years. The trail is long cold, and there is opposition at every turn. For, hard on Straccan's heels is the brutal Breos, whose deadly secret Straccan accidentally stumbles on ...

This is Sylvian Hamilton's third novel featuring the exploits of Sir Richard Straccan, ex-Crusader and dealer in holy relics. At the end of The Pendragon Banner, Straccan had lost the woman he loved - captured by his enemies, now being held God-knows where. His first task in The Gleemaiden is to find her. His second, to escort the great bell, Gaudete, to its resting place in Durham. His third to save from her enemies the Gleemaiden of the title and the mysterious child she protects.

'In the crypt of the abbey church at Hallowdene, the monks were boiling their bishop...' This novel begins with monks but this is not the world of Brother Cadfael. This is the world of medieval quest, of castles, journeys, chance encounters with beggars and spies, of violent killings, and sometimes of unimaginable cruelty. It also a world deeply enmeshed with the supernatural, in which the holy remnants of saints - the finger of St Thomas, the tooth of St Ursula - may be a matter of life and death. It is against this background, peopled with monks, witches, children, mountebanks, women good and evil, and knights Templar or otherwise, that Sir Richard Straccan's first adventure as bone-pedlar extraordinaire takes place. Central to it all is the kidnap of his beloved little daughter, Gilla, brought up by nuns since the death of his wife.