With the death of his grandmother, Lovel was alone in the world; and because he was misshapen and crooked, and had lived with his grandmother—she who had possessed the Wisecraft, the old skills with medicinal herbs and simples—he was feared in the village.  So that when a cow fell ill, it was inevitable that Lovel—the 'witch's brat'—should be found responsible.  Driven from the village, Lovel found refuge in the great abbey at New Minster, doing all the odd jobs nobody else wanted to do.  Until one day a great visitor, Rahere, the King's jongleur, stayed at the abbey and struck a bargain with Lovel...

Set in Norman England, in the early twelfth century, Rosemary Sutcliff's new book describes how, years later, Lovel set out for London to carry out that bargain—to help Rahere build the great hospital and priory of St. Bartholomew's—and how by tending London's sick and poor, he came to terms with his own deformity.

From the dust jacket of the British edition