The years following the Black Death were an age of uncertainty...and opportunity. Newly widowed Margaret Surteys startles the village by taking over her husband's brewery and seizing her only chance for independence despite her advanced age and the opposition of the powerful Reeve. She also takes on her abandoned step-granddaughter, who has plans of her own. As the business grows, they must battle official pressures and a mysterious string of serious mishaps at the brewery. Suspecting organized sabotage and a link to more than one death, they hatch a scheme to catch the culprit, which ends in disaster. Margaret must risk her livelihood and newfound autonomy to save the child she has come to love.