"A Gathering of Ghosts" is set in Fourteenth Century Dartmoor when Europe was engulfed in a famine brought on by months of wet weather which ruined harvests and drove up the price of food. For the poor, in an era well before the advent of the Welfare State, the only relief came from the Church - often through its monasteries and Priories. The Priory of St, Mary’s, under the leadership of the Sisters of the Knights of St. John, provided charity for the poor and hospitality to travellers on the Moors. It had also become a place of Pilgrimage with its holy well dedicated to the healing powers of St. Lucia.
But the well had not always belonged to St. Lucia, previously it had been known to the locals as Brigid’s Spring and whilst the Moor folk accept charity from the Priory, many keep to their old ways and turn to the old religion - especially when things go wrong. The sudden arrival of a blind and dumb child who appears to have been abandoned at the Priory is the catalyst for a series of catastrophic events.
Meanwhile, two men arrive from the Lord Prior of the Knights of St John and the Priory finds itself in the middle of events it cannot control which threaten it.