Letter to Brother Albertus

The writer reports his Laslea flock in good health, though uneasy as pestilence creeps past the mountains, and eagerly awaits Albertus's valley chronicles.

Of the 1324 Saxon uprising he knows little to give: the only living witness, Esme, beheld it in childhood but has since fallen silent — and her long-ago confession rattled his faith so profoundly that prayer deserted him, until he found himself pleading for Judgement Day to close this cruel world for good. Better, he muses, that her story stay unwritten.