A magus, a warlock, a man who never grew old or died. No, no, my wits aren't wandering. Agrippa, with his cherubic face and soulless eyes, lived and lurked in the shadow of Wolsey; yet I have met those who will swear on oath that Agrippa was with Richard III at Bosworth Field. According to these old men, Agrippa advised that cruel prince to make the dreadful charge which ensnared him in a marsh, and so Richard lost his life, his crown and the kingdom. And there are others, even as I am now past my ninetieth year, who have made their way to Burpham Manor to tell me how they met Agrippa in the dark green woods of Virginia outside Jamestown, in the sun-scorched streets of Constantinople, or even in the snowy, icy wastes outside Moscow. They always tell the same tale: dressed in black, Agrippa hadn't grown a day older than when I knew him in those blood-drenched days of Henry VIII.

Agrippa would come, but on those evenings when I found the stables empty and my master waiting alone for me in the hall, ‘I’d heave a sigh of relief. Tonight, at least, ‘I’d sleep the sleep of the just. We would sup and I would listen to Benjamin chatter about his school, though keeping one eye on a young, buxom chambermaid who, when she served my meal, dipped her generous bosom to show both her glories.

Oh, I confess, our life at our manor was a veritable Eden, but every paradise has its serpent. Eventually ours appeared in the shape of a plump, well-fed matron, Isabella Poppleton. Goodwoman Poppleton and her sneering sons lived on the other side of the valley and deeply resented my master's good fortune. The sons were bloated bags of wind, but Isabella was a veritable viper in petticoats. If she had bitten an adder it would have died of poisoning. She had a tongue which would clip a hedge and could shovel dirt faster than a gravedigger. Her tongue was a sharpened sword and she made sure it never went rusty. I called her, the 'Great Mouth'.

Trouble first appeared one Sunday morning as Benjamin and I left Mass.