“I feel it worst,” I responded gently, 'in my missing hand." It is my left hand that is missing and I am using the wrist's knobbly stump to steady the parchment as I write.

“All pain is a blessed reminder of our dear Lord's Passion,” the Bishop said, just as I had expected, then he leaned on the table to look at what I had written. “Tell me what the words say, Derfel,” he demanded.

“I am writing,” I lied, 'the story of the Christ-child's birth.“ He stared at the skin, then placed a dirty fingernail on his own name. He can decipher some letters and his own name must have stood out from the parchment as stark as a raven in the snow. Then he cackled like a wicked child and twisted a hank of my white hair in his fingers. ”I was not present at our Lord's birth, Derfel, yet that is my name. Are you writing heresy, you toad of hell?"

“Lord,” I said humbly as his grip kept my face bowed close over my work, “I have started the Gospel by recording that it is only by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and with the permission of His most holy saint, Sansum' and here I edged my finger toward his name 'that I am able to write down this good news of Christ Jesus.”

He tugged at my hair, pulling some free, then stepped away. “You are the spawn of a Saxon whore,” he said, 'and no Saxon could ever be trusted. Take care, Saxon, not to offend me."

“Gracious Lord,” I said to him, but he did not stay to hear more. There was a time when he bowed his knee to me and kissed my sword, but now he is a saint and I am nothing but the most miserable of sinners. And a cold sinner too, for the light beyond our walls is hollow, grey and full of threat. The first snow will fall very soon.