Sondwic, Kent, 997 AD
Sondwic, Kent, 997 ADTired but spiritually exalted, Folcwin rode through the sparkling early-morning marshland northwards to Sondwic. A strange new state of mind occupied him, given he was renouncing his vows, tending to make him ignore his surroundings and lose himself in thought. Would she, wouldn’t she? He tormented himself with the previously unimagined possibility of Imelda leaving the abbey to become his bride. A crumb of hope she had offered him and, like a hungry sparrow he had swooped on it. Yet, realistically, would she leave? Sadly for him, only time would tell; hadn’t she encouraged him to be a warrior—and only then to return? Throwing himself into this new phase of his life to the exclusion of everything and everyone else, including his beloved, had to b
