Athelney Abbey, 904 AD
Athelney Abbey, 904 ADI am an old man and can no longer hold the quill in my arthritic fingers. So, I have enlisted a young scribe, Brother Otmar, to set down my words. The youth has a keen mind and a steady hand. Also, he is of kindly disposition, only too eager to help this aged monk. All that is required is to rack my memory, for I will refer to a time more than a lifetime ago.
Gandersheim, Old Saxony, 830 AD
Gandersheim, Old Saxony, 830 ADI will try to remember my first conversation with John word for word. We lay on an ice-cold flagged floor in a dungeon, close around our ankle an iron band chained to a ring in a damp stone wall, dripping rivulets of water. Defeated, captured, I was flogged and flung into the grim depths of a Frankish castle along with eight
