Prologue
Prologue Oft have we travelled, dear reader, through realms of Lindchester gold. We have mounted up on wings like eagles and seen the gentle middle English landscape of the C of E spread out beneath us, that patchwork of fields and villages, towns and suburbia. We have noted spire and tower, industrial estate and farm, glided over hospital, cemetery, school, university, and swooped down to peer into houses, flats, tents, and sleeping bags in a shop doorways. We have seen the river Linden and its tributaries threading through everything while cathedral and church clocks have chimed the passing hours away. Latterly we hurtled through Lindfordshire like an out of control double decker, with the narrative eye little more than a horrified dashcam recording the pile-up of history as it occurred. We left our characters in the dark of March 2022 still waiting for Easter. Oh, Lindchester! Box where sweets compacted lie. I fear to lift the lid, frankly. What if you are like that margarine tub of...