Content
“It is AD 1400 in the old principality, inland by a few miles from the Bay of Souls. Human life in that year was of a different order of absurdity. The way humans lived it in those tenebrous days, life was short and depraved by warfare, despair and plague. If a man died in his bed after fifty or so years, demeaned by heartache and superstition, he could count himself fortunate. If a woman avoided her demise in childbirth, or her children exceeded one year of life on the planet, her span could also be considered propitious. Cruelty, hatred, stumps for hands and legs were as common as twenty-first century fish suppers after a fun day at the seaside. So, reader, you have been warned! What follows is not a tale for the lily-livered, and yet morbid fascination will surely lead you on. There are no punches pulled, no strangleholds barred, no last-minute reprieve from the executioner’s axe. The head will be clumsily hacked off before your eyes—and so ineptly that the drunken axeman will have to use his knife to sever the last sinews still roping the head to the neck while the heart beats.”