So, for the sake of the story, I felt justified in transferring to Cambridgeshire one of the four hundred or so shafts discovered at Grime’s Graves near Thetford in Norfolk. Even these amazing workings-the public is allowed to descend the thirty-foot ladder leading down into one of them-were not recognized for what they were until late in the nineteenth century, the depressions in the ground giving rise to the belief that they were burials, hence the name.

Last, the episcopal sees of twelfth-century England were fewer in number than today, and enormous. For a while, for instance, Cambridge came under the diocesan control of Dorchester in faraway Dorset. Therefore, the bishopric of Saint Albans is fictional.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have been particularly fortunate in the three fine editors who have guided the manuscript through to publication: Rachel Kahan of Penguin Group USA, Francesca Liversidge of Transworld UK, and David Davadar of Penguin Canada. My gratitude to them all.

As for my agent, Helen Heller, bless her, she knows how deeply indebted I am to her.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ariana Franklin, a former journalist, is a biographer and author of the novel City of Shadows. She lives in England.