Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold (From: Dover Beach)

Focus On:

The Darkling Plain

Douglas R. Mason
Published by Golden Apple, Wallasey.
ISBN: 0-9536816-9-6
E-book, Ms Reader (.lit) Format

In the wasteland of thirteenth century Wirral, Wallasey, the old Island of Strangers, was a forgotten corner of a struggling kingdom. Some liked it that way. Safe, out of reach of the King's law.

A tough-minded man like Sir Guy of Barndon could run his affairs in any way he chose. If he believed that power was the only law, there was no one to make an effective argument against the proposition. Certainly, it was unlikely that a wandering scribe, who answered to the name of Edward, son of Siward, would be able to refuse to help in the latest of Sir Guy's schemes. But Edward was not what he seemed ...