Geoffrey de Montbrai, Bishop in Arms

Geoffrey de Montbrai, second son of a poor knight of Western Normandy, is waiting for his brother to provide his share of their late father's fortune as he reaches the age of twenty-one. He is looking forward to a career of adventure and fortune in the rising Duchy of Normandy which the young Duke William is building, and to winning the hand of the lady Sybil, youngest daughter of a neighbouring knight, Sir Tancred of Hauteville. He is baffled, horrified, and infuriated to discover that brother Mauger has used the money to buy him a bishopric.

There is no way out. A Church Council confirms the appointment, and in any case Duke William is not going to give him his money back; he needs it too badly.

Worse still, Coutances, his new bishopric, lies at the Western edge of Normandy; there is nothing beyond it but the Great Western Ocean which goes on for ever.

With the stamp of a single seal on wax, brother Mauger has taken away his fortune, his career, and his future wife (the Pope has just forbidden clerical marriage). All he has left is a ghost of a town (after the Viking raids) and a ruin of a cathedral - at the end of all the world.