Geoffrey de Montbrai Bishop in Arms

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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.</span></p>