Yet, no man can follow where others do not lead. Dominicus of Comminges wished to travel to the northern part of the kingdom of the Angles and Saxons for it was the birthday of the father of his wife. This man was renowned for having even stranger views than his son-in-law. He claimed that the aristocracy were naturally more intelligent, by virtue of their high birth, than their commoners. While this is certainly the case for some of the most notable senatorial families of Gaul, in the case of Dominicus’ father-in-law his every utterance seemed resolutely to refute his own contention. But let that be enough of this foolish fellow. So it happened that Dominicus, his wife and their child packed their belongings into an old cart and travelled secretly up the great high road to the northern lands. Meanwhile, to disguise this violation of the Council’s decree, his wife wrote short tractates for the chronicle which is called ‘Spectator’, describing with manifold disingenuous groans the woes of their life, sheltering in their house in Londinium. This chronicle is, if anything, even more supportive of the cause of the Right Bastards than the Telegraph but owes its name to a similar cause, for its writers (of whom Boris son of John had once been the chief) can only be said to watch the doings of honest folk from outside the society of such people. Thus Dominicus came to the County of Durham and the seat of his wife’s family. Shortly afterwards it so happened that it was his wife’s birthday and to celebrate this the family set out again in their cart to somewhere called Castellum Bernardi. I do not know why they did this, although Agiulf, who has visited this place in order to look for treatises on the history of the church, told me there is a nice little café there and that the castellum itself is quite interesting if you like that sort of thing. At this I was yet again compelled to reprimand my deacon with severe words, saying that he was supposed to have gone there to look for learned sustenance for us all and for works that might instruct us about the eternal achievements of the holy, not to fill his stomach with cake and stand around gawping at the ruined works of men, even if the fourteenth-century great hall is particularly well preserved. Be all that as it may, Dominicus returned to Londinium thinking his plan had worked.

The deeds of evil men are not so easily concealed. His journey to the north somehow became known and an old man had seen him wandering about in Castellum Bernardi. So Dominicus called a conference for the chroniclers and illuminators of the realm. Such was his overweening arrogance that he held this in the rose garden of the Mayor’s house in Londonium and in so doing revealed that he was indeed the most powerful man in the land and Boris son of John merely a cipher. The chroniclers asked him why he had flaunted the laws on the land, which everyone else was enduring, whereupon the Mayor of the Mayor recounted a bizarre tale. He had felt, said he, that he was going down with the plague and so decided to undertake a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Cuthbert, which is in the city of Durham to seek a cure. This Cuthbert was a most holy recluse who had become a bishop towards the end of his life, rather like our Martin (though not as good, obviously). He had made the journey, Dominicus said, without once stopping for more fuel or to answer the call of nature for this would endanger others. This surprised many for the type of cart used by Dominicus was not fuel efficient, as they say, and no man had heard of a four-year-old able to endure a trip from Londinium to Durham without a single stop. Yet perhaps this was itself some sort of miracle. Then he said he had travelled to Castellum Bernardi because he had been smitten with blindness – as well he might have been, given his multitudinous sins. I, unworthy as I am, have studied the miraculous capacities of relics for many years but know of none that are located in this place that might have helped, unless, that is, the fine scones and jam of which Agiulf had spoken had some kind of unsuspected healing powers. None was able to fathom how any sane man would drive down the narrow lanes of that land at high speed while blind, with one’s family also in the cart. Indeed the speed with which he claimed to have reached the castellum was far greater than any man who was healthy in mind or body could have reached, leading some to think the cart must rather have been propelled by demons. After an hour of his perverse prating, Dominicus dismissed the chroniclers and all departed, confused beyond measure by his unbelievable tales.

As a result of this, the Angles and others started to say that they should not stay at home if the Mayor of the Mayor had journeyed abroad without penalty. There was an outcry but Boris, who was ever more obviously Dominicus’ puppet declared that the Mayor of the Mayor had told an entirely plausible story and everyone should move on. Some of the people, however started to chant a new slogan, saying that they would ‘not move on til Dom was gone.’ The chief consequence was that yet more misery befell this realm, about which I will tell you in due course.