Had the upper-middle class existed in the fourteenth century Joscelin would have been born into it - the beloved youngest son of a ruthlessly ambitious cleric whose pretensions of status and hunger for power had gotten him a bishop's mitre and made him a big fish in the relatively small pond of Cambridgeshire - but he's experienced his share of cold and hungry nights during his exceptionally long life. You'd think that would have given him a little empathy, diluted his classism and open contempt for the common man, but it had only cemented it further. He grins mockingly at her. "Lovely place," he replies sarcastically.

"More's the pity. You'll not survive very long."