Hugh groaned. "The mob! I know well what that means! Jacques, we cannot face a mob gone wild again."
At that moment, a peasant appeared far down the road, running. He was shouting and, as he drew nearer, others joined him. "Hue and cry!" he bellowed in a great voice that soon brought the village folk pouring in from the fields, down lanes, and out of byres and huts which but a moment before had seemed so still and lifeless. "Hue and cry! Hue and cry! 'Tis a criminal fleeing from justice!"
The man at Hugh's side looked desperately at the oncoming crowd and seemed for the moment frozen into inactivity.
"Quick!" cried Hugh scrambling clumsily onto the high-wheeled cart. "Quick! Climb in! We'll make Glaston before they can catch us! Sanctuary! You'll find sanctuary at the abbey!"
Jacques is not the only one in need of sanctuary at the Glastonbury Abbey in the year 1171. The confrontation between Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry has come to a bloody end, forcing Hugh's nobleman father into exile. Young Hugh, crippled since childhood, is left behind in the care of the abbot. Glaston, however, becomes more than a mere place of refuge for the lonely boy. Located in the west of England, it is a place where anything might happen. Legends of Arthur and of the Holy Grail, old forgotten passages, a mad hermit and a mysterious manuscript lead Hugh and his friend Dickon through adventure and danger into the faith and peace as much a part of the times as the political upheaval. With a historical note by the author.
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