Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow:

As an elder in a town of half-starved merchants, Ethelred strutted his girth from shop to shop, haggling for the best price, no matter if the shopkeeper made a loss. In a land where villagers walked barefoot, he rode about on a chestnut Shire mare. In an austere time of starving cattle and failing crops, he insisted that his social underlings should kiss his golden ring.

After being convicted of murdering Ethelred, I was sent to the prison. The pastor speaks. ‘Miss Katerin, I have been appointed by the Praesidium to hear your confession and prepare your immortal soul for eternity. Magistrate Eisen says you have yet to admit your crime. You must repent if you wish the Boatman to ferry you across The River and know The Glory of the Gods.’

His speaks earnestly, the voice of a young boy in the body of a man. He wears the garb of a priest with a collar that is too big around his thin neck, and stubble shadows his handsome face, though he looks barely old enough to be entrusted with a shaving blade.

‘Pastor Yakob, the Praesidium of Magistrates did not suffer me to speak. I got no trial. They saw the bloodstained garments I still wore as I stood before them, the blood of their former confrere. In but an instant did they decide upon my guilt. No advocate was appointed to state my case. I am an orphan girl, Pastor, raised by the nuns in the Abbey. I have no family or friends to speak for me. Goodsister Blythe may have done so, but she lies in the Abbey Boneyard, consumed by this past Midwinter’s plague.’

‘Then, I shall hear you, Miss Katerin. Speak to me as a confidante. Confess to me your sins. I am neither judge, jury, nor executioner; I merely wish to prepare your immortal soul. Standing before the only judge that matters, on the Shores of Heaven, it will be too late for repentance.’

‘Pastor, I have no sin to confess. I do not doubt that I shall be welcomed into The Glory of the Gods. For Lord Kristos, when he walked among us, did he not say the pure in spirit shall cross The River and enter Paradise?

I see by your face, Pastor Yakob, you know not what to say. If you seek truth, here is the only truth that matters. I am to die on Friday. I can only pray to Lord Kristos that Headsman Taliesan strikes a clean blow, that my death is painless. I have no fear besides that.’

The pastor rises, knocking over the stool in his haste. ‘I will return tomorrow, Miss Katerin, we will speak again. Please think on it.’

A storm howls through the glassless window. As I am about to fall asleep, something startles me. It is the sound of an infant crying within the cell. A cold hand grasps my heart. On regaining my senses, reason takes hold. My mind is intent on tricking me, for it is but the cry of a wildcat or a nightbird in the woods. Sleep did not come.