“What is your name, my young man?” he asked.
“Daniel, sir, and it please you.”
Oh, how it did! Daniel, the prophet he had only just been quoting to Lord Garnthorpe. The holiest of flames that guided the Saints. “Your voice sounds gentle. Where are you from?”
“Aylesbury, sir.”
“And your station?”
“I was a servant in a rich house. Mostly, I played the flute for them but they - ” the youth gave a little sob, swallowed it down, “ – they abandoned me when they fled for the country.”
Simeon smiled. There was no coincedence in the Holy plan, no thread astray in God’s exquisite tapestry. “Have you heard the good word, my son?” he asked. “Have you heard that King Jesus is coming in the flesh to rule us all?”
“I, uh, I have not, sir.”
“Then attend ye All Hallows the Great this Sunday. There
