The Hayward of Rye Village: The Brides of Castle Lodar »

The Hayward of Rye Village, set in a medieval English village in 1154, during the reign of Stephan of Blois, unflinchingly depicts the brutal conditions to which village peasants were subjected by lawless overlords. Its scenes of carnage, torture, and inhuman acts of the castle's overlord are not for the faint-hearted. Within the castle, there is rape, murder, and madness. The novel's young protagonist, the hayward of the village, is condemned to a short life of cruel servitude by his lord in a lawless village court, where the curse of a savagely slain midwife is echoed in the village priest's fierce appeal for divine intervention. The hayward's attempt to overcome his death sentence and at the same time rescue his beloved from the castle is aided by this village priest and a forest outlaw. While awaiting her final fate, the hayward's beloved becomes the prey of the castle's renegade priest.