"Guilty!" The bishop's voice echoed around the almost empty church. Only the judge, the prosecutor and a few local dignitaries were present.

The cowering victim slumped even lower, she knew the outcome, and felt a twinge of sadness mixed with the feeling of utter horror at her fate. She had suffered terrible torture to try to make her reveal her so-called heresy, but being pure she had none to confess. Now, if the end was not so awful, she could almost welcome it.
The bishop continued, "Your are sentenced to death, not by fire, but you will dismembered and cast outside the city walls for the wolves to devour.
The nun shivered involuntarily, being eaten by wolves meant that there would be no earthly remains for her to hope for salvation.
She was half-carried half-dragged to her doom. As she passed through the outer walls the sun glinted off the ring she wore on her left hand, indicating that she was wedded to Jesus Christ. Her earthly masters had condemned her, but her Lord would know the truth. She tried not to rain down curses on her accusers as she drew her last breath.

The year of our Lord 1997.

The pub was packed, it had been the Finals of the County Darts Championships. The winning team was celebrating, and even the runners-up were having a great time. "A pity we haven't got a decent Trophy to present to them." The County Darts President would have loved to have been the centre of attraction, if only for a few minutes. He would have loved a gold chain as well.

Roger, for no better reason than that he was County Secretary, piped up, "I' ll get one in time for the Annual Dinner." So it was that he and his wife Daphne were trudging round the trophy shops on a wet Saturday morning.
"What a load of rubbish!" Daphne muttered as they walked out of the very last one in town "Now where do we look?"
Roger sighed. "We will have to go to Nottingham or Birmingham I suppose." He paused to light his sixth cigarette of the morning. "We should get something there, surely?"
Daphne took the empty packet off him before it ended up in the gutter, she had a dread of being fined as a litter lout.
She crossed the road to the nearest rubbish bin and as she turned away after ridding herself of the offending box, her eyes fell on the window of a second hand shop. "Roger, come and see what you think of this," she yelled.
Crossing the road to see what all the excitement was about he saw what his wife was pointing at. It was a hand, beautifully sculpted from some sort of stone. The fingers were pointing skywards and it was mounted at the wrist on a marble plinth. It only needed some metal strips for the engraving, and it would be ideal. "Fantastic!" He cried as he tested the weight of it. "We can have three darts mounted on the front of it, and it will look great on the china cabinet!"
Daphne was pleased that the search was over, now she could get down to the serious business of choosing a dress for the Annual Dinner

The trophy stood in pride of place in the centre of the top table. It was the main trophy to be presented, and the happy President milked the occasion for all he was worth. "Our Roger has done a sterling job obtaining such a handsome trophy." His sidelong glance at his wife enquired whether the audience had got the pun. There was no0 response from her but a couple of sniggers from down the room satisfied him.

James Ormerod, the Captain of the winning team, took the trophy to his pub's next darts match, and stood on the hockey waving it aloft for all to see. As he stepped sideways to return to his seat a wayward dart from the adjacent match hit him in the face, he managed not to drop the trophy, but lost an eye.

The year of our Lord 1998

James lovingly polished the trophy before handing it back for presentation to the new champions. He carefully ran the cloth between the fingers, marvelling at how realistic they were. The craftsmanship was superb.

A different President handed it over to the winners this year, and Harry Potts took possession of it - his team celebrating in the time honoured way - by getting drunk. Harry spent most of the night at the local hospital having his broken leg reset and put in plaster. He had fallen down the pub steps on his way home, luckily the trophy had fallen on a soft part of his anatomy causing him further pain, but saving it from disaster.

The year of our Lord 1999

This time it was Bill Newton's turn to collect the trophy from yet another President. He and his team managed to get even more pie-eyed than the teams of the previous two years. Bill safely negotiated the pub steps, to much cheering and laughter from his teammates, then proceeded to dance a jig in the middle of the road, where unfortunately he was stuck by a taxicab.

The trophy arced high in the air as he released his grip on it. He landed in a heap by the side of the road, and his audience watched with bated breath as the trophy described a perfect arc above their heads before crashing to the ground and shattering. A ambulance arrived to take Bill to the same hospital that Harry had attended the previous year, and as it drew away from the scene of the accident the remains of the trophy were illuminated by it's headlights.

The light glinted off the ring that was on the decayed hand's wedding finger.