After a pause Meg stepped forward and gathered the material off her brother’s arm, laying it carefully over the stool, from which it hung in liquid folds, pooling on the floor like molten metal. Her gauze veil, secured by a coronet of spring flowers over her fair, profusely curling mane of hair, frothed around her smiling face as she dropped Edmund a graceful curtsy.

‘Thank you, Edmund,’ she said, and stretched up to kiss his cheek. ‘It is a fabric of spectacular beauty – a vision of heaven in fact – and, with your permission, I shall donate it to the Queen of Heaven herself, to fashion a gown for the statue of the Virgin in St Mildred’s church, in gratitude for her blessing on our marriage today.’

Beside me I heard Mette release a long sigh, as if she had been holding her breath. Then her familiar chuckle cut through the tension, which had begun to pervade the room. ‘Saint Nicholas be praised! We have a bride with brains and beauty and will have a shrine to the Virgin to rival any royal benefice. For such a gift the Holy Mother will surely grant this marriage happiness and fertility.’ Applause rippled from the crowd as she turned away, rolling her eyes at me and adding under her breath, ‘That piece of cloth would have bought a new bed and all the hangings – but luckily I have given them that.’

Edmund strolled over to us, bending to place cool lips on Mette’s cheek. ‘Meg does you proud, Madame Mette. Your William is a very lucky man.’

‘They are a happy pair, Edmund,’ she responded emphatically. ‘Long may they remain so!’

2

Jane

Tŷ Cerrig, Gwynedd, North Wales

THE SOUND OF THE watch-bell always caused a bustle in the house. It meant either trouble or visitors, sometimes both. The cheese-making would have to wait. I took off my apron and sent Mair the dairymaid to discover what all the clanging was about, while I sped out to the brewery to draw a jug of ale. Whoever was arriving, refreshment was bound to be required. By the time I had taken the ale to the hall and set out some cups Mair returned to tell me that three strangers on horseback were trotting up the road from the shore. Strangers were a rarity at Tŷ Cerrig.

‘What is it, Sian? What is happening?’ Face crumpled from sleep, my stepmother appeared through the heavy woollen curtain that divided the solar from the hall, although the word ‘mother’ seemed hardly appropriate for a girl who had seen only three more summers than me; that is to say, seventeen.

‘Strangers arriving,’ I said. ‘I was just going out to see.’

Her face fell. ‘Oh. Must I go and greet them?’