“Mrs. Miller,” Sir William said pleasantly to the miller’s wife, who dropped like a sack of corn into a deep curtsey, “I’ll take a glass of your home-brewed ale.”

She bustled back to the house to fetch the best pewter tankard, while Mr. Miller stood at his landlord’s horse’s head, waiting for Sir William to condescend to dismount.

“Good harvest?” his lordship inquired, glancing at the granary and the piles of stooks waiting to be threshed, the clean-swept threshing floor.

“Medium,” the miller said carefully. He would have to pay a tithe from the harvest to his landlord and another to the church. There was no point in boasting.

“You will stay for dinner, my lord?” Mrs. Miller asked breathlessly, nodding to her daughter to pour the first of the harvest ale, handing her the precious tankard. “Your lordship, and of course Master Walter and . . .” The invitation tailed off as she took in the glamorous looks of the stranger and longed for an introduction.

“This is Mr. Summer,” his lordship announced generally. “A Cambridge man, my son’s tutor.”

There was a little ripple of interest. That he was a Cambridge man suggested that he was a godly man. Everyone knew that the heart of reform was Cambridge, while Oxford had been the wartime headquarters of the king. James Summer tipped his hat to acknowledge the attention and made sure that he was not looking towards Alinor. She was looking carefully down at her dusty boots tied up with string.

“All welcome,” the miller said grandly, overcoming his unease at what dinner for the gentry would cost him in the long run.

Sir William dismounted heavily and his groom took his horse. The miller’s lad, Richard Stoney, came forward and took the others and led them into the stables. Rob went to his mother and his sister among the gleaning women, kneeling for Alinor’s blessing and then bobbing up to hug her.

Alinor kissed him, conscious of her sweating face and dirty hands, and then curtseyed to Master Walter, his lordship, and the tutor. James glanced at her, but could not cross the yard to approach her with everyone staring at him.

“We’re just bringing in the last wagon,” Mrs. Miller said, pleased. “You can see it come in, your lordship. Mr. Summer, you must know that we grow the best wheat in Sussex here.”

“A middling good harvest,” her husband supplemented quickly. “A lot of blight this year from the rain . . . terrible rain. And that’s before the rats get at it.”

“So I see,” James said pleasantly, glancing through the granary doors.

“And Alys Reekie is Harvest Queen,” Mrs. Miller said begrudgingly. “The young people chose her. They wouldn’t have any other, though there were girls with better claims, God knows.”

James, looking at the beautiful girl with interest, could see that there was no contest for the title of queen of the harvest. With her regular clear features and her dark blue eyes, she was far and away the prettiest girl among the gleaners. They had taken off her modest white cap, and her golden hair was tumbled down over her shoulders. They had thrown an embroidered white smock over her working clothes, and placed a crown of wheat on her fair hair, gold against the gold.