She let him go, and he swung up onto the horse.

He looked back at Kingsbridge. It had been a sleepy village with an old, tumbledown cathedral when he first came here. He had set fire to that old cathedral, although not a soul knew it but him. Now Kingsbridge was a busy, self-important little town. Well, there were other towns. It was a wrench to go, but he was on the edge of the unknown, about to embark on an adventure, and that eased the pain of leaving everything he loved.

Mother said: “Come back, one day, please, Jack.”

“I’ll come back.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“If you run out of money before you find work, sell the horse, not the tools,” she said.

“I love you, Mother,” he said.

Her eyes overflowed. “Take care of yourself, my son.”

He kicked the horse, and it walked away. He turned and waved. She waved back. Then he kicked it into a trot, and after that he did not look back.

Richard came home just in time for the wedding.

King Stephen had generously given him two days’ leave, he explained. The king’s army was at Oxford, laying siege to the castle, where they had Maud trapped, so there was nothing much for the knights to do. “I couldn’t miss my sister’s wedding day,” Richard said, and Aliena sourly thought: You just want to make dead sure the deed is done, so that you get what Alfred has promised you.

Still, she was glad he was there to walk her to the church and give her away. Otherwise she would have had nobody.

She put on a new linen undershirt and a white dress in the latest style. There was not much she could do with her mutilated hair, but she twisted the longest parts into plaits and bound them in fashionable white silk sheaths. A neighbor loaned her a looking-glass. She was pale, and her eyes showed that she had spent a sleepless night. Well, there was nothing she could do about that. Richard watched her. He wore a faintly sheepish look, as if he felt guilty, and he fidgeted restlessly. Perhaps he was afraid she would call the whole thing off at the last minute.

There were moments when she was sorely tempted to do just that. She imagined herself and Jack walking away from Kingsbridge hand in hand, to start a new life somewhere else, a simple life of straightforward honest work, free from the chains of old vows and dead parents. But it was a foolish dream. She could never be happy if she abandoned her brother.

When she reached that conclusion, she imagined going down to the river and throwing herself in, and she saw her limp body, in a waterlogged wedding dress, drifting downstream, face up, with her hair floating around her head; and then she realized that marriage to Alfred was better than that, and she came back to where she started, regarding the marriage as the best available solution to most of her troubles.

How Jack would pour scorn on that kind of thinking.

The church bell tolled.

Aliena stood up.

She had never visualized her wedding day this way. When she had thought about it, as a girl, she had imagined herself on her father’s arm, walking from the castle keep across the drawbridge to the chapel in the lower courtyard, with Papa’s knights and men-at-arms, servants and tenants packed into the castle precincts to cheer and wish her well. The young man waiting in the chapel had always been rather indistinct in this daydream, but she knew that he adored her and made her laugh and she thought he was wonderful. Well. Nothing in her life had turned out the way she expected. Richard held the door of the little one-room house and she went out into the street.

To her surprise, some of the neighbors were waiting outside their doors to see her go by. Several people called out “God bless you” and “Good luck!” as she emerged. She felt terribly grateful to them. She was showered with corn as she walked up the street. Corn was for fertility. She would have babies, and they would love her.

The parish church was on the far side of town, in the wealthy quarter, where she would be living from tonight. They walked past the monastery. The monks would be holding their service in the crypt right now, but Prior Philip had promised to put in an appearance at the wedding feast and bless the happy couple. Aliena hoped he would make it. He had been an important force in her life, ever since the day, six years ago, when he had bought her wool at Winchester.

They arrived at the new church, built by Alfred with help from Tom. There was a crowd outside. The wedding would take place in the porch, in English; then there would be a Latin mass afterward inside the church. Everyone who worked for Alfred was there, and so were most of the people who had done weaving for Aliena in the old days. They all cheered when Aliena arrived.

Alfred was waiting with his sister, Martha, and one of his masons, Dan. Alfred was wearing a new scarlet tunic and clean boots. He had long, gleaming dark hair like Ellen’s. Aliena realized that Ellen was not here. She was disappointed. She was about to ask Martha where her stepmother was, when the priest came out and the service began.

Aliena reflected that her life had been set on a new course six years ago when she had made a vow to her father, and now a fresh era was beginning with another vow to a man. She rarely did anything for herself. She had made a shocking exception this morning, with Jack. When she recalled what she had done she could hardly believe it. It seemed like a dream, or one of Jack’s fanciful tales, something that had no connection with real life. She would never tell a soul. It would be a lovely secret she would hug to herself, and remember once in a while, like a miser counting a hidden hoard in the dead of night.

They were coming to the vows. On the priest’s cue, Aliena said: “Alfred the son of Tom Builder, I take you as my husband, and swear to be faithful always.” When she had said that she wanted to cry.

Alfred made his vow next. There was a ripple of noise on the outskirts of the crowd as he spoke, and one or two people looked behind. Aliena caught Martha’s eye, and Martha whispered: “It’s Ellen.”

The priest frowned crossly and said: “Alfred and Aliena are now married in the eyes of God, and may the blessing-”

He never finished the sentence. A loud voice rang out from behind Aliena: “I curse this wedding!”

It was Ellen.

A gasp of horror went up from the congregation.

The priest tried to continue. “And may the blessing-” Then he stopped, paled, and made the sign of the cross.

Aliena turned around. Ellen was standing behind her. The crowd had shrunk back from her. She was holding a live cockerel in one hand and a long knife in the other. There was blood on the knife, and blood spurting from the severed neck of the bird. “I curse this marriage with sorrow,” she said, and her words chilled Aliena’s heart. “I curse this marriage with barrenness,” she said. “I curse it with bitterness, and hatred, and bereavement, and regret. I curse it with impotence.” As she said the word impotence she threw the bloody cockerel up into the air. Several people screamed and cowered back. Aliena stood rooted to the spot. The cock flew through the air, spraying blood, and landed on Alfred. He jumped back, terrified. The grisly object flopped on the ground, still bleeding.

When everyone looked up, Ellen was gone.

Martha had put clean linen sheets and a new wool blanket on the bed, the great feather bed that had belonged to Ellen and Tom and was now to be Alfred’s and Aliena’s. Ellen had not been seen since the wedding. The feast had been a subdued affair, like a picnic on a cold day, with everyone grimly going through the motions of eating and drinking because there was nothing else to do. The guests had all left at sundown, without any of the usual coarse jokes about the newlyweds’ first night. Martha was now in her own little bed in the other room. Richard had returned to Aliena’s little house, which would now be his.