“Your appetite has returned?” “Some. Not in the morn, nor do I pine for roasted meat. But a piece of fish or a custard is pleasing, and this loaf suits me very well.” It had been three months and a few days since I met Kate, her father, and the wedding party at the porch of the Church of St Beornwald. There Father Thomas made us husband and wife, and I gave to Kate a golden ring set with an emerald, which I had purchased from a goldsmith on Oxford High Street. All know emeralds may ward off illness. I would have been better pleased to wed Kate sooner, but Holy Church forbids marriage during Advent and the twelve days of Christmas. Why this must be so I do not understand. The birth of the Lord Christ is cause for much joy and celebration, as is a wedding. The bishops surely have an answer to this, but there are none in Bampton or Oxford to ask. “The herbs you took to the sufferer in the Weald… will they ease him?” “As much as can be. I can diminish a man’s pain, but I cannot remove it wholly.”
