I am a thatcher. I make my living weaving the straws on other people's roofs. I weave nets for the fishermen of our village. Well, if you can call london a village. I make the seats for the noblest arses to park on. I am no hero, I am not noble. I am a humble peasant, trying to build with my hands, the only trade I've ever known, to feed my family and keep a roof over our heads. This is no easy task in this year of our Lord, 1046.
My son. My beautiful son. He has just passed his tenth birthday. He is so smart! He is a shining light in our dismal two rooms. What am I to do? The nobels are at war. They are gone to distant battlefields. They do not need chairs or roofs. The rains have not come this year, or the last, so the fishing is poor, and there are no nets to tend.
I have no money. I have no food. My darling Cecily, the one for whom the moon was created, the very heart of my soul, lies in the ground these last two long years. She always knew what to do, always knew the ways of the city, of the world. I am lost without her. And of my son, I hear his soft crying in the night, for his mother, our light, our life. And what am I to do now? I cannot find work and tend to him also. I cannot raise a son alone, and feed us too. Is it the poor house for him and me? That dungeon of debt? Do we steal to survive until the soldiers one day catch us? Because we know they will. What am I to do?
I have had an offer. It is a chance for both of us, the boy and I. He can become a servant to a knight. He can learn to be a soldier himself. He can have a life, and not starve. But he cannot have me. I cannot go where he would be lead. He would cross the Thames, and move into the lands to the south. So young, so fragile, to lose his mother, and now me? It is almost more pain than I can bare!
Should we starve together, until we breathe our last breaths in eachother's arms? Or should I send my young son away, to seek whatever his fortune may be? He is so young, and I will be alone, and he will brave the world without his father, at such a tender age. What course is right? Which love is more? If I send him away, will he hate me until the end of days? If he goes, will I ever see him again? How can God put this choice before me?
