Southern England, 1051 ADI have no time for watching clouds and fantasising about the illusions their shifting shapes create. Looking back on the years prior to my family"s disgrace, I compared our lives to changing cloud formations. Consider the semblance of perfection in that period: the power of my family, holding four of the six wealthy fertile earldoms; its wealth – Eadgyth was appraised as the fourth-richest person in the realm – I am among the first three. What else was to be expected for Eadgyth? She was born on the first day of the moon, which also fell on a Sunday, so her prosperity was destined from the first to be unbounded for this reason. I should also add the fecundity of our family. I boasted several grandchildren, the latest a boy born to the lovely Svannashals, Edith Swan
