Prologue

                                      Prologue

   

    A silent shadow crept through the busy crowds.  She listened to the vendors advertising their products and the clip-clop of horse hooves.  The young woman, covered from head to toe in a gray, drab robe, held a tiny bundle in her arms.  A horse thundered past her, almost knocking her over, and the bundle let out a wail.  The young woman quickened her pace and made her way over to the immense church on the corner.  she pushed the heavy, wooden open and stepped into the massive, overly decorated santuary.  The bundle, a child of no more than a few weeks old, quieted down as if she knew she was in a sacred place.  Her dark green eyes widened as she took in the majestic paintings on the walls and ceilings.  Her mother stared down at her with mixed emotions and smoothed the small amount of blonde hair on her head as she began to hum an old hymn.  The child snuggled into her mother's warmth as her eyes grew heavy with sleep.

    When the child appeared to be asleep her mother laid her on a bench towards the back and swiftly walked to the door.  She pushed the door open slightly, then looked at the tips of her shoes, and then turned back to her baby.  She walked over to the bench and picked her up.  She held the baby close to her and placed her face cose to the baby's head and wept.

    "My little one, I would do anything to keep you, but my father will not allow it, and your father will not marry me because I am too far below his station, and his father would not allow it anyways.  I love you so much.  When I marry I shall return for you," she said as she laid a kiss on the infant's tiny cheek and then laid her gently on the bench.  She pulled a hood over her head and turned to leave with her head hung low.