The year is 1152, and Anarchy is still splitting the country. Jack and Aliena have two children now. Their first son, Jack, is nine. Sally, conceived on the travel from Paris to Kingsbridge, is seven. The couple continue to sleep in different houses, per their marital status, and they keep Tom’s daughter Martha as a housekeeper. Alfred returns to Kingsbridge after a long famine to beg for work as a simple mason. Over Aliena’s objections, Jack hires him out of respect for his father. Jack has applied many of the advanced architectural techniques he learned on the continent, giving the cathedral large, airy windows and a tapered shape.

Philip continues to guide 16-year-old Jonathan, the baby Tom had left for dead, through his training as a monk. Richard has thrived as the Head of the Watch in charge of Kingsbridge’s defense. William is in a loveless marriage to a noblewoman named Elizabeth. He enacts wanton cruelty against her and the starving peasants of Shiring, claiming their lands when they can’t pay rent and filling the roads with starving outlaws. Though he commands wealth from his market, the land itself goes to seed. His mother dies, taking her cruel but intelligent guidance with her.