About this story
Famine, riot and plague scatter you and Lucia. Her silver pin rides over your heart, her vow puts heaven between you, and Gertrude's winter at Monza settles a debt at the water's edge. In the lazaretto you pardon the dying lord. Sixty chapters carry a stopped wedding to the bergamasco, the pin in grey hair catching the last of the light.
Who you’ll meet
A Lombard silk-spinner of twenty in her wedding dress, taking one silver pin out of her hair to call off her own wedding, with her widowed mother at the shutters already pricing a lawyer.
How it opens
Lake light lay bright on the roofs while church bells crossed the hills.
Your wedding coat felt too new at the shoulders and too important for work boots.
Don AbbondioRenzo, the ceremony cannot take place today.
Lucia and I have prepared everything. What has changed?
Don AbbondioCanon law is deep, and yesterday I discovered its depth.
Choose
Name the rule, and I will satisfy it.
You promised to marry us this morning.