Two themes emerge during this thirtytwo-chapter episodic novel: self-discovery and tolerance for ethnic and religious differences. At the beginning of the story Lady Elenor is a child called "Brat," unwilling to accept her role as a woman, her marriage to Thomas Thornham, the possibility of childbearing, and the management of the servants and peasants who live and work at Ramsay Castle. She is confused about conflicting doctrines of the Christian church, especially the meaning of sin.

Wearing her dead mother's clothing, which is too large for her, she greets Thomas on his return from the failed Crusade.

To her, he is still the big bully who teased her when she was six and he was fourteen.

During the pilgrimage, prescribed by Father Gregory, Elenor observes medieval European women—from snobbish French aristocrats to Marthe, the young mother with two children and a nursing...