The Terrible Winter of 1310

Her Dangerous Journey Home begins in the winter of 1310, an extended period of extreme cold that created a tremendous hardship for London's less fortunate. 

According to the writer of the Annales Londonienses describing the effects on London of the great frost that winter:

There was such cold and such masses and piles of ice on the Thames and everywhere else that the poor were overcome by excessive cold, and bread covered with straw or otherwise protected was frozen so that it could not be eaten unless warmed. The crust of ice on the Thames was so thick that men could travel to London from Queenshithe in Southwark and Westminster; and it lasted so long that people put a piece of leather in the middle and wrestled on it by a fire they made, and caught a hare on the Thames, with dogs. London bridge only survived after great danger and damage.

Although Christina's great wealth insulate her and those she holds dear from the worst depravations of the freezing temperatures, the cold that grips Europe that winter still might have a considerable effect on her life. Will the delayed thaw force her to delay her departure from London or cause her to abandon her voyage altogether? How will her plans be affected by encounters with destitute men made desperate by the need to feed and warm their families?