The armies of Spain, mercenaries from Germany, England, France and Italy, the soldiers of the United Provinces under the leadership of the Prince of Orange fought on the green grass of the meadows and pitched their makeshift huts and tents there. Fields of corn, even before the corn in them ripened, even before poppies and cornflowers bloomed in them, fell victim to the feet and hooves of invading armies. Where was there a peaceful hamlet to be found on this downtrodden piece of earth that the King of Spain saw as his own? In the dark and narrow sidestreets of the town of Antwerp, behind the high walls, redoubts and towers of Paciotti, poor children had their playgrounds and these were often unsafe and perilous. Often the houses of honest burghers were changed into dungeons in which those who lived there shut themselves up, in which they themselves had to be their own jailers to protect themselves against clear and present danger. These two children's perception of the world must have been very different to that of other more fortunate children and many a fair blossom was stifled and annihilated in the bud by the dark and cold cloud that hung over these troubled times. How often Jan and Myga during the Prince of Parma's long siege had seen from their windows where they laid their gaily-coloured dolls and cuddly animals war with its attendant horrors rampaging through the streets! It had been decided by their fathers and mothers that Jan and Myga would one day be a couple while the great firm of Norris and Van Bergen was still in existence. When the surrender negotiated by Prince Alexander with the town of Antwerp had once been signed, however, Jan Geerdes Norris ripped up the contract of forthcoming marriage between his son and Michael van Bergen's daughter. By this time the wives of both partners were already dead. On 27 August 1585 the two children were separated from each other and the ten-year-old boy and the six-year-old girl sobbed as if their hearts would break at it, but it was wartime and war splits up people who are close to one another in ways far crueller. It was felt as a matter of course that the two children would have forgotten the earliest memories of their childhood soon enough. We shall see if that was indeed the case. The years went by and Jan Geerdes Norris passed away as did Michael van Bergen after his fortune had melted like snow in the sun. Myga sat in her little room behind the city walls along the quayside in Antwerp. She was in her black mourning clothes, a beautiful young woman still pale from her long vigils at the bed of her dying father. She was spinning. Her eyes were full of tears and her heart was full of pent-up grief and care. The poor child had been quite alone in the great town since the death of her father and the times were so unruly that the weak in society were virtually at the mercy of all random oppression and insolence. But was Myga van Bergen completely alone in the world?