The girl turned her hypnotic golden eyes on the three strangers, the knight, the monk and the priest; and then she pronounced her curse, callling out the words in ringing tones:
 
"I curse you with sickness and sorrow, with hunger and pain; your house shall be consumed by fire and your children shall die in the gallows; your enemies shall prosper, and you shall grow old in sadness and regret..."
 
So begins a spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett's classic historical masterpiece, the first novel in the epic Kingsbridge Series.
 
The Pillars of the Earth is the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known. It is the story of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul who will be divided by love and tortured by duty and divided loyalty. It is the story of the beautiful, resourceful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame, driven by a bitter determination and destined to shape her own destiny and others...
 
But most of all it is a story of a community shaped by history and of the ultimate struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.