She was wearing a teal-blue gown of lightweight summer cloth: she always dressed carefully, a habit for which she was now grateful, for there was no time to change. She stepped outside and stood in front of the great hall to welcome her husband. Others quickly joined her.

The return of the army was a moment of agonizing tension for the women. They longed to see their men, but they knew that not all the combatants would return from the battlefield. They looked at one another, wondering which of them would soon be weeping tears of grief.

Ragna’s own feelings were even more mixed. In the five months that he had been away, her feelings for Wilf had hardened from disappointment and sadness to anger and disgust. She had tried not to hate him, tried to remember how much they had loved each other once; then something had happened that tipped the balance. During his absence Wilf sent her no message, but a wounded soldier had returned to Shiring with a looted Viking bangle as a gift from Wilf to his slave girl, Carwen. Ragna had wept, she had stormed and raged, and finally she had just felt numb.

Yet she feared his death. He was the father of her three sons, and they needed him.

Wilf’s stepmother, Gytha, well-dressed in her habitual red, came and stood a yard away from Ragna. Inge, his first wife, and Carwen, his slave girl, followed close behind. Inge had made the mistake of dressing down while the men were away, and now she looked shabby. Young Carwen, who felt constrained in the floor-length dresses of English women, wore a colorless shift as short as a man’s tunic, and her bare feet were dirty: the poor girl looked as if she would be more at home with the children playing in the pond.

If Wilf was alive, Ragna felt sure he would greet her first: anything else would be a gross insult to his official wife. But who would he spend tonight with? No doubt they were all wondering that. The thought further soured Ragna’s mood.

The noise from the town had at first sounded like a celebration, male roars of welcome and female squeals of delight, but now Ragna realized that there was no triumphant braying of horns or thudding of vainglorious drums, and there was a discouraged feel to the hoofbeats. The exultant greetings turned into exclamations of dismay.

She frowned, concerned. Something had gone wrong.

The army appeared at the entrance to the compound. Ragna saw a cart drawn by an ox, with two men riding on each side. A driver sat at the front of the vehicle. Behind him on the flat bed of the cart was a supine form. It was a man, Ragna saw, and she recognized the fair hair and beard of Wilf. She let out a short scream: was he dead?

The entourage was moving slowly, and Ragna could not wait. She ran across the compound, and heard the other women behind her. All her resentment of Wilf for his infidelity faded into the background, and she felt nothing but excruciating worry.

She reached the cart and the procession stopped. She stared at Wilf: his eyes were closed.

She hitched up her skirts and leaped onto the cart. Kneeling beside Wilf she leaned over him, touched his face, and looked at his closed eyes. His face was deathly pale. She could not tell whether he was breathing. “Wilf,” she said. “Wilf.”

There was no response.

He was lying on a stretcher placed on top of a pile of blankets and cushions. Ragna scanned his body. The shoulders of his tunic were dark with old blood. She looked more closely at his head and saw that it seemed misshapen. He had a swelling, or perhaps more than one, on his skull. He had suffered a head injury. That was ominous.

She looked at the outriders but they said nothing and she could not read their expressions. Perhaps they did not know whether he was alive or dead.

“Wilf,” she said. “It’s me, Ragna.”

The corners of his mouth were touched by the ghost of a smile. His lips opened and he murmured: “Ragna.”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s me. You’re alive, thank God!”

He opened his mouth to speak again. She leaned closer to hear. He said: “Am I home?”

“Yes,” she said, weeping. “You’re home.”

“Good.”

She looked up. Everyone seemed to be waiting. She realized she was the one who must decide what should be done next.

In the next instant she realized something more: while Wilwulf was incapacitated, whoever had his body also had his power.

“Drive the cart to my house,” she said.

The carter cracked his whip and the ox lumbered forward. The cart was drawn across the compound to Ragna’s house. Cat, Agnes, and Bern stood at the door, and Osbert was half hiding in Cat’s skirts. The escort dismounted, and the four men gently picked up the stretcher and Wilf.

“Stop!” said Gytha.

The four men stood still and looked at her.

She said: “He must go to my house. I will take care of him.”

She had come to the same realization as Ragna, but not so quickly.

Gytha gave Ragna an insincere smile and said: “You have so much else to do.”

Ragna said: “Don’t be ridiculous.” She could hear the venom in her own voice. “I am his wife.” She turned to the four men. “Take him inside.”

They obeyed Ragna. Gytha said no more.

Ragna followed them in. They put the stretcher down in the rushes on the floor. Ragna knelt beside him and touched his forehead: he was too warm. “Give me a bowl of water and a clean rag,” she said without looking up.

She heard little Osbert say: “Who’s that man?”

“This is your father,” she said. Wilf had been away for almost half a year and Osbert had forgotten him. “He would kiss you, but he’s hurt.”

Cat put a bowl on the floor beside Wilf and handed Ragna a cloth. Ragna dipped the cloth in the water and dampened Wilf’s face. After a minute she thought he looked relieved, though that might have been her imagination.

Ragna said: “Agnes, go into town and fetch Hildi, the midwife who attended me when I gave birth to the twins.” Hildi was the most sensible medical practitioner in Shiring.

Agnes hurried away.

“Bern, talk to the soldiers and find someone who knows what happened to the ealdorman.”

“Right away, my lady.”

Wynstan came in. He said nothing but stood staring at the supine form of Wilf.

Ragna concentrated on her husband. “Wilf, can you understand me?”

He opened his eyes and took a long moment to fix his gaze on her, but then she could tell that he knew her. “Yes,” he said.

“How were you wounded?”

He frowned. “Can’t remember.”

“Are you in pain?”

“Headache.” The words came slowly but they were clear.

“How bad?”

“Not bad.”

“Anything else?”

He sighed. “Very tired.”

Wynstan said: “It’s serious.” Then he left.

Bern returned with a soldier called Bada. “It wasn’t even a battle, more of a skirmish,” Bada said in a tone of apology, as if his commander should not have been hurt in something as inglorious as a minor brawl.

Ragna said: “Just tell me how it happened.”

“Ealdorman Wilwulf was riding Cloud, as usual, and I was right behind him.” He spoke succinctly, a soldier reporting to a superior, and Ragna was grateful for his clarity. “We came upon a group of Vikings all of a sudden, on the bank of the river Exe a few miles upstream of Exeter. They had just raided a village and were loading the loot onto their ship—chickens, ale, money, a calf—before returning to their camp. Wilf jumped off his horse and stuck his sword into one of the Vikings, killing him; but he slipped on the riverside mud and fell. Cloud stamped on Wilf’s head, and Wilf lay like one dead. I couldn’t check right then—I was under attack myself. But we killed most of the Vikings and the rest escaped in their ship. Then I went back to Wilf. He was breathing, and eventually he came around.”

“Thank you, Bada.”

Ragna saw Hildi in the background, listening, and beckoned her forward.

A woman of about fifty, she was small in stature and gray-haired. She knelt beside Wilf and studied him, taking her time. She touched the lump on his head with gentle fingertips. When she pressed, Wilf winced without opening his eyes, and she said: “Sorry.” She peered closely at the wound, parting his hair to see the skin. “Look,” she said to Ragna.

Ragna saw that Hildi had lifted a patch of loose skin to show a crack in the skull beneath. It looked as if a sliver of bone had come away.

“This explains all the blood on his clothes,” Hildi said. “But the bleeding stopped long ago.”

Wilf opened his eyes.

Hildi said: “Do you know how you were hurt?”

“No.”

She held up her right hand with three fingers sticking up. “How many fingers?”

“Three.”

She lifted her left hand with four fingers showing. “How many altogether?”

“Six.”

Ragna was dismayed. “Wilf, can you not see clearly?”

He made no reply.

Hildi said: “His eyesight is fine, but I’m not sure about his mind.”

“God save him.”

Hildi said: “Wilwulf, what is your wife’s name?”

“Ragna.” He smiled.

That was a relief.

“What’s the king’s name?”

There was a long pause, then he said: “King.”

“And his wife?”

“I forget.”

“Can you name one of Jesus’ brothers?”

“Saint Peter.”

Everyone knew that Jesus’s brothers were James, Joseph, Jude, and Simeon.

“What number comes after nineteen?”

“Don’t know.”

“Rest now, Ealdorman Wilwulf.”