“Thank God,” said Ragna as the door closed.

“A lucky escape,” said Cat. She returned to the bench and sat beside Ragna.

Ragna said: “He doesn’t usually give up that easily.”

“You’re still worried.”

“Actually, I think Wigelm is worried. Why do you think he’s so keen to marry me?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

Ragna shook her head. “He doesn’t really want me for a wife. I’m too much trouble. He’d rather sleep with someone who will never stand up to him.”

“What, then?”

“They’re worried about the king. They’ve got control of Shiring, and of me, for now, but they’ve done a lot to antagonize Ethelred in the process, and the time may come when he decides to teach them who rules England.”

“Or it may not,” said Cat. “Kings like a quiet life.”

“True. But Wynstan and Wigelm can’t predict which way Ethelred will jump. However, they’d have a better chance of getting the result they want if I married Wigelm. And that’s why they keep trying.”

The door opened, and Wigelm came back in.

This time he was accompanied by four men-at-arms whom Ragna did not recognize. He must have brought them with him. They looked like ruffians.

Cat screamed.

Two men grabbed each woman, threw them to the floor, and held them down.

All the children cried.

Wigelm grasped the neckline of Ragna’s dress and ripped if off, leaving her spread-eagled naked, held by her ankles and wrists.

One of the men said: “Now, there’s a pair of plump pigeons, by the gods!”

“They’re not for you,” Wigelm said, lifting the skirt of his tunic. “When I’ve finished you can fuck the maid, but not this one. She’s going to be my wife.”

* * *

There was a cold wind coming off the sea, and Wynstan walked gratefully into the warm, smoky atmosphere of Mags’s house in Combe, with Wigelm behind him. Mags saw him at once and threw her arms around him. “My favorite priest!” she exulted.

Wynstan kissed her. “Mags, you sweet thing, how are you?”

She looked over his shoulder. “And your equally handsome younger brother,” she said, and embraced Wigelm.

“Every rich man is handsome to you,” Wigelm said sourly.

She ignored that. “Sit down, dear friends, and have a cup of mead. It’s newly brewed. Selethryth!” She snapped her fingers, and a flagon and cups were brought by a middle-aged woman—undoubtedly a former prostitute now considered too old for the work, Wynstan thought.

They drank the ultra-sweet potion and Selethryth poured more.

Wynstan looked at the women sitting at the sides of the room on benches. Some were dressed, others draped in loose wraps, and one pale girl was stark naked. “What a lovely sight,” he said with a sigh.

“I have a new girl I’ve been saving,” Mags said. “But which of you will take her virginity?”

Wigelm said: “How many men have taken it so far?”

Wynstan chuckled.

Mags protested. “You know I’d never lie to you. I don’t even allow her in here—she’s locked up in the house next door.”

Wynstan said: “Let Wigelm have the virgin. I’m in the mood for a more experienced woman.”

“How about Merry? She likes you.”

Wynstan smiled at a voluptuous dark-haired woman of about twenty. She waved to him. “Yes,” he said. “Merry would be lovely. Such a big arse.”

Merry came and sat beside him, and he kissed her.

Mags said: “Selethryth, fetch the virgin from next door for Thane Wigelm.”

After a few minutes Wynstan said to Merry: “Lie down in the straw, my dear, and let’s get at it.”

Merry pulled her dress over her head and lay on her back. She was pink-skinned and plump: he was glad he had chosen her. He lifted the skirt of his tunic and knelt between her legs.

Merry screamed.

Wynstan flinched away, bewildered. “What the devil is wrong with the woman?” he said.

Merry screeched, “He’s got a chancre!” She leaped to her feet and covered her vagina protectively.

“No, I haven’t,” Wynstan said.

Mags spoke in a new tone of voice. Her former anything-you-like-darling attitude had been replaced by a brisk sense of authority. “Let me see, bishop,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Show me your prick.”

Wynstan turned.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Mags. “It’s a chancre.”

Wynstan looked down at his penis. Near the head was an oval ulcer an inch long with an angry red spot at its center. “That’s nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

Mags’s jollity had all fallen away and her voice was cold. “It’s not nothing,” she said firmly. “It’s the great pox.”

“That’s impossible,” said Wynstan. “Great pox leads to leprosy.”

Mags softened, but only slightly. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said, and Wynstan felt she was humoring him. “But whatever it is I can’t let you fuck my girls. If any kind of pox got around this house half the clergy in England would be out of action before you could say ‘fornicate.’”

“Well, that’s a blow.” Wynstan felt cast down. An illness was a weakness, and he was supposed to be strong. Besides, he was aroused, and wanted a fuck. “What am I going to do?” he said.

Mags’s demeanor regained some of its usual coquetry. “You’re going to get the best hand-fuck you’ve ever had, and I’m going to give it to you myself, my sweet priest.”

“Well, if that’s the best you can do . . .”

“The girls will put on a show for you at the same time. What would you like to watch?”

Wynstan considered. “I’d like to see Merry’s arse flogged with a strap.”

“Then you shall,” Mags said.

Merry said: “Oh, no.”

“Don’t complain,” Mags told her. “You get extra pay for flagellation, you know that.”

Merry was contrite. “I’m sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean to complain.”

“That’s better,” said Mags. “Now, turn around and bend over.”

CHAPTER 35

    March 1003

agna and Cat were teaching the children a counting song. Osbert, almost four, could more or less carry a tune. The twins were just two, and they could only drone, but they were able to learn the words. Cat’s daughters, aged two and three, were somewhere in between. They all liked the singing, and as a bonus, they were learning their numbers.

Ragna’s main occupation in prison was keeping the children busy with activities that taught them something. She remembered poems, made up stories, and described every place she had ever visited. She told them about the ship Angel and the storm in the Channel, the thief Ironface who had stolen the wedding present, and even the fire in the stables at Cherbourg Castle. Cat was not as good at stories but had a bottomless fund of French songs and a pure voice.

Entertaining the children also kept the two women from sinking into a swamp of suicidal despair.

As the song was ending the door opened and a guard looked in. It was Elfgar, the youngster, not as hardened as Fulcric and inclined to be sympathetic. He often told Ragna the news. From him she had learned that the Vikings were attacking the West Country again, with the dreaded King Swein at their head. The truce that Ethelred had bought for twenty-four thousand pounds of silver had not lasted into a second year.

Ragna almost hoped that the Vikings might conquer the West Country. She could be captured and ransomed. At least she might get out of this prison.

Elfgar said: “Exercise time.”

“Where’s Agnes?” said Ragna.

“She’s feeling ill.”

Ragna was not sorry. She hated seeing Agnes, the woman who had betrayed her, the one responsible for her imprisonment.

The open door let in cold air, so Ragna and Cat put the impatient children into their cloaks, then released them to run outside. Elfgar closed the door and barred it from the outside.

With the children gone, Ragna gave herself up to misery.

She had been here seven months, according to the almanac she had scratched on the wall. There were fleas in the rushes on the floor and nits in her hair, and she had a cough. The place stank: two adults and five children used a single pot for their toilet, for they were not allowed to go outside for that purpose.

A day spent here was a day stolen from her life, and she felt a resentment as sharp as an arrowhead every morning when she woke up to find herself still a prisoner.

And Wigelm had come again yesterday.

His visits were mercifully less frequent now. At first he had appeared once a week; now it was more like once a month. She had learned to close her eyes and think about the view from the ramparts of Cherbourg Castle, and the clean salty air blowing in her face, until she felt him withdraw like a slug leaving her body. She prayed he would soon lose interest altogether.

The children returned, red-faced from the cold, and it was the turn of the two women to put on cloaks and go out.

They walked up and down to keep warm, and Elfgar walked with them. Cat asked him: “What’s wrong with Agnes?”

“Some kind of pox,” he said.

“I hope she dies of it.”

There was a pause, then Elfgar said conversationally: “I won’t be here much longer, I shouldn’t think.”