Edgar heard the horses and looked up from his work. Blod came out of the brewhouse to see. Within a couple of minutes most of the village had gathered at the riverside. Despite the season the weather was cool, with a chill breeze. The sky was gray and threatened rain.

The men-at-arms were grim-faced and silent. Two of them dug a narrow hole in the ground outside the alehouse and fixed a stake into it. The villagers asked questions but got no answers, which made them all the more curious.

However, they could guess that someone was about to be punished.

Edgar’s brothers had got wind that something was happening, and showed up with Cwenburg and the children.

When the stake was firmly embedded, the men-at-arms seized Dreng.

“You let me go!” he shouted, struggling.

They pulled off his clothes, causing everyone to laugh.

“My cousin is the bishop of Shiring!” he yelled. “You’ll all pay a heavy price for this!”

Ethel, Dreng’s surviving wife, rained feeble blows on the men-at-arms with her fist, saying: “Leave him alone!”

They ignored her and roped her husband to the stake.

Blod looked on expressionlessly.

Prior Aldred spoke to the crowd. “King Ethelred has ordered a bridge to be built here,” he said. “Dreng threatened to burn it down.”

“I did not!” said Dreng.

Fat Bebbe was watching. “You did, though,” she said. “I was there, I heard you.”

Sheriff Den said: “I represent the king. He is not to be defied.”

Everyone knew that.

“I want each person to go home, find a bucket or a pot, and bring it back here, quickly.”

The villagers and the monks obeyed with alacrity. They were keen to see what was going to happen. Among the few who declined to join in were Cwenburg, Dreng’s daughter, and her two husbands, Erman and Eadbald.

When they had reassembled, Den said: “Dreng threatened a fire. We will now put out his flames. Everyone, fill your vessel from the river and pour the water over Dreng.”

Edgar guessed that Aldred had devised this punishment. It was more symbolic than painful. Few people would have dreamed up something so mild. On the other hand it was humiliating, especially for a man such as Dreng, who boasted of his connections in high places.

And it was a warning. Dreng had got away with burning down the bridge before, because that bridge had belonged to Aldred, who was no more than the prior of a small monastery, whereas Dreng had the support of the bishop of Shiring. But the sheriff’s action today announced that the new bridge would be different. This one belonged to the king, and even Wynstan would struggle to protect someone who set fire to it.

The villagers began to throw their containers of river water over Dreng. He was not much liked, and people clearly enjoyed what they were doing. Some took care to throw the water directly into his face, which made him curse. Others laughed and poured it over his head. Several people went back for another bucketful. Dreng began to shiver.

Edgar did not fill a bucket but stood watching, with his arms folded. Dreng will never forget this, he thought.

Eventually Aldred called: “Enough!”

The villagers stopped.

Den said: “He is to remain here until dawn tomorrow. Anyone who releases him before then will take his place.”

Dreng was going to spend a cold night, Edgar thought, but he would live.

Den led his men-at-arms to the monastery, where presumably they would stay the night. Edgar hoped they liked beans.

The villagers dispersed slowly, realizing there was no more fun to be had.

Edgar was about to restart his work when Dreng caught his eye.

“Go on, laugh,” said Dreng.

Edgar was not laughing.

Dreng said: “I heard a rumor about your precious Norman lady, Ragna.”

Edgar froze. He wanted to walk away, but he could not.

“I hear she’s pregnant,” Dreng said.

Edgar stared at him.

Dreng said: “Now laugh at that.”

* * *

Edgar brooded over Dreng’s taunt. He might have been making it up, of course. Or the rumor might simply be untrue: many rumors were. But Ragna might really be pregnant.

And if she was pregnant, Edgar might be the father.

He had made love to her only once, but once could be enough. However, their night of passion had been in August, so the baby would have been born in May, and it was now June.

The baby might be late. Or perhaps it had already been born.

That evening he asked Den if he had heard the rumor. Den had.

“Do they say when the baby is due?” he asked.

“No.”

“Did you pick up any hint of where Ragna is?”

“No, and if I did, I would have gone there and rescued her.”

Edgar had had the conversation about Ragna’s whereabouts a hundred times. The pregnancy rumor took him no nearer to an answer. It was just an additional torture.

Toward the end of June he realized he needed nails. He could make them in what had once been Cuthbert’s forge, but he had to go to Shiring to buy the iron. Next morning he saddled Buttress and joined up with two trappers heading for the city to sell furs.

At midmorning they stopped at a wayside alehouse known as Stumpy’s on account of the proprietor’s amputated leg. Edgar fed Buttress a handful of grain, then she drank from a pond and cropped the grass around it while Edgar ate bread and cheese, sitting on a bench in the sunshine with the trappers and some local men.

He was about to leave when a troop of men-at-arms rode by. Edgar was startled to see Bishop Wynstan at their head, but happily Wynstan did not notice him.

He was even more surprised to see, riding with them, a small gray-haired woman he recognized as Hildi, the midwife from Shiring.

He stared at the group as they receded in a cloud of dust, heading for Dreng’s Ferry. Why would Wynstan be escorting a midwife? Could it be a coincidence that Ragna was rumored to be pregnant? Perhaps, but Edgar was going to assume the opposite.

If they were taking the midwife to attend on Ragna, they could lead Edgar to her.

He took his leave of the trappers, climbed onto Buttress, and trotted back the way he had come.

He did not want to catch up with Wynstan on the road: that could lead to trouble. But they had to be heading for Dreng’s Ferry. They would either stay the night there or ride on, perhaps to Combe. Either way Edgar could continue to follow them, at a discreet distance, to their destination.

Since Ragna had vanished he had had many surges of exhilarating hope followed by heartbreaking disappointments. He told himself that this could be another one such. But the clues were promising, and he could not help feeling a thrill of optimism that banished, at least for now, his depression.

He saw no one else on the road before he arrived back in Dreng’s Ferry at midday. He knew immediately that Wynstan and the group had not stopped here: it was a small place and he would have seen some of them outside the alehouse, men drinking and horses grazing.

He went into the monks’ house and found Aldred, who said: “Are you back already? Did you forget something?”

“Did you speak to the bishop?” Edgar asked without preamble.

Aldred looked puzzled. “What bishop?”

“Didn’t Wynstan come through here?”

“Not unless he walked on tiptoe.”

Edgar was bewildered. “That’s strange. He passed me on the road, with his entourage. They must have been on their way here—there’s nowhere else.”

Aldred frowned. “The same thing happened to me, back in February,” he said thoughtfully. “I was returning from Shiring, and Wigelm passed me on the road, going in the opposite direction. I thought he must have been here, and I worried about what mischief he might have been making. But when I arrived Brother Godleof told me they had not seen any sign of him.”

“Their destination must be somewhere between here and Stumpy’s.”

“But there’s nothing between here and Stumpy’s.”

Edgar snapped his fingers. “Wilwulf had a hunting lodge deep in the forest on the south side of the Shiring road.”

“That burned down. Wigelm built a new lodge in the Vale of Outhen, where the hunting is better.”

“They said it had burned down,” said Edgar. “That might not have been true.”

“It’s what everyone believed.”

“I’m going to check.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Aldred. “But shouldn’t we get Sheriff Den to come with us, and bring some men?”

“I’m not prepared to wait,” Edgar said firmly. “It would take two days to get to Shiring then a day and a half to return to Stumpy’s. I can’t wait four days. Ragna might be moved in that time. If she’s at the old hunting lodge I’m going to see her today.”

“You’re right,” said Aldred. “I’ll saddle a horse.”

He also put on a silver cross on a leather thong. Edgar approved: Wynstan’s men might hesitate to attack a monk wearing a cross. On the other hand, they might not.

A few minutes later the two of them were on the road.