“I’ll go and look.” Wigelm stormed off.

“Now,” Ethelred said to Ragna, “what is to be done about you and the child you’re carrying?”

“I have a request, my lord king. Please don’t make that decision today.” This was the approach Aldred had counseled, and Ragna had decided it was wise. But she added a further demand. “I would like to go to the convent on Leper Island, and give birth there, cared for by Mother Agatha and the nuns. I will leave tomorrow morning, if I gain your permission. Please, wait until the baby is born before you decide my future.” She held her breath.

Aldred spoke up again. “If I may say so, my lord king, any plan you make today may be overtaken by the unpredictable events of childbirth. Heaven forbid, but the child may not live. If it lives, the picture will change depending on whether it is a boy or a girl. Worst of all, the mother may not survive the ordeal. All these things are in God’s hands. Would it not make sense to wait and see?”

Ethelred did not need persuading. In fact he looked relieved not to have to make a decision. “So be it,” he said. “Let us reconsider the matter of the widow lady Ragna after her child is born. Sheriff Den is responsible for her safety as she travels to Dreng’s Ferry.”

Ragna had got everything she had reasonably hoped for. She could leave Shiring in the morning with enough money to make her independent. She would find blessed sanctuary with the nuns. She would put things right with Edgar. They would make a plan.

It had not escaped her attention that the king had not responded to Aldred’s accusation of kidnapping. And no one had mentioned rape. But she had expected that. Ethelred could not make Wigelm ealdorman and then convict him of rape. So the charge had been conveniently forgotten. However, the king’s other decisions came as such a relief to her that she was willing to accept the whole package gratefully.

Wigelm came back, followed by Cnebba carrying a small chest. He set it in front of Ethelred.

“Open it,” said the king.

It contained several leather bags of coins.

Ethelred pointed to the scale on the side table. “Weigh the coins.”

Ragna felt a sudden sharp jab in her abdomen. She froze. There was something familiar about the pain. She had felt it before, and she knew what it meant.

The baby was coming.

* * *

Ragna called the baby Alain. She wanted a French name, for an English name would have reminded her of the English father. And it was similar to the word for “handsome” in the Celtic language of the Breton people.

Alain was handsome. Every baby was lovely to its mother, but this was Ragna’s fourth child and she thought she was capable of being somewhat objective. Alain was a healthy pink color, with a head of dark hair and large blue eyes that looked out with a baffled expression, as if puzzled that the world should be such a strange place.

He cried hard when hungry, drank his fill rapidly from Ragna’s breasts, and fell asleep immediately afterward, as if following a timetable that he considered perfectly sensible. Remembering how Osbert, her first, had seemed so unpredictable and incomprehensible, she wondered whether the children really were so dissimilar. Perhaps it was she who was different, more relaxed and confident now.

The birth had not been easy, but it had been a little less painful and exhausting than previously, for which she was grateful. Alain’s only mistake so far had been to arrive early. Ragna had not had the chance to go to Dreng’s Ferry for her confinement. However, she now planned to go there to recuperate, and Den had told her that King Ethelred had agreed to that.

Cat was as pleased as if she had given birth herself. The children stared at Alain, with curiosity and a touch of resentment, as if unsure whether there was space in the family for another one.

A less welcome admirer was Gytha, mother to Wynstan and Wigelm. She came to Ragna’s house and cooed over the baby, and Ragna did not feel she could forbid her to pick him up: she was his grandmother, and the fact that he was the result of a rape did not change that.

All the same Ragna was uncomfortable when she saw Alain in Gytha’s arms. She felt uneasily that Gytha was assuming some kind of ownership. “The newest member of our family,” Gytha said, “and so handsome!”

“It’s time for his feeding,” Ragna said, and took him back. Ragna put the baby to her breast and he began to suck enthusiastically. She had thought Gytha might leave, but instead she sat down and watched, as if to make sure Ragna was doing it right. When he paused, he puked a little of the milk, and—to Ragna’s surprise—Gytha leaned over and wiped his chin with the sleeve of her costly wool gown. It was a gesture of genuine affection.

Ragna still did not trust Gytha, all the same.

A few minutes later one of Ragna’s bodyguards put his head around the door and said: “Will you see Ealdorman Wigelm?”

He was the last person on earth Ragna wanted to see. However, she thought she had better find out what he was up to. She said: “He may come in, but alone—no sidekicks. And you stay with me while he’s here.”

Gytha heard all this and her face hardened.

Wigelm entered looking offended. “You see, mother?” he said to Gytha. “I have to be questioned by a guard before I can see my own son!” He stared at Ragna’s uncovered breast.

She said: “Consider how much of a fool I would have to be to trust you.” She took Alain off her nipple, but he had not had enough and he cried, so she had to put him back, and suffer Wigelm’s gawking.

He said: “I’m the ealdorman!”

“You’re the rapist.”

Gytha made a disapproving noise, as if Ragna had said something discourteous. It wasn’t half as discourteous as what your son did to me, Ragna thought. It was odd, she reflected, that someone who had failed to condemn the rape would disapprove audibly of the mention of it.

Wigelm seemed about to continue, then changed his mind and choked back his retort. He took a deep breath. “I didn’t come here for an argument.”

“So why did you come?”

He looked uneasy. He sat down, then stood up again. “To talk about the future,” he said vaguely.

What was bugging him? Ragna guessed that he was simply unable to get to grips with politics at the royal level. He understood bullying and coercion, but the king’s need to balance conflicting pressures was beyond Wigelm’s intellect. It was best to speak simply to him. She said: “My future has nothing to do with you.”

Wigelm scratched his head, loosened his belt then tightened it, rubbed his chin, and at last said: “I want to marry you.”

Ragna felt cold dread in her heart. “Never,” she said. “Please don’t even mention it.”

“But I love you.”

That was so obviously untrue that she almost laughed. “You don’t even know what that means.”

“Everything will be different, I swear.”

“So . . .” She looked at Gytha then back at Wigelm. “So you won’t have your men-at-arms hold me down while you fuck me?”

Gytha made the disapproving noise again.

“Of course I won’t,” Wigelm said in a tone of indignation, as if he would never dream of such a thing.

“That’s the kind of promise a woman longs to hear.”

Gytha said: “Don’t you want to be part of our family?”

Ragna stared at her in astonishment. “No!”

“Why not?”

“How can you even ask me that question?”

Wigelm said: “Why do you have to be so sarcastic?”

Ragna took a breath. “Because I don’t love you, you don’t love me, and talk of us getting married is so ludicrous that I can’t even pretend to take you seriously.”

Wigelm frowned, figuring out what she meant: he was not quick to grasp long sentences, she had noticed. Eventually he said: “So that’s your answer.”

“My answer is no.”

Gytha stood up. “We tried,” she said.

Then she and Wigelm left.

Ragna frowned. That was an unexpected exit line.

Alain was asleep at Ragna’s breast. She put him in his cradle and refastened the front of her dress. The material was milk-stained, but she did not worry: at this point it suited her not to be too alluring.

She puzzled over the words We tried. Why had Gytha said that? It sounded like a veiled threat, as if she was saying Don’t blame us for what will happen next. But what could happen next?

She did not know, and it troubled her.

* * *

Wynstan and Gytha went to see King Ethelred, who was living in the great hall. Wynstan did not feel his usual self-confidence. The king was not predictable. Wynstan could normally foresee his neighbors’ responses to problems: it was not difficult to figure out what they were going to do in order to get what they wanted. But the king’s challenges were much more complex.

He touched his pectoral cross in the hope of divine assistance.