She walked up to Gytha, and Edgar walked by her side. Ragna hesitated. She looked at Edgar, then at Gytha, then at the baby in her arms. Tears were streaming down her face. She turned away from Gytha, then turned back. Gytha reached for Alain, but Ragna did not let her take him. She stood between the two of them for a long moment.

Then she said to Gytha: “I can’t do it.”

She turned to Edgar and said: “I’m sorry.”

Then, holding Alain tightly to her chest, she walked back into her house.

* * *

The wedding was huge. People came from all over southern England. A major dynastic conflict had been settled, and everyone wanted to make friends with the winning side.

Wynstan looked around the great hall with a feeling of profound satisfaction. The trestle table was loaded with the products of a warm summer and a fine harvest: great joints of meat, loaves of new bread, pyramids of nuts and fruit, and jugs of ale and wine.

People were falling over one another to show deference to Ealdorman Wigelm and his family. Wigelm was seated next to Queen Emma, and looked smug. As a ruler he would be uninspired but brutally firm, and with Wynstan’s guidance he would make the right decisions.

And now he was married to Ragna. Wigelm had never really liked her, Wynstan felt sure, but he desired her in the way a man sometimes craved a woman just because she rejected him. They were going to be miserable together.

Ragna, the only threat to Wynstan’s dominance, had been crushed. She sat at the top table next to the king, with her baby in her arms, looking as if she would like to commit suicide.

The king seemed satisfied with his visit to Shiring. Looking at it from the royal point of view, Wynstan guessed that Ethelred was glad to have appointed the new ealdorman and disposed of the old one’s widow, righted the wrong of Ragna’s imprisonment but prevented her from running off with the ealdorman’s baby, and all without bloodshed.

There was little sign of the Ragna faction. Sheriff Den was here, looking as if he had detected a bad smell, but Aldred had gone back to his little priory, and Edgar had vanished. He might have gone back to manage Ragna’s quarry at Outhenham, but would he have wanted to, now that the love of his life had married someone else? Wynstan did not know and really did not care.

There was even a good piece of medical news. The sore on Wynstan’s penis had gone. He had been frightened, especially when the whores said it could lead to leprosy, but that had evidently been a false alarm, and he was back to normal.

My brother is the ealdorman and I’m the bishop, Wynstan thought proudly. And neither of us is yet forty years old.

We’ve only just begun.

* * *

Edgar and Aldred stood at the waterside and looked back at the hamlet. The Michaelmas Fair was on. Hundreds of people were crossing the bridge, shopping at the market, and queueing to see the bones of the saint. They were talking and laughing, happy to spend what little money they had.

“The place is thriving,” Edgar said.

“I’m very pleased,” said Aldred, but there were tears on his face.

Edgar was both embarrassed and moved. He had known for years that Aldred was in love with him, though it had never been said.

Edgar looked the other way. His raft was tied up at the riverbank downstream of the bridge. Buttress, his pony, stood on it. Also on the raft were his Viking ax, all his tools, and a chest containing a few precious possessions, including the book Ragna had given him. Missing was Brindle, his dog, who had died of old age.

That had been the last straw. He had been contemplating leaving Dreng’s Ferry, and the death of Brindle had finally made up his mind.

Aldred wiped his eyes on his sleeve and said: “Must you go?”

“Yes.”

“But Normandy is so far.”

Edgar planned to pole his raft downriver to Combe and there get a ship to Cherbourg. He would see Count Hubert and tell him the news of Ragna’s marriage to Wigelm. In return he would ask the count to direct him to a large building site. He had heard that a good craftsman could easily get work in Normandy.

He said: “I want to be as far away as possible from Wigelm and Wynstan and Shiring—and Ragna.”

Edgar had not seen Ragna since the wedding. He had tried but had been turned away by servants. In any case he did not know what he would have said to her. She had been given a hard choice and she had put her child first, something most women would have done. Edgar was heartbroken, but he could not blame her.

Aldred said: “Ragna is not the only person who loves you.”

“I’m fond of you,” said Edgar. “But, as you know, not that way.”

“Which is all that saves me from sin.”

“I know.”

Aldred took Edgar’s hand and kissed it.

Edgar said: “Dreng should sell the ferryboat. Ragna might buy it for Outhenham. They have no boat there.”

“I’ll suggest that.”

Edgar had said his farewells to his family and the villagers. There was nothing more for him to do here.

He untied the raft, stepped aboard, and pushed away from the bank.

Gathering speed, he passed the family farm. At his suggestion, Erman and Eadbald were building a water mill, copying one they had seen farther downstream. They were good enough craftsmen; their father had taught them well. They were prosperous, important men in the town. They waved to him as he passed, and he noticed they were both becoming rather stout. Edgar waved back. He was going to miss Wynswith and Beorn, his niece and nephew.

The vessel gathered speed. Normandy would be warmer and drier than England, he guessed, as it was to the south. He thought of the few French words he had picked up from listening to Ragna talk to Cat. He knew some Latin, too, from his lessons with Aldred. He would get by.

It would be a new life.

He took one last glance back. His bridge dominated the view. It had changed the hamlet dramatically. Most people no longer referred to the place by its old name of Dreng’s Ferry.

Nowadays they called it King’s Bridge.

CHAPTER 38

    November 1005

he nave of Canterbury Cathedral was cold and dark on a November afternoon. Candles lit the scene fitfully, throwing shadows like restless ghosts. In the chancel, the holiest part of the church, Archbishop Elfric was slowly dying. His pale hands clasped a silver cross, holding it over his heart. His eyes were open but they moved very little. His breathing was regular though shallow. He seemed to like the chanting of the monks who surrounded him, for whenever it stopped he frowned.

Bishop Wynstan knelt in prayer at the archbishop’s feet for a long time. He felt ill himself. He had a headache. He was sleeping badly. He ached with tiredness like an old man, though he was only forty-three. And he had an unsightly reddish lump over his collarbone that he hid by fastening his cloak high on his throat.

Feeling as he did, he had not wished to travel across the width of England in winter weather, but he had a compelling motive. He wanted to be the next archbishop of Canterbury. That would make him the senior clergyman in southern England. And a power struggle could not be fought at a distance: he had to be here.

He judged that he had prayed long enough to impress the monks with his piety and respect. He got to his feet and suddenly felt dizzy. He put his arm out and managed to lay his hand on a stone pillar to steady himself. He felt angry: he hated to show weakness. All his adult life he had been the strong man, the one others feared. And the last thing he wanted was for the Canterbury monks to think he was in poor health. They would not want a sick archbishop.

After a minute his head cleared and he was able to turn and walk away with reverent slowness.

Canterbury Cathedral was the largest building Wynstan had ever seen. Made of stone, it was cross-shaped, with a long nave, side transepts, and a short chancel. The tower over the crossing was topped by a golden angel.

Shiring Cathedral would have fitted inside it three times.

Wynstan met his cousin Degbert, archdeacon of Shiring, in Canterbury’s north transept. Together they went out into the cloisters. A cold rain lashed the green of the quadrangle. A group of monks sheltering under the roof fell respectfully silent as they approached. Wynstan pretended first not to notice them then to be startled out of his meditations.

He spoke in the tones of one devastated by grief. “The soul of my old friend seems reluctant to leave the church he loved.”

There was a moment of silence, then a lanky young monk said: “Elfric is a friend of yours?”

“But of course,” said Wynstan. “Forgive me, brother, what’s your name?”

“I’m Eappa, my lord bishop.”

“Brother Eappa, I got to know our beloved archbishop when he was the bishop of Ramsbury, which is not far from my cathedral at Shiring. When I was a young man, he took me under his wing, so to speak. I was infinitely grateful for his wisdom and guidance.”

None of this was true. Wynstan despised Elfric and the feeling was probably mutual. But the monks believed Wynstan. He was often amazed at how easy it was to fool people, especially if you had some kind of status. Men who were so gullible deserved everything that was coming to them.