“I’m Edgar,” he said, speaking in the now-unfamiliar language of English.
The monk slumped with relief. “It has taken us a long time to find you,” he said.
Edgar said: “Who are you?”
“We’re from King’s Bridge Priory. I’m William and this is Athulf. May we have private words with you?”
“Of course.” Neither man had been at the monastery when Edgar left. The place must be expanding, he realized. He led them across the site to the timber stack, where there was less noise. They sat on the piles of planks. “What’s happened?” Edgar said. “Did someone die?”
“Our news is different,” William said. “Prior Aldred has decided to build a new stone church.”
“Halfway up the slope? Opposite my house?”
“Exactly where you planned it.”
“Has work begun?”
“When we left, the monks were clearing tree stumps from the site, and we were starting to receive deliveries of stone from Outhenham quarry.”
“Who will design the church?”
William paused and said: “You, we hope.”
So that was it.
“Aldred wants you to come home,” William went on, verifying Edgar’s deduction. “He has kept your house empty for you. You will be the master builder. He has ordered us to find out how much a master is paid here in Normandy and to offer you the same wages. And anything else you care to demand.”
There was really only one thing Edgar wanted. He hesitated to bare his heart to these two strangers, but probably everyone in Shiring knew the story. After a moment he just blurted it out. “Is the lady Ragna still married to Ealdorman Wigelm?”
William looked as though he had expected this question. “Yes.”
“She still lives with him at Shiring?”
“Yes.”
The flicker of hope in Edgar’s heart died away. “Let me think about this. Do you two have somewhere to lodge?”
“There is a monastery nearby.”
“I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
“We will pray for your agreement.”
The monks moved away, and Edgar stayed where he was, thinking, staring at a muscular woman stirring a mountain of mortar with a wooden paddle, hardly seeing her. Did he want to go back to England? He had left because he could not bear to see Ragna married to Wigelm. If he returned, he would meet them often. It would be torture.
On the other hand, he was being offered the top job. He would be the master. Every detail of the new church would be for him to decide. He could create a magnificent building in the radical new style Giorgio had shown him. It might take ten years, perhaps twenty, possibly more. It would be his life.
He got up from his perch on the wood pile and went back to his work. Clothild had gone. Giorgio was working on a sample voussoir, and had drawn the circle and radii he had described earlier. Edgar was about to resume his current task, which was to make the wooden support, called formwork, that would hold the stones in place while the mortar hardened, but Giorgio detained him.
“They asked you to go home,” Giorgio said.
“How did you know?”
Giorgio shrugged. “Why else would they come from England?”
“They want me to build a new church.”
“Will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
To Edgar’s surprise, Giorgio put down his tools. “Let me tell you something,” he said. His tone changed, and suddenly he seemed vulnerable. Edgar had never seen him like this. “I married late,” Giorgio said, as if reminiscing. “I was thirty when I met Clothild’s mother, rest her soul.” He paused, and for a moment Edgar thought he might weep; then Giorgio shook his head and carried on. “Thirty-five when Clothild was born. Now I’m fifty-six. I’m an old man.”
Fifty-six was not ancient, but this was not a moment to quibble.
Giorgio said: “I get pains in my stomach.”
That would account for the bad temper, Edgar thought.
“I can’t keep food down,” Giorgio said. “I live on sops.”
Edgar had thought Giorgio soaked his bread because he liked it that way.
“I probably won’t die tomorrow,” Giorgio went on. “But I may have only a year or so.”
I should have known, Edgar thought. All the clues were there. I could have guessed. Ragna would have figured it out long ago. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t come true.”
Giorgio dismissed that possibility with a wave of his hand. “As I think about the life to come, I realize that two things on earth are precious to me,” he said. He looked around the site. “One is this church.” His gaze came back to Edgar. “The other is Clothild.”
Giorgio’s face changed again, and Edgar saw naked emotion. The man was revealing his soul.
Giorgio said: “I want someone to take care of them both when I’m gone.”
Edgar stared, thinking: He’s offering me his job and his daughter.
“Don’t go home,” Giorgio said. “Please.”
It was a heartfelt appeal, and hard to resist, but Edgar managed to say: “I have to think about this.”
Giorgio nodded. “Of course.” The moment of intimacy was over. He turned away and resumed his work.
Edgar thought about it for the rest of the day and most of the night.
It never rains but it pours, he thought. To be a master builder was the summit of his ambition, and he had been offered two such posts in one day. He could be master mason here or at home. Both would give him profound satisfaction. But the other half of the choice was what kept him awake: Clothild or Ragna?
It was not a real choice. Ragna might be married to Wigelm for the next twenty years. Even if Wigelm died young, she might again be forced to remarry to a nobleman chosen by the king. As dawn approached, Edgar realized that back in England he might well spend the rest of his life longing for someone he could never have.
He had spent too many years living like that, he thought. If he stayed in Normandy and married Clothild he would not be happy, but he might be tranquil.
In the morning he told the monks he was staying.
* * *
Wigelm came to Ragna’s bed on a warm spring night when the trees were in bud. The opening of the door awakened her and her servants. She heard the maids shift in the rushes on the floor, and Grimweald, her bodyguard, grunted, but the children remained asleep.
With no forewarning she did not have the chance to oil herself. Wigelm lay beside her and pushed her shift up around her waist. She hastily spat on her hand and moistened her vagina, then opened her legs obediently.
She was resigned to this. It happened only a few times a year. She just hoped she would not become pregnant again. She loved Alain, but she did not want another child by Wigelm.
But this time it was different. Wigelm shoved in and out but seemed unable to reach satisfaction. She did nothing to help him. She knew from female conversations that when there was no love, other women often pretended to be aroused, just to get it over faster; but she could not bring herself to play that role.
Soon his erection softened. After a few more hopeless thrusts he withdrew. “You’re a cold bitch,” he said, and punched her face. She sobbed, expecting a beating and knowing that her bodyguard would do nothing to protect her; but Wigelm stood up and went out.
In the morning the left side of her face was swollen and her upper lip felt huge. She told herself it could have been worse.
Wigelm came into the house when the children were having their breakfast. She noticed that his big nose was now marked with wine-colored lines like a red spiderweb from drinking so much, an ugly feature she had not seen last night in the firelight.
He looked at her and said: “I should have punched the other side to match.”
A sarcastic remark came to her mind but she suppressed it. She sensed that he was in a dangerous mood. She felt a cold dread: perhaps her punishment was not over. She spoke in a neutral tone through her damaged mouth. “What do you want, Wigelm?”
“I don’t like the way you’re raising Alain.”
This was an old song, but she heard a new level of malice in his tone. She said: “He’s only two and a half years old—still a baby. There’s plenty of time for him to learn to fight.”
Wigelm shook his head determinedly. “You want to give him womanish ways—reading and writing and such.”
“King Ethelred can read.”
Wigelm refused to be drawn into an argument. “I’m going to take charge of the boy’s upbringing.”
What could that mean? Ragna said desperately: “I’ll get him a wooden sword.”
“I don’t trust you.”
Much of what Wigelm said could normally be ignored. He uttered abuse and curses that meant little, and forgot what he had said within minutes. But now Ragna had a feeling that he was not just making empty threats. In a scared voice she said: “What do you mean?”
“I’m taking Alain to live at my house.”
The idea was so ludicrous that at first Ragna hardly took it seriously. “You can’t!” she said. “You can’t look after a two-year-old.”
“He’s my son. I shall do as I please.”
“Will you wipe his butt?”
“I’m not alone.”
Ragna said incredulously: “Are you talking about Meganthryth? You’re going to give him to Meganthryth to raise? She’s sixteen!”