“If Ethel kept her promise.”

“Anyway, you can’t throw them out of their home at a minute’s notice.”

“Who says?”

“I do,” said Ragna.

Cwenburg said: “Erman, go and fetch the prior.”

Erman left.

Cwenburg said: “The slaves should wait outside.”

Ragna said: “Perhaps you should wait outside, until Aldred confirms that the alehouse is now yours.”

Cwenburg looked sullen.

“Go on,” said Ragna. “Out you go. Otherwise it will be the worse for you.”

Reluctantly Cwenburg left, and Eadbald followed her out.

Ragna knelt beside the body, and Blod and Mairead did the same.

Aldred appeared a few minutes later, wearing a silver cross on a leather thong. Cwenburg and her husbands came in behind him. He made the sign of the cross and said a prayer over the corpse. Then he took a small sheet of parchment from the pouch at his belt.

“This is Ethel’s last will and testament,” he said. “Written by me at her dictation, and witnessed by two monks.”

Of the others present only Ragna could read, so they had to rely on Aldred to tell them what Ethel had done.

“As she promised, she frees both Blod and Mairead,” he said.

The two slaves embraced and kissed each other, smiling. Their celebration was muted by the presence of the corpse, but they were happy.

“There is only one other bequest,” Aldred said. “She leaves all her worldly possessions, including the alehouse, to Blod.”

Blod’s mouth fell open. “It’s mine?” she said incredulously.

“Yes.”

Cwenburg screamed: “She can’t do that! My stepmother can’t steal my father’s alehouse and then give it to a Welsh whore slave!”

“She can,” said Aldred.

Ragna said: “And she just did.”

“It’s unnatural!”

“No, it’s not.” Ragna said. “When Ethel was dying, it was Blod who cared for her, not you.”

“No, no!” Cwenburg stormed out, still screaming protests, and Erman and Eadbald followed her, looking embarrassed.

The noise died down as Cwenburg walked away.

Blod looked at Mairead. “You’ll stay and help me, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll teach you to cook. But no more whoring.”

“And you can help me with the baby.”

“Of course.”

Tears came to Mairead’s eyes, and she nodded wordlessly.

“It will be fine,” said Blod. She reached out and took Mairead’s hand. “We’ll be happy.”

Ragna was glad for them, and something else.

After a few moments she figured out what it was.

She was envious.

* * *

Every few months Giorgio, the master mason, sent Edgar to Cherbourg to buy supplies. It was a two-day journey, but there was nowhere nearer where they could get iron for making tools, lead for windows, and lime for mortar.

When he left this time, Clothild kissed him and told him to hurry back. He still had not proposed marriage to her, but everyone treated him as if he were already a member of Giorgio’s family. He was not really comfortable with the way he had slipped, by imperceptible steps, into the role of Clothild’s fiancé without a formal decision: it seemed weak. But he was not sufficiently unhappy about it to break away.

A few hours after he arrived in Cherbourg, a messenger found him and ordered him to go and see Count Hubert.

Edgar had met Hubert only once before, on his arrival in Normandy almost three years ago. Hubert had been kind to him then. Glad to hear news of his beloved daughter, he had talked at length to Edgar about life in England, and had advised him of building sites where he might find employment.

Now Edgar again climbed the hill to the castle and marveled anew at its size. It was bigger than Shiring Cathedral, which had previously been the largest building he had ever seen. A servant showed him to a large room on the upstairs floor.

Hubert, now in his fifties, was at the far end of the room talking to Countess Genevieve and their handsome son, Richard, who looked about twenty.

Hubert was a small man with quick movements: Ragna’s very different build, tall and statuesque, came from her mother. But Hubert had the red-gold hair and sea-green eyes, somewhat wasted on a man—in Edgar’s view—but so overpoweringly alluring in Ragna.

The servant motioned Edgar to wait by the door, but Hubert caught his eye and beckoned.

Edgar expected Hubert to regard him benignly, as he had before, but now, approaching the count, Edgar saw that he looked angry and hostile. He wondered what he could possibly have done to infuriate Ragna’s father.

Hubert said loudly: “Tell me, Edgar, do Englishmen believe in Christian marriage, or not?”

Edgar had no idea what this was about, and all he could do was answer to the best of his ability. “My lord, they are Christians, though they don’t always obey the teachings of the priests.” He was about to add just like Normans, but he stopped himself. He was no longer an adolescent and he had learned not to make clever ripostes.

Genevieve said: “They are barbarians! Savages!”

Edgar assumed this must somehow be about their daughter. He said anxiously: “Has something happened to the lady Ragna?”

Hubert said: “She has been set aside!”

“I didn’t know that.”

“What the devil does it mean?”

“It means divorce,” Edgar said.

“For no reason?”

“Yes.” Edgar needed to be sure he had understood correctly. “So Wigelm has set Ragna aside?”

“Yes. And you tell me this is legal in England!”

“Yes.” But Edgar was thunderstruck. Ragna was single!

Hubert said: “I’ve written to King Ethelred demanding that he make recompense. How can he allow his noblemen to behave like farmyard animals?”

“I don’t know, my lord,” said Edgar. “A king can give orders, but enforcing them is another matter.”

Hubert snorted, as if he considered that a feeble excuse.

Edgar said: “I’m terribly sorry this has been done to her by my countrymen.”

But he was lying.

CHAPTER 41

    September 1006

agna rebuilt her life, making her days busy so that she would not brood over the loss of both Edgar and Alain. At Michaelmas she went to Outhenham in her new barge to collect her rents.

The barge needed two strong oarsmen. Ragna took her horse, Astrid, with her so that she could ride all the way along the Vale of Outhen. She also took a new maid, Osgyth, and a young man-at-arms, a black-haired boy called Ceolwulf, both of them from King’s Bridge. They fell for each other on the journey, teasing and giggling on the barge when they thought Ragna was not looking; so both were somewhat distracted from their duties. Ragna was inclined to be indulgent: she knew what it was to be in love. She hoped that Osgyth and Ceolwulf never learned what she knew about the misery that love could bring.

Her new great hall at Outhenham was not yet finished, but Edgar’s old house in the quarry was empty, so she lodged there with Osgyth and Ceolwulf. She liked it for sentimental reasons. The only other house in the quarry belonged to Gab.

The oarsmen stayed at the alehouse.

She held court, but there was not much justice needed. This was a happy time of year, with the harvest in the barns, bellies full of bread, and red-cheeked apples lying on the ground to be picked up; and this year the Vikings had not come this far west to spoil everything. When people were happy they were slow to quarrel and committed fewer crimes. It was in the miserable depths of winter that men strangled their wives and knifed their rivals, and it was in the hungry spring that women stole from their neighbors to feed their children.

She was pleased to see that Edgar’s canal was still in good condition, its edges straight and its banks sturdy. However, she was annoyed that the villagers had got into the lazy habit of throwing rubbish into the water. There was no through flow, so the canal did not clean itself the way a river did, and in places it smelled like a privy. She instituted a strict rule.

To enforce this and any other edicts, she dismissed Dudda and appointed a new headman, one of the elders of the village, the roly-poly alehouse keeper Eanfrid. A taverner was usually a good choice for headman: his house was already the center of village life and he himself was often a figure of unofficial authority. Eanfrid was also good humored and well liked.

Sitting outside the alehouse with a cup of cider she talked to Eanfrid about her income from the quarry, which had fallen since Edgar left. “Edgar is just one of those people who does everything well,” said Eanfrid. “Find us another one like him and we’ll sell more stone.”

“There isn’t another one like Edgar,” said Ragna with a sad smile.