It was Sunday, and after breakfast everyone went to church.

Ma was there with Erman and Eadbald and their shared wife, Cwenburg. The twenty-five or so residents of the hamlet all knew by now of the polyandrous marriage, but no one said much about it. Edgar had gathered, from overheard fragments of conversation, that it was considered unusual but not outrageous. He had heard Bebbe say the same as Leaf: “If a man can have two wives, a woman can have two husbands.”

Seeing Cwenburg standing between Erman and Eadbald, Edgar was struck by the difference in their clothes. The homespun knee-length tunics of his brothers, the brownish color of undyed wool, were old, worn, and patched, just like his own; but Cwenburg had a dress of closely woven cloth, bleached and then dyed a pinkish red. Her father was miserly with everyone but her.

Edgar stood beside Ma. In the past she had never been noticeably devout, but nowadays she seemed to take the service more seriously, bowing her head and closing her eyes as Degbert and the other clergy went through their ritual, her reverence undiminished by their carelessness and haste.

“You’ve become more religious,” he said to her as the service came to an end.

She looked at him speculatively, as if wondering whether to confide in him, and seemed to decide he might understand. “I think about your father,” she said. “I believe he is with the angels above.”

Edgar did not really understand. “You can think about him whenever you like.”

“But this seems the best place and time. I feel I’m not so far away from him. Then, during the week, when I miss him, I can look forward to Sunday.”

Edgar nodded. That made sense to him.

Ma said: “How about you? Do you think of him?”

“When I’m working, and have a problem to solve, a joint that won’t close or a blade that won’t come sharp, I think: ‘I’ll ask Pa.’ Then I remember that I can’t. It happens almost every day.”

“What do you do then?”

Edgar hesitated. He was afraid of seeming to claim that he had miraculous experiences. People who saw visions were sometime revered, but they might just as easily be stoned as agents of the devil. However, Ma would comprehend. “I ask him anyway,” he said. “I say: ‘Pa, what should I do about this?’—in my head.” He added hastily: “I don’t see an apparition, or anything like that.”

She nodded calmly, unsurprised. “And then what?”

“Usually, the answer comes to me.”

She said nothing.

A bit nervously he said: “Does that sound peculiar?”

“Not at all,” she said. “That’s how spirits work.” She turned away and spoke to Bebbe about eggs.

Edgar was intrigued. That’s how spirits work. It would bear thinking about.

But his reflections were interrupted. Erman came to him and said: “We’re going to make a plough.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Edgar was jerked from mysticism back into everyday practicalities. He guessed they had chosen to do this on a Sunday so that he would be available. None of them had ever made a plough, but Edgar could build anything. “Shall I come and help you?” he said.

“If you want.” Erman did not like to acknowledge that he needed assistance.

“Have you got the timber ready?”

“Yes.”

It seemed that anyone could take timber from the forest. At Combe the thane, Wigelm, had made Pa pay for felling an oak. But there, Edgar reflected, it was easier to police the woodcutters, for they had to bring the timber into the town in full view. Here it was not clear whether the forest belonged to Degbert Baldhead or the reeve of Mudeford, Offa, and neither of them claimed payment: no doubt it would involve much surveillance for little reward. In practice timber was free to anyone willing to chop down the trees.

Everyone was moving out of the little church. “We’d better get on with it,” Erman said.

They walked to the farmhouse together: Ma, the three brothers, and Cwenburg. Edgar noticed that the bond between Erman and Eadbald seemed unchanged: they were basically in harmony, despite a continuous low level of petty squabbling. Their uncommon marriage clearly worked.

Cwenburg kept giving Edgar triumphant looks. “You turned me down,” her expression seemed to say, “but see what I got instead!” Edgar did not mind. She was happy and so were his brothers.

Edgar himself was not unhappy, for that matter. He had built a ferry and was working on a brewhouse. His wages were so low they amounted to theft, but he had escaped from farming.

Well, almost.

He looked at the wood his brothers had piled up outside the barn and visualized a plough. Even town dwellers knew what one of those looked like. It would have an upright pointed stick to loosen the soil, and an angled moldboard to undercut the furrow and turn the soil over. Both had to be attached to a frame that could be pulled from the front and guided from behind.

Erman said: “Eadbald and I will draw the plough and Ma will steer it.”

Edgar nodded. The loamy soil here was soft enough to yield to a man-drawn plough. The clay soil of a place such as Outhenham required the strength of oxen.

Edgar drew his belt knife, knelt down, and began to mark the wood for Erman and Eadbald to shape. Although the youngest brother was taking charge, the other two made no protest. They recognized Edgar’s superior skill, though they never admitted it aloud.

While they went to work on the timbers, Edgar began to make the ploughshare, a blade fixed to the front of the moldboard to cut more easily through the soil. The others had found a rusting iron spade in the barn. Edgar heated it in the house fire, then beat it into shape with a rock. The result looked a bit rough. He could have done better with an iron hammer and an anvil.

He sharpened the blade with a stone.

When they got thirsty they went down to the river and drank from their cupped hands. They had no ale and no cups either.

They were almost ready to join the pieces together with pegs when Ma called them for the midday meal.

She had prepared smoked eel with wild onions and pan bread. Edgar’s mouth watered so violently that he felt a sharp pain under his jawbone.

Cwenburg whispered something to Erman. Ma frowned—whispering in company was bad manners—but she said nothing.

When Edgar reached for a third piece of bread, Erman said: “Go easy, will you?”

“I’m hungry!”

“We haven’t got much food to spare.”

Edgar was outraged. “I’ve given up my day of rest to help you build your plough—and you begrudge me a piece of bread!”

Anger flared quickly, as it always had between the brothers. Erman said hotly: “You can’t eat us out of house and home.”

“I had no supper yesterday, and only one small bowl of porridge this morning. I’m starved.”

“I can’t help that.”

“Then don’t ask me to help you, you ungrateful dog.”

“The plough is almost finished—you should have gone back to the alehouse for your dinner.”

“Precious little I get to eat there.”

Eadbald was more temperate than Erman. He said: “The thing is, Edgar, that Cwenburg needs more, being pregnant.”

Edgar saw Cwenburg smother a smirk, which annoyed him even more. He said: “So eat less yourself, Eadbald, and leave me to my dinner. I’m not the one who made her pregnant.” He added in an undertone: “Thank heaven.”

Erman, Eadbald, and Cwenburg all began shouting at the same time. Ma clapped her hands, and they fell silent. She said: “What did you mean, Edgar, when you said you get precious little to eat at the tavern? Surely Dreng can afford plenty of food.”

“Dreng may be rich, but he’s mean.”

“But you had breakfast today.”

“A small bowl of porridge. He has meat with his, but the rest of us don’t.”

“And supper last night?”

“Nothing. I walked here from Outhenham and arrived late. He said it was all gone.”

Ma looked angry. “Then eat as much as you want here,” she said. “As for the rest of you, shut up, and try to remember that my family will always be fed at my house.”

Edgar ate his third piece of bread.

Erman looked surly. Eadbald said: “How often are we going to have to feed Edgar, then, if Dreng won’t?”

“Don’t you worry,” said Ma, tight-lipped. “I’ll deal with Dreng.”

* * *

For the rest of the day Edgar wondered how Ma was going to fulfill her promise and “deal with” Dreng. She was resourceful and bold, but Dreng was powerful. Edgar had no physical fear of his master—Dreng punched women, not men—but he was the master of everyone in the house: husband of Leaf and Ethel, owner of Blod, and employer of Edgar. He was the second most important man in the little hamlet, and the number one was his brother. He could do more or less anything he liked. It was unwise to cross him.