Suddenly Ragna longed for the feeling of firm ground beneath her feet.

The ship was taken into shallow water, then Ragna was carried through the shallows to a pebble beach. With her maids and bodyguards she climbed the slope to the waterfront village and went into an alehouse. Ragna was hoping for a roaring fire and a hot breakfast, but it was early in the day. The fire was low and the hostess was tousled and grumpy, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she tossed sticks onto a feeble flame.

Ragna sat shivering, waiting for her luggage to be unloaded so that she could put on dry clothing. The hostess brought stale bread and weak ale. “Welcome to England,” she said.

* * *

Ragna’s self-confidence was rocked. In her whole life she had never been so frightened for so long. When Captain Guy said they should wait until the weather changed and then sail west along the English coast to Combe, she refused firmly. She wished never to step on board a ship again. There might be more rude shocks ahead for her, and if so she wanted to meet them on dry land.

Three days later she was not sure that had been the right decision. The rain had not stopped. Every road was a swamp. Wading through the mud exhausted the horses, and being perpetually cold and wet made everyone bad-tempered. The alehouses where they stopped for refreshment were dark and dismal, offering scant respite from the discomfort outdoors, and people hearing her foreign accent would shout at her, as if that would make it easier for her to understand their language. One night the group was welcomed into the comfortable home of a minor nobleman, Thurstan of Lordsborough, but on the other two they stayed overnight at monasteries, clean but cold and cheerless.

On the road Ragna huddled in her cloak, swaying as Astrid trudged wearily on, and reminded herself that waiting at the end of her journey was the most wonderful man in the world.

On the afternoon of the third day a baggage pony slipped on a slope. It fell to its knees, and its load slid to one side. It tried to rise, but the lopsided burden caused it to overbalance again. It skidded down a mudslide, neighing frantically, and fell into a stream. Ragna cried: “Oh, the poor beast! Save it, you men!”

Several men-at-arms jumped into the water, which was about three feet deep. But they could not get the animal onto its feet. Ragna said: “You’ll have to take the bags off its back!”

That worked. One man held the horse’s head in an attempt to stop it thrashing around, and two others undid the straps. They grabbed the bags and chests and passed them to others waiting. When the pony was unloaded it came upright without help.

Looking at the baggage stacked beside the stream, Ragna said: “Where’s the little box with Wilwulf’s present?”

Everyone looked around but no one could see it.

Ragna was dismayed. “We can’t have lost it—it’s his wedding gift!” English jewelry was famous, and Wilwulf probably had high standards, so Ragna had had the buckle and strap end made by the best jeweler in Rouen.

The men who had got wet rescuing the pony now went back into the water and scrabbled around the bottom of the stream, searching for the package. But it was sharp-eyed Cat who spotted it. “There!” she cried, pointing.

Ragna saw the box a hundred yards away, floating downstream.

Suddenly a figure appeared from the bushes. Ragna had a glimpse of a head wearing some kind of helmet as the man took one step into the water and snatched up the box. “Oh, well done!” Ragna called.

For a split second he turned and looked at her, and she got a full view of a rusty old battle helmet with holes for the eyes and mouth, then the man bounded back to dry land and vanished into the vegetation.

Ragna realized she had been robbed.

She yelled: “Go after him!”

The men went in pursuit. Ragna heard them calling to one another in the woods, then their cries became muffled by the trees and the rain. After a while the riders returned one by one. The forest was too thickly overgrown for them to make any speed, they said. Ragna began to feel pessimistic. As the last man appeared, Bern said: “He eluded us.”

Ragna tried to put a brave face on it. “Let’s move on,” she said briskly. “What’s gone is gone.” They trudged forward through the mire.

But the loss of the gift was too much for Ragna to bear, on top of the storm at sea and three days of rain and dismal lodgings. Her parents had been right in their dire warnings: this was a horrible country and she had doomed herself to live in it. She could not hold back the tears. They ran hot down her face, mingling with the cold rain. She pulled her hood forward and turned her face down in the hope that others would not see.

An hour after the loss of the gift, the group came to the bank of a river and saw a hamlet on the far side. Peering through the weather, Ragna made out a few houses and a stone church. A sizable boat was moored on the opposite bank. According to the inhabitants of the last village they had passed through, the hamlet with the ferry was two days’ journey from Shiring. Two more days of misery, she thought woefully.

The men shouted over the water, and quite promptly a young man appeared and untied the ferryboat. A brown-and-white dog followed him and jumped into the boat, but the man spoke a word and the dog jumped out again.

Seeming not to care about the rain, he stood in the prow of the vessel and poled across the water. Ragna heard Agnes the seamstress murmur, “Strong boy.”

The boat bumped into the near bank. “Wait for me to tie up before you board,” said the young ferryman. “It’s safer that way.” He was pleasant and polite, but unintimidated by the arrival of a noblewoman with a large escort. He looked directly at Ragna and smiled, as if recognizing her, but she had no recollection of seeing him before.

When he had secured the boat, he said: “It’s a farthing for each person and animal. I see thirteen people and six horses, so that makes four pence and three farthings, if you please.”

Ragna nodded to Cat, who kept a purse on her belt with a small amount of money for incidental expenses. One of the ponies was carrying a locked ironbound chest with most of Ragna’s money in it, but that was opened only in private. Cat gave the ferryman five English pennies, small and light, and he gave her back a tiny quarter-disk of silver in change.

“You can ride straight on board, if you’re careful,” he said. “But if you feel nervous, dismount and lead your horse. I’m Edgar, by the way.”

Cat said: “And this is the lady Ragna, from Cherbourg.”

“I know,” he said. He bowed to Ragna. “I’m honored, my lady.”

She rode onto the boat, and the others followed.

The vessel was remarkably steady on the river, and seemed well made, with close-fitting strakes. There was no water in the bottom. “Fine boat,” Ragna said. She did not add for a dump like this, but it was implied, and for a moment she wondered whether she might have given offense.

But Edgar showed no sign that he had noticed. “You’re very kind,” he said. “I built this boat.”

“On your own?” she said skeptically.

Once again he might have felt slighted. Ragna realized she was forgetting her resolution to befriend the English. This was not like her: normally she was quick to bond with strangers. The wretchedness of the journey and the strangeness of the new country had made her short-tempered. She resolved to be nice.

But Edgar apparently did not feel put down. He smiled and said, “There aren’t two boatbuilders in this little place.”

“I’m astonished there’s one.”

“I’m a bit startled myself.”

Ragna laughed. This boy was quick-witted and did not take himself too seriously. She liked that.

Edgar saw the people and animals onto the vessel then untied it and began to pole across. Ragna was amused to see Agnes the seamstress begin a conversation with him in halting Anglo-Saxon. “My lady is to marry the ealdorman of Shiring.”

“Wilwulf?” said Edgar. “I thought he was already married.”

“He was, but his wife died.”

“So your mistress is going to be everyone’s mistress.”

“Unless we all drown in the rain on the way to Shiring.”

“Doesn’t it rain in Cherbourg?”

“Not like this.”

Ragna smiled. Agnes was single and eager to marry. She could do worse than this resourceful young Englishman. It would be no great surprise if one or more of Ragna’s maids found a husband here: among small groups of women, marriage was infectious.

She looked ahead. The church on the hill was built of stone but was nevertheless small and mean-looking. Its tiny windows, all different shapes, were placed haphazardly in its thick walls. In a Norman church the windows were no bigger, but they were generally all the same shape and set in regular rows. Such consistency spoke more eloquently of the orderly god who had created the hierarchical world of plants, fish, animals, and people.