Dreng grunted, and the group moved on.

Soon afterward, they came to a place Edgar had not seen in the dark. A few yards inland from the river was a fenced corral with three ponies. By the gate of the corral was the biggest mastiff Edgar had ever seen, lying under a crude shelter. He was tied up by a rope just long enough to permit him to attack anyone trying to get at the horses. Alongside the corral was a house in poor condition.

“The horse catchers,” Degbert said. “Ulf and Wyn.” There were wild ponies in the forest, shy and nimble, difficult to spot, hard to catch, and highly resistant to being tamed. It was a specialized way of life and the people who followed it were rough-and-ready types, violent to the animals and unsociable with humans.

Two people came out of the house: a small, wiry man and his somewhat larger wife, both wearing dirty clothes and stout leather boots. Ulf said: “What do you want?”

Dreng said: “Have you seen my slave? A Welsh girl about fourteen.”

“No.”

“Did anyone pass here in the night? Did your dog bark?”

“He’s not meant to bark. He’s meant to bite.”

“Would you give us a cup of ale? We’ll pay for it.”

“Haven’t got no ale.”

Edgar hid a smile. Dreng had met someone even more disagreeable than himself.

Dreng said: “You ought to join the hue and cry, and help us find her.”

“Not me.”

“It’s the law.”

“I don’t live in your hundred.”

In all probability, Edgar guessed, no one knew which hundred Ulf and Wyn lived in. That would exempt them from rents and tithes. Given how little wealth they appeared to have, it would not be worth anyone’s while to try to pin them down.

Dreng said to Wyn: “Where’s your brother? I thought he lived here with you.”

“Begstan died,” she said.

“Where’s his body, then? You didn’t bury him at the minster.”

“We took him to Combe.”

“Liar.”

“It’s the truth.”

Edgar guessed that they had buried Begstan in the woods to save the price of a priest. But it hardly mattered, and Dreng said impatiently: “Let’s move on.”

The group soon drew near the place where Edgar had beached the ferry. Edgar saw it before anyone else, but he decided he could not be the one who spotted it first: that might arouse suspicion. He waited for someone else to notice it. They were focused on the way ahead, through the forest, and he began to think no one would see it.

At last his brother Erman said: “Look—isn’t that Edgar’s boat, on the other side of the river?”

Dreng said sourly: “It’s not his boat, it’s mine.”

“But what’s it doing there?”

Degbert said: “It looks as if she sailed this far, then for some reason she decided to continue on foot on the far side.” He had abandoned the theory of the alternative route, Edgar noted with satisfaction.

Cuthbert was sweating and panting: he was too fat for this kind of work. He said: “How are we going to get across? The boat is on the other side.”

Dreng said: “Edgar will go and get it. He can swim.”

Edgar did not mind, but he pretended to be reluctant. He took off his shoes and tunic slowly and then, naked, he slipped shivering into the cold water. He swam across, got into the ferry, and poled it back.

He put his clothes back on while the group boarded. He ferried them across then tied up the boat. Degbert said: “She’s on this side of the river, somewhere between here and Combe.”

Combe was two days from Dreng’s Ferry. The hue and cry would not get that far.

At midday they stopped at a village called Longmede, which marked the southeast boundary of the hundred. No one there had seen a runaway slave, as Edgar already knew. They bought ale and bread from the villagers and sat down to rest.

When they had eaten, Degbert said: “There’s been no trace of her since Theodberht’s sheepfold.”

Cuthbert said: “I’m afraid we’ve lost the scent.”

He just wanted to give up and go home, Edgar guessed.

Dreng protested: “She’s a valuable slave! I can’t afford another. I’m not a rich man.”

“It’s long past noon,” Degbert said. “If we want to be home by dark we have to turn back now.”

Cuthbert said: “We can go back to the ferry and return in that.”

Dreng said: “Edgar can pole us.”

“No,” said Edgar. “We’ll be going against the current.” He could do it if he had to, but he saw no reason to. “It will take two men poling at the same time, and they’ll tire after an hour. We’ll have to take turns.”

Dreng said: “I can’t do it, I’ve got a bad back.”

Degbert said decisively: “We’ve got enough young men to manage it easily.” He glanced up at the sun. “But we’d better get started.” He got to his feet.

The group began its return journey.

Blod had escaped, Edgar thought jubilantly. His ruse had worked. The hue and cry had wasted its energy in a futile journey. She was halfway to Trench by now.

He looked down as he walked, hiding the smile of triumph that kept rising to his lips.

CHAPTER 13

    Late October 997

ishop Wynstan was going to be furious, Aldred knew.

The storm broke the day before the wedding. That morning Aldred was summoned by the abbot. The novice who brought the message added that Brother Wigferth of Canterbury had arrived, and Aldred knew right away what this must mean.

The novice found him in the covered walkway that joined the main building of Shiring Abbey to the monks’ church. It was there that Aldred had set up his scriptorium, which was nothing more than three stools and a chest of writing materials. One day, he dreamed, the scriptorium would be a dedicated room, warmed by a fire, where a dozen monks would labor all day at copying and illuminating. Right now he had one assistant, Tatwine, recently augmented by a pimply novice called Eadgar, and the three of them sat on stools and wrote on angled boards that rested on their knees.

Aldred set his work aside to dry, then washed the nib of his quill in a bowl of water and wiped it on the sleeve of his robe. He went to the main building and climbed the exterior staircase to the upstairs level. This was the dormitory, and the abbey servants were shaking mattresses and sweeping the floor. He walked the length of the room and entered the private quarters of Abbot Osmund.

The room managed to combine a bare, utilitarian look with a good deal of discreet comfort. A narrow bed up against the wall had a thick mattress and heavy blankets. There was a plain silver cross on the east wall with a prayer stool facing it, and a velvet cushion on the floor, worn and faded but well stuffed to protect Osmund’s old knees. The stone jug on the table contained red wine, not ale, and there was a wedge of cheese beside it.

Osmund was not an enthusiast for the mortification of the flesh, as anyone could tell by looking at him. Although he wore the coarse black robe of the monastery, and his head was shaved in the approved monkish tonsure, nevertheless he was pink-faced and rotund, and his shoes were made of furry squirrel skins.

Treasurer Hildred was beside Osmund. This setup was familiar to Aldred. Previously it had signified that Hildred disapproved of something Aldred was doing—usually because it cost money—and had persuaded Osmund to issue a reproof. Now Aldred looked keenly at Hildred’s thin face, with the sunken cheeks that looked dark even when freshly shaved, and noted that Hildred was not wearing the smug look that would have suggested he was about to spring a trap. In fact he looked almost benign.

The third monk in the room wore a robe soiled with the mud of a long journey in an English October. “Brother Wigferth!” said Aldred. “I’m glad to see you.” They had been novices together at Glastonbury, though Wigferth had looked different then: over the years the face had rounded out, the chin stubble had thickened, and the lean body had grown stout. Wigferth was a frequent visitor to the region, and it was rumored that he had a mistress in the village of Trench. He was the archbishop’s messenger, and collected rents due to the Canterbury monks.

Osmund said: “Wigferth brings us a letter from Elfric.”

“Good!” said Aldred, though he also felt a shiver of trepidation.

Elfric was the archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Christian Church in the southern half of England. He had formerly been the bishop of Ramsbury, not far from Shiring, and Osmund knew him well.

Osmund picked up a sheet of parchment from the table and read aloud. “Thank you for your report on the distressing situation at Dreng’s Ferry.”

Aldred had written that report, though Osmund had signed it. Aldred had detailed the crumbling church, the perfunctory services, and the luxurious home of the married priests. Aldred had also written privately to Wigferth about Dreng, whose two wives and slave prostitute were condoned by his brother, Dean Degbert.