Gilda said: “Thank you, my lady. I’m glad to see the backs of those two.”

Ragna went to her house and turned her mind back to the Vale of Outhen. She decided to ride there on the eve of Lady Day. It was a morning’s journey. She would spend the afternoon talking to villagers, then hold court the following morning.

One day before she was due to leave, Wignoth came to her, bringing the smell of the stables into her house. He looked insincerely mournful and said: “The road to Outhenham has been washed out by a flood.”

She stared hard at him. He was a big man, but awkward. She said: “Is it completely impassable?”

“Yes, completely,” he said. He was not a good liar, and he looked shifty.

“Who told you that?”

“Um, the lady Gytha.”

Ragna was not surprised. “I shall go to Outhenham,” she said. “If there’s a flood I’ll find a way around it.”

Wynstan seemed determined to prevent her visit, she reflected. He had recruited both Gytha and Wignoth to dissuade her. That made her all the more determined to go.

She was expecting Edgar from Dreng’s Ferry that day, but he did not arrive. She was disappointed: she felt she needed him to give credence to her accusation. Could she charge Gab without Edgar’s testimony? She was not sure.

Next day she got up early.

She dressed in rich fabrics of somber colors, dark brown and deep black, to emphasize her seriousness. She felt tense. She told herself she was simply going to meet her people, something she had done dozens of times before—but never in England. Nothing would be quite as she expected; things never were here, she knew from experience. And it was so important to make a good first impression. Peasants had infuriatingly long memories. It could take years to recover from a false start.

She was pleased when Edgar showed up. He apologized for not appearing the day before but said he had arrived late and gone straight to the abbey for the night. Ragna was relieved that she did not have to confront Gab alone.

They went to the stable. Bern and Cat were loading the packhorse and saddling the old mare and the one-eyed pony. Ragna took Astrid from her stall—and saw immediately that something was wrong.

As the horse walked she was bobbing her head in an unusual way. A moment’s observation revealed that she lifted her head and neck as her left foreleg touched the ground. Ragna knew that this was a horse’s way of reducing the weight bearing on an injury.

She knelt beside Astrid and touched the lower half of the leg with both hands. She palpitated gently at first and then with increasing pressure. When she pressed hard, Astrid twitched and tried to free her leg from Ragna’s grasp.

In this condition the horse could not carry her.

Ragna was furious. She stood up and looked hard at Wignoth. Controlling her anger with an effort she said: “My horse has been injured.”

Wignoth looked scared. “One of the other beasts must have kicked her.”

Ragna looked at the other horses. They were a sorry lot. “Which of these feisty creatures do you suspect?” she said sarcastically.

His voice took on a pleading tone. “All horses kick sometimes.”

Ragna looked around. Her eye fell on a box of tools. Horses’ hooves were protected by iron shoes nailed to their feet. One of the tools was a short, heavy wooden mallet. Her instinct told her that Wignoth had hit Astrid’s foreleg with the mallet. But she could not prove it.

“Poor horse,” she said quietly to Astrid. Then she turned to Wignoth. “If you can’t keep the horses safe, you can’t be in charge of the stable,” she said to him coldly.

He looked mulishly obstinate, as if he felt he was unjustly treated.

Ragna needed time to think. She said to Bern and Cat: “Stay here. Don’t unload the horses.” She left the stable and headed for her own house.

Edgar followed her.

As they passed the pond, she said to him: “That pig Wignoth deliberately lamed my horse. He must have hit her with his shoeing mallet. The bone isn’t broken, but she’s badly bruised.”

“Why would Wignoth do that?”

“He’s a coward. Someone told him to do it, and he didn’t have the guts to refuse.”

“Who would have given him that order?”

“Wynstan doesn’t want me to go to Outhen. He’s been putting obstacles in my way. He has always collected the rents for Wilf, and he wants to continue to do so for me.”

“And skim off the cream for himself, I suppose.”

“Yes. I suspect he’s already on his way there.”

They went into her house, but she did not sit down. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I hate to give up.”

“Who might help you?”

Ragna recalled her conversation with Aldred about allies. She had some. “Aldred would help me, if he could,” she said. “So would Sheriff Den.”

“The abbey has horses, and so does Den.”

Ragna was thoughtful. “If I go to Outhen now there will be a confrontation. Wynstan is very determined: I fear he will refuse to let me receive my own rents, and I will have to find a way to enforce the law.”

“In that case you would have to appeal to the shire court.”

She shook her head. Ties of blood could matter more than the letter of the law in Normandy, and she had seen no sign that the legal system in England was any better. “The shire court is presided over by Wilf.”

“Your husband.”

Ragna thought of Inge, and shrugged. Would Wilf side with his wife or his brother? She was not sure. The thought made her sad for a moment, but she shook off the feeling and said something different. “I hate to play the role of moaner.”

Edgar said logically: “Then you must make sure you receive the rents, not Wynstan, and let him be the complainer.”

That was a counsel of perfection. “I’d need to be backed up by force.”

“Aldred might go with us. A monk has moral authority.”

“I’m not sure the abbot would let him. Osmund is timid. He doesn’t want a quarrel.”

“Let me talk to Aldred. He likes me.”

“It’s worth a try. But moral authority may not be enough. I need men-at-arms. All I’ve got is Bern.”

“What about Sheriff Den? He has men. If he backed you he would be doing no more than enforcing the king’s laws—which is his duty.”

This was a possibility, Ragna thought. As she had belatedly discovered, Wilf and Wynstan had defied the king over the Cherbourg treaty and her marriage. The sheriff might well be smarting from that. “Den would probably relish an opportunity to restrain Bishop Wynstan.”

“I’m sure of it.”

Ragna felt she was beginning to see a way forward. “You talk to Aldred. I’ll go and see Den.”

“We should leave separately, so that it doesn’t look like a conspiracy.”

“Good point. I’ll go first.”

Ragna strode out of the house and across the compound. She spoke to no one: let them guess, fearfully, what her rage might bring about.

She went down the hill and turned toward the edge of town where Den lived.

She was deeply disappointed that Wynstan had been able to turn Wignoth against her. She had worked hard to win the loyalty of the servants in the compound, and she had imagined that she had succeeded. Gilda had been the first to adhere to Ragna, and the kitchen maids had followed her lead. The men-at-arms liked Garulf—they grinned and said he was a hell of a boy—and there was nothing she could do about that. But she had gone out of her way to befriend the stable hands, and now it seemed she had failed. People liked her better than Wynstan, she reflected, but they feared him more.

Now she needed all the support she could get. Would Den come to her aid? She thought there was a chance. He had no reason to fear Wynstan. And Aldred? He would help if he could. But if they failed her, she would be alone.

The sheriff’s domestic establishment looked as formidable as the ealdorman’s, an impression that was surely intentional. He had a stockaded compound with barracks, stables, a great hall, and several smaller buildings.

Den had refused to join Wilf’s army, saying that his responsibility was to maintain the king’s peace within the district of Shiring, and he was needed all the more while the ealdorman was away—a view that was proved right by Wynstan’s behavior.

Ragna found Den in the great hall. He was pleased to see her, as men generally were. His wife and daughter were with him, and so was the grandson of whom he was so proud. Ragna spent a few minutes cooing over the baby, who smiled and babbled back at her. Then she got down to business.

“Wynstan is trying to rob me of my rents from the Vale of Outhen,” she said.

Den’s answer made her exultant.

“Is he, now?” Den said with a pleased smile. “Then we must do something about that.”

* * *