“Go ahead, blush,” she said. “You deserve to feel ashamed.”

Ma was strict, and Pa had been the same. They believed in obeying the rules of the Church and the king. Edgar believed in it, too, but he had told himself that his affair with Sunni had been exceptional. “She hated Cyneric,” he said.

Ma was not going to buy that. She said sarcastically: “So you think the commandment says: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, unless the woman hates her husband.’”

“I know what the commandment says. I broke it.”

Ma did not acknowledge his confession. Her thoughts moved on. “The woman must have died in the raid,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come with us.”

Edgar nodded.

“I suppose it was the dairyman’s wife. What was her name? Sungifu.”

She had guessed it all. Edgar felt foolish, like a child caught in a lie.

Ma said: “Were you planning to run away that night?”

“Yes.”

Ma took Edgar’s arm, and her voice became softer. “Well, you chose well, I’ll give you that. I liked Sunni. She was intelligent and hardworking. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

“Thank you, Ma.”

“She was a good woman.” Ma released his arm, and her voice changed again. “But she was someone else’s woman.”

“I know.”

Ma said no more. Edgar’s conscience would judge him, and she knew that.

They stopped by a stream to drink the cold water and rest. It was hours since they had eaten, but they had no food.

Erman, the eldest brother, was as depressed as Edgar but did not have the sense to shut up about it. “I’m a craftsman, not an ignorant peasant,” he grumbled as they resumed walking. “I don’t know why I’m going to this farm.”

Ma had little patience for whining. “What was your alternative, then?” she snapped, interrupting his lament. “What would you have done if I had not made you take this journey?”

Erman had no answer to that, of course. He mumbled that he would have waited to see what might turn up.

“I’ll tell you what would have turned up,” said Ma. “Slavery. That’s your alternative. That’s what happens to people when they’re starving to death.”

Her words were directed at Erman, but Edgar was the more shocked. It had not occurred to him that he might face the prospect of becoming a slave. The thought was unnerving. Was that the fate that awaited the family if they could not make the farm viable?

Erman said petulantly: “No one’s going to enslave me.”

“No,” said Ma. “You’d volunteer for it.”

Edgar had heard of people enslaving themselves, though he did not know anyone who had actually done it. He had met plenty of slaves in Combe, of course: about one person in ten was a slave. Young and good-looking girls and boys became the playthings of rich men. The others pulled a plough, were flogged when they got tired, and spent their nights chained up like dogs. Most of them were Britons, people from the wild western fringes of civilization, Wales and Cornwall and Ireland. Every now and again they raided the wealthier English, stealing cattle and chickens and weapons; and the English would punish them by raiding back, burning their villages and taking slaves.

Voluntary slavery was different. There was a prescribed ritual, and Ma now depicted it scornfully to Erman. “You’d kneel down in front of a nobleman or woman with your head bowed low in supplication,” she said. “The noble might reject you, of course; but if the person put hands on your head, you would be a slave for life.”

“I’d rather starve,” Erman said in an attempt at defiance.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Ma said. “You’ve never gone hungry for as much as a day. Your father made sure of that, even when he and I had to do without to feed you boys. You don’t know what it’s like to eat nothing for a week. You’ll bow your head in no time, just for the sake of that first plate of food. But then you’ll have to work the rest of your life for no more than sustenance.”

Edgar was not sure he believed Ma. He felt he might rather starve.

Erman spoke with sulky defiance. “People can get out of slavery.”

“Yes, but do you realize how difficult it is? You can buy your freedom, true, but where would you get the money? People sometimes give slaves tips, but not often, and not much. As a slave, your only real hope is that a kindly owner may make a will that frees you. And then you’re back where you started, homeless and destitute, but twenty years older. That’s the alternative, you stupid boy. Now tell me you don’t want to be a farmer.”

Eadbald, the middle brother, stopped suddenly, wrinkled his freckled brow, and said: “I think we might be there.”

Edgar looked across the river. On the north bank was a building that looked like an alehouse: longer than a regular home, with a table and benches outside, and a large patch of green where a cow and two goats grazed. A crude boat was tied up nearby. A footworn track ran up the slope from the alehouse. To the left of the road were five more timber houses. To the right was a small stone church, another large house, and a couple of outbuildings that might have been stables or barns. Beyond that, the road disappeared into woodland.

“A ferry, an alehouse, and a church,” Edgar said with rising excitement. “I think Eadbald is right.”

“Let’s find out,” said Ma. “Give them a yell.”

Eadbald had a big voice. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and his shout boomed across the water. “Hey! Hey! Anybody there? Hello? Hello?”

They waited for a response.

Edgar glanced downstream and noticed that the river divided around an island that seemed to be about a quarter of a mile long. It was heavily wooded but he could see, through the trees, what looked like part of a stone building. He wondered with eager curiosity what it could be.

“Shout again,” Ma said.

Eadbald repeated his cries.

The alehouse door opened and a woman came out. Peering across the river, Edgar made her out to be little more than a girl, probably four or five years younger than he. She looked across the water at the newcomers but made no acknowledgment. She was carrying a wooden bucket, and she walked unhurriedly to the water’s edge, emptied the bucket into the river, rinsed it out, then went back into the tavern.

Erman said: “We’ll have to swim across.”

“I can’t swim,” said Ma.

Edgar said: “That girl is making a point. She wants us to know that she’s a superior person, not a servant. She’ll bring the boat over when she’s good and ready, and she’ll expect us to be grateful.”

Edgar was right. The girl emerged from the tavern again. This time she walked at the same leisurely pace to where the boat was moored. She untied the rope, picked up a single paddle, got into the boat, and pushed off. Using the paddle on alternate sides, she rowed out into the river. Her movements were practiced and apparently effortless.

Edgar studied the boat with consternation. It was a hollowed-out tree trunk, highly unstable, though the girl was evidently used to it.

He studied her as she came closer. She was ordinary looking, with midbrown hair and spotty skin, but he could not help noticing that she had a plump figure, and he revised his estimate of her age to fifteen.

She rowed to the south bank and expertly halted the canoe a few yards from the shore. “What do you want?” she said.

Ma answered with a question. “What place is this?”

“People call it Dreng’s Ferry.”

So, Edgar thought, this is our new home.

Ma said to the girl: “Are you Dreng?”

“That’s my father. I’m Cwenburg.” She looked with interest at the three boys. “Who are you?”

“We’re the new tenants of the farm,” Ma told her. “The bishop of Shiring sent us here.”

Cwenburg refused to be impressed. “Is that so?”

“Will you take us across?”

“It’s a farthing each and no haggling.”

The only coin issued by the king was a silver penny. Edgar knew, because he was interested in such things, that a penny weighed one-twentieth of an ounce. There were twelve ounces in a pound, so a pound was two hundred and forty pennies. The metal was not pure: thirty-seven parts in forty were silver, the rest copper. A penny would buy half a dozen chickens or a quarter of a sheep. For cheaper items, a penny had to be cut into two halfpennies or four farthings. The exact division caused constant quarrels.

Ma said: “Here’s a penny.”

Cwenburg ignored the proffered coin. “There’s five of you, with the dog.”

“The dog can swim across.”

“Some dogs can’t swim.”

Ma became exasperated. “In that case she can either stand on the bank and starve or jump in the river and drown. I’m not paying for a dog to ride in a ferry.”

Cwenburg shrugged, brought the boat to the water’s edge, and took the coin.

Edgar boarded first, kneeling down and holding both sides to stabilize the boat. He noticed that the old tree trunk had tiny cracks, and there was a puddle in the bottom.

Cwenburg said to him: “Where did you get that ax? It looks expensive.”

“I took it from a Viking.”