“Yes.”

Ragna went to the table and poured wine from a jug into a wooden cup. She knelt beside Carwen and held the cup to her lips. Carwen drank. Ragna half expected her to spit the wine at her, but she swallowed it gratefully.

Then Wilf came in.

“What the devil are you doing here?” he said immediately.

Ragna stood up. “I want to talk to you about this slave.”

Wilf folded his arms.

Ragna said: “Would you like a cup of wine?” Without waiting for an answer, she poured for two, handed him one, and sat down.

He sipped the wine and sat opposite her. His expression said that if she wanted a fight he would give her a damn good one.

A half-formed thought took more definite shape in Ragna’s mind and she said: “I don’t think Carwen should live in the slave house.”

Wilf looked surprised and did not know how to respond. This was the last thing he had been expecting. “Why?” he said. “Because the slave house is so filthy?”

Ragna shrugged. “It’s dirty because we lock them in at night and they can’t go outside to piss. But that’s not what bothers me.”

“What, then?”

“If she spends nights there, she’ll be fucked by one or more of the men, who probably have disgusting infections that she will pass to you.”

“I never thought of that. Where should she live?”

“We don’t have a spare house in the compound at the moment, and anyway a slave can’t have her own place. Gytha bought her, so perhaps Carwen should live with Gytha . . . when she’s not with you.”

“Good idea,” he said. He was visibly relieved. He had been expecting trouble, but all he got was a practical problem with a ready solution.

Gytha would be furious, but Wilf would not change his mind once he had given his agreement. For Ragna this was a small but satisfying act of revenge.

She stood up. “Enjoy yourself,” she said, though in truth she was hoping he would not.

“Thank you.”

She went to the door. “And when you tire of the girl, and you want a woman again, you can come back to me.” She opened the door. “Good night,” she said, and she went out.

CHAPTER 26

    March 1001

hings did not work out the way Ragna expected. Wilf slept with Carwen every night for eight weeks, then he went to Exeter.

At first Ragna was baffled. How could he bear to spend that much time with a thirteen-year-old girl? What did he and Carwen talk about? What could an adolescent girl have to say that could possibly interest a man of Wilf’s age and experience? In bed with Ragna, in the mornings, he had chatted about the problems of governing the ealdormanry: collecting taxes, catching criminals, and most of all defending the region from Viking attacks. He certainly did not discuss those issues with Carwen.

He still chatted to Ragna, just not in bed.

Gytha was delighted with the change and made the most of it, never missing an opportunity to refer to Carwen in Ragna’s presence. Ragna was humiliated, but hid her feelings behind a smile.

Inge, who hated Ragna for taking Wilf from her, was delighted to see Ragna supplanted and, like Gytha, tried to rub it in. But she did not have Gytha’s nerve. She said: “Well, Ragna, you haven’t spent a night with Wilf for weeks!”

“Nor have you,” Ragna replied, and that shut her up.

Ragna made the best of her new life, but with bitterness in her heart. She invited poets and musicians to Shiring. She doubled the size of her home, making it a second great hall, to accommodate her visitors—all with Wilf’s permission, which he gave readily, so eager was he to placate her while he fucked his slave girl.

She worried that as Wilf’s passion for her faded so her political position might weaken, therefore to compensate she strengthened her relationships with other powerful men: the bishop of Norwood, the abbot of Glastonbury, Sheriff Den, and others. Abbot Osmund of Shiring was still alive but bedridden, so she befriended Treasurer Hildred. She invited them to her house to listen to music and hear poems declaimed. Wilf liked the idea that his compound was becoming a cultural center: it enhanced his prestige. Nevertheless, his great hall continued to feature jesters and acrobats, and the discussion after dinner was of swords and horses and battleships.

Then the Vikings came.

They had spent the previous summer peacefully in Normandy. No one in England knew why, but all were grateful, and King Ethelred had felt confident enough to go north and harry the Strathclyde Britons. But this spring the Vikings came back with a vengeance, a hundred ships with prows like curved swords sailing fast up the river Exe. They found the city of Exeter strongly defended, but mercilessly ravaged the countryside round about.

All this Shiring learned from messengers who came to seek help. Wilf did not hesitate. If the Vikings took control of the area around Exeter, they would have a base easily accessible from the sea, and from there they could attack anywhere in the West Country at will. They would be only a step from conquering the region and taking over Wilf’s ealdormanry—something they had already achieved in much of the northeast of England. That outcome could not be contemplated, and Wilf assembled an army.

He discussed strategy with Ragna. She said he should not simply dash there with a small Shiring force and attack the Vikings as soon as he could find them. Speed and surprise were always good, but with an enemy force this large there was a risk of early defeat and humiliation. Wilf agreed, and said he would first make a tour of the West Country, recruiting men and swelling his ranks, in the hope of having an overwhelming army by the time he met the Vikings.

Ragna knew this would be a dangerous time for her. Before Wilf left she needed to establish publicly that she was his deputy. Once he was gone, her rivals would try to undermine her while he was not there to protect her. Wynstan would not go with Wilf to fight the Vikings, for as a man of God he was forbidden to shed blood, and he generally kept that rule, while breaking many others. He would remain in Shiring, and would certainly attempt to take charge of the ealdormanry with Gytha’s backing. Ragna would need to be on her guard every day.

She prayed that Wilf would spend one night with her before leaving, but it did not happen, and her bitterness deepened.

On the day he was to depart, Ragna stood with him at the door of the great hall while Wuffa brought his favorite horse, Cloud, an iron-gray stallion. Carwen was nowhere to be seen: no doubt Wilf had said good-bye to her privately, which was considerate of him.

In front of everyone, Wilf kissed Ragna on the lips—for the first time in two months.

She spoke loudly so that all could hear. “I promise you, my husband, that I will rule your ealdormanry well in your absence,” she said, with emphasis on the word rule. “I will dispense justice as you would, and safeguard your people and your wealth, and I will allow no one to prevent me from doing my duty.”

It was an obvious challenge to Wynstan, and Wilf understood that. His feelings of guilt were still causing him to give Ragna anything she asked for. “Thank you, my wife,” he said equally loudly. “I know you will rule as I would if I were here.” He, too, emphasized rule. “Who defies the lady Ragna, defies me,” he said.

Ragna lowered her voice. “Thank you,” she said. “And come back safe to me.”

* * *

Ragna became quiet, deep in thought, hardly talking to the people around her. Gradually she realized she had to face up to a hard fact: Wilf would never love her the way she wanted to be loved.

He was fond of her, he respected her, and sooner or later he would probably begin to spend some nights with her again. But she would always be just one of the mares in his stable. This was not the life she had dreamed of when she fell in love with him. Could she get used to it?

The question made her want to cry. She held her feelings in during the day, when she was with others, but at night she wept, heard only by the intimates who shared her house. It was like a bereavement, she thought; she had lost her husband, not to death, but to another woman.

She decided to make her usual Lady Day visit to Outhenham, in the hope that it would give her something to think about other than the shipwreck of her life. She left the children with Cat, and took Agnes with her as her personal maid.