Agnes screeched: “But you’re my friend!”

Ragna longed to say, Oh, very well, perhaps Offa meant no harm, I will not condemn him to death. But she could not. “I’m your mistress, and I’m the ealdorman’s wife. I will not twist justice for you.”

“Please, madam, I beg you!”

“The answer is no, Agnes, and that is the end of the matter. Someone take her away.”

“How could you do this to me?” As the sheriff’s men took hold of Agnes, her face twisted in hatred. “You’re killing my husband, you murderer!” Drool came from her mouth. “You witch, you devil!” She spat, and the saliva landed on the skirt of Ragna’s green dress. “I hope your husband dies, too!” she screamed, and then they dragged her away.

* * *

Wynstan watched the altercation between Ragna and Agnes with great interest. Agnes was in a poisonous rage, and Ragna felt guilty. Wynstan could use that, although he did not immediately see how.

The guilty were hanged at dawn the next day. Later Wynstan gave a modest banquet for the notables who had attended the court. March was not a good month for a feast, because the year’s lambs and calves had not yet been born; so the table in the bishop’s residence was laid with smoked fish and salt meat, plus several dishes of beans flavored with nuts and dried fruit. Wynstan made up for the poor food by serving plenty of wine.

He listened more than he talked during the meal. He liked to know who was prospering or running out of money, which noblemen bore grudges against others, and what the ugly rumors were, whether true or false. He was also mulling over the Agnes question. He made only one significant contribution to the conversation, and that had to do with Prior Aldred.

The frail Thane Cenbryht of Trench, too old for battle, mentioned that Aldred had visited him and asked for a donation to the priory at Dreng’s Ferry, either money or—preferably—a grant of land.

Wynstan knew about Prior Aldred’s fundraising. Unfortunately he had enjoyed some successes, albeit small: the priory was now landlord of five hamlets in addition to Dreng’s Ferry. However, Wynstan was doing all he could to discourage donors. “I hope you weren’t overgenerous,” he said.

“I’m too poor to be generous,” said the thane. “But what makes you say that?”

“Well . . .” Wynstan never missed an opportunity to belittle Aldred. “I hear unpleasant stories,” he said, feigning reluctance. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say too much, as it may be no more than gossip, but there’s talk of orgies with slaves.” This was not even gossip: Wynstan was making it up.

“Oh, dear,” said the thane. “I only gave him a horse, but now I wish I hadn’t.”

Wynstan pretended to backtrack. “Well, the reports may not be true—although Aldred has misbehaved before, when he was a novice at Glastonbury. Right or wrong, I would have clamped down right away, if only to dispel rumors, but I’m no longer in authority at Dreng’s Ferry.”

Archdeacon Degbert, at the other end of the table, said: “More’s the pity.”

Thane Deglaf of Wigleigh started talking about the news from Exeter, and no more was said about Aldred; but Wynstan was satisfied. He had planted a doubt, not for the first time. Aldred’s ability to raise funds was severely limited by the perpetual undercurrent of nasty tales. The monastery at Dreng’s Ferry must always be a backwater, with Aldred doomed to spend the rest of his life there.

When the guests left, Wynstan retired to his private room with Degbert and they discussed how the court had gone. Ragna had dispensed justice rapidly and fairly, it could not be denied. She had a good instinct for guilt and innocence. She had shown much mercy to the unfortunate and none to the wicked. Naively, she made no attempt to use the law to further her own interests by winning friends and punishing enemies.

In fact she had made an enemy of Agnes—a foolish mistake, in Wynstan’s view, but one that he might be able to exploit.

“Where do you think Agnes could be found at this hour?” he asked Degbert.

Degbert rubbed his bald pate with the palm of his hand. “She’s in mourning, and will not leave her house without a pressing reason.”

“I might pay her a visit.” Wynstan stood up.

“Shall I come with you?”

“I don’t think so. This will be an intimate little chat: just the grieving widow and her bishop, come to give her spiritual consolation.”

Degbert told Wynstan where Agnes lived, and Wynstan put on his cloak and went out.

He found Agnes at her table, sitting over a bowl of stew that appeared to have gone cold without being touched. She was startled to see him and jumped to her feet. “My lord bishop!”

“Sit down, sit down, Agnes,” Wynstan said in a low, quiet voice. He studied her with interest, never having taken much notice of her before. She had bright blue eyes and a sharp nose. Her face had a shrewd look that Wynstan found attractive. He said: “I come to offer you God’s solace in your time of grief.”

“Solace?” she said. “I don’t want solace. I want my husband.”

She was angry, and Wynstan began to see how he could make use of that. “I can’t bring back your Offa, but I might be able to give you something else,” he said.

“What?”

“Revenge.”

“God offers me that?” she said skeptically. She was quick-witted, he realized. That made her all the more useful.

“God’s ways are mysterious.” Wynstan sat down and patted the bench beside him.

Agnes sat. “Revenge on the sheriff, who prosecuted Offa? Or Ragna, who condemned him to death? Or Wigbert, who hanged him?”

“Whom do you hate most?”

“Ragna. I’d like to claw her eyes out.”

“Try to stay calm.”

“I’m going to kill her.”

“No, you’re not.” A plan had been forming gradually in Wynstan’s mind, and now he saw it entire. But would it work? He said: “You’re going to do something much smarter,” he said. “You’re going to take revenge on her in ways that she will never know about.”

“Tell me, tell me,” said Agnes breathlessly. “If it hurts her, I’ll do it.”

“You’re going to go back to her house and return to your old position of seamstress there.”

“No!” Agnes protested. “Never!”

“Oh, yes. You’re going to be my spy in Ragna’s house. You’ll tell me everything that goes on there, including those things that are meant to be kept secret—especially those things.”

“She’ll never take me back. She’ll suspect my motives.”

That was what Wynstan feared. Ragna was no fool. But her instinct was to look for the best in people, not the worst. Besides, she was terribly sorry about what had happened to Agnes—he had seen that at the trial. “I think Ragna feels horribly guilty about sentencing your husband to death. She’s desperate to make up for that somehow.”

“Is she?”

“She may hesitate, but she’ll do it.” Even as he said it, he wondered if it was true. “And then you will betray her, just as she betrayed you. You will ruin her life. And she will never know.”

Agnes’s face shone. She looked like a woman in the ecstasy of sexual intercourse. “Yes!” she said. “Yes, I’ll do it!”

“Good girl,” said Wynstan.

* * *

Ragna looked at Agnes, feeling an agony of conscience and regret.

Yet it was Agnes who apologized. “I have done you a terrible wrong, my lady,” she said.

Ragna was sitting on a four-legged stool by the fire. She felt that it was she who had done Agnes a wrong. She had killed the woman’s husband. It had been the right decision, but it felt dreadfully cruel.

She hesitated to show her feelings. She let Agnes remain standing. She thought: What should I do?

Agnes said: “You might have had me flogged for the things I said to you, but you did nothing, which was more kindness than I deserved.”

Ragna waved a dismissive hand. Insults uttered in anger were the least of her concerns.

Cat, who was listening, took a different view. She said severely: “It was a lot more kindness than you deserved, Agnes.”

Ragna said: “That’s enough, Cat. I can speak for myself.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady.”

Agnes said: “I have come to ask your forgiveness, my lady, even though I know I don’t merit it.”

Ragna felt that they both needed forgiveness.

Agnes said: “I have lain awake nights thinking and I can see, now, that you did the right thing, the only thing you could. I’m so sorry.”

Ragna did not like apologies. When there was a rift between people it could not be mended by the utterance of a form of words. But she wanted to heal this rift.

Agnes went on: “I couldn’t think straight at the time, I was too distraught.”

Ragna thought: I, too, might curse someone who let my husband be executed, even if he deserved his punishment.