Page 133 of The Evening and the Morning

As she walked away from the stable she saw two young townsmenlounging near the kitchen, talking to Gilda and the other kitchen maids. Ragna stopped and frowned. She had no moral objection to flirting—in fact she was good at it herself when it suited her purpose. But with husbands away fighting, dalliances could be dangerous. Illicit affairs did not usually remain secret for long, and soldiers returning from battle could be quick to resort to violence.

Ragna changed direction and approached the two men.

A cook called Eadhild was skinning fish with a sharp knife and bloody hands. None of the maids noticed Ragna’s approach. Eadhild was telling the men to go away, but in a playful tone that clearly showed she did not mean it. “We don’t want your sort here,” she said, but then she giggled.

Ragna noticed that Gilda looked disapproving.

One of the men said: “Women never want our sort—until they do!”

“Oh, go on with you,” said Eadhild.

Ragna said abruptly: “Who are you men?”

They looked startled and said nothing for a moment.

Ragna said: “Give me your names or I’ll have you both thrashed.”

Gilda pointed with a skewer. “He’s Wiga and the other one is Tata. They work at the Abbey Alehouse.”

Ragna said: “And what do you think will happen, Wiga and Tata, when these women’s husbands come home, with their swords as bloody as that fish knife of Eadhild’s, and find out what you’ve been saying to their wives?”

Wiga and Tata looked shamefaced and made no answer.

“Murder,” Ragna said. “That’s what will happen. Now go back to your alehouse, and don’t let me see you inside this compound until Ealdorman Wilf comes home.”

They scurried off.

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 toldherself 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.