Page 190 of The Evening and the Morning

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 wordrule.“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, emphasizedrule.“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 thanthe shipwreck of her life. She left the children with Cat, and took Agnes with her as her personal maid.

She entered Outhenham with a smile on her face and a stone in her heart. However, the village raised her spirits. It had prospered in the three years of her rule. They called her Ragna the Just. No one had done well when everyone was cheating and stealing. Now, with Seric in charge, people were more willing to pay their dues, knowing they were not being robbed, and they worked harder when they felt confident they would reap the rewards.

She slept at Seric’s house and held court in the morning. She ate a light midday meal, for there would be a feast later. She had arranged to visit the quarry in the afternoon, and when she was ready, she found Edgar waiting for her, wearing a blue cloak. He had his own horse now, a sturdy black mare called Buttress. “May I show you something on the way?” he asked as she got on her own mount.

“Of course.”

She thought he seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Whatever he had to say to her must be important to him, she guessed. Everyone had important things to say to the ealdorman’s wife, but Edgar was special, and Ragna was intrigued.

They rode to the riverside, then followed the cart track that led to the quarry. On one side were the backs of village houses, each with its small plot of land containing a vegetable garden, some fruit trees, one or two animal shelters, and a dunghill. On the other side was the East Field, partly ploughed, the damp clay furrows gleaming, though no work was being done as it was a holiday.

Edgar said: “Notice that the gap between the East Field and the village gardens is wide.”

“Much wider than necessary, enough for two roads.”

“Exactly. Now, it takes most of a day for two men to bring a boatload of stone from the quarry along this track to the river. That makes our stone more expensive. If they use a cart it’s easier, but it takes about the same length of time.”

She guessed he was making an important point, but she did not yet see it. “Is this what you want to show me?”

“When I tried to sell stone to the monastery at Combe, they told me they have started to buy it from Caen, in Normandy, because that’s cheaper.”

She was interested. “How can that be?”

“It travels all the way on one ship, down the Orne River to the sea, and across the Channel to Combe harbor.”

“And our problem is that our quarry isn’t on a river.”

“Not quite.”

“What does that mean?”

“The river is only half a mile away.”

“But we can’t make that half mile disappear.”

“I think we can.”

She smiled. She could see that he was enjoying this gradual revelation. “How?”

“Dig our own channel.”

That surprised her. “What?”