Page 259 of The Evening and the Morning

Wigelm grasped the neckline of Ragna’s dress and ripped if off, leaving her spread-eagled naked, held by her ankles and wrists.

One of the men said: “Now, there’s a pair of plump pigeons, by the gods!”

“They’re not for you,” Wigelm said, lifting the skirt of his tunic. “When I’ve finished you can fuck the maid, but not this one. She’s going to be my wife.”

There was a cold wind coming off the sea, and Wynstan walked gratefully into the warm, smoky atmosphere of Mags’s house in Combe, with Wigelm behind him. Mags saw him at once and threw her arms around him. “My favorite priest!” she exulted.

Wynstan kissed her. “Mags, you sweet thing, how are you?”

She looked over his shoulder. “And your equally handsome younger brother,” she said, and embraced Wigelm.

“Every rich man is handsome to you,” Wigelm said sourly.

She ignored that. “Sit down, dear friends, and have a cup of mead. It’s newly brewed. Selethryth!” She snapped her fingers, and a flagon and cups were brought by a middle-aged woman—undoubtedly a former prostitute now considered too old for the work, Wynstan thought.

They drank the ultra-sweet potion and Selethryth poured more.

Wynstan looked at the women sitting at the sides of the room on benches. Some were dressed, others draped in loose wraps, and one pale girl was stark naked. “What a lovely sight,” he said with a sigh.

“I have a new girl I’ve been saving,” Mags said. “But which of you will take her virginity?”

Wigelm said: “How many men have taken it so far?”

Wynstan chuckled.

Mags protested. “You know I’d never lie to you. I don’t even allow her in here—she’s locked up in the house next door.”

Wynstan said: “Let Wigelm have the virgin. I’m in the mood for a more experienced woman.”

“How about Merry? She likes you.”

Wynstan smiled at a voluptuous dark-haired woman of about twenty. She waved to him. “Yes,” he said. “Merry would be lovely. Such a big arse.”

Merry came and sat beside him, and he kissed her.

Mags said: “Selethryth, fetch the virgin from next door for Thane Wigelm.”

After a few minutes Wynstan said to Merry: “Lie down in the straw, my dear, and let’s get at it.”

Merry pulled her dress over her head and lay on her back. She was pink-skinned and plump: he was glad he had chosen her. He lifted the skirt of his tunic and knelt between her legs.

Merry screamed.

Wynstan flinched away, bewildered. “What the devil is wrong with the woman?” he said.

Merry screeched, “He’s got a chancre!” She leaped to her feet and covered her vagina protectively.

“No, I haven’t,” Wynstan said.

Mags spoke in a new tone of voice. Her former anything-you-like-darling attitude had been replaced by a brisk sense of authority. “Let me see, bishop,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Show me your prick.”

Wynstan turned.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Mags. “It’s a chancre.”

Wynstan looked down at his penis. Near the head was an oval ulcer an inch long with an angry red spot at its center. “That’s nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t even hurt.”

Mags’s jollity had all fallen away and her voice was cold. “It’s not nothing,” she said firmly. “It’s the great pox.”