Page 260 of The Evening and the Morning

“That’s impossible,” said Wynstan. “Great pox leads to leprosy.”

Mags softened, but only slightly. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said, and Wynstan felt she was humoring him. “But whatever it is I can’t let you fuck my girls. If any kind of pox got around this house half the clergy in England would be out of action before you could say ‘fornicate.’”

“Well, that’s a blow.” Wynstan felt cast down. An illness was a weakness, and he was supposed to be strong. Besides, he was aroused, and wanted a fuck. “What am I going to do?” he said.

Mags’s demeanor regained some of its usual coquetry. “You’re going to get the best hand-fuck you’ve ever had, and I’m going to give it to you myself, my sweet priest.”

“Well, if that’s the best you can do...”

“The girls will put on a show for you at the same time. What would you like to watch?”

Wynstan considered. “I’d like to see Merry’s arse flogged with a strap.”

“Then you shall,” Mags said.

Merry said: “Oh, no.”

“Don’t complain,” Mags told her. “You get extra pay for flagellation, you know that.”

Merry was contrite. “I’m sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean to complain.”

“That’s better,” said Mags. “Now, turn around and bend over.”

CHAPTER 35

March 1003

agna and Cat were teaching the children a counting song. Osbert, almost four, could more or less carry a tune. The twins were just two, and they could only drone, but they were able to learn the words. Cat’s daughters, aged two and three, were somewhere in between. They all liked the singing, and as a bonus, they were learning their numbers.

Ragna’s main occupation in prison was keeping the children busy with activities that taught them something. She remembered poems, made up stories, and described every place she had ever visited. She told them about the shipAngeland the storm in the Channel, the thief Ironface who had stolen the wedding present, and even the fire in the stables at Cherbourg Castle. Cat was not as good at stories but had a bottomless fund of French songs and a pure voice.

Entertaining the children also kept the two women from sinking into a swamp of suicidal despair.

As the song was ending the door opened and a guard looked in. It was Elfgar, the youngster, not as hardened as Fulcric and inclinedto be sympathetic. He often told Ragna the news. From him she had learned that the Vikings were attacking the West Country again, with the dreaded King Swein at their head. The truce that Ethelred had bought for twenty-four thousand pounds of silver had not lasted into a second year.

Ragna almost hoped that the Vikings might conquer the West Country. She could be captured and ransomed. At least she might get out of this prison.

Elfgar said: “Exercise time.”

“Where’s Agnes?” said Ragna.

“She’s feeling ill.”

Ragna was not sorry. She hated seeing Agnes, the woman who had betrayed her, the one responsible for her imprisonment.

The open door let in cold air, so Ragna and Cat put the impatient children into their cloaks, then released them to run outside. Elfgar closed the door and barred it from the outside.

With the children gone, Ragna gave herself up to misery.

She had been here seven months, according to the almanac she had scratched on the wall. There were fleas in the rushes on the floor and nits in her hair, and she had a cough. The place stank: two adults and five children used a single pot for their toilet, for they were not allowed to go outside for that purpose.

A day spent here was a day stolen from her life, and she felt a resentment as sharp as an arrowhead every morning when she woke up to find herself still a prisoner.

And Wigelm had come again yesterday.

His visits were mercifully less frequent now. At first he had appeared once a week; now it was more like once a month. She hadlearned to close her eyes and think about the view from the ramparts of Cherbourg Castle, and the clean salty air blowing in her face, until she felt him withdraw like a slug leaving her body. She prayed he would soon lose interest altogether.

The children returned, red-faced from the cold, and it was the turn of the two women to put on cloaks and go out.