Page 27 of The Evening and the Morning

“I’m sure, but at least people here know what’s sinful and what’s not. The other thing is that I’ve seen no slaves anywhere in Normandy.”

“There’s a slave market in Rouen, but the buyers are foreigners. Slavery has been almost completely abolished here. Our clergy condemn it, mainly because so many slaves are used for fornication and sodomy.”

Louis made a startled noise. Perhaps he was not used to young women talking about fornication and sodomy. Ragna realized with a sinking heart that she had made another mistake.

Aldred was not shocked. He continued the discussion without pause. “On the other hand,” he said, “your peasants are serfs, who need the permission of their lord to marry, change their way of making a living, or move to another village. By contrast, English peasants are free.”

Ragna reflected on that. She had not realized that the Norman system was not universal.

They came to a hamlet called Les Chênes. The grass was growing tall in the meadows, Ragna saw. The villagers would reap it in a week or two, she guessed, and make hay to feed livestock in the winter.

The men and women working in the fields stopped what they were doing and waved. “Deborah!” they called. “Deborah!” Ragna waved back.

Louis said: “Did I hear them call you Deborah?”

“Yes. It’s a nickname.”

“Where does it come from?”

Ragna grinned. “You’ll see.”

The sound of seven horses brought people out of their houses. Ragna saw a woman she recognized, and reined in. “You’re Ellen, the baker.”

“Yes, my lady. I pray I see you well and happy.”

“What happened to that little boy of yours who fell out of a tree?”

“He died, my lady.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“They say I shouldn’t mourn, for I’ve got three more sons.”

“Then they’re fools, whoever they are,” said Ragna. “The loss of a child is a terrible grief to a mother, and it makes no difference how many more you may have.”

Tears fell on Ellen’s wind-reddened cheeks, and she reached out a hand. Ragna took it and squeezed gently. Ellen kissed Ragna’s hand and said: “You understand.”

“Perhaps I do, a little,” said Ragna. “Good-bye, Ellen.”

They rode on. Aldred said: “Poor woman.”

Louis said: “I give you credit, Lady Ragna. That woman will worship you for the rest of her life.”

Ragna felt slighted. Louis obviously thought she had been kind merely as a way of making herself popular. She wanted to ask him whether he thought no one ever felt genuine compassion. But she remembered her duty and kept silent.

Louis said: “But I still don’t know why they call you Deborah.”

Ragna gave him an enigmatic smile. Let him figure it out for himself, she thought.

Aldred said: “I notice that a lot of people around here have the wonderful red hair that you have, Lady Ragna.”

Ragna was aware that she had a glorious head of red-gold curls. “That’s the Viking blood,” she said. “Around here, some people still speak Norse.”

Louis commented: “The Normans are different from the rest of us in the Frankish lands.”

That might have been a compliment, but Ragna thought not.

After an hour they came to Saint-Martin. Ragna halted on the outskirts. Several men and women were busy in a leafy orchard, and among them she spotted Gerbert, the reeve, or village headman. She dismounted and crossed a pasture to talk to him, and her companions followed.