Page 282 of The Evening and the Morning

“You’ll see. Just wait.”

That night Edgar and Ragna slept together in her house. They lay on the rushes, in each other’s arms, but they did not make love: they were much too distressed. Edgar took consolation from holding Ragna. She pressed her body to his in a way that seemed loving but also desperate.

She fed the baby twice in the night. Edgar dozed but he suspected that Ragna did not sleep at all. They got up as soon as it was light.

Edgar went into the town center and rented two carts for the journey. He had them brought into the compound and stationed outside Ragna’s house. While the children were given breakfast, he loaded most of the baggage on one cart. He put all the cushions and blankets on the other, for the women and children to sit on. He saddled Buttress and put Astrid on a leading rein.

He was getting what he had longed for over many years, but hecould not rejoice. He thought Ragna might eventually get over the loss of Alain, but he feared it could take a long time.

They all had their traveling clothes and shoes on. Gilda and Winthryth were coming with them, as well as Cat and the bodyguards. They all walked out of the house, Ragna carrying Alain.

Gytha was waiting to take him.

The servants and children climbed onto the cart.

Everyone looked at Ragna.

She walked up to Gytha, and Edgar walked by her side. Ragna hesitated. She looked at Edgar, then at Gytha, then at the baby in her arms. Tears were streaming down her face. She turned away from Gytha, then turned back. Gytha reached for Alain, but Ragna did not let her take him. She stood between the two of them for a long moment.

Then she said to Gytha: “I can’t do it.”

She turned to Edgar and said: “I’m sorry.”

Then, holding Alain tightly to her chest, she walked back into her house.

The wedding was huge. People came from all over southern England. A major dynastic conflict had been settled, and everyone wanted to make friends with the winning side.

Wynstan looked around the great hall with a feeling of profound satisfaction. The trestle table was loaded with the products of a warm summer and a fine harvest: great joints of meat, loaves of new bread, pyramids of nuts and fruit, and jugs of ale and wine.

People were falling over one another to show deference to Ealdorman Wigelm and his family. Wigelm was seated next to QueenEmma, and looked smug. As a ruler he would be uninspired but brutally firm, and with Wynstan’s guidance he would make the right decisions.

And now he was married to Ragna. Wigelm had never really liked her, Wynstan felt sure, but he desired her in the way a man sometimes craved a woman just because she rejected him. They were going to be miserable together.

Ragna, the only threat to Wynstan’s dominance, had been crushed. She sat at the top table next to the king, with her baby in her arms, looking as if she would like to commit suicide.

The king seemed satisfied with his visit to Shiring. Looking at it from the royal point of view, Wynstan guessed that Ethelred was glad to have appointed the new ealdorman and disposed of the old one’s widow, righted the wrong of Ragna’s imprisonment but prevented her from running off with the ealdorman’s baby, and all without bloodshed.

There was little sign of the Ragna faction. Sheriff Den was here, looking as if he had detected a bad smell, but Aldred had gone back to his little priory, and Edgar had vanished. He might have gone back to manage Ragna’s quarry at Outhenham, but would he have wanted to, now that the love of his life had married someone else? Wynstan did not know and really did not care.

There was even a good piece of medical news. The sore on Wynstan’s penis had gone. He had been frightened, especially when the whores said it could lead to leprosy, but that had evidently been a false alarm, and he was back to normal.

My brother is the ealdorman and I’m the bishop, Wynstan thought proudly. And neither of us is yet forty years old.

We’ve only just begun.

Edgar and Aldred stood at the waterside and looked back at the hamlet. The Michaelmas Fair was on. Hundreds of people were crossing the bridge, shopping at the market, and queueing to see the bones of the saint. They were talking and laughing, happy to spend what little money they had.

“The place is thriving,” Edgar said.

“I’m very pleased,” said Aldred, but there were tears on his face.

Edgar was both embarrassed and moved. He had known for years that Aldred was in love with him, though it had never been said.

Edgar looked the other way. His raft was tied up at the riverbank downstream of the bridge. Buttress, his pony, stood on it. Also on the raft were his Viking ax, all his tools, and a chest containing a few precious possessions, including the book Ragna had given him. Missing was Brindle, his dog, who had died of old age.

That had been the last straw. He had been contemplating leaving Dreng’s Ferry, and the death of Brindle had finally made up his mind.

Aldred wiped his eyes on his sleeve and said: “Must you go?”