Page 320 of The Evening and the Morning

She cried: “Oh, Alain, you’ve changed!” and she burst into tears.

Gytha and Meganthryth both turned around, startled.

Ragna went to the table and sat by her son. He stared at her thoughtfully with his large blue eyes. She could not tell whether he knew her or not.

Gytha and Meganthryth looked on without speaking.

Ragna said: “Do you remember me, Alain?”

“Mudder,” he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he had been searching for the right word and was satisfied to have found it; then he put another spoonful of porridge into his mouth.

Ragna felt a wave of relief overwhelm her.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the other women. Meganthryth’s eyes were red and sore. Gytha was dry-eyed, but her face was white and drawn. They had heard the news, evidently, and both were possessed by grief. Wigelm had been evil, but he had been Gytha’s son and Meganthryth’s lover, and they mourned him. But Ragna felt little compassion. They had connived in the monumental cruelty of taking Alain away from Ragna. They deserved no sympathy.

Ragna said firmly: “I have come to take back my child.”

Neither woman protested.

Alain put down his spoon and turned his bowl to show that it was empty. “All gone,” he said. He placed the bowl back on the table.

Gytha looked defeated. All her deviousness had come to nothing in the end. She seemed much changed. “We were cruel to you, Ragna,” she said. “It was wicked of us to take your child.”

It was a shocking turnaround, and Ragna was not ready to take it at face value. “Now you admit it,” she said. “When you’ve lost the power to keep him.”

Gytha persisted. “You won’t be as wicked as us, will you? Please don’t cut me off from my only grandchild.”

Ragna made no reply. She turned her attention back to Alain. He was watching her carefully.

She reached for him and he held out his arms to be picked up. She lifted him onto her lap. He was heavier than she remembered:she would no longer be able to carry him around half the day. He leaned into her, resting his head on her chest, and she felt the heat of his little body through the wool of her dress. She stroked his hair.

From outside she heard the sound of a large group of people. Den was arriving with his entourage, she guessed. She stood up, still holding Alain in her arms. She went out.

Den was marching across the compound at the head of a large squad of men-at-arms. Ragna joined him and walked by his side. A crowd was waiting for them outside the great hall.

They stopped at the door and turned to face the people.

All the important men of the town stood at the front of the crowd. Bishop Wynstan was there, Ragna saw; and she was shocked by his appearance. He was thin and stooped, and his hands were shaking. He looked like an old man. His face as he stared at Ragna was a mask of hatred, but he seemed too weak to do anything about it, and his weakness appeared to fuel his rage.

Den’s deputy, Captain Wigbert, clapped his hands loudly.

The crowd went quiet.

Den said: “We have an announcement.”

CHAPTER 42

October 1006

ing Ethelred held court in Winchester Cathedral, with a crowd of dignitaries wrapped in furs against the bite of approaching winter.

To Ragna’s delight, he confirmed everything Sheriff Den had proposed.

Garulf protested, his indignant whine echoing off the stone walls of the nave. “I am the son of Ealdorman Wilwulf and the nephew of Ealdorman Wigelm,” he said. “Den is merely a sheriff without noble blood.”

The assembled thanes might have been expected to agree with this, for they all wanted their sons to be rulers too; but their reaction was muted.

Ethelred said to Garulf: “You lost half my army in one foolish battle in Devon.”