Page 38 of The Evening and the Morning

So Aldred was in the right place.

“It’s a farthing to cross,” she said. “But I can’t take a horse.”

Aldred could see that. The crude boat would capsize easily. He said: “Don’t worry, Dismas will swim.”

He paid his farthing. He unloaded the pony and put the box of books and the saddle in the boat. He held the reins as he boarded and sat down, then tugged gently to encourage Dismas into the water. For a moment the horse hesitated, as if he might resist. “Come on,” Aldred said reassuringly, and at the same moment Cwenburg pushed away from the bank; then Dismas walked into the water. As soon as it got deep he began to swim. Aldred kept hold of the reins. He did not think Dismas would try to escape, but there was no point in taking the chance.

As they crossed the river Aldred said to Cwenburg: “How far is it from here to Shiring?”

“Two days.”

Aldred looked at the sky. The sun was low. There was a long evening ahead, but he might not find another place to stay before dark. He had better spend the night here.

They reached the other side, and Aldred picked up the distinctive smell of brewing.

Dismas found his feet. Aldred released the reins and the pony climbed the riverbank, shook himself vigorously to get rid of the water soaking his coat, and then began to crop the summer grass.

Another girl came out of the alehouse. She was about fourteen, with black hair and blue eyes, and despite her youth she was pregnant. She might have been pretty but she did not smile. Aldred wasshocked to see that she wore no headdress of any kind. A woman showing her hair was normally a prostitute.

“This is Blod,” said Cwenburg. “Our slave.” Blod said nothing. “She speaks Welsh,” Cwenburg added.

Aldred unloaded his box from the ferry and set it down on the riverbank, then did the same with his saddle.

Blod picked up his box helpfully. He watched her uneasily, but she just carried it into the alehouse.

A man’s voice said: “You can fuck her for a farthing.”

Aldred turned. The newcomer had emerged from a small building that was probably a brewhouse, and the source of the strong smell. In his thirties, he was the right age to be Cwenburg’s father. He was tall and broad-shouldered, reminding Aldred vaguely of Wynstan, the bishop of Shiring, and Aldred seemed to remember hearing that Dreng was Wynstan’s cousin. However, Dreng walked with a limp.

He looked speculatively at Aldred, through eyes set narrowly on either side of a long nose. He smiled insincerely. “A farthing is cheap,” he added. “She was a penny when she was fresh.”

“No,” said Aldred.

“No one wants her. It’s because she’s pregnant, the stupid cow.”

Aldred could not let that pass. “I expect she’s pregnant because you prostitute her, in defiance of God’s laws.”

“She enjoys it, that’s her trouble. Women only get pregnant when they enjoy it.”

“Do they?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“I don’t know it.”

“You don’t know anything about that sort of thing, do you? You’re a monk.”

Aldred tried to swallow the insult in a Christlike way. “That’s true,” he said and bowed his head.

Showing humility in the face of insults sometimes had the effect of making the insulter too ashamed to go on, but Dreng seemed immune to shame. “I used to have a boy—he might have interested you,” he said. “But he died.”

Aldred looked away. He was sensitive to this accusation because in his youth he had suffered from just that kind of temptation. As a novice at Glastonbury Abbey he had been passionately fond of a young monk called Brother Leofric. What they did was only boyish fooling around, Aldred felt, but they had been caught in flagrante delicto, and there had been a tremendous row. Aldred had been transferred, to separate him from his lover, and that was how he had ended up at Shiring.

There had been no repetition: Aldred still had troubling thoughts, but he was able to resist them.

Blod came back out of the tavern, and Dreng told her, with hand gestures, to pick up Aldred’s saddle. “I can’t carry heavy weights, I’ve got a bad back,” Dreng said. “A Viking knocked me off my horse at the battle of Watchet.”

Aldred checked on Dismas, who seemed settled in the pasture, then went into the alehouse. It was much like a regular house except for its size. It had a lot of furniture, tables and stools and chests and wall hangings. There were other signs of affluence: a large salmon hanging from the ceiling, being cured in the smoke from the fire; a barrel with a bung standing on a bench; hens pecking in the reeds on the floor; a pot bubbling on the fire and giving off a tantalizing fragrance of spring lamb.