Page 54 of The Evening and the Morning

“I ought to have hated him, but I couldn’t.”

“I’ll reassure him of that as soon as I get home.”

She had a lot more to say to Wynstan, but she was interrupted by the noise of a small, excited crowd. Some yards beyond the stable two dogs were fighting, a short-legged black hound and a gray mastiff. The stable hands had come out to watch. They were yelling encouragement at the dogs and making bets on which would win.

Irritated, Ragna went into the stable to see if anyone was there to help saddle the horses. She saw that the hands had brought dry straw, as she had ordered, but all of them had abandoned their work for the dogfight, and most of the straw stood in a pile just inside the door.

She was about to go and drag one or two away from the excitement when her nostrils twitched. She sniffed and smelled burning. Her senses went on high alert. She spotted a wisp of smoke.

She guessed that someone had brought a brand from the kitchen to light a lamp in a dark corner then had abandoned the project and put the brand down carelessly when the fight began. Whatever the explanation, some of the new straw was smoldering.

Ragna looked around and saw a water barrel that supplied thehorses’ needs, with a wooden bucket upside down on the floor nearby. She grabbed the bucket, filled it, and threw the water on the smoking straw.

She saw immediately that this would not be enough. In the few seconds it had taken her, the fire had grown, and now she saw flames licking up. She handed the bucket to Cat. “Throw more water on it!” she ordered. “We’ll go to the well.”

She ran out of the stable. Wynstan and Cnebba followed her. As she ran, she shouted: “Fire in the stable! Fetch buckets and pots!”

At the well she told Cnebba to operate the winch—he looked strong enough to do it tirelessly. Cnebba did not understand her, of course, but Wynstan rapidly translated into the guttural-sounding English language. Several people grabbed nearby containers and Cnebba started to fill them.

The hands were so wrapped up in the dogfight that none of them had yet become aware of the emergency. Ragna yelled at them, but failed to get their attention. She ran into the crowd, violently shoving men aside, and reached the fighting dogs. She grabbed the black dog by its back legs and lifted it off the ground. That stopped the fight. “Fire in the stable!” she yelled. “Form a line to the well and pass the water along.”

There was chaos for a few moments, but in commendably quick time the hands had formed a bucket chain.

Ragna went back inside the stable. The new straw was blazing fiercely and the fire had spread. The horses were neighing in fear, kicking out, and struggling to break the ropes that kept them in their places. She went to Astrid, tried to calm her, untied her, and led her out.

She saw Guillaume watching the activity. “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Do something to help!”

He seemed surprised. “I don’t know what to do,” he said vaguely.

How could he be so useless? In exasperation she said: “You idiot, if you can’t think of anything else just piss on it!”

Guillaume looked insulted and stalked off.

Ragna gave Astrid’s rope to a little girl and ran back inside. She untied all the horses and let them run out, hoping they would not injure anyone in their panic. For a few seconds they constrained the firefighters, but their departure left room to maneuver, and after a few more minutes the flames were extinguished.

The thatched roof had not caught fire, the stable had been saved, and numerous costly horses had been spared from death.

Ragna stopped the bucket chain. “Well done, everyone,” she called. “We caught the blaze in time. No great damage has been done, and no people or horses are hurt.”

One of the men shouted: “Thanks to you, Lady Ragna!”

Several others agreed loudly, and then they all cheered.

She caught Wynstan’s eye. He was looking at her with something like respect.

She looked around for Guillaume. He was nowhere to be seen.

Someone must have heard what she said to Guillaume, for by suppertime everyone in the compound seemed to know about it. Cat told her they were all talking about it, and after that she noticed that when people caught her eye, they smiled at her, then murmured to one another and laughed, as if recalling the punch line of a joke.Twice she overheard someone say: “If you can’t think of anything else just piss on it!”

Guillaume left for Reims the next morning. He had been insulted and now he was the butt of a joke. His dignity could not stand it. His departure was quiet and unceremonious. Ragna had not wanted to humiliate him, but she could not help rejoicing to see him ride away.

Ragna’s parents’ resistance crumbled. Wynstan was told that his brother’s proposal was accepted, including the dowry of twenty pounds, and the wedding was fixed for All Saints’ Day, the first of November. Wynstan went back to England with the good news. Ragna would take a few weeks to get ready, then she would follow.

“You get your way, as you so often do,” Genevieve said to Ragna. “Guillaume doesn’t want you, I don’t have the energy to search for yet another French nobleman, and at least the English will take you off my hands.”

Hubert was more gracious. “Love triumphs in the end,” he said. “Just like in those old stories you love.”

“Quite,” said Genevieve. “Except that the stories usually end in tragedy.”