by Ken Follett
“No. And I don’t remember people talking about such visitors, either. Do you think Ironface might use a go-between?”
“Yes. Someone respectable who has a reason for visiting Combe.”
“But that includes hundreds of people. It’s a big town. They go there to buy and sell.”
“Anyone you’d suspect, Edgar?”
“Dreng, the tavern keeper here, is evil enough, but he doesn’t like to travel.”
Ragna nodded. “This wants thinking about,” she said. “I’d like to put a stop to this lawlessness, and Sheriff Den feels the same way.”
“Don’t we all,” said Edgar.
* * *
Ragna and Cat were putting the twins down in their cots for an afternoon sleep when they heard a commotion outside. A girl howled in fury, several women began to shout, and then a lot of men started laughing and jeering. The twins closed their eyes, oblivious, and went to sleep in seconds, then Ragna stepped outside to see what the fuss was about.
It was cold. A north wind with ice in its blast scoured the compound. A crowd had gathered around a barrel of water. As Ragna got closer she saw that at the center of the group was a naked girl in a rage. Gytha and two or three other women were trying to wash her, using brushes and rags and oil and water, while others struggled to hold her still. As they poured cold water over her, she shivered uncontrollably while at the same time yelling a stream of what sounded to Ragna like swear words in Welsh.
Ragna said: “Who is she?”
The new head groom, Wuffa, standing in front of Ragna, replied without turning his head. “It’s Gytha’s new slave,” he said, then he shouted: “Scrub her tits!” and the men around him chortled.
Ragna could have stopped the mistreatment of an ordinary young woman, but not a slave. People were entitled to be cruel to slaves. There were some feeble laws against killing a slave for no good reason, but even they were difficult to enforce, and the punishments were mild.
The girl was about thirteen, Ragna saw. Her skin, when the dirt came off, was pale. The hair on her head and between her legs was dark, almost black. She had slender arms and legs and perfect, small breasts. Even though her face was twisted with fury, she was pretty.
Ragna said: “Why would Gytha want a slave girl?”
Wuffa turned to reply, grinning, but he realized who he was talking to and changed his mind. The grin vanished and he muttered: “I don’t know.”
Clearly he did know, but was embarrassed to say.
Wilf appeared out of the great hall and approached the crowd, evidently curious, as Ragna had been. She watched him, wondering how he would react to this. Gytha quickly ordered her companions to stop washing the girl and hold her still for Wilf to look at.
The crowd parted respectfully for the ealdorman to pass. The girl was more or less clean now. Her black hair hung wetly on either side of her face, and her skin glowed with the scrubbing it had suffered. Her scowl seemed only to make her more alluring. Wilf grinned broadly. “Who is this?” he said.
Gytha answered. “Her name is Carwen,” she said. “She’s a gift from me to you, to thank you for being the best stepson a mother could ask for.”
Ragna stifled a cry of protest. This was not fair! She had done everything to please Wilf and keep him loyal, and in the three years they had been married he had been a good deal more faithful than most English noblemen. He slept with Inge now and again, as if for old times’ sake, and he probably lay with peasant girls when he went away, but while he was here he hardly looked at other women. And now all her work was going to be undone by a slave girl—given to him by Gytha! Ragna knew right away that Gytha’s plan was to drive a wedge between her and Wilf.
Wilf stepped forward with his arms outstretched, as if to embrace Carwen.
She spat in his face.
Wilf stopped in his tracks, and the crowd went silent.
A slave could be executed for that. Wilf might well draw his knife and cut her throat on the spot.
He wiped his face with his sleeve, then put his hand on the hilt of the dagger in his belt. He stared at Carwen for a long moment. Ragna could not tell what he would do.
Then he took his hand off his knife.
He could still simply reject Carwen. Who wanted a gift that spat in your face? Ragna thought this might be her salvation.
Then Wilf relaxed. He grinned and looked around. The crowd tittered uneasily. Then Wilf began to laugh.
The crowd laughed with him, and Ragna knew that she was lost.
Wilf’s expression became serious again, and the crowd quietened.
He slapped the slave’s face once, hard. He had big, strong hands. Carwen cried out and began to weep. Her cheek turned bright red and a trickle of blood ran from her lips down her chin.
Wilf turned to Gytha. “Tie her up and put her in my house,” he said. “On the floor.”
He watched as the women tied the slave’s hands behind her back, with some difficulty as she struggled to resist. Once that was done, they tied her ankles.
The men in the crowd were looking at the naked girl but the women were surreptitiously watching Ragna. She realized they were curious to see how she would react. She did her best to keep her face a dignified blank.
Gytha’s women lifted the trussed Carwen and carried her to Wilf’s house.
Ragna turned and walked slowly away, feeling distraught. The father of her three sons was going to spend tonight with a slave girl. What was she to do?
She would not allow this to ruin her marriage, she resolved. Gytha could hurt her but not destroy her. She would keep her hold on Wilf somehow.
She entered her own house. Her servants did not speak to her. They had found out what was happening, and they could see the expression on her face.
She sat down, thinking. It would be a mistake to try to stop Wilf sleeping with Carwen, she saw right away. He would not heed her wishes—a man such as he did not take orders from a woman, even one he loved—and the demand would only sour his feelings. Should she pretend not to care? No, that would be going too far. The right note to strike might be rueful acceptance of a man’s desires. She could fake that, if she had to.
It was approaching suppertime. At all costs she must not appear defeated and sad. She had to look so gorgeous that he might even suffer a pang of regret at spending the night with another woman.
She picked a dark-yellow dress that she knew he liked. It was a bit tight across the bust, but that was good. She got Cat to tie up her hair in a kerchief of chestnut silk. She put on a cloak of dark red wool, to protect her back from the cold draughts that pierced the timber walls of the great hall. She finished the outfit with a brooch of gold-colored enamel inlay.
At supper she sat on Wilf’s right, as usual. He was in a convivial mood, bantering with the men, but every now and again she caught him looking at her with something in his eyes that intrigued her. It was not quite fear, but it was stronger than mere anxiety, and she realized that he was actually nervous.
How should she respond? If she showed her pain, he would feel manipulated and become angry, and then he would want to teach her a lesson, probably by paying all the more attention to Carwen. No, there had to be a more subtle way.
All through the meal Ragna made sure she was more alluring than ever, though she felt miserable. She laughed at Wilf’s jokes, and whenever he made some allusion to love or sex she looked at him from under her eyelids in a way that always made him feel amorous.
When the food was finished and the men were getting drunk, she left the table, along with most of the women. She returned to her own house, carrying a rush lamp to light her way. She did not take off her cloak, but stood in the doorway looking out, watching the movements dimly visible around the compound, thinking, trying out speeches in her mind.
Cat said: “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for a qui
et moment.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want Gytha to see me going to Wilf’s house.”
Cat sounded fearful. “That’s where the slave is. What are you going to do to her?”
“I’m not sure. I’m thinking about it.”
“Don’t make Wilf angry with you.”
“We’ll see.”
A few minutes later Ragna saw a silhouette move from Gytha’s house to Wilf’s, carrying a candle. She guessed Gytha was checking on her gift, making sure Carwen was still presentable.
Ragna waited patiently. Soon Gytha left Wilf’s house and returned to her own. Ragna gave her a minute to settle. A woman and her drunk husband came out of the great hall and staggered across the compound. At last the coast was clear, and Ragna quickly crossed the short distance and went into Wilf’s house.
Carwen was still bound, but able to sit upright. Being naked, she was cold, and she had squirmed closer to the fire. The left side of her face bore a huge purple bruise where Wilf had slapped her.
Ragna sat on a stool and wondered whether the slave spoke English. She said: “I’m sorry this has happened to you.”
Carwen showed no response.
“I’m his wife,” Ragna said.
Carwen said: “Ha!”
So she understood.
“He’s not a cruel man,” Ragna went on. “At least, no more cruel than men generally are.”
Carwen’s face relaxed a fraction, perhaps with relief.
“He’s never hit me the way he hit you today,” Ragna said. “Mind you, I’ve been careful not to displease him.” She held up a hand as if to forestall argument. “I’m not judging you, just telling you how it is.”
Carwen nodded.
That was progress.
Ragna took a blanket from Wilf’s bed and put it around Carwen’s thin, white shoulders. “Would you like some wine?”
“Yes.”
Ragna went to the table and poured wine from a jug into a wooden cup. She knelt beside Carwen and held the cup to her lips. Carwen drank. Ragna half expected her to spit the wine at her, but she swallowed it gratefully.
Then Wilf came in.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he said immediately.
Ragna stood up. “I want to talk to you about this slave.”
Wilf folded his arms.
Ragna said: “Would you like a cup of wine?” Without waiting for an answer, she poured for two, handed him one, and sat down.
He sipped the wine and sat opposite her. His expression said that if she wanted a fight he would give her a damn good one.
A half-formed thought took more definite shape in Ragna’s mind and she said: “I don’t think Carwen should live in the slave house.”
Wilf looked surprised and did not know how to respond. This was the last thing he had been expecting. “Why?” he said. “Because the slave house is so filthy?”
Ragna shrugged. “It’s dirty because we lock them in at night and they can’t go outside to piss. But that’s not what bothers me.”
“What, then?”
“If she spends nights there, she’ll be fucked by one or more of the men, who probably have disgusting infections that she will pass to you.”
“I never thought of that. Where should she live?”
“We don’t have a spare house in the compound at the moment, and anyway a slave can’t have her own place. Gytha bought her, so perhaps Carwen should live with Gytha . . . when she’s not with you.”
“Good idea,” he said. He was visibly relieved. He had been expecting trouble, but all he got was a practical problem with a ready solution.
Gytha would be furious, but Wilf would not change his mind once he had given his agreement. For Ragna this was a small but satisfying act of revenge.
She stood up. “Enjoy yourself,” she said, though in truth she was hoping he would not.
“Thank you.”
She went to the door. “And when you tire of the girl, and you want a woman again, you can come back to me.” She opened the door. “Good night,” she said, and she went out.
CHAPTER 26
March 1001
hings did not work out the way Ragna expected. Wilf slept with Carwen every night for eight weeks, then he went to Exeter.
At first Ragna was baffled. How could he bear to spend that much time with a thirteen-year-old girl? What did he and Carwen talk about? What could an adolescent girl have to say that could possibly interest a man of Wilf’s age and experience? In bed with Ragna, in the mornings, he had chatted about the problems of governing the ealdormanry: collecting taxes, catching criminals, and most of all defending the region from Viking attacks. He certainly did not discuss those issues with Carwen.
He still chatted to Ragna, just not in bed.
Gytha was delighted with the change and made the most of it, never missing an opportunity to refer to Carwen in Ragna’s presence. Ragna was humiliated, but hid her feelings behind a smile.
Inge, who hated Ragna for taking Wilf from her, was delighted to see Ragna supplanted and, like Gytha, tried to rub it in. But she did not have Gytha’s nerve. She said: “Well, Ragna, you haven’t spent a night with Wilf for weeks!”
“Nor have you,” Ragna replied, and that shut her up.
Ragna made the best of her new life, but with bitterness in her heart. She invited poets and musicians to Shiring. She doubled the size of her home, making it a second great hall, to accommodate her visitors—all with Wilf’s permission, which he gave readily, so eager was he to placate her while he fucked his slave girl.
She worried that as Wilf’s passion for her faded so her political position might weaken, therefore to compensate she strengthened her relationships with other powerful men: the bishop of Norwood, the abbot of Glastonbury, Sheriff Den, and others. Abbot Osmund of Shiring was still alive but bedridden, so she befriended Treasurer Hildred. She invited them to her house to listen to music and hear poems declaimed. Wilf liked the idea that his compound was becoming a cultural center: it enhanced his prestige. Nevertheless, his great hall continued to feature jesters and acrobats, and the discussion after dinner was of swords and horses and battleships.
Then the Vikings came.
They had spent the previous summer peacefully in Normandy. No one in England knew why, but all were grateful, and King Ethelred had felt confident enough to go north and harry the Strathclyde Britons. But this spring the Vikings came back with a vengeance, a hundred ships with prows like curved swords sailing fast up the river Exe. They found the city of Exeter strongly defended, but mercilessly ravaged the countryside round about.
All this Shiring learned from messengers who came to seek help. Wilf did not hesitate. If the Vikings took control of the area around Exeter, they would have a base easily accessible from the sea, and from there they could attack anywhere in the West Country at will. They would be only a step from conquering the region and taking over Wilf’s ealdormanry—something they had already achieved in much of the northeast of England. That outcome could not be contemplated, and Wilf assembled an army.
He discussed strategy with Ragna. She said he should not simply dash there with a small Shiring force and attack the Vikings as soon as he could find them. Speed and surprise were always good, but with an enemy force this large there was a risk of early defeat and humiliation. Wilf agreed, and said he would first make a tour of the West Country, recruiting men and swelling his ranks, in the hope of having an overwhelming army by the time he met the Vikings.
Ragna knew this would be a dangerous time for her. Before Wilf left she needed to establish publicly that she was his deputy. Once he was gone, her rivals would try to undermine her while he was not there to protect her. Wynstan would not go with Wilf to fight the Vikings, for as a man of God he was forbidden to shed blood, and he generally kept that rule, while breaking m
any others. He would remain in Shiring, and would certainly attempt to take charge of the ealdormanry with Gytha’s backing. Ragna would need to be on her guard every day.
She prayed that Wilf would spend one night with her before leaving, but it did not happen, and her bitterness deepened.
On the day he was to depart, Ragna stood with him at the door of the great hall while Wuffa brought his favorite horse, Cloud, an iron-gray stallion. Carwen was nowhere to be seen: no doubt Wilf had said good-bye to her privately, which was considerate of him.
In front of everyone, Wilf kissed Ragna on the lips—for the first time in two months.
She spoke loudly so that all could hear. “I promise you, my husband, that I will rule your ealdormanry well in your absence,” she said, with emphasis on the word rule. “I will dispense justice as you would, and safeguard your people and your wealth, and I will allow no one to prevent me from doing my duty.”
It was an obvious challenge to Wynstan, and Wilf understood that. His feelings of guilt were still causing him to give Ragna anything she asked for. “Thank you, my wife,” he said equally loudly. “I know you will rule as I would if I were here.” He, too, emphasized rule. “Who defies the lady Ragna, defies me,” he said.
Ragna lowered her voice. “Thank you,” she said. “And come back safe to me.”
* * *
Ragna became quiet, deep in thought, hardly talking to the people around her. Gradually she realized she had to face up to a hard fact: Wilf would never love her the way she wanted to be loved.
He was fond of her, he respected her, and sooner or later he would probably begin to spend some nights with her again. But she would always be just one of the mares in his stable. This was not the life she had dreamed of when she fell in love with him. Could she get used to it?
The question made her want to cry. She held her feelings in during the day, when she was with others, but at night she wept, heard only by the intimates who shared her house. It was like a bereavement, she thought; she had lost her husband, not to death, but to another woman.
