by Ken Follett
Alain was asleep at Ragna’s breast. She put him in his cradle and refastened the front of her dress. The material was milk-stained, but she did not worry: at this point it suited her not to be too alluring.
She puzzled over the words We tried. Why had Gytha said that? It sounded like a veiled threat, as if she was saying Don’t blame us for what will happen next. But what could happen next?
She did not know, and it troubled her.
* * *
Wynstan and Gytha went to see King Ethelred, who was living in the great hall. Wynstan did not feel his usual self-confidence. The king was not predictable. Wynstan could normally foresee his neighbors’ responses to problems: it was not difficult to figure out what they were going to do in order to get what they wanted. But the king’s challenges were much more complex.
He touched his pectoral cross in the hope of divine assistance.
When they entered the great hall, Ethelred was deep in conversation with one of his clerks. Queen Emma was not present. Ethelred held up a hand to tell Wynstan and Gytha to wait. They stood a few paces away while the king finished his conversation. Then the clerk left and Ethelred beckoned.
Wynstan began: “The child of my brother Wigelm and the lady Ragna is a healthy boy who seems likely to live, my lord king.”
“Good!” said Ethelred.
“It is indeed good news, though it threatens to destabilize the ealdormanry of Shiring.”
“How so?”
“First, you have given Ragna permission to go to the nunnery at Dreng’s Ferry. There, of course, she will be away from the influence of the ealdorman. Second, she has the ealdorman’s only child. Third, even if the baby should die, Ragna also has Wilwulf’s three young sons.”
“I see what you’re getting at,” said the king. “You think she could easily become the figurehead of a rebellion against Wigelm. People might say that her children were the true heirs.”
Wynstan was pleased that the king saw the point so quickly. “Yes, my lord king.”
“And do you propose a course of action?”
“There is only one. Ragna must marry Wigelm. Then Wigelm has no rivals.”
“Of course, that would resolve the issue,” said Ethelred. “But I’m not going to do it.”
Wynstan burst out: “Why on earth not?”
“First, because she has set her face against it. She might well refuse to take the vows.”
“You may leave it to me to deal with that,” Wynstan said. He knew how to make people do what they did not want to do.
Ethelred looked disapproving, but did not comment. Instead he said: “Second, because I have promised my wife that I will not force the marriage.”
Wynstan gave a man-to-man chuckle. “My lord king, a promise to a woman . . .”
“You don’t know much about marriage, do you, bishop?”
Wynstan bowed his head. “Of course not, my lord king.”
“I’m not willing to break my promise to my wife.”
“I understand.”
“Go away and think of a different solution.” Ethelred turned away dismissively.
Wynstan and Gytha bowed and left the house.
As soon as they were out of earshot Wynstan said: “So one troublemaking Norman bitch supports the other!”
Gytha said nothing. Wynstan glanced at his mother. She was deep in thought.
They went to Gytha’s house, and she poured a cup of wine for him.
He took a long draught and said. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“I have a suggestion,” said Gytha.
* * *
Wynstan came to Ragna’s house and said: “We need to have a serious talk.”
She looked at him with suspicion. He wanted something, of course. “Don’t ask me to marry your brother,” she said.
“I don’t think you understand your situation.”
He was his usual arrogant self, except that he touched his pectoral cross. She thought that was a sign of a hidden lack of confidence, which was unusual in Wynstan. She said: “Enlighten me.”
“You can leave here any time you like.”
“The king said so.”
“And you can take Wilwulf’s children.”
It took a moment for her to see the implication, but when she did she was horrified. “I will take all my children!” she said. “Including Alain.”
“You’re not being offered that option.” Wynstan touched the cross again. “You can leave Shiring, but you can’t take the ealdorman’s only son with you.”
“He’s my baby!”
“He is, and naturally you want to raise him yourself. That’s why you have to marry Wigelm.”
“Never.”
“Then you must leave your baby here. There is no third choice.”
A cold weight settled in the pit of Ragna’s stomach. Involuntarily she looked over at the cradle, as if to make sure Alain was still there. He was sleeping soundly.
Wynstan put on a treacly voice. “He’s a beautiful baby. Even I can see that.”
There was something so malign in the insincere compliment that Ragna felt nauseated.
“I have to raise him,” Ragna said. “I’m his mother.”
“There’s no shortage of mothers. Gytha, my own mother, is longing to take charge of her first grandchild.”
That infuriated Ragna. “So that she can raise him the way she raised you and Wigelm?” she said. “To be cruel and selfish and violent!”
To her surprise, Wynstan stood up. “Take your time,” he said. “Think about it. Let us know your decision in due course.” He went out.
Ragna knew she had to resist immediately and fiercely. “Cat,” she said. “Please go and ask if Queen Emma can see me as soon as possible.”
Cat left, and Ragna brooded. Had she been granted a false liberation? To be allowed to go only if she left her baby behind was no freedom at all. Surely Ethelred could not have meant that?
Ragna expected Cat to come back with a message saying when she could see Queen Emma, but when Cat returned she said breathlessly: “My lady, the queen is here.”
Emma walked in.
Ragna stood up and bowed, then Emma kissed her.
“I’ve just seen Bishop Wynstan,” Ragna said. “He says that if I don’t marry Wigelm they will take my baby from me.”
“Yes,” said Emma. “Gytha explained that to me.”
Ragna frowned. Gytha must have gone to see Emma at the same time as Wynstan spoke to Ragna. This was planned and coordinated. Ragna said: “Does the king know?”
“Yes,” Emma said again.
Emma’s face frightened Ragna. She looked worried, but not horrified or even shocked. What her face showed was pity. That was scary.
Ragna felt that she was losing control of her life again. “But the king freed me. What does that mean?”
“It means that you cannot be imprisoned, and the king will not force you to marry a man you loathe; but also you cannot take away the ealdorman’s son. His only son, I believe.”
“But then I’m not free after all!”
“You face a hard choice. I didn’t foresee this.” The queen went to the door. “I’m very sorry.” She left.
Ragna felt as if she were in a nightmare. For a moment she considered taking the first option, abandoning her child to be raised by Gytha. Anything to avoid marriage to the loathsome Wigelm. And after all, Alain was the product of a rape. But as soon as she looked at him, lying in his cot sleeping peacefully, she knew she could not do it, not if they made her marry five Wigelms.
Edgar walked in. She recognized him through her tears. She stood up, and he enfolded her in his arms. “Is it true?” he said to Ragna. “Everyone says you have to marry Wigelm or give up Alain!”
“It’s true,” Ragna said. Her tears soaked into the wool of his tunic.<
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“What are you going to do?” said Edgar.
Ragna did not answer.
“What are you going to do?” he repeated.
“I’m going to leave my baby,” she said.
* * *
“No, no, this won’t do!” Wynstan said angrily.
“It’s happening,” said Wigelm. “Edgar is helping her pack all her possessions. She’s going to leave the baby behind.”
“She will still have Wilwulf’s three young sons. People will say they are the genuine heirs. We’re hardly better off.”
Wigelm said: “We have to kill her. It’s the only way to be rid of her.”
They were at their mother’s house, and now she interrupted them. “You can’t kill Ragna,” Gytha said. “Not right under the nose of the king. He couldn’t let you get away with it.”
“We could put the blame on someone else.”
Gytha shook her head. “Nobody really believed that last time. They won’t even pretend to believe a second time.”
Wigelm said: “We’ll do it when the king’s gone.”
Wynstan said: “Idiot, Ragna will be safely ensconced in the nunnery on Leper Island by then.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
Gytha said: “We’re all going to calm down.”
“What good is that?” said Wigelm.
“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 he could 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 Queen Emma, 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?”
“Yes.”
“But Normandy is so far.”
Edgar planned to pole his raft downriver to Combe and there get a ship to Cherbourg. He would see Count Hubert and tell him the news of Ragna’s marriage to Wigelm. In return he would ask the count to direct him to a large building site. He had heard that a good craftsman could easily get work in Normandy.
He said: “I want to be as far away as possible from Wigelm and Wynstan and Shiring—and Ragna.”
Edgar had not seen Ragna since the wedding. He had tried but had been turned away by servants. In any case he did not know what he would have said to her. She had been given a hard choice and she had put her child first, something most women would have done. Edgar was heartbroken, but he could not blame her.
Aldred said: “Ragna is not the only person who loves you.”
“I’m fond of you,” said Edgar. “But, as you know, not that way.”
“Which is all that saves me from sin.”
“I know.”
Aldred took Edgar’s hand and kissed it.
Edgar said: “Dreng should sell the ferryboat. Ragna might buy it for Outhenham. They have no boat there.”
“I’ll suggest that.”
Edgar had said his farewells to his family and the villagers. There was nothing more for him to do here.
He untied the raft, stepped aboard, and pushed away from the bank.
Gathering spe
ed, he passed the family farm. At his suggestion, Erman and Eadbald were building a water mill, copying one they had seen farther downstream. They were good enough craftsmen; their father had taught them well. They were prosperous, important men in the town. They waved to him as he passed, and he noticed they were both becoming rather stout. Edgar waved back. He was going to miss Wynswith and Beorn, his niece and nephew.
The vessel gathered speed. Normandy would be warmer and drier than England, he guessed, as it was to the south. He thought of the few French words he had picked up from listening to Ragna talk to Cat. He knew some Latin, too, from his lessons with Aldred. He would get by.
It would be a new life.
He took one last glance back. His bridge dominated the view. It had changed the hamlet dramatically. Most people no longer referred to the place by its old name of Dreng’s Ferry.
Nowadays they called it King’s Bridge.
CHAPTER 38
November 1005
he nave of Canterbury Cathedral was cold and dark on a November afternoon. Candles lit the scene fitfully, throwing shadows like restless ghosts. In the chancel, the holiest part of the church, Archbishop Elfric was slowly dying. His pale hands clasped a silver cross, holding it over his heart. His eyes were open but they moved very little. His breathing was regular though shallow. He seemed to like the chanting of the monks who surrounded him, for whenever it stopped he frowned.
Bishop Wynstan knelt in prayer at the archbishop’s feet for a long time. He felt ill himself. He had a headache. He was sleeping badly. He ached with tiredness like an old man, though he was only forty-three. And he had an unsightly reddish lump over his collarbone that he hid by fastening his cloak high on his throat.
Feeling as he did, he had not wished to travel across the width of England in winter weather, but he had a compelling motive. He wanted to be the next archbishop of Canterbury. That would make him the senior clergyman in southern England. And a power struggle could not be fought at a distance: he had to be here.
