The Evening and the Morning

by Ken Follett

  Wynstan was angry about his episode of forgetfulness, and he said impatiently: “Well, come on, spit it out.”

  Ithamar said: “Alphage has been made archbishop of Canterbury.”

  Wynstan was expecting this. Nevertheless, he felt a mad rage rise within him. Unable to control himself, he picked up a cup from the table and dashed the contents in Ithamar’s face. Not satisfied with that, he overturned the table. Eangyth screamed, so he clenched his fist and hit her across the head as hard as he could. She lay still, and he thought he had killed her; then she stirred, got up, and ran out of the room. Ithamar followed her, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his robe.

  Degbert said nervously: “Calm yourself, cousin. Sit down. Have a cup of wine. Are you hungry? Shall I get you something to eat?”

  “Oh, shut up,” Wynstan said, but he sat down and drank the wine that Degbert gave him.

  When he had calmed down, Degbert said accusingly: “You promised to make me bishop of Shiring.”

  “I can’t, now, can I?” Wynstan said. “There’s no vacancy, you fool.”

  Degbert looked as if that was a poor excuse.

  “It’s Ragna’s fault,” Wynstan said. “She started the stupid rumor that I had leprosy.” His rage began to return, and he seethed. “Her punishment was much too light. All we did was take away one of her children. She has three left to console her. I should have thought of something worse. I should have put her to work in Mags’s house until some filthy sailor gave her Whore’s Leprosy.”

  “You know she was in the room when my brother Dreng died? I suspect she killed him. They put it about that he had some kind of seizure while beating his slave girl, but I’m sure Ragna had something to do with it.”

  “I don’t care who killed Dreng,” Wynstan said. “He may have been my cousin but he was a fool, and so are you. Get out.”

  Degbert left, and Wynstan was alone.

  Something was wrong with him. He had flown into a berserk rage on being given news that merely confirmed his expectations. He had nearly murdered a priest’s wife. Worse, a few minutes earlier he had forgotten not only where he was but who he was.

  I’m going mad, he said to himself, and the thought filled him with terror. He could not be mad. He was clever, he was ruthless, he always got his way. His allies were rewarded and his enemies were destroyed. The prospect of insanity was so horrifying as to be unbearable. He closed his eyes tight and banged both fists on the table in front of him, saying: “No, no, no!” He had a sensation of falling, as if he had jumped off the roof of the cathedral. He was going to hit the ground any second, and he would be smashed up and then he would die. He struggled to restrain himself from screaming.

  As the terror eased, he thought more about jumping off the roof. He would hit the ground, then suffer a moment of unbearable agony, then die. But how badly would he be punished for the sin of suicide?

  He was a holy priest; he could expect forgiveness. But for suicide?

  He could confess his sins, say Mass, and die in a state of grace, could he not?

  He could not. He would die condemned.

  Degbert came back carrying the embroidered cope that Wynstan wore for services. “You’re due in the cathedral,” he said. “Unless you would prefer me to say Mass?”

  “No, I’ll do it,” said Wynstan, and he stood up.

  Ithamar draped the vestment over Wynstan’s shoulders.

  Wynstan frowned. “I was worrying about something a moment ago,” he said. “I can’t think what it was.”

  Ithamar said nothing.

  “Never mind,” said Wynstan. “It can’t have been important.”

  * * *

  Ethel was dying.

  Ragna sat in the alehouse late at night, with Blod and Mairead and Mairead’s new baby, Brigid, long after the last customers had staggered out the door. The room was lit by a smoky rush light. Ethel lay still with her eyes closed. Her breathing was shallow and her face was gray. Sister Agatha had said that the angels were calling her, and she was getting ready to go.

  Blod and Mairead were planning to raise the baby together. “We don’t want men and we don’t need them,” Blod said to Ragna. Ragna was not surprised by their feelings, after the lives they had been forced to lead; but there was something else. Ragna had a feeling that Blod’s passion for Edgar might have been transferred to Mairead. It was only a feeling, and she was not sure and certainly would not ask.

  Not long after dawn Ethel passed gently away. There was no crisis: she simply stopped breathing.

  Blod and Mairead undressed her and washed the body. Ragna asked the two slaves what they planned to do now. Ethel had said she would free them, and Aldred had assured them that she had made a will. They could return to their homes, if they wished; but it seemed they were planning to stay together.

  “I can’t travel to Ireland with a baby in my arms and no money,” Mairead said. “Not that I would know where in Ireland my home is. It’s a hamlet on the coast, but that’s all I could tell you. If the place had a name I never heard it. I’m not even sure how many days I was on the Viking ship before we got to Bristol.”

  Ragna would help her with a little money, of course, but money would not solve the problem. She said: “What about you, Blod?”

  Blod looked thoughtful. “It’s ten years since I saw my home in Wales. All my young friends must now be married with children. I don’t know whether my parents are alive or dead. I’m not sure how much I can remember of the Welsh language. I never imagined I would ever say this, but I almost feel as if this place is home.”

  Ragna was not convinced. Was there something else at work here? Had Blod and Mairead become so attached to each other that they did not want to part?

  The news of Ethel’s death soon got around, and shortly after dawn Cwenburg showed up with her two husbands. The men looked sheepish but Cwenburg was aggressive. “How dare you wash the body?” she said. “That was my job—I’m her stepdaughter!”

  Ragna said: “They were only being helpful, Cwenburg.”

  “I don’t care. This alehouse is mine, now, and I want those slaves out of here.”

  “They’re no longer slaves,” Ragna said.

  “If Ethel kept her promise.”

  “Anyway, you can’t throw them out of their home at a minute’s notice.”

  “Who says?”

  “I do,” said Ragna.

  Cwenburg said: “Erman, go and fetch the prior.”

  Erman left.

  Cwenburg said: “The slaves should wait outside.”

  Ragna said: “Perhaps you should wait outside, until Aldred confirms that the alehouse is now yours.”

  Cwenburg looked sullen.

  “Go on,” said Ragna. “Out you go. Otherwise it will be the worse for you.”

  Reluctantly Cwenburg left, and Eadbald followed her out.

  Ragna knelt beside the body, and Blod and Mairead did the same.

  Aldred appeared a few minutes later, wearing a silver cross on a leather thong. Cwenburg and her husbands came in behind him. He made the sign of the cross and said a prayer over the corpse. Then he took a small sheet of parchment from the pouch at his belt.

  “This is Ethel’s last will and testament,” he said. “Written by me at her dictation, and witnessed by two monks.”

  Of the others present only Ragna could read, so they had to rely on Aldred to tell them what Ethel had done.

  “As she promised, she frees both Blod and Mairead,” he said.

  The two slaves embraced and kissed each other, smiling. Their celebration was muted by the presence of the corpse, but they were happy.

  “There is only one other bequest,” Aldred said. “She leaves all her worldly possessions, including the alehouse, to Blod.”

  Blod’s mouth fell open. “It’s mine?” she said incredulously.

&nbs
p; “Yes.”

  Cwenburg screamed: “She can’t do that! My stepmother can’t steal my father’s alehouse and then give it to a Welsh whore slave!”

  “She can,” said Aldred.

  Ragna said: “And she just did.”

  “It’s unnatural!”

  “No, it’s not.” Ragna said. “When Ethel was dying, it was Blod who cared for her, not you.”

  “No, no!” Cwenburg stormed out, still screaming protests, and Erman and Eadbald followed her, looking embarrassed.

  The noise died down as Cwenburg walked away.

  Blod looked at Mairead. “You’ll stay and help me, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll teach you to cook. But no more whoring.”

  “And you can help me with the baby.”

  “Of course.”

  Tears came to Mairead’s eyes, and she nodded wordlessly.

  “It will be fine,” said Blod. She reached out and took Mairead’s hand. “We’ll be happy.”

  Ragna was glad for them, and something else.

  After a few moments she figured out what it was.

  She was envious.

  * * *

  Every few months Giorgio, the master mason, sent Edgar to Cherbourg to buy supplies. It was a two-day journey, but there was nowhere nearer where they could get iron for making tools, lead for windows, and lime for mortar.

  When he left this time, Clothild kissed him and told him to hurry back. He still had not proposed marriage to her, but everyone treated him as if he were already a member of Giorgio’s family. He was not really comfortable with the way he had slipped, by imperceptible steps, into the role of Clothild’s fiancé without a formal decision: it seemed weak. But he was not sufficiently unhappy about it to break away.

  A few hours after he arrived in Cherbourg, a messenger found him and ordered him to go and see Count Hubert.

  Edgar had met Hubert only once before, on his arrival in Normandy almost three years ago. Hubert had been kind to him then. Glad to hear news of his beloved daughter, he had talked at length to Edgar about life in England, and had advised him of building sites where he might find employment.

  Now Edgar again climbed the hill to the castle and marveled anew at its size. It was bigger than Shiring Cathedral, which had previously been the largest building he had ever seen. A servant showed him to a large room on the upstairs floor.

  Hubert, now in his fifties, was at the far end of the room talking to Countess Genevieve and their handsome son, Richard, who looked about twenty.

  Hubert was a small man with quick movements: Ragna’s very different build, tall and statuesque, came from her mother. But Hubert had the red-gold hair and sea-green eyes, somewhat wasted on a man—in Edgar’s view—but so overpoweringly alluring in Ragna.

  The servant motioned Edgar to wait by the door, but Hubert caught his eye and beckoned.

  Edgar expected Hubert to regard him benignly, as he had before, but now, approaching the count, Edgar saw that he looked angry and hostile. He wondered what he could possibly have done to infuriate Ragna’s father.

  Hubert said loudly: “Tell me, Edgar, do Englishmen believe in Christian marriage, or not?”

  Edgar had no idea what this was about, and all he could do was answer to the best of his ability. “My lord, they are Christians, though they don’t always obey the teachings of the priests.” He was about to add just like Normans, but he stopped himself. He was no longer an adolescent and he had learned not to make clever ripostes.

  Genevieve said: “They are barbarians! Savages!”

  Edgar assumed this must somehow be about their daughter. He said anxiously: “Has something happened to the lady Ragna?”

  Hubert said: “She has been set aside!”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “What the devil does it mean?”

  “It means divorce,” Edgar said.

  “For no reason?”

  “Yes.” Edgar needed to be sure he had understood correctly. “So Wigelm has set Ragna aside?”

  “Yes. And you tell me this is legal in England!”

  “Yes.” But Edgar was thunderstruck. Ragna was single!

  Hubert said: “I’ve written to King Ethelred demanding that he make recompense. How can he allow his noblemen to behave like farmyard animals?”

  “I don’t know, my lord,” said Edgar. “A king can give orders, but enforcing them is another matter.”

  Hubert snorted, as if he considered that a feeble excuse.

  Edgar said: “I’m terribly sorry this has been done to her by my countrymen.”

  But he was lying.

  CHAPTER 41

  September 1006

  agna rebuilt her life, making her days busy so that she would not brood over the loss of both Edgar and Alain. At Michaelmas she went to Outhenham in her new barge to collect her rents.

  The barge needed two strong oarsmen. Ragna took her horse, Astrid, with her so that she could ride all the way along the Vale of Outhen. She also took a new maid, Osgyth, and a young man-at-arms, a black-haired boy called Ceolwulf, both of them from King’s Bridge. They fell for each other on the journey, teasing and giggling on the barge when they thought Ragna was not looking; so both were somewhat distracted from their duties. Ragna was inclined to be indulgent: she knew what it was to be in love. She hoped that Osgyth and Ceolwulf never learned what she knew about the misery that love could bring.

  Her new great hall at Outhenham was not yet finished, but Edgar’s old house in the quarry was empty, so she lodged there with Osgyth and Ceolwulf. She liked it for sentimental reasons. The only other house in the quarry belonged to Gab.

  The oarsmen stayed at the alehouse.

  She held court, but there was not much justice needed. This was a happy time of year, with the harvest in the barns, bellies full of bread, and red-cheeked apples lying on the ground to be picked up; and this year the Vikings had not come this far west to spoil everything. When people were happy they were slow to quarrel and committed fewer crimes. It was in the miserable depths of winter that men strangled their wives and knifed their rivals, and it was in the hungry spring that women stole from their neighbors to feed their children.

  She was pleased to see that Edgar’s canal was still in good condition, its edges straight and its banks sturdy. However, she was annoyed that the villagers had got into the lazy habit of throwing rubbish into the water. There was no through flow, so the canal did not clean itself the way a river did, and in places it smelled like a privy. She instituted a strict rule.

  To enforce this and any other edicts, she dismissed Dudda and appointed a new headman, one of the elders of the village, the roly-poly alehouse keeper Eanfrid. A taverner was usually a good choice for headman: his house was already the center of village life and he himself was often a figure of unofficial authority. Eanfrid was also good humored and well liked.

  Sitting outside the alehouse with a cup of cider she talked to Eanfrid about her income from the quarry, which had fallen since Edgar left. “Edgar is just one of those people who does everything well,” said Eanfrid. “Find us another one like him and we’ll sell more stone.”

  “There isn’t another one like Edgar,” said Ragna with a sad smile.

  They went on to discuss a murrain that had killed a number of sheep, and which Ragna thought was caused by grazing them on wet clay soil; but their conversation was interrupted. Eanfrid cocked his head, and a moment later Ragna heard what had caught his attention: the sound of thirty or more horses approaching, not cantering or even trotting but walking with weary steps. It was the noise made by a wealthy nobleman and his entourage on a long journey.

  The autumn sun was red in the west: the visitors would undoubtedly decide to stay the night at Outhenham. The village would welcome them with mixed feelings. Travelers brought silve
r: they would buy food and drink, and pay for accommodation. But they might also get drunk and pester girls and start fights.

  Ragna and Eanfrid stood up. A minute later the horsemen appeared, winding through the houses to the center of the village.

  At their head was Wigelm.

  Ragna was possessed by fear. This was the man who had imprisoned her, raped her, and stolen her child. What new torture had he devised for her? She controlled her trembling. She had always stood up to him. She would do so again.

  Riding beside Wigelm was his nephew, Garulf, the son of Wilwulf and Inge. He was twenty-five now, but Ragna knew that he was no wiser than he had been as an adolescent. He looked like Wilf, with the fair beard and broad-shouldered swagger of the family men. She winced to think she had married two of them.

  Eanfrid murmured: “What does Wigelm want here?”

  “Only God knows,” Ragna replied in a shaky voice, then she added: “And maybe Satan.”

  Wigelm reined in his dusty horse. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Ragna,” he said.

  She was somewhat relieved. His remark indicated that he had not planned this meeting. Any evil he tried to do her would be improvised. “I don’t know why you’d be surprised,” she said. “I’m lord of the Vale of Outhen. What do you want here?”

  “I’m ealdorman of Shiring, I’m traveling in my territory, and I intend to spend the night here.”

  “Outhenham welcomes you, Ealdorman Wigelm,” Ragna said with cold formality. “Please enter the alehouse and take refreshment.”

  He remained on his horse. “Your father complained to King Ethelred,” he said.

  “Of course he did.” She got some of her nerve back. “Your behavior has been disgraceful.”

  “Ethelred fined me one hundred pounds of silver for setting you aside without his permission.”

  “Good.”

  “I didn’t pay the fine, though,” said Wigelm; and he laughed heartily, then dismounted.

  His men followed suit. The younger ones set about unsaddling the horses while the seniors settled in the alehouse and called for drink. Ragna would have liked to retire, but she felt she could not leave Eanfrid alone to cope with this visitation—he might struggle to keep order, and her authority would help.