“This wasn’t my idea,” Edgar said. “Sometimes I wish I were as clever as my mother.”

“You’re going to regret your mother’s cleverness, I promise you that.”

Cwenburg said: “I like something nice in my porridge.” She opened the chest where Ethel kept foodstuffs and took out a jar of butter. Using her belt knife she took a generous scoop and put it in Edgar’s bowl.

Dreng looked on helplessly.

“Tell your mother I did that,” Cwenburg said to Edgar.

“All right,” Edgar said.

He ate the buttered porridge fast, before anyone could stop him. It made him feel good. But Dreng’s sentence echoed in his mind: You’re going to regret your mother’s cleverness, I promise you that.

It was probably true.

CHAPTER 9

Mid−September 997

agna set off from Cherbourg with a heart full of happy anticipation. She had triumphed over her parents, and she was going to England to marry the man she loved.

The whole town came to the waterfront to cheer her off. Her ship, the Angel, had a single mast with a large multicolored sail, plus sixteen pairs of oars. The figurehead was a carved angel blowing a trumpet, and at the stern a long tail curved up and forward to terminate in a lion’s head. Its captain was a wiry graybeard called Guy who had crossed the Channel to England many times before.

Ragna had sailed in a ship only once: three years ago she had gone with her father to Fécamp, ninety miles across the Bay of Seine, never far from land. The weather had been good, the sea had been calm, and the sailors had been charmed to have a beautiful young noblewoman aboard. The trip had been pleasantly uneventful.

So she had been looking forward eagerly to this voyage, the first of many new adventures. She knew, in theory, that any sea voyage was hazardous, but she could not help feeling exhilarated: it was her nature. You could spoil anything by worrying too much.

She was accompanied by her maid, Cat; Agnes, her best seamstress; three other maids; plus Bern the Giant and six more men-at-arms to protect her. She and Bern had horses—hers was her favorite, Astrid—and they took four ponies to carry the baggage. Ragna had packed four new dresses and six new pairs of shoes. She also had a small personal wedding gift for Wilwulf, a belt of soft leather with a silver buckle and strap end, packed in its own special box.

The horses were tethered on board with straw underfoot, for a measure of cushioning in case the motion of the sea should cause them to fall. With a crew of twenty the ship was crowded.

Genevieve cried when the ship raised its anchor.

They set off in warm sunshine, with a brisk southwesterly wind that promised to take them to Combe in a couple of days. Now for the first time Ragna became anxious. Wilwulf loved her, but he might have changed. She was eager to make friends with his family and his subjects, but would they like her? Would she be able to win their affection? Or would they disdain her foreign ways, and even resent her wealth and beauty? Would she like England?