On the road Ragna huddled in her cloak, swaying as Astrid trudged wearily on, and reminded herself that waiting at the end of her journey was the most wonderful man in the world.

On the afternoon of the third day a baggage pony slipped on a slope. It fell to its knees, and its load slid to one side. It tried to rise, but the lopsided burden caused it to overbalance again. It skidded down a mudslide, neighing frantically, and fell into a stream. Ragna cried: “Oh, the poor beast! Save it, you men!”

Several men-at-arms jumped into the water, which was about three feet deep. But they could not get the animal onto its feet. Ragna said: “You’ll have to take the bags off its back!”

That worked. One man held the horse’s head in an attempt to stop it thrashing around, and two others undid the straps. They grabbed the bags and chests and passed them to others waiting. When the pony was unloaded it came upright without help.

Looking at the baggage stacked beside the stream, Ragna said: “Where’s the little box with Wilwulf’s present?”

Everyone looked around but no one could see it.

Ragna was dismayed. “We can’t have lost it—it’s his wedding gift!” English jewelry was famous, and Wilwulf probably had high standards, so Ragna had had the buckle and strap end made by the best jeweler in Rouen.

The men who had got wet rescuing the pony now went back into the water and scrabbled around the bottom of the stream, searching for the package. But it was sharp-eyed Cat who spotted it. “There!” she cried, pointing.

Ragna saw the box a hundred yards away, floating downstream.

Suddenly a figure appeared from the bushes. Ragna had a glimpse of a head wearing some kind of helmet as the man took one step into the water and snatched up the box. “Oh, well done!” Ragna called.

For a split second he turned and looked at her, and she got a full view of a rusty old battle helmet with holes for the eyes and mouth, then the man bounded back to dry land and vanished into the vegetation.

Ragna realized she had been robbed.

She yelled: “Go after him!”

The men went in pursuit. Ragna heard them calling to one another in the woods, then their cries became muffled by the trees and the rain. After a while the riders returned one by one. The forest was too thickly overgrown for them to make any speed, they said. Ragna began to feel pessimistic. As the last man appeared, Bern said: “He eluded us.”

Ragna tried to put a brave face on it. “Let’s move on,” she said briskly. “What’s gone is gone.” They trudged forward through the mire.

But the loss of the gift was too much for Ragna to bear, on top of the storm at sea and three days of rain and dismal lodgings. Her parents had been right in their dire warnings: this was a horrible country and she had doomed herself to live in it. She could not hold back the tears. They ran hot down her face, mingling with the cold rain. She pulled her hood forward and turned her face down in the hope that others would not see.