This was going too far. Even if she had liked Dreng she would not have allowed him to paw her. With a deliberate movement she took his arm off her shoulders. “My husband would not like me to be caressed by his cousin,” she said coolly. Then she walked ahead of him into the house.

Dreng followed her in saying: “Oh, our Wilf wouldn’t mind.” But he did not touch her again.

Ragna looked around the inside of the building with a feeling that was becoming familiar. Like most English alehouses it was dark, smelly, and smoky. There were two tables and a scatter of benches and stools.

Cat was close behind her. She moved a stool nearer to the fire for Ragna, then helped her take off her sodden cloak. Ragna sat by the fire and held out her hands to warm them.

There were three women in the tavern, she saw. The eldest was presumably Dreng’s wife. The youngest, a pregnant girl with a pinched face, wore no headdress of any kind, usually the sign of a prostitute: Ragna guessed she might be a slave. The third woman was about Ragna’s age, and might be Dreng’s concubine.

Ragna’s maids and bodyguards crowded into the house. Ragna said to Dreng: “Would you please give my servants some ale?”

“My wife shall attend to it at once, my lady.” He spoke to the two women. “Leaf, give them some ale. Ethel, get the supper started.”

Leaf opened a chest full of wooden bowls and cups, and began to fill them from a barrel on a stand in the corner. Ethel hung an iron cauldron over the fire and poured water into it, then produced a large leg of mutton and added it to the pot.

The pregnant girl brought in an armful of firewood. Ragna was surprised to see her doing heavy work when her time was evidently so near. It was no wonder she looked tired and morose.

Edgar knelt by the hearth and built up the fire twig by twig. Soon it was a cheerful blaze that warmed Ragna and dried her clothes.

She said to him: “On the ferry, when my maid, Cat, told you who I was, you said: ‘I know.’ How did you know me?”

Edgar smiled. “You won’t remember, but we’ve met before.”

Ragna did not apologize for not recognizing him. A noblewoman met hundreds of people and could not be expected to recall them all. She said: “When was that?”

“Five years ago. I was only thirteen.” Edgar drew his knife from his belt and set it on the hearth stones so that the blade was in the flames.

“So I was fifteen. I’ve never been to England before now, so you must have come to Normandy.”

“My late father was a boatbuilder at Combe. We went to Cherbourg to deliver a ship. That’s when I met you.”

“Did we speak?”

“Yes.” He looked embarrassed.

“Wait a minute.” Ragna smiled. “I vaguely remember a cheeky little English boy who came into the castle uninvited.”