The silence continued some moments, then a figure appeared from behind a tree. The man was dressed in rags but did not appear misshapen: perhaps the rumors were exaggerated. “No one saw a baby,” the man said.

Edgar said: “Will you help me look?”

The man hesitated, then nodded.

Edgar said: “He may have been washed up somewhere along the shore.”

There was no response to this so Edgar just turned and resumed searching. Gradually he became aware that he was accompanied. Someone was moving through the bushes alongside him, and another was treading the shallows behind him. He thought he saw movement farther ahead, too. He was grateful for the extra eyes: it would be easy to miss something small.

But as he moved back in the direction of the alehouse, closing the circle, he found it hard to maintain hope. He was exhausted and shivering: what state would a naked baby be in? If it had not drowned it might now have died of the cold.

He drew level with the convent building. There were lights in its windows and outside, and he saw hurried movement. A nun approached him, and he recognized Mother Agatha. He remembered that he was stark naked, but she seemed not to notice.

She carried a bundle in her arms. Edgar’s hoped leaped. Had the nuns found the baby?

Agatha must have seen the eagerness in his face, for she shook her head sadly, and Edgar was filled with alarm.

She came close and showed him what she held in her arms. Wrapped in a white wool blanket was Blod’s baby. His eyes were closed and he was not breathing.

“We found him on the shore,” Agatha said.

“Was he . . .”

“Dead or alive? I don’t know. We took him into the warm, but we were too late. We baptized him, though, so he’s with the angels now.”

Edgar was overwhelmed by grief. He cried and shivered at the same time, and his eyes blurred with tears. “I saw him born,” he said between sobs. “It was like a miracle.”

“I know,” said Agatha.

“And then I saw him murdered.”

Agatha unwrapped the blanket and gave the tiny baby to Edgar. He held the cold body to his bare chest and wept.

CHAPTER 11

Early October 997

s Ragna drew nearer to Shiring, her heart filled with apprehension.

She had embarked on this adventure eagerly, impatient for the pleasures of marriage with the man she loved, careless of perils. Bad weather delays had been frustrating. Now she was more aware, with every mile she traveled, that she did not really know what she had let herself in for. All of the short time she and Wilwulf had spent together had been at her home, where he was a stranger trying to fit in. She had never seen him in his own place, never watched him move among his own people, never heard him talk to his family, his neighbors, his subjects. She hardly knew him.