Degbert said: “He is fined six pence.”

It was too little, and the villagers muttered, but they were discontented rather than rebellious.

Then Blod cried out: “Six pence?”

The crowd went silent. Everyone looked at Blod.

Tears were streaming down her face. “Six pence, for my baby?” she said.

She turned her back on Degbert eloquently. She strode away, but after half a dozen paces she stopped, turned, and spoke again. “You English,” she said, her voice choked with grief and rage.

She spat on the ground.

Then she walked away.

Dreng had won, but something shifted in the hamlet. Attitudes to Dreng had changed, Edgar mused as he ate his midday meal in the alehouse. People such as Edith, the wife of Degbert, and Bebbe, who supplied the minster with food, would in the past have stopped to talk to Dreng when their paths crossed, but now they just spoke a brief word and hurried on. Most evenings the alehouse was empty, or nearly so: Degbert sometimes came to drink Leaf’s strong ale, but others stayed away. People were polite to Degbert and Dreng, to the point of deference, but there was no warmth. It was as if the inhabitants were trying to make amends for their failure to insist on justice. Edgar did not think God would consider that sufficient.

When those who had testified for Dreng walked past Edgar, as he worked on building the new brewhouse, they looked shamefaced and avoided his eye. One day on Leper Island, as he was delivering a barrel of ale to the nuns, Mother Agatha went out of her way to speak to him and tell him he had done the right thing. “Justice will be done in the next life,” she had said. Edgar had felt grateful for her support, but he wanted justice in this life, too.

In the alehouse Dreng was more bad-tempered than ever. He slapped Leaf for giving him a cup of ale with dregs in it, punched Ethel in the stomach when his porridge was cold, and knocked Blod to the ground with a blow to the head for no reason at all. Each time he acted quickly, giving Edgar no chance to intervene; and then, after the blow was struck, he directed a challenging look at Edgar, defying him to do something about it. Unable to prevent what had already been done, Edgar would just look away.

Dreng never hit Edgar. Edgar was glad. He had within him such a buildup of rage that if a fight started it might not stop until Dreng was dead. And Dreng seemed to sense that and hold back.

Blod was oddly calm. She did her work and obeyed orders without protest. Dreng continued to treat her with contempt. However, when she looked at him her eyes blazed with hatred, and as the days went by Edgar could see that Dreng was scared of her. Perhaps he feared she would kill him. Perhaps she would.