“Would God want someone like me?”

“He cares especially for people like you.”

“But I’m a criminal.”

“Jesus said: ‘I come not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’”

“This isn’t a joke, is it? A trick, to torture me? Some people are very cruel to the blind.”

“No trick, my friend. Come with me now, on the ferry.”

“Right away?”

“Right away.”

Cuthbert shook with sobs. Aldred put one arm around him, ignoring the dreadful smell. “Come,” he said. “Let’s get on board the boat.”

“Thank you, Aldred, thank you.”

“Thank Edgar. I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it myself.”

They waved to Agatha, who said: “God bless you.”

As they crossed the water Aldred reflected that even if he could not achieve his grand ambitions in this out-of-the-way priory, he might still do some good.

They disembarked and Edgar tied up the ferry. Aldred said: “This doesn’t count, Edgar. I still owe you a reward.”

Edgar said: “Well, there is something else I want.” He looked embarrassed.

“Out with it,” said Aldred.

“You used to talk about starting a school.”

“It’s my dream.”

Edgar hesitated again, then blurted it out. “Would you teach me to read?”

CHAPTER 25

January 1001

agna was giving birth to her second child, and it was going badly. Bishop Wynstan could hear her screams from where he sat in the home of his mother, Gytha. A steady rain outside did little to muffle the noise. Ragna’s cries gave Wynstan hope. “If mother and child die, all our problems are over,” he said.

Gytha picked up a jug. “I was like that with you,” she said. “It took a day and a night to get you out. No one thought either of us would survive.”

It sounded to him like an accusation. “Not my fault,” he said.

She poured more wine into his cup. “And then you were born howling and waving your fists.”

Wynstan did not feel comfortable in his mother’s house. She always had sweet wine and strong ale, bowls of plums and pears in season, ham and cheese on a platter, and thick blankets for cold nights, but for all that he was never at ease. “I was a good child,” he protested. “A scholar.”

“Yes, when forced. But if I took my eye off you, you would sneak away from your lessons to play.”

A childhood memory struck Wynstan. “You wouldn’t let me see the bear.”

“What bear?”

“Someone brought a bear on a chain. Everyone went to look at it. But Father Aculf wanted me to finish copying the Ten Commandments first, and you backed him.” Wynstan had sat with a slate and a nail, hearing the other boys laughing and yelling outside. “I kept making mistakes in the Latin, and by the time I got it right the bear had gone.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”