The woman who came to the door carried a baby on her hip and was pregnant with another, and a toddler hid behind her skirts. She had dirty hair and heavy breasts. She might have been beautiful once, with high cheekbones and a straight nose, but now she looked as if she were so tired she could barely stand. It was the way many women looked in their twenties. No wonder they died young, Edgar thought.

Ma said: “Is Dean Degbert here?”

“What do you want with my husband?” said the woman.

Clearly, Edgar thought, this was not the stricter kind of religious community. In principle the Church preferred priests to be celibate, but the rule was broken more often than it was kept, and even married bishops were not unheard of.

Ma said: “The bishop of Shiring sent us.”

The woman shouted over her shoulder: “Degsy? Visitors.” She stared at them a moment longer then disappeared inside.

The man who took her place was about thirty-five, but had a head like an egg, without even a monkish fringe. Perhaps his baldness was due to some illness. “I’m the dean,” he said, with his mouth full of food. “What do you want?”

Ma explained again.

“You’ll have to wait,” Degbert said. “I’m in the middle of my dinner.”

Ma smiled and said nothing, and the three brothers followed her example.

Degbert seemed to realize he was being inhospitable. All the same he did not offer to share his meal. “Go to Dreng’s alehouse,” he said. “Have a drink.”

Ma said: “We can’t afford to buy ale. We’re destitute. The Vikings raided Combe, where we lived.”

“Wait there, then.”

“Why don’t you just tell me where the farm is?” Ma said pleasantly. “I’m sure I can find it.”

Degbert hesitated, then said in a tone of irritation: “I suppose I’ll have to take you.” He looked back. “Edith! Put my dinner by the fire. I’ll be an hour.” He came out. “Follow me,” he said.

They walked down the hill. “What did you do in Combe?” Degbert asked. “You can’t have been farmers there.”

“My husband was a boatbuilder,” Ma said. “The Vikings killed him.”

Degbert crossed himself perfunctorily. “Well, we don’t need boats here. My brother, Dreng, has the ferry and there’s no room for two.”

Edgar said: “Dreng needs a new vessel. That canoe is cracking. One day soon it will sink.”

“Maybe.”

Ma said: “We’re farmers now.”

“Well, your land begins here.” Degbert stopped on the far side of the tavern. “From the water’s edge to the tree line is yours.”

The farm was a strip about two hundred yards wide beside the river. Edgar studied the ground. Bishop Wynstan had not told them how narrow it was, so Edgar had not imagined that such a large proportion of the land would be waterlogged. As the ground rose away from the river it improved, becoming a sandy loam, with green shoots growing.

Degbert said: “It goes west for about seven hundred yards, then there’s forest again.”