Tentatively, Edgar reached for her. She did not move away. He took both her small hands in his, and was thrilled when he felt her answering grasp. He looked at her face and felt closer to contentment than he had ever been. He watched the tears overflow her eyes and run down her face, raindrops on rose petals. Her expression was a grimace of pain, but to him she had never been more beautiful. They stood still for a long time.

At last she said: “I’m still married, though.” And she withdrew her hands.

He said nothing.

She wiped her face with her sleeve. “May I have a sip of wine?”

“Anything.” He drew wine from the barrel into a wooden cup.

She drank it and handed back the cup. “Thank you.” She began to look more normal. “I have to cross the river to the nunnery.”

Edgar smiled. “Don’t let Mother Agatha kiss you too much.” Everyone liked Agatha, but she did have a weakness.

Ragna said: “Sometimes it’s a comfort to be loved.” She gave him a direct look, and he understood that she was talking about him as well as Agatha. He felt bewildered. He needed time to think about that.

After a moment she said: “How do I look? Will they know what we’ve been doing?”

And what have we been doing, Edgar wondered? “You look fine,” he said. What a stupid thing to say, he thought. “You look like a sad angel.”

“I wish I had the powers of an angel,” she said. “Think what I could do.”

“What would you do first?”

She smiled, shook her head, turned around, and left.

Once again Wynstan spoke to Agnes in a corner of the chancel, near the altar but out of sight of the nave. There was a Bible on the altar and, near his feet, a chest containing holy water and the sacramental bread. Wynstan had no qualms about conducting business in the holiest part of the church. He worshipped Jehovah, the Old Testament god who had ordered the genocide of the Canaanites. What needs to be done must be done, and God had no use for the squeamish, he believed.

Agnes was excited but nervous. “I don’t know the whole story, but I have to tell you anyway,” she said.

“You’re a wise woman,” he said. She was not, but he needed her to calm down. “Just tell me what happened, and leave me to figure out its significance.”

“Ragna went to Dreng’s Ferry.”

Wynstan had heard as much, but he did not know what to make of it. There was nothing for Ragna in that little hamlet. She had a soft spot for the young builder, but Wynstan felt sure she was not fucking him. “What did she do there?”

“She and Wilf met with Aldred and two other men. The identities of the others were supposed to be secret, but it’s a small place, and I saw them. They were Bishop Modulf of Norwood and Sheriff Den.”