Wynstan stepped out, waited for Carwen and Wigelm, then closed the door.

He gestured to Carwen and she walked away, quickly and silently.

He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. Her flight would be seen by everyone as proof of guilt.

Wynstan and Wigelm walked to Gytha’s house. At her door, Wynstan looked back. The guards had not moved.

He and Wigelm went into their mother’s house and shut the door.

Ragna had been sleeping badly for months. She had too many worries: Wilf, Wynstan, Carwen, Osbert and the twins. When at last she fell asleep she often had bad dreams. Tonight she dreamed that Edgar had murdered Wilf, and she was trying to protect the builder from justice, but every time she said something her voice was drowned out by shouting from outside. Then she realized that she was dreaming but the shouting was real, and she woke quickly and sat upright, her heart pounding.

The cries were urgent. Two or three men were calling out, and a woman was speaking in a high-pitched scream. Ragna jumped up and looked for Bern, who normally slept just inside her door; then she remembered that she had assigned him to guard Wilf.

She heard Agnes say: “What’s that?” in a frightened voice.

Then Cat said: “Something’s happened.”

Their fearful voices woke the children, and the twins began to cry.

Ragna pulled on her shoes, snatched up her cloak, and went out.

It was still dark, and she saw immediately that there were lights in Wilf’s house, and his door was wide open. Her breath caught in her throat. Had something happened to him?

She ran across the short distance to his door and stepped inside.

At first she could not make sense of the scene in front of her. Men and women were milling around, all speaking at the tops of their voices. There was a metallic smell in the air, and she saw blood on the floor and on the bed, lots of blood. Then she made out Bern, lying in a congealed puddle, his throat horribly slashed, and she gasped with horror and dismay. At last her gaze went to the bed. In among the red-stained blankets was her husband.

She let out a scream, and cut it short with a fist in her mouth. He was horribly wounded, his mouth full of dried black blood. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. A knife lay on the bed beside his open fist: he had tried to defend himself.

There was no sign of Carwen.

Staring at the ruin of Wilf, she remembered the tall, fair-haired man in a blue cloak who had walked off a ship in Cherbourg harbor and said in bad French: “I have come to speak with Count Hubert.” She began to cry, but even while she wept she had to ask a question, and she forced the words out: “How did this happen?”