“Thank you! Wigelm took my treasury—I was penniless, until now. They want to steal everything from me, including the Vale of Outhen. But the king is responsible for aristocratic widows, and sooner or later he’ll have something to say about what Wigelm and Wynstan have done. And how are you?”

He sat down on the bench next to her and spoke in an undertone so that the servants could not hear. “I was at Outhen. I saw Stiggy murder Seric.”

Her eyes widened. “Stiggy died . . .”

Edgar nodded.

She mouthed a question soundlessly: “You?”

He nodded again. “But nobody knows,” he whispered.

She squeezed his wrist, as if to thank him silently, and he felt a tingle in the place where her skin touched his. Then she resumed a normal voice. “Garulf is mad with rage.”

“Of course.” Edgar thought of the despondent expression he had seen on her face when he arrived, and he said: “But what about you?”

“Wigelm wants to marry me.”

“God forbid!” Edgar was appalled. He did not want Ragna to marry anyone, but Wigelm was a particularly repellent choice.

“It’s not going to happen,” she added.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“But what will they do?” Ragna’s face bore a look he had never seen before, of anxiety so desperate that Edgar wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that he would look after her. She went on: “I’m a problem they need to solve, and they aren’t going to leave it to King Ethelred—he doesn’t like them and he may not do what they want.”

“But what can they do?”

“They could kill me.”

Edgar shook his head. “Surely that would cause an international scandal—”

“They would say I fell ill and died suddenly.”

“Dear God.” It had not occurred to Edgar that they might go so far. They were ruthless enough to kill Ragna, but it could get them into major trouble. However, they were risk-takers. He was seriously alarmed. “We have to protect you, somehow!” he said.

“I have no bodyguard now. Bern is dead and the men-at-arms switched their loyalty to Wigelm.”

The two women servants could hear their conversation now, for they were speaking at normal volume, and Cat reacted to Ragna’s last remark. “Filthy beasts,” she said in Norman French. Bern had been her husband.

Edgar said to Ragna: “You probably have to leave this compound.”

“It would seem like giving up.”

“This would be temporary, until you can put your case to the king. Which you can’t do if you’re dead.”

“Where could I go?”

Edgar considered. “What about Leper Island? There’s a sanctuary stool in the nuns’ church. Even Wigelm wouldn’t dare to murder a noblewoman there. Every thane in England would consider it a duty to kill him in revenge.”

Her eyes sparkled. “That’s a clever idea.”

“We should leave immediately.”

“You would come with me?”

“Of course. When could you leave?”

She hesitated, then made up her mind. “Tomorrow morning.”