Wynstan considered. “I’d like to see Merry’s arse flogged with a strap.”

“Then you shall,” Mags said.

Merry said: “Oh, no.”

“Don’t complain,” Mags told her. “You get extra pay for flagellation, you know that.”

Merry was contrite. “I’m sorry, Mags. I didn’t mean to complain.”

“That’s better,” said Mags. “Now, turn around and bend over.”

CHAPTER 35

March 1003

agna and Cat were teaching the children a counting song. Osbert, almost four, could more or less carry a tune. The twins were just two, and they could only drone, but they were able to learn the words. Cat’s daughters, aged two and three, were somewhere in between. They all liked the singing, and as a bonus, they were learning their numbers.

Ragna’s main occupation in prison was keeping the children busy with activities that taught them something. She remembered poems, made up stories, and described every place she had ever visited. She told them about the ship Angel and the storm in the Channel, the thief Ironface who had stolen the wedding present, and even the fire in the stables at Cherbourg Castle. Cat was not as good at stories but had a bottomless fund of French songs and a pure voice.

Entertaining the children also kept the two women from sinking into a swamp of suicidal despair.

As the song was ending the door opened and a guard looked in. It was Elfgar, the youngster, not as hardened as Fulcric and inclined to be sympathetic. He often told Ragna the news. From him she had learned that the Vikings were attacking the West Country again, with the dreaded King Swein at their head. The truce that Ethelred had bought for twenty-four thousand pounds of silver had not lasted into a second year.

Ragna almost hoped that the Vikings might conquer the West Country. She could be captured and ransomed. At least she might get out of this prison.

Elfgar said: “Exercise time.”

“Where’s Agnes?” said Ragna.

“She’s feeling ill.”

Ragna was not sorry. She hated seeing Agnes, the woman who had betrayed her, the one responsible for her imprisonment.

The open door let in cold air, so Ragna and Cat put the impatient children into their cloaks, then released them to run outside. Elfgar closed the door and barred it from the outside.

With the children gone, Ragna gave herself up to misery.

She had been here seven months, according to the almanac she had scratched on the wall. There were fleas in the rushes on the floor and nits in her hair, and she had a cough. The place stank: two adults and five children used a single pot for their toilet, for they were not allowed to go outside for that purpose.

A day spent here was a day stolen from her life, and she felt a resentment as sharp as an arrowhead every morning when she woke up to find herself still a prisoner.

And Wigelm had come again yesterday.