His visits were mercifully less frequent now. At first he had appeared once a week; now it was more like once a month. She had learned to close her eyes and think about the view from the ramparts of Cherbourg Castle, and the clean salty air blowing in her face, until she felt him withdraw like a slug leaving her body. She prayed he would soon lose interest altogether.

The children returned, red-faced from the cold, and it was the turn of the two women to put on cloaks and go out.

They walked up and down to keep warm, and Elfgar walked with them. Cat asked him: “What’s wrong with Agnes?”

“Some kind of pox,” he said.

“I hope she dies of it.”

There was a pause, then Elfgar said conversationally: “I won’t be here much longer, I shouldn’t think.”

Ragna said: “Why? We’d be sorry to lose you.”

“I shall have to go and fight the Vikings.” He was pretending to be pleased, but Ragna detected an undertone of fear beneath his bravado. “The king is raising an army to come and defeat Swein Forkbeard.”

Ragna stopped walking. “Are you sure?” she said. “King Ethelred is coming to the West Country?”

“So they say.”

Ragna’s heart leaped with hope. “Then he must surely learn of our imprisonment,” she said.

Elfgar shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Our friends will tell him: Prior Aldred, and Sheriff Den, and Bishop Modulf.”

“Yes!” said Cat. “And then King Ethelred is bound to free us!”

Ragna was not sure.

“Isn’t he, my lady?”

Ragna said nothing.

“This is our chance to find Ragna,” Prior Aldred said to Sheriff Den. “We must not let the opportunity slip through our fingers.”

Aldred had come from Dreng’s Ferry to Shiring specifically to talk to Den about this. Now he studied the sheriff for his reaction. Den was fifty-eight, exactly twenty years older than Aldred, but they had much in common. Both were rule keepers. Den’s compound testified to his liking for order: his stockade was well built, the houses stood in lines, and the kitchen and dunghill were in opposite corners, as far from each other as possible. Dreng’s Ferry had acquired a similar orderly look since Aldred had taken over. But there were differences, too: Den served the king; Aldred served God.

Aldred went on: “We now know for sure that Ragna never went to Cherbourg. Count Hubert has confirmed that to us and has sent a formal complaint to King Ethelred. Wynstan and Wigelm lied.”

Den’s response was cautious. “I’d like to see Ragna safe and well, and I believe King Ethelred would, too,” he said. “But a king has multiple needs, and the different pressures on him sometimes conflict with one another.”

Den’s wife, Wilburgh, a middle-aged woman with gray hair under her cap, had a more trenchant opinion. “The king should put that devil Wigelm in a prison.”

Aldred agreed with her, but took a more practical line. “Will the king hold court in the West Country?”