She renewed her acquaintance with Blod, Dreng’s slave. The two got on well, which was surprising: they were so far apart socially that they might have lived in different worlds. But Ragna enjoyed Blod’s no-nonsense attitude to life. And they shared a fondness for Edgar. At the alehouse Blod now brewed the beer, did the cooking, and took care of Dreng’s wife, Ethel. Happily, Blod was seldom prostituted these days, she told Ragna. “Dreng says I’m too old,” she said wryly, one day when Ragna went to the tavern to buy a barrel of ale.

“How old are you?” Ragna asked.

“Twenty-two, I think. But anyway I was always too sulky to please the men. So he’s bought a new girl, now that he’s making so much money on market days.” They were standing outside the brewhouse, and Blod pointed to a girl in a short dress who was dipping a bucket in the river. Her lack of any kind of hat or headdress marked her as a slave and a prostitute, but also revealed a head of thick, dark-red hair falling in waves to her shoulders. “That’s Mairead. She’s Irish.”

“She looks terribly young.”

“She’s about twelve—the age I was when I came here.”

“Poor girl.”

Blod was brutally practical. “If men are going to pay for sex, they want something they can’t get at home.”

Ragna studied the girl more carefully. There was a roundness to her that did not come from eating well. “Is she pregnant?”

“Yes, and she’s farther gone than she looks, but Dreng hasn’t realized yet. He’s ignorant about such things. However, he’s going to be furious. Men won’t pay as much for a pregnant woman.”

Despite Blod’s tough practicality, Ragna detected in her tone a fondness for Mairead, and she felt glad that the slave girl had someone to look out for her.

She paid Blod for the ale, and Blod rolled a barrel out of the brewhouse.

Dreng himself emerged from the henhouse with a few eggs in a basket. He was getting fat, and limping more than ever. He gave Ragna a cursory nod—he no longer troubled to toady to her, now that she had fallen from favor—and walked past. He was breathing hard even though he was hardly exerting himself.

Ethel came to the door of the alehouse. She, too, looked ill. She was in her late twenties, Ragna knew, but she appeared older. The cause was not just a decade of marriage to Dreng. According to Mother Agatha, Ethel had an internal ailment requiring that she rest.

Blod looked worried and said: “Do you need something, Ethel?” Ethel shook her head and took the eggs from Dreng, then disappeared back inside. “I have to look after her,” Blod said. “No one else will.”

“What about Edgar’s sister-in-law?”

“Cwenburg? You won’t see her taking care of her stepmother.” Blod began to push the barrel up the hill. “I’ll bring this to your house.” She leaned into her work. She was a strong woman, Ragna saw.