“Yes. It’s a nickname.”

“Where does it come from?”

Ragna grinned. “You’ll see.”

The sound of seven horses brought people out of their houses. Ragna saw a woman she recognized, and reined in. “You’re Ellen, the baker.”

“Yes, my lady. I pray I see you well and happy.”

“What happened to that little boy of yours who fell out of a tree?”

“He died, my lady.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“They say I shouldn’t mourn, for I’ve got three more sons.”

“Then they’re fools, whoever they are,” said Ragna. “The loss of a child is a terrible grief to a mother, and it makes no difference how many more you may have.”

Tears fell on Ellen’s wind-reddened cheeks, and she reached out a hand. Ragna took it and squeezed gently. Ellen kissed Ragna’s hand and said: “You understand.”

“Perhaps I do, a little,” said Ragna. “Good-bye, Ellen.”

They rode on. Aldred said: “Poor woman.”

Louis said: “I give you credit, Lady Ragna. That woman will worship you for the rest of her life.”

Ragna felt slighted. Louis obviously thought she had been kind merely as a way of making herself popular. She wanted to ask him whether he thought no one ever felt genuine compassion. But she remembered her duty and kept silent.

Louis said: “But I still don’t know why they call you Deborah.”

Ragna gave him an enigmatic smile. Let him figure it out for himself, she thought.

Aldred said: “I notice that a lot of people around here have the wonderful red hair that you have, Lady Ragna.”

Ragna was aware that she had a glorious head of red-gold curls. “That’s the Viking blood,” she said. “Around here, some people still speak Norse.”

Louis commented: “The Normans are different from the rest of us in the Frankish lands.”

That might have been a compliment, but Ragna thought not.

After an hour they came to Saint-Martin. Ragna halted on the outskirts. Several men and women were busy in a leafy orchard, and among them she spotted Gerbert, the reeve, or village headman. She dismounted and crossed a pasture to talk to him, and her companions followed.

Gerbert bowed to her. He was an odd-looking character, with a crooked nose and teeth so misshapen that he could not close his mouth completely. Count Hubert had made him headman because he was intelligent, but Ragna was not sure she trusted him.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and clustered around Ragna and Gerbert. “What work are you doing here today, Gerbert?”

“Picking off some of the little apples, my lady, so the others will grow fatter and juicier,” he said.

“So you can make good cider.”

“Cider from Saint-Martin is stronger than most, by the grace of God and good husbandry.”

Half the villages in Normandy claimed to make the strongest cider, but Ragna did not say that. “What do you do with the unripe apples?”

“Feed them to the goats, to make their cheese sweet.”

“Who’s the best cheesewright in the village?”