If they waved to strangers, perhaps they were all right.

Aldred walked up a slope to the house. The family evidently had no furniture, for they were sitting on the ground to eat their evening meal. The three boys were not tall, but broad-shouldered and deep-chested. The mother was a tired woman with a resolute look. The faces of all four were lean, as if they did not eat much. A brown-and-white dog sat with them; it, too, was thin.

The woman spoke first. “Sit with us and rest your legs, if you’re so inclined,” she said. “I am Mildred.” She pointed out the boys, eldest to youngest. “My sons are Erman, Eadbald, and Edgar. Our supper isn’t fancy, but you’re welcome to share it.”

Their meal certainly was not fancy. They had a loaf of bread and a large pot containing lightly boiled forest vegetables, probably lettuce, onions, parsley, and wild garlic. No meat was visible. It was no wonder they did not get fat. Aldred was hungry, but he could not take food from people who were so desperately poor. He refused politely. “It smells tempting, but I’m not hungry, and monks must avoid the sin of gluttony. However, I will sit with you, and thank you for your welcome.”

He sat on the ground, something monks did not often do, despite their vows. There was poverty, Aldred thought, and then there was real poverty.

Making conversation, he said: “The grass looks almost ready to reap. You’ll have a good harvest of hay in a few days’ time.”

Mildred answered. “I wasn’t sure we’d be able to make hay, because the riverside land is almost too marshy, but it dried up in the hot weather. I hope it does the same every year.”

“Are you new here, then?” Aldred asked.

“Yes,” she said. “We came from Combe.”

Aldred could guess why they had left. “You must have suffered in the Viking raid. I saw the devastation when I passed through the town the day before yesterday.”

Edgar, the youngest of the brothers, spoke. He looked about eighteen, with only the pale soft hair of an adolescent on his chin. “We lost everything,” he said. “My father was a boatbuilder. They killed him. Our stock of timber was burned and our tools were ruined. So we’ve had to make a completely new start.”

Aldred studied the young man with interest. Perhaps he was not handsome, but there was something appealing about his looks. Although the conversation was informal, his sentences were clear and logical. Aldred found himself drawn to Edgar. Get a grip on yourself, he thought. The sin of lust was more difficult to avoid than the sin of gluttony, for Aldred.

He asked Edgar: “And how are you getting on in your new life?”

“We’ll be able to sell the hay, provided it doesn’t rain in the next few days, and then we’ll have some money at last. We’ve got oats ripening on the higher ground. And we have a piglet and a lamb. We should get through the winter.”