Edgar thought: I’m not a farmer anymore.

CHAPTER 7

Late August 997

agna was not pregnant.

She had suffered agonies of apprehension for two weeks after Wilwulf left Cherbourg. To be impregnated and deserted was the ultimate humiliation, especially for a noble maiden. A peasant’s daughter who suffered the same fate would be equally mocked and scorned, but might eventually find someone to marry her and take on the raising of another man’s child. A lady would be shunned by every man of her class.

However, she had escaped that fate. The arrival of the monthly blood had been as welcome as sunrise.

After that she should have hated Wilwulf, but she found she could not. He had betrayed her, but she still yearned for him. She was a fool, she knew. Anyway, it hardly mattered, for she would probably never see him again.

Father Louis had gone home to Reims without spotting the early signs of Ragna’s romance with Wilwulf, and it seemed he had reported that Ragna would make a suitable wife for the young Viscount Guillaume, for Guillaume himself had arrived at Cherbourg to make the final decision.

Guillaume thought Ragna was perfect.

He kept telling her so. He studied her, sometimes touching her chin to move her face a little to one side or the other, up or down, to catch the light. “Perfect,” he would say. “The eyes, green like the sea, such a shade as I never saw before. The nose, so straight, so fine. The cheekbones, perfectly matched. The pale skin. And most of all, the hair.” Ragna kept her hair mostly covered, as did all respectable women, but a few locks were artfully allowed to escape. “Such a bright gold—angels’ wings must be that color.”

She was flattered, but she could not help feeling that he was looking at her as he might have admired an enameled brooch, the most prized of his collection. Wilwulf had never told her she was perfect. He had said: “By the gods, I can’t keep my hands off you.”

Guillaume himself was very good-looking. As they stood on the high parapet of Cherbourg Castle, looking down at the ships in the bay, the breeze tousled his hair, which was long and glossy, dark brown with auburn lights. He had brown eyes and regular features. He was much more handsome than Wilwulf, but all the same the castle maids never blushed and giggled when he walked by. Wilwulf exerted a masculine magnetism that Guillaume just did not have.

He had just given Ragna a present, a silk shawl embroidered by his mother. Ragna unfolded it and studied the design, which featured intertwining foliage and monstrous birds. “It’s gorgeous,” she said. “It must have taken her a year.”

“She has good taste.”

“What is she like?”

“She’s absolutely wonderful.” Guillaume smiled. “I suppose every boy thinks his mother is wonderful.”

Ragna was not sure that was true, but she kept the thought to herself.