Hubert was more gracious. “Love triumphs in the end,” he said. “Just like in those old stories you love.”

“Quite,” said Genevieve. “Except that the stories usually end in tragedy.”

CHAPTER 8

Early September 997

dgar was determined to build a boat that would please Dreng.

It was hard to like Dreng, and few people did. He was malevolent and miserly. Living at the alehouse, Edgar quickly became familiar with the family. The elder wife, Leaf, was coldly indifferent to Dreng most of the time. The younger woman, Ethel, seemed scared of her husband. She bought the food and cooked it, and cried when he complained about the cost. Edgar wondered whether either woman had ever loved Dreng, and decided not: both were from poor peasant families and had probably married for financial security.

Blod, the slave, hated Dreng. When she was not servicing passing strangers who wanted sex, Dreng kept her busy cleaning the house and outbuildings, tending the pigs and chickens, and changing the rushes on the floor. He always spoke harshly to her, and she in turn was permanently surly and resentful. She would have made more money for him if she had not been so miserable, but he seemed not to realize that.

The women liked Brindle, Edgar’s dog. She won their affection by chasing foxes away from the henhouse. Dreng never petted the dog, and in response she acted as if Dreng did not exist.

However, Dreng seemed to love his daughter, Cwenburg, and she him. He smiled when he saw her, whereas he greeted most people with a sneer or, at best, a smirk. For Cwenburg, Dreng would always drop what he was doing, and the two of them would sit and talk in low voices, sometimes for an hour.

That proved it was possible to have a normal human relationship with Dreng, and Edgar was determined to try. He was not aiming for affection: just a briskly practical liaison without rancor.

Edgar set up an open-air workshop on the riverbank, and by good fortune the hot August sunshine continued into a warm September. He felt happy to be constructing something again, honing his blade, smelling the cut wood, imagining shapes and joins, and then making them real.

When he had fashioned all the wooden parts he laid them out on the ground, and the outlines of the boat became discernible.

Dreng looked and said accusingly: “In a boat, the planks usually overlap.”

Edgar had anticipated questions, and he had answers ready, but he was wary. He needed to convince Dreng without coming across as a know-it-all—always a danger for Edgar, he knew. “That type of hull is called clinker-built. But this boat will be flat bottomed, so it will be carvel-built, with the planks set edge to edge. By the way, we call them strakes, not planks.”

“Planks, strakes, I don’t care, but why is it flat-bottomed?”

“Mainly so that people and cattle can stand upright, and baskets and sacks can be stacked securely. Also, the vessel won’t roll side to side so much, which helps to keep the passengers calm.”