The Evening and the Morning

by Ken Follett

  “But we’ve got another problem,” Wynstan said. “We can’t stop Ethelred holding court, and we can’t prevent him from talking about Ragna. He is going to order us to produce her, and then what can we do?”

  Wigelm sighed. “I wish we could just kill her.”

  “We’ve been over that. We barely got away with killing Wilf. If we murder Ragna the king will declare war on us.”

  The rider Wynstan had seen on the road now trotted into the compound, and Wynstan recognized Dreng. He grunted with irritation. “What does that fawning idiot want now?”

  Dreng left his horse at the stable and came to the great hall. “Good day to you, my cousins,” he said, smiling unctuously. “I hope I see you well.”

  Wynstan said: “What brings you here, Dreng?”

  “King Ethelred came to our village,” Dreng said. “His army crossed on my ferry.”

  “That must have taken awhile. What did he do while he was waiting?”

  “He gave the priory a charter. They have royal approval for a toll bridge, a weekly market, and an annual fair.”

  “Aldred building his power base,” Wynstan mused. “These monks renounce the things of the world, but they know how to look after their own interests.”

  Dreng seemed disappointed that Wynstan was not more shocked. “Then the army left,” he said.

  “When do you think they’ll get here?”

  “They’re not coming here. They recrossed the river.”

  “What?” This was the real news, even though Dreng had not recognized it. “They turned around and went back eastward? Why?”

  “A message came to say that Swein Forkbeard has attacked Wilton.”

  Wigelm said: “The Vikings must have sailed up the river from Christchurch.”

  Wynstan did not care how King Swein had reached Wilton. “Don’t you see what this means? Ethelred has gone back!”

  “So he’s not coming to Shiring,” said Wigelm.

  “Not now, anyway.” Wynstan was profoundly relieved. He added hopefully: “And perhaps not any time soon.”

  CHAPTER 36

  June 1003

  dgar was shaping a beam with an adze, a tool like an ax but with an arched blade, its edge at right angles to the handle, designed for scraping a length of timber to a smooth, even surface. In past times work such as this had been a delight to him. He had found profound satisfaction in the fresh smell of the scraped wood, the sharpness of the cutting edge, and most of all the clear, logical picture he had in his head of the structure he was creating. But now he worked joylessly, as mindless as a mill wheel going around and around.

  He paused, straightened his back, and took a long swallow of weak ale. Looking across the river he saw that the trees on the far side were now in full leaf, fresh green in the pale morning sun. That woodland had formerly been a dangerous place on account of Ironface, but now travelers ventured there with less trepidation.

  On the near side, his family’s farmland was just turning from green to yellow as the oats ripened, and he could see in the distance the stooped figures of Erman and Cwenburg as they weeded. Their children were with them: Winnie, now five, was old enough to help with the weeding, but Beorn, three, was sitting on the ground, playing with the earth. Nearer to Edgar, Eadbald was at the fishpond, up to his waist in the water, pulling up a fish trap and examining the contents.

  Nearer still, there were new houses in the village, and many of the old buildings had been extended. The alehouse had a brewhouse, which was even now giving off the yeasty aroma of fermenting barley: Blod had taken over the brewing after Leaf died, and she had turned out to have something of a flair for it. Right now Fat Bebbe was sitting on the bench in front of the alehouse drinking a flagon of Blod’s ale.

  The church had an extension, and the monastery had a stone building for the school, library, and scriptorium. Halfway up the hill, opposite Edgar’s house, a site was slowly being cleared for the new, larger church that would be built there one day, if Aldred’s dreams came true.

  Aldred’s optimism and ambition were infectious, and most of the village now looked to the future with eager hope; but Edgar was an exception. Everything that he and Aldred had achieved in the last six years tasted sour in his mouth. He could think of nothing but Ragna, languishing in some place of captivity all this time while he was powerless to help her.

  He was about to restart his work when Aldred came down from the monastery. Rebuilding the bridge was quicker than the original construction, but not much, and Aldred was desperately impatient. “When will it be finished?” he asked Edgar.

  Edgar surveyed the site. He had used his Viking ax to chop away the charred remains. He had let the useless ashes float downstream, and had stacked half-burned timbers by the riverside to be recycled as firewood. He had renewed the stout abutments on both banks, then had rapidly built a series of simple flat-bottomed boats to be fixed together and moored to the abutments to form the pontoons. He was now fashioning the framework that would rest on the boats and support the roadbed.

  “How long?” said Aldred.

  “I’m not dawdling,” Edgar said irritably.

  “I didn’t say you were dawdling, I asked you how long. The priory needs the money!”

  Edgar hardly cared about the priory and he resented Aldred’s tone. Lately he had found that several of his friends were becoming uncongenial. Everyone seemed to want something from him, and he found their demands annoying. “I’m on my own!” he said.

  “I can give you more monks to use as laborers.”

  “I don’t need laborers. Most of the work is skilled.”

  “Perhaps we can get other builders to help you.”

  “I’m probably the only craftsman in England willing to work in exchange for reading lessons.”

  Aldred sighed. “I know we’re lucky to have you, and I’m sorry to badger you, but we really are eager to get this finished.”

  “I hope the bridge might be ready to use by the autumn.”

  “Could you make it sooner, if I could find the money for another skilled man to work with you?”

  “Good luck finding one. Too many builders round here have gone to Normandy for higher wages. Our neighbors across the Channel have long been ahead of us in building castles and now, apparently, the young Duke Richard is turning his attention to churches.”

  “I know.”

  Edgar was impatient about something else. “I saw that a traveling monk spent last night at the monastery. Did he have news of King Ethelred?” After all his months of searching, Edgar now believed that the king represented the only hope of finding Ragna and freeing her.

  “Yes,” said Aldred. “We learned that Swein Forkbeard sacked Wilton and left. Ethelred got there too late. The Vikings, meanwhile, had sailed for Exeter, so our king and his army headed there.”

  “They must have taken the coast road, as Ethelred didn’t pass through Shiring this time.”

  “Correct.”

  “Has the king held court anywhere in the Shiring region?”

  “Not as far as we know. He has neither confirmed Wigelm as ealdorman nor issued any new orders about Ragna.”

  “Hell. She’s been a prisoner for nearly ten months now.”

  “I’m sorry, Edgar. Sorry for her and sorry for you.”

  Edgar did not want anyone’s pity. He glanced toward the tavern and saw Dreng outside. He was standing near Bebbe but looking at Edgar and Aldred. Edgar shouted: “What are you staring at?”

  “You two,” Dreng said. “Wondering what you’re plotting now.”

  “We’re building a bridge.”

  “Aye,” said Dreng. “Take care, though. It would be a shame if this one were to burn down, too.” He laughed, then turned around and went inside.

  Edgar said: “I hope he goes to hell.”

  “Oh, he will,” said Ald
red. “But while we wait for that I have another plan.”

  * * *

  Aldred went to Shiring and returned a week later with Sheriff Den and six men-at-arms.

  Edgar heard the horses and looked up from his work. Blod came out of the brewhouse to see. Within a couple of minutes most of the village had gathered at the riverside. Despite the season the weather was cool, with a chill breeze. The sky was gray and threatened rain.

  The men-at-arms were grim-faced and silent. Two of them dug a narrow hole in the ground outside the alehouse and fixed a stake into it. The villagers asked questions but got no answers, which made them all the more curious.

  However, they could guess that someone was about to be punished.

  Edgar’s brothers had got wind that something was happening, and showed up with Cwenburg and the children.

  When the stake was firmly embedded, the men-at-arms seized Dreng.

  “You let me go!” he shouted, struggling.

  They pulled off his clothes, causing everyone to laugh.

  “My cousin is the bishop of Shiring!” he yelled. “You’ll all pay a heavy price for this!”

  Ethel, Dreng’s surviving wife, rained feeble blows on the men-at-arms with her fist, saying: “Leave him alone!”

  They ignored her and roped her husband to the stake.

  Blod looked on expressionlessly.

  Prior Aldred spoke to the crowd. “King Ethelred has ordered a bridge to be built here,” he said. “Dreng threatened to burn it down.”

  “I did not!” said Dreng.

  Fat Bebbe was watching. “You did, though,” she said. “I was there, I heard you.”

  Sheriff Den said: “I represent the king. He is not to be defied.”

  Everyone knew that.

  “I want each person to go home, find a bucket or a pot, and bring it back here, quickly.”

  The villagers and the monks obeyed with alacrity. They were keen to see what was going to happen. Among the few who declined to join in were Cwenburg, Dreng’s daughter, and her two husbands, Erman and Eadbald.

  When they had reassembled, Den said: “Dreng threatened a fire. We will now put out his flames. Everyone, fill your vessel from the river and pour the water over Dreng.”

  Edgar guessed that Aldred had devised this punishment. It was more symbolic than painful. Few people would have dreamed up something so mild. On the other hand it was humiliating, especially for a man such as Dreng, who boasted of his connections in high places.

  And it was a warning. Dreng had got away with burning down the bridge before, because that bridge had belonged to Aldred, who was no more than the prior of a small monastery, whereas Dreng had the support of the bishop of Shiring. But the sheriff’s action today announced that the new bridge would be different. This one belonged to the king, and even Wynstan would struggle to protect someone who set fire to it.

  The villagers began to throw their containers of river water over Dreng. He was not much liked, and people clearly enjoyed what they were doing. Some took care to throw the water directly into his face, which made him curse. Others laughed and poured it over his head. Several people went back for another bucketful. Dreng began to shiver.

  Edgar did not fill a bucket but stood watching, with his arms folded. Dreng will never forget this, he thought.

  Eventually Aldred called: “Enough!”

  The villagers stopped.

  Den said: “He is to remain here until dawn tomorrow. Anyone who releases him before then will take his place.”

  Dreng was going to spend a cold night, Edgar thought, but he would live.

  Den led his men-at-arms to the monastery, where presumably they would stay the night. Edgar hoped they liked beans.

  The villagers dispersed slowly, realizing there was no more fun to be had.

  Edgar was about to restart his work when Dreng caught his eye.

  “Go on, laugh,” said Dreng.

  Edgar was not laughing.

  Dreng said: “I heard a rumor about your precious Norman lady, Ragna.”

  Edgar froze. He wanted to walk away, but he could not.

  “I hear she’s pregnant,” Dreng said.

  Edgar stared at him.

  Dreng said: “Now laugh at that.”

  * * *

  Edgar brooded over Dreng’s taunt. He might have been making it up, of course. Or the rumor might simply be untrue: many rumors were. But Ragna might really be pregnant.

  And if she was pregnant, Edgar might be the father.

  He had made love to her only once, but once could be enough. However, their night of passion had been in August, so the baby would have been born in May, and it was now June.

  The baby might be late. Or perhaps it had already been born.

  That evening he asked Den if he had heard the rumor. Den had.

  “Do they say when the baby is due?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you pick up any hint of where Ragna is?”

  “No, and if I did, I would have gone there and rescued her.”

  Edgar had had the conversation about Ragna’s whereabouts a hundred times. The pregnancy rumor took him no nearer to an answer. It was just an additional torture.

  Toward the end of June he realized he needed nails. He could make them in what had once been Cuthbert’s forge, but he had to go to Shiring to buy the iron. Next morning he saddled Buttress and joined up with two trappers heading for the city to sell furs.

  At midmorning they stopped at a wayside alehouse known as Stumpy’s on account of the proprietor’s amputated leg. Edgar fed Buttress a handful of grain, then she drank from a pond and cropped the grass around it while Edgar ate bread and cheese, sitting on a bench in the sunshine with the trappers and some local men.

  He was about to leave when a troop of men-at-arms rode by. Edgar was startled to see Bishop Wynstan at their head, but happily Wynstan did not notice him.

  He was even more surprised to see, riding with them, a small gray-haired woman he recognized as Hildi, the midwife from Shiring.

  He stared at the group as they receded in a cloud of dust, heading for Dreng’s Ferry. Why would Wynstan be escorting a midwife? Could it be a coincidence that Ragna was rumored to be pregnant? Perhaps, but Edgar was going to assume the opposite.

  If they were taking the midwife to attend on Ragna, they could lead Edgar to her.

  He took his leave of the trappers, climbed onto Buttress, and trotted back the way he had come.

  He did not want to catch up with Wynstan on the road: that could lead to trouble. But they had to be heading for Dreng’s Ferry. They would either stay the night there or ride on, perhaps to Combe. Either way Edgar could continue to follow them, at a discreet distance, to their destination.

  Since Ragna had vanished he had had many surges of exhilarating hope followed by heartbreaking disappointments. He told himself that this could be another one such. But the clues were promising, and he could not help feeling a thrill of optimism that banished, at least for now, his depression.

  He saw no one else on the road before he arrived back in Dreng’s Ferry at midday. He knew immediately that Wynstan and the group had not stopped here: it was a small place and he would have seen some of them outside the alehouse, men drinking and horses grazing.

  He went into the monks’ house and found Aldred, who said: “Are you back already? Did you forget something?”

  “Did you speak to the bishop?” Edgar asked without preamble.

  Aldred looked puzzled. “What bishop?”

  “Didn’t Wynstan come through here?”

  “Not unless he walked on tiptoe.”

  Edgar was bewildered. “That’s strange. He passed me on the road, with his entourage. They must have been on their way here—there’s nowhere else.”

  Aldred frowned. “The same
thing happened to me, back in February,” he said thoughtfully. “I was returning from Shiring, and Wigelm passed me on the road, going in the opposite direction. I thought he must have been here, and I worried about what mischief he might have been making. But when I arrived Brother Godleof told me they had not seen any sign of him.”

  “Their destination must be somewhere between here and Stumpy’s.”

  “But there’s nothing between here and Stumpy’s.”

  Edgar snapped his fingers. “Wilwulf had a hunting lodge deep in the forest on the south side of the Shiring road.”

  “That burned down. Wigelm built a new lodge in the Vale of Outhen, where the hunting is better.”

  “They said it had burned down,” said Edgar. “That might not have been true.”

  “It’s what everyone believed.”

  “I’m going to check.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Aldred. “But shouldn’t we get Sheriff Den to come with us, and bring some men?”

  “I’m not prepared to wait,” Edgar said firmly. “It would take two days to get to Shiring then a day and a half to return to Stumpy’s. I can’t wait four days. Ragna might be moved in that time. If she’s at the old hunting lodge I’m going to see her today.”

  “You’re right,” said Aldred. “I’ll saddle a horse.”

  He also put on a silver cross on a leather thong. Edgar approved: Wynstan’s men might hesitate to attack a monk wearing a cross. On the other hand, they might not.

  A few minutes later the two of them were on the road.

  Neither had ever been to the hunting lodge. Fire or no fire, it had not been used for years. Wilwulf had gone away to war and come back severely wounded, and after his death Wigelm had hunted elsewhere.

  But they knew roughly where it must be. Between Dreng’s Ferry and Stumpy’s there had to be a track leading away from the road into the forest to the south. All Edgar and Aldred had to do was find it. If the lodge truly had burned and was no longer in use then the task would be difficult: the entrance to the side track would be overgrown and hard to see. But if the story of the fire was a lie intended to divert suspicion, and people were still using the track to get to the lodge, to bring supplies—and a midwife—then there would be a roadside gap visible where the undergrowth had been trodden down and saplings had been damaged or destroyed.