Wigelm said: “Don’t be a crybaby, Alain. It’s only snow, it doesn’t hurt.”
His harsh tone made Alain sob harder.
Ragna muttered: “He’s only two.”
Wigelm did not like arguments: he was better at fights. “Don’t mollycoddle the boy,” he said. “I don’t want a namby-pamby son. He’s going to be a warrior, like his father.”
Ragna prayed every day that Alain would grow up to be as different as possible from his father. But she said no more: discussion with Wigelm was profitless.
“Don’t you start teaching him to read,” Wigelm added. Wigelm himself could not read. “That’s for priests and women.”
We’ll see about that, Ragna thought, but she said nothing.
“You raise him right,” Wigelm said. “Or else.” He walked away, and his concubine trailed after him.
Ragna felt chilled. What did he mean byor else?
She saw Hildi the midwife approaching across the snowy compound. Ragna was always pleased to speak to her. She was a wise old woman, and her medical skill extended much beyond childbirth.
Hildi said: “I know you don’t like Agnes.”
Ragna stiffened. “I liked her well enough until she turned traitor.”
“She’s dying, and she wants to beg your forgiveness.”
Ragna sighed. Such a request was hard to refuse, even when it came from the woman who had ruined Ragna’s life.
She told Cat to watch the boys, and left with Hildi.
In the town the pure white of the snow had already been defiled by garbage and muddy footsteps. Cat led the way to a small house behind the bishop’s palace. The place was dirty and smelled bad. Agnes lay in the straw on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. On her cheek, beside her nose, was a hideous red lump with a scabbed crater in its center.
Her gaze roamed around the room as if she did not know where she was. Her eyes fell on Ragna and she said: “I know you.”
It was an odd thing to say. Agnes had lived with Ragna for more than a decade, but she spoke as if they were distant acquaintances.
Hildi said: “She gets confused. It’s part of the illness.”
“I’ve got a terrible headache,” Agnes said.
Hildi addressed her. “You asked me to bring the lady Ragna to see you so that you could tell her how sorry you are.”
Agnes’s face changed. Suddenly she appeared to have all her mental faculties. “I did a wicked thing,” she said. “My lady, can you ever forgive me for betraying you?”
The plea was irresistible. “I forgive you, Agnes,” Ragna said sincerely.
Agnes said: “God is punishing me for what I did. Hildi says I’ve got Whore’s Leprosy.”
Ragna was shocked. She had heard of this disease. It was spread by sexual contact, hence the name. Starting with headaches and dizziness, it caused mental deterioration and eventually drove the sufferer mad. In a quiet tone she said to Hildi: “Is it fatal?”
“In itself, no, but the sufferer is so weakened and accident prone that death comes soon from other causes.”
Ragna raised her voice and spoke to Agnes. “Did Offa have it?” she asked incredulously.
Hildi shook her head. “Agnes didn’t get it from her husband.”
“Who, then?”
Agnes said: “I sinned with the bishop.”
