“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.”
All peasants lived in such insecurity, never sure that this year’s harvest would be enough to keep them alive until next year’s. Mildred’s family were better off than some. “Perhaps you were lucky to get this place.”
Mildred said crisply: “We’ll see.”
Aldred said: “How did it happen that you came to Dreng’s Ferry?”
“We were offered this farm by the bishop of Shiring.”
“Wynstan?” Aldred knew the bishop, of course, and had a low opinion of him.
“Our landlord is Degbert Baldhead, the dean at the minster, who is the bishop’s cousin.”
“Fascinating.” Aldred was beginning to understand Dreng’s Ferry. Degbert and Dreng were brothers, and Wynstan was their cousin. They made a sinister little trio. “Does Wynstan ever come here?”
“He visited soon after Midsummer.”
Edgar put in: “Two weeks after Midsummer Day.”
Mildred went on: “He gave a lamb to every house in the village. That’s how we got ours.”
“The bountiful bishop,” Aldred mused.
Mildred was quick to pick up his undertone. “You sound skeptical,” she said. “You don’t believe in his kindness?”
“I’ve never known him to do good without an ulterior motive. You’re not looking at one of Wynstan’s admirers.”
Mildred smiled. “No argument here.”
Another of the boys spoke. It was Eadbald, the middle son, with the freckled face. His voice was deep and resonant. “Edgar killed a Viking,” he said.
The eldest, Erman, put in: “He says he did.”
Aldred said to Edgar: “Did you kill a Viking?”
“I went up behind him,” Edgar said. “He was struggling with... a woman. He didn’t see me until it was too late.”
“And the woman?” Aldred had noticed the hesitation and guessed she was someone special.
“The Viking threw her to the ground just before I struck him. She hit her head on a stone step. I was too late to save her. She died.” Edgar’s rather lovely hazel eyes filled with tears.
“What was her name?”
“Sungifu.” It came in a whisper.
“I will pray for her soul.”
“Thank you.”
