“Haven’t got no ale.”
Edgar hid a smile. Dreng had met someone even more disagreeable than himself.
Dreng said: “You ought to join the hue and cry, and help us find her.”
“Not me.”
“It’s the law.”
“I don’t live in your hundred.”
In all probability, Edgar guessed, no one knew which hundred Ulf and Wyn lived in. That would exempt them from rents and tithes. Given how little wealth they appeared to have, it would not be worth anyone’s while to try to pin them down.
Dreng said to Wyn: “Where’s your brother? I thought he lived here with you.”
“Begstan died,” she said.
“Where’s his body, then? You didn’t bury him at the minster.”
“We took him to Combe.”
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.”
Edgar guessed that they had buried Begstan in the woods to save the price of a priest. But it hardly mattered, and Dreng said impatiently: “Let’s move on.”
The group soon drew near the place where Edgar had beached the ferry. Edgar saw it before anyone else, but he decided he could not be the one who spotted it first: that might arouse suspicion. He waited for someone else to notice it. They were focused on the way ahead, through the forest, and he began to think no one would see it.
At last his brother Erman said: “Look—isn’t that Edgar’s boat, on the other side of the river?”
Dreng said sourly: “It’s not his boat, it’s mine.”
“But what’s it doing there?”
Degbert said: “It looks as if she sailed this far, then for some reason she decided to continue on foot on the far side.” He had abandoned the theory of the alternative route, Edgar noted with satisfaction.
Cuthbert was sweating and panting: he was too fat for this kind of work. He said: “How are we going to get across? The boat is on the other side.”
Dreng said: “Edgar will go and get it. He can swim.”
Edgar did not mind, but he pretended to be reluctant. He took off his shoes and tunic slowly and then, naked, he slipped shivering into the cold water. He swam across, got into the ferry, and poled it back.
He put his clothes back on while the group boarded. He ferried them across then tied up the boat. Degbert said: “She’s on this side of the river, somewhere between here and Combe.”
Combe was two days from Dreng’s Ferry. The hue and cry would not get that far.
At midday they stopped at a village called Longmede, which marked the southeast boundary of the hundred. No one there had seen a runaway slave, as Edgar already knew. They bought ale and bread from the villagers and sat down to rest.
When they had eaten, Degbert said: “There’s been no trace of her since Theodberht’s sheepfold.”
Cuthbert said: “I’m afraid we’ve lost the scent.”
He just wanted to give up and go home, Edgar guessed.
Dreng protested: “She’s a valuable slave! I can’t afford another. I’m not a rich man.”
“It’s long past noon,” Degbert said. “If we want to be home by dark we have to turn back now.”
