Page 294 of The Evening and the Morning
“I don’t think anything’s broken,” Cat said. “What about you?”
“My head hurts.”
Grimweald spoke. “What can I do to help?”
Ragna’s answer was sarcastic. “Just carry on protecting us, as usual,” she said.
The bodyguard stamped out.
The children were still wailing. The women began to comfort them. Cat said: “I can’t believe he’s taken Alain.”
“He wants Meganthryth to raise the boy to be a stupid bully like his father.”
“You can’t let him get away with this.”
Ragna nodded. She could not let things stand. “I’m going to talk to him,” she said. “Perhaps I can get him to see sense.” She was not optimistic, but she had to try.
She left the house and crossed to Wigelm’s place. As she approached, she could hear Alain crying. She went in without knocking.
Wigelm and Meganthryth stood talking, Meganthryth holding Alain and trying to quiet him. As soon as the child saw Ragna he screamed: “Mudder!” That was what he had always called Ragna.
Instinctively, Ragna went toward him, but Wigelm stopped her. “Leave him,” he said.
Ragna stared at Meganthryth. She was short and plump, and would have been pretty but for a twist about her mouth that suggested greed. Still, she was a woman: would she really refuse to let a child go to his mother?
Ragna stretched out her arms toward Alain.
Meganthryth turned her back.
Ragna was horrified that any woman could do such a thing, and her heart filled with loathing.
With an effort, she turned from Alain and spoke to Wigelm, doing her best to use a calm, reasonable voice. “We need to discuss this,” she said.
“No. I don’t discuss. I tell you what’s going to happen.”
“Will you make a prisoner of Alain, and keep him locked in this house? That will turn him into a weakling, not a warrior.”
“Of course I won’t.”
“Then he will play in the compound with his brothers, and he will go with them when they come home, and every day you will have to do what you’ve just done. And when you’re not here, whichis often, who is going to drag the little boy away from his family while he kicks and screams for his mother?”
Wigelm looked baffled. Clearly he had thought of none of this. Then his face cleared and he said: “When I travel I’ll take him with me.”
“And who will look after him on the road?”
“Meganthryth.”
Ragna glanced at her. She looked appalled. Clearly she had not been consulted. But she clamped her mouth shut.
Wigelm went on: “I leave for Combe tomorrow. He can come with me. He’ll get to know about the life of an ealdorman.”
“You’re going to take a two-year-old on a four-day journey.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“And when you come back?”
“We’ll see. But he’s not going to live with you, not ever again.”
