Page 30 of The Evening and the Morning
“Certainly not,” said Ragna. “You’ve had your chance. It’s my turn now. Be silent.”
Gerbert clammed up.
Ragna said: “Gerbert is the reeve and should have resolved it long ago. I believe he was persuaded not to do so by his wife, Renée, who wanted him to favor her brother Bernard.”
Renée looked abashed.
Ragna went on: “Because all this is partly Gerbert’s fault, he will forfeit a calf. I know he’s got one, I saw it in his yard. He will givethe calf to Bernard, who will give it to Gaston. And so debts are settled and wrongdoers are punished.”
She could tell instantly that the villagers approved of her judgment. She had insisted on obedience to the rules, but she had done it in a clever way. She saw them nodding to one another, some smiling, none objecting.
“And now,” she said, standing up, “you can give me a cup of your famous cider, and Gaston and Bernard can drink together and make friends.”
The buzz of conversation grew as everyone discussed what had happened. Father Louis came to Ragna and said: “Deborah was one of the judges of Israel. That’s how you got your nickname.”
“Correct.”
“She is the only female judge.”
“So far.”
He nodded. “You did that well.”
I’ve impressed him at last, Ragna thought.
They drank their cider and took their leave. Riding back to Cherbourg, Ragna asked Louis about Guillaume.
“He’s tall,” Louis said.
That might help, she thought. “What makes him angry?”
Louis’s glance told Ragna that he recognized the shrewdness of her question. “Nothing much,” he said. “Guillaume takes life phlegmatically, in general. He may get irritated when a servant is careless: food badly cooked, a saddle loosely strapped, rumpled bed linen.”
He sounded persnickety, Ragna thought.
“He’s very well thought of at Orléans,” Louis went on. Orléans was the main seat of the French court. “His uncle, the king, is fond of him.”
“Is Guillaume ambitious?”
“No more than is usual in a young nobleman.”
A wary response, Ragna thought. Either Guillaume was ambitious to a fault, or the reverse. She said: “What is he interested in? Hunting? Breeding horses? Music?”
“He loves beautiful things. He collects enameled brooches and embellished strap ends. He has good taste. But you haven’t asked me what I thought might have been a girl’s first question.”
“What’s that?”
“Whether he’s handsome.”
“Ah,” said Ragna, “on that matter I must make my own judgment.”
As they rode into Cherbourg, Ragna noticed that the wind had changed. “Your ship will sail this evening,” she said to Aldred. “You have an hour before the tide turns, but you’d better get on board.”
They returned to the castle. Aldred retrieved his box of books. Louis and Ragna went with him as he walked Dismas down to the waterfront. Aldred said: “It’s been a delight meeting you, Lady Ragna. If I’d known there were girls like you, perhaps I wouldn’t have become a monk.”
It was the first flirtatious remark he had made to her, and she knew right away that he was merely being polite. “Thank you for the compliment,” she said. “But you would have become a monk anyway.”
He smiled ruefully, clearly understanding what she was thinking.
