“Did you? What did he say about that?”

“He couldn’t say much, because I split his head in half with it.” Edgar took some satisfaction in saying that.

The others boarded and Cwenburg pushed off. Brindle jumped into the river without hesitation and swam after the boat. Away from the shade of the forest, the sun was hot on Edgar’s head.

He asked Cwenburg: “What’s on the island?”

“A nunnery.”

Edgar nodded. That would be the stone building he had glimpsed.

Cwenburg added: “There’s a gang of lepers, too. They live in shelters they make out of branches. The nuns feed them. We call the place Leper Island.”

Edgar shuddered. He wondered how the nuns survived. People said that if you touched a leper you could catch the disease, though he had never heard of anyone who had actually done that.

They reached the north bank, and Edgar helped Ma out of the boat. He smelled the strong brown odor of fermenting ale. “Someone’s brewing,” he said.

Cwenburg said: “My mother makes very good ale. You should come into the house and refresh yourselves.”

“No, thanks,” Ma said immediately.

Cwenburg persisted. “You may want to sleep here while you fix up the farm buildings. My father will give you dinner and breakfast for a halfpenny each. That’s cheap.”

Ma said: “Are the farm buildings in bad condition, then?”

“There were holes in the roof of the house last time I walked past.”

“And the barn?”

“Pigsty, you mean.”

Edgar frowned. This did not sound good. Still, they had thirty acres: they would be able to make something of that.

“We’ll see,” said Ma. “Which house does the dean live in?”

“Degbert Baldhead? He’s my uncle.” Cwenburg pointed. “The big one next to the church. All the clergy live there together.”

“We’ll go and see him.”

They left Cwenburg and walked a short distance up the slope. Ma said: “This dean is our new landlord. Act nice and friendly. I’ll be firm with him if necessary, but we don’t want him to take against us for any reason.”

The little church looked almost derelict, Edgar thought. The entrance arch was crumbling, and was prevented from collapse only by the support of a stout tree trunk standing in the middle of the doorway. Next to the church was a timber house, double the normal size, like the alehouse. They stood outside politely, and Ma called: “Anyone home?”

The woman who came to the door carried a baby on her hip and was pregnant with another, and a toddler hid behind her skirts. She had dirty hair and heavy breasts. She might have been beautiful once, with high cheekbones and a straight nose, but now she looked as if she were so tired she could barely stand. It was the way many women looked in their twenties. No wonder they died young, Edgar thought.

Ma said: “Is Dean Degbert here?”

“What do you want with my husband?” said the woman.

Clearly, Edgar thought, this was not the stricter kind of religious community. In principle the Church preferred priests to be celibate, but the rule was broken more often than it was kept, and even married bishops were not unheard of.

Ma said: “The bishop of Shiring sent us.”

The woman shouted over her shoulder: “Degsy? Visitors.” She stared at them a moment longer then disappeared inside.

The man who took her place was about thirty-five, but had a head like an egg, without even a monkish fringe. Perhaps his baldness was due to some illness. “I’m the dean,” he said, with his mouth full of food. “What do you want?”

Ma explained again.

“You’ll have to wait,” Degbert said. “I’m in the middle of my dinner.”

Ma smiled and said nothing, and the three brothers followed her example.

Degbert seemed to realize he was being inhospitable. All the same he did not offer to share his meal. “Go to Dreng’s alehouse,” he said. “Have a drink.”

Ma said: “We can’t afford to buy ale. We’re destitute. The Vikings raided Combe, where we lived.”

“Wait there, then.”

“Why don’t you just tell me where the farm is?” Ma said pleasantly. “I’m sure I can find it.”

Degbert hesitated, then said in a tone of irritation: “I suppose I’ll have to take you.” He looked back. “Edith! Put my dinner by the fire. I’ll be an hour.” He came out. “Follow me,” he said.

They walked down the hill. “What did you do in Combe?” Degbert asked. “You can’t have been farmers there.”

“My husband was a boatbuilder,” Ma said. “The Vikings killed him.”

Degbert crossed himself perfunctorily. “Well, we don’t need boats here. My brother, Dreng, has the ferry and there’s no room for two.”

Edgar said: “Dreng needs a new vessel. That canoe is cracking. One day soon it will sink.”

“Maybe.”

Ma said: “We’re farmers now.”

“Well, your land begins here.” Degbert stopped on the far side of the tavern. “From the water’s edge to the tree line is yours.”

The farm was a strip about two hundred yards wide beside the river. Edgar studied the ground. Bishop Wynstan had not told them how narrow it was, so Edgar had not imagined that such a large proportion of the land would be waterlogged. As the ground rose away from the river it improved, becoming a sandy loam, with green shoots growing.

Degbert said: “It goes west for about seven hundred yards, then there’s forest again.”

Ma set off to walk between the marsh and the rising ground, and the others followed.

Degbert said: “As you see, there’s a nice crop of oats coming up.”

Edgar did not know oats from any other grain, and he had thought the shoots were plain grass.

Ma said: “There’s as much weeds as there is oats.”

They walked for less than half a mile and came to a pair of buildings at the crest of a rise. Beyond the buildings, the cleared land came to an end and the woods went down to the bank of the river.

Degbert said: “There’s a useful little orchard.”

It was not really an orchard. There were a few small apple trees and a cluster of medlar shrubs. The medlar was a winter-ripening fruit that was hardly palatable to humans, and was sometimes fed to pigs. The flesh was tart and hard, though it could be softened either by frost or by overripening.

“The rent is four fat piglets, payable at Michaelmas,” Degbert said.

That was it, Edgar realized; they had seen the whole farm.

“It’s thirty acres, all right,” said Ma, “but they’re very poor acres.”

“That’s why the rent is low.”

Ma was negotiating, Edgar knew. He had seen her do this many times with customers and suppliers. She was good at it, but this was a challenge. What did she have to offer? Degbert would prefer the farm to be tenanted, of course, and he might want to please his cousin the bishop; but on the other hand he was clearly not much in need of the small rent, and he could easily tell Wynstan that Ma had refused to take on such an unpromising prospect. Ma was bargaining from a weak position.

They inspected the house. Edgar noted that it had earth-set timber posts with wattle-and-daub walls between the posts. The reeds on the floor were moldy and smelled bad. Cwenburg had been right; there were holes in the thatched roof, but they could be patched.

Ma said: “The place is a dump.”

“A few simple repairs.”

“It looks like a lot of work to me. We’ll have to take timber from the forest.”

“Yes, yes,” said Degbert impatiently.

Despite the peevish tone Degbert had made an important concession. They could fell trees, and there was no mention of payment. Free timber was worth a lot.

The smaller building was in worse condition than the house. Ma said: “The barn is practically falling down.”

Degbert said: “At the moment you have no need of a barn. You have nothing to store there.”

“You’re right, we’re broke,” Ma said. “So we won’t be able to pay the rent come Michaelmas.”

Degbert looked foolish. He could hardly argue. “You can owe me,” he said. “Five piglets at Michaelmas next year.”

“How can I buy a sow? These oats will be barely enough to feed my sons this winter. I won’t have anything left over to trade.”

“Are you refusing to take the farm?”

“No, I’m saying that if the farm is to be viable you have to give me more help. I need a rent holiday, and I need a sow. And I need a sack of flour on credit—we have no food.”

It was a bold set of demands. Landlords expected to be paid, not to pay out. But sometimes they had to help tenants get started, and Degbert had to know that.

Degbert looked frustrated, but he gave in. “All right,” he said. “I’ll lend you flour. No rent this year. I’ll get you a female piglet, but you’ll have to owe me one from your first litter, and that’s on top of the rent.”

“I suppose I’ll have to accept that,” said Ma. She spoke with apparent reluctance, but Edgar was pretty sure she had made a good bargain.

“And I’ll have to get back to my dinner,” Degbert said grumpily, sensing that he had been defeated. He left, heading back to the hamlet.

Ma called after him: “When do we get the piglet?”