On the second day, when by chance Edgar and Ma were walking fifty yards or so ahead, she said thoughtfully: “Obviously you were some distance away from home when you saw the Viking ships.”
He had been waiting for this. Erman had asked puzzled questions, and Eadbald had guessed that something clandestine had been going on, but Edgar did not have to explain himself to them. However, Ma was different.
All the same, he was not sure where to begin, so he just said: “Yes.”
“I suppose you were meeting some girl.”
He felt embarrassed.
She went on: “No other reason for you to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night.”
He shrugged. It had always been hard to hide things from her.
“But why were you secretive about it?” she asked, following the chain of logic. “You’re old enough to woo a girl. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.” She paused. “Unless she was already married.”
He said nothing, but he felt his cheeks flame red.
“Go ahead, blush,” she said. “You deserve to feel ashamed.”
Ma was strict, and Pa had been the same. They believed in obeying the rules of the Church and the king. Edgar believed in it, too, but he had told himself that his affair with Sunni had been exceptional. “She hated Cyneric,” he said.
Ma was not going to buy that. She said sarcastically: “So you think the commandment says: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, unless the woman hates her husband.’”
“I know what the commandment says. I broke it.”
Ma did not acknowledge his confession. Her thoughts moved on. “The woman must have died in the raid,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come with us.”
Edgar nodded.
“I suppose it was the dairyman’s wife. What was her name? Sungifu.”
She had guessed it all. Edgar felt foolish, like a child caught in a lie.
Ma said: “Were you planning to run away that night?”
“Yes.”
Ma took Edgar’s arm, and her voice became softer. “Well, you chose well, I’ll give you that. I liked Sunni. She was intelligent and hardworking. I’m sorry she’s dead.”
“Thank you, Ma.”
“She was a good woman.” Ma released his arm, and her voice changed again. “But she was someone else’s woman.”
“I know.”
Ma said no more. Edgar’s conscience would judge him, and she knew that.
They stopped by a stream to drink the cold water and rest. It was hours since they had eaten, but they had no food.
Erman, the eldest brother, was as depressed as Edgar but did not have the sense to shut up about it. “I’m a craftsman, not an ignorant peasant,” he grumbled as they resumed walking. “I don’t know why I’m going to this farm.”
Ma had little patience for whining. “What was your alternative, then?” she snapped, interrupting his lament. “What would you have done if I had not made you take this journey?”
Erman had no answer to that, of course. He mumbled that he would have waited to see what might turn up.
“I’ll tell you what would have turned up,” said Ma. “Slavery. That’s your alternative. That’s what happens to people when they’re starving to death.”
Her words were directed at Erman, but Edgar was the more shocked. It had not occurred to him that he might face the prospect of becoming a slave. The thought was unnerving. Was that the fate that awaited the family if they could not make the farm viable?
Erman said petulantly: “No one’s going to enslave me.”
“No,” said Ma. “You’d volunteer for it.”
Edgar had heard of people enslaving themselves, though he did not know anyone who had actually done it. He had met plenty of slaves in Combe, of course: about one person in ten was a slave. Young and good-looking girls and boys became the playthings of rich men. The others pulled a plough, were flogged when they got tired, and spent their nights chained up like dogs. Most of them were Britons, people from the wild western fringes of civilization, Wales and Cornwall and Ireland. Every now and again they raided the wealthier English, stealing cattle and chickens and weapons; and the English would punish them by raiding back, burning their villages and taking slaves.
Voluntary slavery was different. There was a prescribed ritual, and Ma now depicted it scornfully to Erman. “You’d kneel down in front of a nobleman or woman with your head bowed low in supplication,” she said. “The noble might reject you, of course; but if the person put hands on your head, you would be a slave for life.”
“I’d rather starve,” Erman said in an attempt at defiance.
“No, you wouldn’t,” Ma said. “You’ve never gone hungry for as much as a day. Your father made sure of that, even when he and I had to do without to feed you boys. You don’t know what it’s like to eat nothing for a week. You’ll bow your head in no time, just for the sake of that first plate of food. But then you’ll have to work the rest of your life for no more than sustenance.”
Edgar was not sure he believed Ma. He felt he might rather starve.
Erman spoke with sulky defiance. “People can get out of slavery.”
“Yes, but do you realize how difficult it is? You can buy your freedom, true, but where would you get the money? People sometimes give slaves tips, but not often, and not much. As a slave, your only real hope is that a kindly owner may make a will that frees you. And then you’re back where you started, homeless and destitute, but twenty years older. That’s the alternative, you stupid boy. Now tell me you don’t want to be a farmer.”
Eadbald, the middle brother, stopped suddenly, wrinkled his freckled brow, and said: “I think we might be there.”
Edgar looked across the river. On the north bank was a building that looked like an alehouse: longer than a regular home, with a table and benches outside, and a large patch of green where a cow and two goats grazed. A crude boat was tied up nearby. A footworn track ran up the slope from the alehouse. To the left of the road were five more timber houses. To the right was a small stone church, another large house, and a couple of outbuildings that might have been stables or barns. Beyond that, the road disappeared into woodland.
“A ferry, an alehouse, and a church,” Edgar said with rising excitement. “I think Eadbald is right.”
“Let’s find out,” said Ma. “Give them a yell.”
Eadbald had a big voice. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and his shout boomed across the water. “Hey! Hey! Anybody there? Hello? Hello?”