World Without End

  "The townspeople are talking about cutting off funds for the new tower. Why should they pay extra to the cathedral, they say, when they're not getting what they want from us? And now that the town is a borough, I as prior can no longer enforce the payment."

  "And if they don't pay...?"

  "Your beloved Merthin will have to abandon his pet project," Philemon said triumphantly.

  Caris could see that he thought this was his trump card. And, indeed, there had been a time when the revelation would have jolted her. But no longer. "Merthin isn't my beloved anymore, is he," she said. "You put a stop to that, too."

  A look of panic crossed his face. "But the bishop has set his heart on this tower--you can't put that at risk!"

  Caris stood up. "Can't I?" she said. "Why not?" She turned away, heading for the nunnery.

  He was flabbergasted. He called after her: "How can you be so reckless?"

  She was going to ignore him, then she changed her mind and decided to explain. She turned back. "You see, all that I ever held dear has been taken from me," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "And when you've lost everything--" Her facade began to crumble, and her voice broke, but she made herself carry on. "When you've lost everything, you've got nothing to lose."

  The first snow fell in January. It formed a thick blanket on the roof of the cathedral, smoothed out the delicate carving of the spires, and masked the faces of the angels and saints sculpted over the west door. The new masonry of the tower foundations had been covered with straw to insulate the new mortar against winter frost, and now the snow overlaid the straw.

  There were few fireplaces in a priory. The kitchen had fires, of course, which was why work in kitchens was always popular with novices. But there was no fire in the cathedral, where the monks and nuns spent seven or eight hours every day. When churches burned down, it was usually because some desperate monk had brought a charcoal brazier into the building, and a spark had flown from the fire to the timber ceiling. When not in church or laboring, the monks and nuns were supposed to walk and read in the cloisters, which were out of doors. The only concession to their comfort was the warming room, a small chamber off the cloisters where a fire was lit in the most severe weather. They were allowed to come into the warming room from the cloisters for short periods.

  As usual, Caris ignored rules and traditions, and permitted nuns to wear woolen hose in the winter. She did not believe that God needed his servants to get chilblains.

  Bishop Henri was so worried about the hospital--or rather, about the threat to his tower--that he drove from Shiring to Kingsbridge through the snow. He came in a charette, a heavy wooden cart with a waxed canvas cover and cushioned seats. Canon Claude and Archdeacon Lloyd came with him. They paused at the prior's palace only long enough to dry their clothes and drink a warming cup of wine before summoning a crisis meeting with Philemon, Sime, Caris, Oonagh, Merthin, and Madge.

  Caris knew it would be a waste of time, but she went anyway: it was easier than refusing, which would have required her to sit in the nunnery and deal with endless messages begging, commanding, and threatening her.

  She looked at the snowflakes falling past the glazed windows as the bishop drearily summarized a quarrel in which she really had no interest. "This crisis has been brought about by the disloyal and disobedient attitude of Mother Caris," Henri said.

  That stung her into a response. "I worked in the hospital here for ten years," she said. "My work, and the work of Mother Cecilia before me, are what made it so popular with the townspeople." She pointed a rude finger at the bishop. "You changed it. Don't try to blame others. You sat in that chair and announced that Brother Sime would henceforth be in charge. Now you should take responsibility for the consequences of your foolish decision."

  "You must obey me!" he said, his voice rising to a screech in frustration. "You are a nun--you have taken a vow." The grating sound disturbed the cat, Archbishop, and it stood up and walked out of the room.

  "I realize that," Caris said. "It puts me in an intolerable position." She spoke without forethought, but as the words came out she realized they were not really ill-considered. In fact they were the fruit of months of brooding. "I can no longer serve God in this way," she went on, her voice calm but her heart pounding. "That is why I have decided to renounce my vows and leave the nunnery."

  Henri actually stood up. "You will not!" he shouted. "I will not release you from your holy vows."

  "I expect God will, though," she said, scarcely disguising her contempt.

  That made him angrier. "This notion that individuals can deal with God is wicked heresy. There has been too much of such loose talk since the plague."

  "Do you think that might have happened because, when people approached the church for help during the plague, they so often found that its priest and monks...," here she looked at Philemon, "...had fled like cowards?"

  Henri held up a hand to stifle Philemon's indignant response. "We may be fallible but, all the same, it is only through the church and its priests that men and women may approach God."

  "You would think that, of course," Caris said. "But that doesn't make it right."

  "You're a devil!"

  Canon Claude intervened. "All things considered, my lord bishop, a public quarrel between yourself and Caris would not be helpful." He gave her a friendly smile. He had been well disposed toward her ever since the day she had caught him and the bishop kissing and had said nothing about it. "Her present noncooperation must be set against many years of dedicated, sometimes heroic service. And the people love her."

  Henri said: "But what if we do release her from her vows? How would that solve the problem?"

  At this point, Merthin spoke for the first time. "I have a suggestion," he said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  He said: "Let the town build a new hospital. I will donate a large site on Leper Island. Let it be staffed by a convent of nuns quite separate from the priory, a new group. They will be under the spiritual authority of the bishop of Shiring, of course, but have no connection with the prior of Kingsbridge or any of the physicians at the monastery. Let the new hospital have a lay patron, who would be a leading citizen of the town, chosen by the guild, and would appoint the prioress."

  They were all quiet for a long moment, letting this radical proposal sink in. Caris was thunderstruck. A new hospital...on Leper Island...paid for by the townspeople...staffed by a new order of nuns...having no connection with the priory...

  She looked around the group. Philemon and Sime clearly hated the idea. Henri, Claude, and Lloyd just looked bemused.

  At last the bishop said: "The patron will be very powerful--representing the townspeople, paying the bills, and appointing the prioress. Whoever plays that role will control the hospital."

  "Yes," said Merthin.

  "If I authorize a new hospital, will the townspeople be willing to resume paying for the tower?"

  Madge Webber spoke for the first time. "If the right patron is appointed, yes."

  "And who should it be?" said Henri.

  Caris realized that everyone was looking at her.

  A few hours later, Caris and Merthin wrapped themselves in heavy cloaks, put on boots, and walked through the snow to the island, where he showed her the site he had in mind. It was on the west side, not far from his house, overlooking the river.

  She was still dizzy from the sudden change in her life. She was to be released from her vows as a nun. She would become a normal citizen again, after almost twelve years. She found she could contemplate leaving the priory without anguish. The people she had loved were all dead: Mother Cecilia, Old Julie, Mair, Tilly. She liked Sister Joan and Sister Oonagh well enough, but it was not the same.

  And she would still be in charge of a hospital. Having the right to appoint and dismiss the prioress of the new institution, she would be able to run the place according to the new thinking that had grown out of the plague. The bishop had agreed to everything.

  "I thin
k we should use the cloister layout again," Merthin said. "It seemed to work really well for the short time you were in charge."

  She stared at the sheet of unmarked snow and marveled at his ability to imagine walls and rooms where she could see only whiteness. "The entrance arch was used almost like a hall," she said. "It was the place where people waited, and where the nuns first examined the patients before deciding what to do with them."

  "You would like it larger?"

  "I think it should be a real reception hall."

  "All right."

  She was bemused. "This is hard to believe. Everything has turned out just as I would have wanted it."

  He nodded. "That's how I worked it out."

  "Really?"

  "I asked myself what you would wish for, then I figured out how to achieve it."

  She stared at him. He had said it lightly, as if merely explaining the reasoning process that had led him to his conclusions. He seemed to have no idea how momentous it was to her that he should be thinking about her wishes and how to achieve them.

  She said: "Has Philippa had the baby yet?"

  "Yes, a week ago."

  "What did she have?"

  "A boy."

  "Congratulations. Have you seen him?"

  "No. As far as the world is concerned, I'm only his uncle. But Ralph sent me a letter."

  "Have they named him?"

  "Roland, after the old earl."

  Caris changed the subject. "The river water isn't very pure this far downstream. A hospital really needs clean water."

  "I'll lay a pipe to bring you water from farther upstream."

  The snowfall eased and then stopped, and they had a clear view of the island.

  She smiled at him. "You have the answer to everything."

  He shook his head. "These are the easy questions: clean water, airy rooms, a reception hall."

  "And what are the difficult ones?"

  He turned to face her. There were snowflakes in his red beard. He said: "Questions like: Does she still love me?"

  They stared at one another for a long moment.

  Caris was happy.

  PART VII

  March to November 1361

  81

  Wulfric at forty was still the handsomest man Gwenda had ever seen. There were threads of silver now in his tawny hair, but they just made him look wise as well as strong.

  When he was young his broad shoulders had tapered dramatically to a narrow waist, whereas nowadays the taper was not so sharp nor the waist so slim--but he could still do the work of two men. And he would always be two years younger than she.

  She thought she had changed less. She had the kind of dark hair that did not go gray until late in life. She was no heavier than she had been twenty years ago, although since having the children her breasts and belly were not quite as taut as formerly.

  It was only when she looked at her son Davey, at his smooth skin and the restless spring in his step, that she felt her years. Now twenty, he looked like a male version of herself at that age. She, too, had had a face with no lines, and she had walked with a jaunty stride. A lifetime of working in the fields in all weathers had wrinkled her hands, and given her cheeks a raw redness just beneath the skin, and taught her to walk slowly and conserve her strength.

  Davey was small like her, and shrewd, and secretive: since he was little, she had never been sure what he was thinking. Sam was the opposite: big and strong, not clever enough to be deceitful, but with a mean streak that Gwenda blamed on his real father, Ralph Fitzgerald.

  For several years now the two boys had been working alongside Wulfric in the fields--until two weeks ago, when Sam had vanished.

  They knew why he had gone. All winter long he had been talking about leaving Wigleigh and moving to a village where he could earn higher wages. He had disappeared the moment the spring plowing began.

  Gwenda knew he was right about the wages. It was a crime to leave your village, or to accept pay higher than the levels of 1347, but all over the country restless young men were flouting the law, and desperate farmers were hiring them. Landlords such as Earl Ralph could do little more than gnash their teeth.

  Sam had not said where he would go, and he had given no warning of his departure. If Davey had done the same, Gwenda would have known he had thought things out carefully and decided this was the best way. But she felt sure Sam had just followed an impulse. Someone had mentioned the name of a village, and he had woken up early the next morning and decided to go there immediately.

  She told herself not to worry. He was twenty-two years old, big and strong. No one was going to exploit him or ill-treat him. But she was his mother, and her heart ached.

  If she could not find him, no one else could, she figured, and that was good. All the same she yearned to know where he was living, and if he was working for a decent master, and whether the people were kind to him.

  That winter, Wulfric had made a new light plow for the sandier acres of his holding, and one day in spring Gwenda and he went to Northwood to buy an iron plowshare, the one part they could not make for themselves. As usual, a small group of Wigleigh folk traveled together to the market. Jack and Eli, who operated the fulling mill for Madge Webber, were stocking up on supplies: they had no land of their own, so they bought all their food. Annet and her eighteen-year-old daughter, Amabel, had a dozen hens in a crate, to sell at the market. The bailiff, Nathan, came too, with his grown son Jonno, the childhood enemy of Sam.

  Annet still flirted with every good-looking man that crossed her path, and most of them grinned foolishly and flirted back. On the journey to Northwood she chatted with Davey. Although he was less than half her age, she simpered and tossed her head and smacked his arm in mock reproach, just as if she were twenty-two rather than forty-two. She was not a girl any more, but she did not seem to know it, Gwenda thought sourly. Annet's daughter, Amabel, who was as pretty as Annet had once been, walked a little apart, and seemed embarrassed by her mother.

  They reached Northwood at mid-morning. After Wulfric and Gwenda had made their purchase, they went to get their dinner at the Old Oak Tavern.

  For as long as Gwenda could remember there had been a venerable oak outside the inn, a thick, squat tree with malformed branches that looked like a bent old man in winter and cast a welcome deep shade in summer. Her sons had chased one another around it as little boys. But it must have died or become unstable, for it had been chopped down, and now there was a stump, as wide across as Wulfric was tall, used by the customers as a chair, a table, and--for one exhausted carter--a bed.

  Sitting on its edge, drinking ale from a huge tankard, was Harry Plowman, the bailiff of Outhenby.

  Gwenda was taken back twelve years in a blink. What came to her mind, so forcefully that it brought tears to her eyes, was the hope that had lifted her heart as she and her family had set out, that morning in Northwood, to walk through the forest to Outhenby and a new life. The hope had been crushed, in less than a fortnight, and Wulfric had been taken back to Wigleigh--the memory still made her burn with rage--with a rope around his neck.

  But Ralph had not had things all his own way since then. Circumstances had forced him to give Wulfric back the lands his father had held, which for Gwenda had been a savagely satisfying outcome, even though Wulfric had not been smart enough to win a free tenancy, unlike some of his neighbors. Gwenda was glad they were now tenants rather than laborers, and Wulfric had achieved his life's ambition; but she still longed for more independence--a tenancy free of feudal obligations, with a cash rent to pay, the whole agreement written down in the manorial records so that no lord could go back on it. It was what most serfs wanted, and more of them were getting it since the plague.

  Harry greeted them effusively and insisted on buying them ale. Soon after Wulfric and Gwenda's brief stay at Outhenby, Harry had been made bailiff by Mother Caris, and he still held that position, though Caris had long ago renounced her vows, and Mother Joan was now prioress. Outhenby continued t
o be prosperous, to judge by Harry's double chin and alehouse belly.

  As they were preparing to leave with the rest of the Wigleigh folk, Harry spoke to Gwenda in a low voice. "I've got a young man called Sam laboring for me."

  Gwenda's heart leaped. "My Sam?"

  "Can't possibly be, no."

  She was bewildered. Why mention him, in that case?

  But Harry tapped his wine-red nose, and Gwenda realized he was being enigmatic. "This Sam assures me that his lord is a Hampshire knight I've never heard of, who has given him permission to leave his village and work elsewhere, whereas your Sam's lord is Earl Ralph, who never lets his laborers go. Obviously I couldn't employ your Sam."

  Gwenda understood. That would be Harry's story if official questions were asked. "So, he's in Outhenby."

  "Oldchurch, one of the smaller villages in the valley."

  "Is he well?" she asked eagerly.

  "Thriving."

  "Thank God."

  "A strong boy and a good worker, though he can be quarrelsome."

  She knew that. "Is he living in a warm house?"

  "Lodging with a good-hearted older couple whose own son has gone to Kingsbridge to be apprenticed to a tanner."

  Gwenda had a dozen questions, but suddenly she noticed the bent figure of Nathan Reeve leaning on the doorpost of the tavern entrance, staring at her. She suppressed a curse. There was so much she wanted to know, but she was terrified of giving Nate even a clue to Sam's whereabouts. She needed to be content with what she had. And she was thrilled that at least she knew where he could be found.

  She turned away from Harry, trying to give the impression of casually ending an unimportant conversation. Out of the corner of her mouth she said: "Don't let him get into fights."

  "I'll do what I can."

  She waved perfunctorily and went after Wulfric.

  Walking home with the others, Wulfric carried the heavy plowshare on his shoulder with no apparent effort. Gwenda was bursting to tell him the news, but she had to wait until the group straggled out along the road, and she and her husband were separated from the others by a few yards. Then she repeated the conversation, speaking quietly.