World Without End

  Merthin told no one what was in his mind. If his suspicions were correct, and the thirteenth-century tower was simply too heavy for the twelfth-century foundations, the solution would be drastic: the tower would have to be demolished--and a new one built. And the new tower could be the tallest in England...

  One day in the middle of October, Caris appeared at the digging. It was early in the morning, and a winter sun was shining through the great east window. She stood on the edge of the hole with her hood around her head like a halo. Merthin's heart beat faster. Perhaps she had an answer for him. He climbed up the ladder eagerly.

  She was as beautiful as ever, though in the strong sunlight he could see the little differences that nine years had made to her face. Her skin was not quite as smooth, and there were now the tiniest of creases at the corners of her lips. But her green eyes still shone with that alert intelligence that he loved so much.

  They walked together down the south aisle of the nave and stopped near the pillar that always reminded him of how he had once felt her up here. "I'm happy to see you," he said. "You've been hiding away."

  "I'm a nun, I'm supposed to hide away."

  "But you're thinking about renouncing your vows."

  "I haven't made a decision."

  He was crestfallen. "How much time do you need?"

  "I don't know."

  He looked away. He did not want to show her how badly he was hurt by her hesitation. He said nothing. He could have told her she was being unreasonable, but what was the point?

  "You'll be going to visit your parents in Tench at some point, I suppose," she said.

  He nodded. "Quite soon--they will want to see Lolla." He was eager to see them, too, and had delayed only because he had become so deeply involved in his work on the bridge and the tower.

  "In that case, I wish you would talk to your brother about Wulfric in Wigleigh."

  Merthin wanted to talk about himself and Caris, not Wulfric and Gwenda. His response was cool. "What do you want me to say to Ralph?"

  "Wulfric is laboring for no money--just food--because Ralph won't give him even a small acreage to farm."

  Merthin shrugged. "Wulfric broke Ralph's nose." He felt the conversation begin to descend into a quarrel, and he asked himself why he was angry. Caris had not spoken to him for weeks, but she had broken her silence for the sake of Gwenda. He resented Gwenda's place in her heart, he realized. That was an unworthy emotion, he told himself; but he could not shake it.

  Caris flushed with annoyance. "That was twelve years ago! Isn't it time Ralph stopped punishing him?"

  Merthin had forgotten the abrasive disagreements he and Caris used to have, but now he recognized this friction as familiar. He spoke dismissively. "Of course he should stop--in my opinion. But Ralph's opinion is the one that counts."

  "Then see if you can change his mind," she said.

  He resented her imperious attitude. "I'm yours to command," he said facetiously.

  "Why the irony?"

  "Because I'm not yours to command, of course, but you seem to think I am. And I feel a bit foolish for going along with you."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," she said. "You're offended that I've asked you?"

  For some reason, he felt sure she had made up her mind to reject him, and stay in the nunnery. He tried to control his emotions. "If we were a couple, you could ask me anything. But while you're keeping open the option of rejecting me, it seems a bit presumptuous of you." He knew he was sounding pompous, but he could not stop. If he revealed his true feelings he would burst into tears.

  She was too wrapped up in her indignation to notice his distress. "But it's not even for myself!" she protested.

  "I realize it's your generosity of spirit that makes you do it, but I still feel you're using me."

  "All right, then, don't do it."

  "Of course I'll do it." Suddenly he could no longer contain himself. He turned and walked away from her. He was shaking with some passion he could not identify. As he strode up the aisle of the great church, he struggled to get himself under control. He reached the excavation. This was stupid, he thought. He turned and looked back, but Caris had vanished.

  He stood at the lip of the hole, looking down, waiting for the storm inside him to subside.

  After a while he realized that the excavation had reached a crucial stage. Thirty feet below him, the men had dug down past the masonry foundations and were beginning to reveal what was beneath. There was nothing more he could do about Caris right now. It would be best to concentrate on his work. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and went down the ladder.

  This was the moment of truth. His distress over Caris began to ease as he watched the men dig farther down. Shovelful after shovelful of heavy mud was dug up and taken away. Merthin studied the stratum of earth that was revealed below the foundations. It looked like a mixture of sand and small stones. As the men removed the mud, the sandy stuff dribbled into the hole they were making.

  Merthin ordered them to stop.

  He knelt down and picked up a handful of the sandy material. It was nothing like the soil all around. It was not natural to the site, therefore it must be something that had been put there by builders. The excitement of discovery rose inside him, overmastering his grief about Caris. "Jeremiah!" he called. "See if you can find Brother Thomas--quick as you like."

  He told the men to carry on digging, but to make a narrower hole: at this point the excavation itself could be dangerous to the structure. After a while Jeremiah returned with Thomas, and the three of them watched as the men took the hole farther down. Eventually the sandy layer came to an end, and the next stratum was revealed to be the natural muddy earth.

  "I wonder what that sandy stuff is," Thomas said.

  "I think I know," Merthin said. He tried not to look triumphant. He had predicted, years ago, that Elfric's repairs would not work unless the root of the problem was discovered, and he had been right--but it was never wise to say "I told you so."

  Thomas and Jeremiah looked at him in anticipation.

  He explained. "When you've dug a foundation hole, you cover the bottom with a mixture of rubble and mortar. Then you lay the masonry on top of that. It's a perfectly good system, as long as the foundations are proportional to the building above."

  Thomas said impatiently: "We both know this."

  "What happened here was that a much higher tower was erected on foundations that were not designed for it. The extra weight, acting over a hundred years, has crushed that layer of rubble-and-mortar to sand. The sand has no cohesion, and under pressure it has spread outward into the surrounding soil, allowing the masonry above it to sink down. The effect is worse on the south side simply because the site naturally slopes that way." He felt a profound satisfaction at having figured this out.

  The other two looked thoughtful. Thomas said: "I suppose we will have to reinforce the foundations."

  Jeremiah shook his head. "Before we can put any reinforcement under the stonework, we'd have to remove the sandy stuff, and that would leave the foundations unsupported. The tower would fall down."

  Thomas was perplexed. "So what can we do?"

  They both looked at Merthin. He said: "Build a temporary roof over the crossing, erect scaffolding, and take down the tower, stone by stone. Then reinforce the foundations."

  "Then we'd have to build a new tower."

  That was what Merthin wanted, but he did not say so. Thomas might suspect that his judgment had been colored by his aspiration. "I'm afraid so," he said with feigned regret.

  "Prior Godwyn won't like that."

  "I know," Merthin said. "But I don't think he's got any choice."

  Next day Merthin rode out of Kingsbridge with Lolla on the saddle in front of him. As they traveled through the forest, he obsessively ran over his fraught exchange with Caris. He knew he had been ungenerous. How foolish that was, when he was trying to win back her love. What had got into him? Caris's request was perfectly reasonable. Why would he not
wish to perform a small service for the woman he wanted to marry?

  But she had not agreed to marry him. She was still reserving the right to reject him. That was the source of his anger. She was exercising the privileges of a fiancee without making the commitment.

  He could see now that it was petty of him to object on these grounds. He had been stupid, and turned what could have been a delightful moment of intimacy into a squabble.

  On the other hand, the underlying cause of his distress was all too real. How long did Caris expect him to wait for an answer? How long was he prepared to wait? He did not like to think about that.

  Anyway, it would do him nothing but good if he could persuade Ralph to stop persecuting poor Wulfric.

  Tench was on the far side of the county, and on the way Merthin spent a night at windy Wigleigh. He found Gwenda and Wulfric thin after a rainy summer and the second poor harvest in a row. Wulfric's scar seemed to stand out more on a hollowed cheek. Their two small sons looked pale, and had runny noses and sores on their lips.

  Merthin gave them a leg of mutton, a small barrel of wine, and a gold florin that he pretended were gifts from Caris. Gwenda cooked the mutton over the fire. She was possessed by rage, and she hissed and spat like the turning meat as she talked of the injustice that had been done to them. "Perkin has almost half the land in the village!" she said. "The only reason he can manage it all is that he's got Wulfric, who does the work of three men. Yet he must demand more, and keep us in poverty."

  "I'm sorry that Ralph still bears a grudge," Merthin said.

  "Ralph himself provoked that fight!" Gwenda said. "Even Lady Philippa said so."

  "Old quarrels," Wulfric said philosophically.

  "I'll try to get him to see reason," Merthin said. "In the unlikely event that he listens to me, what do you really want from him?"

  "Ah," said Wulfric, and he got a faraway look in his eyes, which was unusual for him. "What I pray for every Sunday is to get back the lands that my father farmed."

  "That will never happen," Gwenda said quickly. "Perkin is too well entrenched. And, if he should die, he has a son and a married daughter waiting to inherit, and a couple of grandsons growing taller every day. But we'd like a piece of land of our own. For the last eleven years Wulfric has been working hard to feed other men's children. It's time he got some of the benefit of his strength."

  "I'll tell my brother he has punished you long enough," Merthin said.

  Next day he and Lolla rode from Wigleigh to Tench. Merthin was even more resolved to do something for Wulfric. It was not just that he wanted to please Caris, and atone for his curmudgeonly attitude. He also felt sad and indignant that two such honest and hardworking people as Wulfric and Gwenda should be poor and thin, and their children sickly, just because of Ralph's vindictiveness.

  His parents were living in a house in the village, not in Tench Hall itself. Merthin was shocked by how much his mother had aged, though she perked up when she saw Lolla. His father looked better. "Ralph is very good to us," Gerald said in a defensive way that made Merthin think the opposite. The house was pleasant enough, but they would have preferred to live at the hall with Ralph. Merthin guessed that Ralph did not want his mother watching everything he did.

  They showed him around their home, and Gerald asked Merthin how things were in Kingsbridge. "The town is still prospering, despite the effects of the king's French war," Merthin replied.

  "Ah--but Edward must fight for his birthright," his father said. "He is the legitimate heir to the throne of France, after all."

  "I think that's a dream, Father," said Merthin. "No matter how many times the king invades, the French nobility will not accept an Englishman as their king. And a king can't rule without the support of his earls."

  "But we had to stop the French raids on our south coast ports."

  "That hasn't been a major problem since the battle of Sluys, when we destroyed the French fleet--which was eight years ago. Anyway, burning the crops of the peasants won't stop pirates--it might even add to their numbers."

  "The French support the Scots, who keep invading our northern counties."

  "Don't you think the king would be better able to deal with Scottish incursions if he were in the north of England rather than the north of France?"

  Gerald looked baffled. It had probably never occurred to him to question the wisdom of the war. "Well, Ralph has been knighted," he said. "And he brought your mother a silver candlestick from Calais."

  That was about the size of it, Merthin thought. The real reason for the war was booty and glory.

  They all walked to the manor house. Ralph was out hunting with Alan Fernhill. In the great hall was a huge carved wooden chair, obviously the lord's. Merthin saw what he thought was a young servant girl, heavily pregnant, and was dismayed to be introduced to her as Ralph's wife, Tilly. She went to the kitchen to fetch wine.

  "How old is she?" Merthin said to his mother while she was gone.

  "Fourteen."

  It was not unknown for girls to become pregnant at fourteen, but all the same Merthin felt that decent people behaved otherwise. Such early pregnancies usually happened in royal families, for whom there was intense political pressure to produce heirs, and among the lowest and most ignorant of peasants, who knew no better. The middle classes maintained higher standards. "She's a bit young, isn't she?" he said quietly.

  Maud replied: "We all asked Ralph to wait, but he would not." Clearly she, too, disapproved.

  Tilly returned with a servant carrying a jug of wine and a bowl of apples. She might have been pretty, Merthin thought, but she looked worn out. His father addressed her with forced jollity. "Cheer up, Tilly! Your husband will be home soon--you don't want to greet him with a long face."

  "I'm fed up with being pregnant," she said. "I just wish the baby would come as soon as possible."

  "It won't be long now," Maud said. "Three or four weeks, I'd say."

  "It seems like forever."

  They heard horses outside. Maud said: "That sounds like Ralph."

  Waiting for the brother he had not seen for nine years, Merthin had mixed feelings, as ever. His affection for Ralph was always contaminated by his knowledge of the evil Ralph had done. The rape of Annet had been only the beginning. During his days as an outlaw Ralph had murdered innocent men, women, and children. Merthin had heard, traveling through Normandy, of the atrocities perpetrated by King Edward's army and, while he did not know specifically what Ralph had done, it would have been foolish to hope that Ralph had held himself aloof from that orgy of rape, burning, looting, and slaughter. But Ralph was his brother.

  Ralph, too, would have mixed feelings, Merthin was sure. He might not have forgiven Merthin for giving away the location of his outlaw hideout. And, although Merthin had made Brother Thomas promise not to kill Ralph, he had known that Ralph, once captured, was likely to be hanged. The last words Ralph had spoken to Merthin, in the jail in the basement of the guildhall at Kingsbridge, were: "You betrayed me."

  Ralph came in with Alan, both muddy from the hunt. Merthin was shocked to see that he walked with a limp. Ralph took a moment to recognize Merthin. Then he smiled broadly. "My big brother!" he said heartily. It was an old joke: Merthin was the elder, but had long been smaller.

  They embraced. Merthin felt a surge of warmth, despite everything. At least we're both alive, he thought, despite war and plague. When they had parted, he had wondered whether they would ever meet again.

  Ralph threw himself into the big chair. "Bring some beer, we're thirsty!" he said to Tilly.

  There were to be no recriminations, Merthin gathered.

  He studied his brother. Ralph had changed since that day in 1339 when he had ridden off to war. He had lost some of the fingers of his left hand, presumably in battle. He had a dissipated look: his face was veined from drink and his skin seemed dry and flaky. "Did you have good hunting?" Merthin asked.

  "We brought home a roe deer as fat as a cow," he replied with satisfact
ion. "You shall have her liver for supper."

  Merthin asked him about fighting in the army of the king, and Ralph related some of the highlights of the war. Their father was enthusiastic. "An English knight is worth ten of the French!" he said. "The battle of Crecy proved that."

  Ralph's response was surprisingly measured. "An English knight is not much different from a French knight, in my opinion," he said. "But the French haven't yet understood the harrow formation in which we line up, with archers either side of dismounted knights and men-at-arms. They are still charging us suicidally, and long may they continue. But they will figure it out one day, and then they will change their tactics. Meanwhile, we are almost unbeatable in defense. Unfortunately, the harrow formation is irrelevant to attack, so we have ended up winning very little."

  Merthin was struck by how his brother had grown up. Warfare had given him a depth and subtlety he had never previously possessed.

  In turn, Merthin talked about Florence: the incredible size of the city, the wealth of the merchants, the churches and palaces. Ralph was particularly fascinated by the notion of slave girls.

  Darkness fell and the servants brought lamps and candles, then supper. Ralph drank a lot of wine. Merthin noticed that he hardly spoke to Tilly. Perhaps it was not surprising. Ralph was a thirty-one-year-old soldier who had spent half his adult life in an army, and Tilly was a girl of fourteen who had been educated in a nunnery. What would they have to talk about?

  Late in the evening, when Gerald and Maud had returned to their own house and Tilly had gone to bed, Merthin broached the subject Caris had asked him to raise. He felt more optimistic than previously. Ralph was showing signs of maturity. He had forgiven Merthin for what had happened in 1339, and his cool analysis of English and French tactics had been impressively free from tribal chauvinism.

  Merthin said: "On my way here, I spent a night in Wigleigh."

  "I see that fulling mill stays busy."

  "The scarlet cloth has become a good business for Kingsbridge."