World Without End

by Ken Follett

  She sensed that his moment of climax was near. It was now or never. He gave a groan that sounded like surrender, and she moved.

  She snatched the knife from under his hand. There was no change in the expression of ecstasy on his face: he had not noticed her movement. Terrified that he would see what she was doing and stop her at the last moment, she did not hesitate but jabbed upward, jerking her shoulders up from the lying position as she did so. He sensed her movement and opened his eyes. Shock and fear showed on his face. Stabbing wildly, she stuck the knife into his throat just below the jaw. She cursed, knowing she had missed the most vulnerable parts of the neck--the breathing pipe and the jugular vein. He roared with pain and rage, but he was not incapacitated, and she knew she was as close to death as she had ever been.

  She moved instinctively, without forethought. Using her left arm, she struck at the inside of his elbow. He could not prevent the bending of his arm, and involuntarily he slumped. She pushed harder at the foot-long dagger, and his weight dragged him down on to the blade. As the knife entered his head from below, blood gushed from his open mouth, falling on her face, and she jerked her head aside reflexively; but she kept pushing on the knife. The blade met resistance for a moment, then slipped through, until his eyeball seemed to explode, and she saw the point emerge from the eye socket in a spray of blood and brains. He slumped on top of her, dead or nearly so. His weight knocked the breath out of her. It was like being stuck under a fallen tree. For a moment she was helpless to move.

  To her horror, she felt him ejaculate inside her.

  She was filled with superstitious terror. He was more frightening like this than when he had threatened her with a knife. Panicking, she wriggled out from under him.

  She scrambled to her feet shakily, breathing hard. She had his blood on her breasts and his seed on her thighs. She glanced fearfully toward the outlaws' camp. Had anyone been awake to hear Alwyn's shout? If they had all been asleep, had the sound wakened any of them?

  Trembling, she pulled her dress over her head and buckled her belt. She had her wallet and her own small knife, mainly used for eating. She hardly dared take her eyes off Alwyn: she had a dreadful feeling he might still be alive. She knew she should finish him off, but she could not bring herself to do it. A sound from the direction of the clearing startled her. She needed to get away fast. She looked around, getting her bearings, then headed in the direction of the road.

  There was a sentry near the big oak tree, she recalled with a sudden start of fear. She walked softly through the woods, careful to make no sound, as she approached the tree. Then she saw the sentry--Jed, his name was--fast asleep on the ground. She tiptoed past him. It took all her willpower not to break into a mad run. But he did not stir.

  She found the deer path and followed it to the brook. It seemed there was no one on her tail. She washed the blood off her face and chest, then splashed cold water on her private parts. She drank deeply, knowing she had a long walk ahead.

  Feeling slightly less frantic, she continued along the deer path. As she walked, she listened. How soon would the outlaws find Alwyn? She had not even tried to conceal the body. When they figured out what had happened they would surely come after her, for they had given a cow for her, and that was worth twelve shillings, half a year's pay for a laborer such as her father.

  She reached the road. For a woman traveling alone, the open road was almost as hazardous as a forest track. Tam Hiding's group were not the only outlaws, and there were plenty of other men--squires, peasant boys, bands of men-at-arms--who might take advantage of a defenseless woman. But her first priority was to get away from Sim Chapman and his cronies, so speed was paramount.

  Which direction should she take? If she went home to Wigleigh, Sim might follow her there and claim her back--and there was no telling how her father would deal with that. She needed friends she could trust. Caris would help her.

  She set off for Kingsbridge.

  It was a clear day, but the road was muddy from many days of rain, and walking was that much more difficult. After a while she reached the top of a hill. Looking back, she could see along the road for about a mile. At the far limit of her vision, she saw a lone figure striding along. He wore a yellow tunic.

  Sim Chapman.

  She broke into a run.

  The case against Crazy Nell was heard in the north transept of the cathedral on Saturday at noon. Bishop Richard presided over the ecclesiastical court, with Prior Anthony on his right, and on his left his personal assistant, Archdeacon Lloyd, a dour black-haired priest who was said to do all the actual work of the bishopric.

  There was a big crowd of townspeople. A heresy trial was good entertainment, and Kingsbridge had not seen one for years. Many craftsmen and laborers finished work at midday on Saturdays. Outside, the Fleece Fair was coming to an end, tradespeople dismantling their stalls and packing up their unsold goods, buyers preparing for the journey home or arranging to consign their purchases by raft downriver to the seaport of Melcombe.

  Waiting for the trial to begin, Caris thought gloomily of Gwenda. What was she doing now? Sim Chapman would force her to have sex with him, for sure--but that might not be the worst thing to happen to her. What else would she have to do as his slave? Caris had no doubt Gwenda would try to escape--but would she succeed? And, if she failed, how would Sim punish her? Caris realized she might never find out.

  It had been a strange week. Buonaventura Caroli had not changed his mind: the Florentine buyers would not return to Kingsbridge, at least until the priory improved facilities for the Fleece Fair. Caris's father and the other leading wool merchants had spent half the week shut up with Earl Roland. Merthin continued in a strange mood, withdrawn and gloomy. And it was raining again.

  Nell was dragged into church by John Constable and Friar Murdo. Her only garment was a sleeveless surcoat, fastened at the front but revealing her bony shoulders. She had no hat or shoes. She struggled feebly in the men's grasp, shouting imprecations.

  When they got her quieted down, a series of townspeople came forward to attest that they had heard her call upon the devil. They were telling the truth. Nell threatened people with the devil all the time--for refusing to give her a handout, for standing in her way on the street, for wearing a good coat, or for no reason at all.

  Each witness related some misfortune that had followed the curse. A goldsmith's wife had lost a valuable brooch; an innkeeper's chickens had all died; a widow developed a painful boil on her bottom--a complaint that caused laughter, but also carried conviction, for witches were known to have a malicious sense of humor.

  While this was going on, Merthin appeared beside Caris. "This is so stupid," Caris said to him indignantly. "Ten times the number of witnesses could come forward to say that Nell cursed them and nothing bad ensued."

  Merthin shrugged. "People just believe what they want to believe."

  "Ordinary people, perhaps. But the bishop and the prior should know better--they are educated."

  "I've got something to tell you," Merthin said.

  Caris perked up. Perhaps she was about to learn the reason for his bad mood. She had been looking at him sidelong, but now she turned and saw that he had a huge bruise on the left side of his face. "What happened to you?"

  The crowd roared with laughter at some interjection of Nell's, and Archdeacon Lloyd had to call repeatedly for quiet. When Merthin could be heard again he said: "Not here. Can we go somewhere quiet?"

  She almost turned to leave with him, but something stopped her. All week long he had bewildered and wounded her by his coldness. Now, at last, he had decided he was ready to say what was on his mind--and she was expected to jump at his command. Why should he set the timetable? He had made her wait five days--why should she not make him wait an hour or so? "No," she said. "Not now."

  He looked surprised. "Why not?"

  "Because it doesn't suit my convenience," she said. "Now let me listen." As she turned from him, she saw a hurt look cross his face,
and straightaway she wished she had not been so cold; but it was too late, and she was not going to apologize.

  The witnesses had finished. Bishop Richard said: "Woman, do you say that the devil rules the earth?"

  Caris was outraged. Heretics worshipped Satan because they believed he had jurisdiction over the earth, and God only ruled Heaven. Crazy Nell could not even understand such a sophisticated credo. It was disgraceful that Richard was going along with Friar Murdo's ridiculous accusation.

  Nell shouted back: "You can shove your prick up your arse."

  The crowd laughed, delighted by this coarse insult to the bishop.

  Richard said: "If that's her defense..."

  Archdeacon Lloyd intervened. "Someone should speak on her behalf," he said. He spoke respectfully, but he seemed comfortable correcting his superior. No doubt the lazy Richard relied on Lloyd to remind him of the rules.

  Richard looked around the transept. "Who will speak for Nell?" he called out.

  Caris waited, but no one volunteered. She could not allow this to happen. Someone must point out how irrational this whole procedure was. When no one else spoke, Caris stood up. "Nell is mad," she said.

  Everyone looked around, wondering who was foolish enough to side with Nell. There was a murmur of recognition--most people knew Caris--but no great sense of surprise, for she had a reputation for doing the unexpected.

  Prior Anthony leaned over and said something in the bishop's ear. Richard said: "Caris, the daughter of Edmund Wooler, tells us that the accused woman is mad. We had reached that conclusion without her assistance."

  Caris was goaded by his cool sarcasm. "Nell has no idea what she is saying! She calls upon the devil, the saints, the moon and the stars. It has no more meaning than the barking of a dog. You might as well hang a horse for neighing at the king." She could not keep the note of scorn from her voice, though she knew it was unwise to let your contempt show when addressing the nobility.

  Some of the crowd murmured agreement. They liked a spirited argument.

  Richard said: "But you have heard people testify to the damage done by her curses."

  "I lost a penny yesterday," Caris rejoined. "I boiled an egg, and it was bad. My father lay awake all night coughing. But no one cursed us. Bad things just happen."

  There was much head-shaking at this. Most people believed there was some malign influence behind every misfortune, great or small. Caris had lost the support of the crowd.

  Prior Anthony, her uncle, knew her views, and had argued with her before. Now he leaned forward and said: "Surely you don't believe that God is responsible for illness and misfortune and loss?"

  "No--"

  "Who, then?"

  Caris imitated Anthony's prissy tone. "Surely you don't believe that every misfortune in life is the responsibility of either God or Crazy Nell?"

  Archdeacon Lloyd said sharply: "Speak respectfully to the prior." He did not realize Anthony was Caris's uncle. The townspeople laughed: they knew the prim prior and his independent-minded niece.

  Caris finished: "I believe Nell is harmless. Mad, yes, but harmless."

  Suddenly Friar Murdo was on his feet. "My lord bishop, men of Kingsbridge, friends," he said in his sonorous voice. "The evil one is everywhere among us, tempting us to sin--to lying, greed of food, drunkenness with wine, puffed-up pride, and fleshly lust." The crowd liked this: Murdo's descriptions of sin called to the imagination delightful scenes of indulgence that were sanctified by his brimstone disapproval. "But he cannot go unobserved," Murdo went on, his voice rising with excitement. "As the horse presses his hoofprints into the mud, as the kitchen mouse makes dainty tracks across the butter, as the lecher deposits his vile seed to grow in the womb of the deceived maid, so the devil must leave--his mark!"

  They shouted their approval. They knew what he meant, and so did Caris.

  "The servants of the evil one may be known by the mark he leaves upon them. For he sucks their hot blood as a child sucks the sweet milk from its mother's swollen breasts. And, like the child, he needs a teat from which to suck--a third nipple!"

  He had the audience rapt, Caris observed. He began each sentence in a low, quiet voice, then built it up, piling one emotive phrase on another to his climax; and the crowd responded eagerly, listening in silence while he spoke, then shouting their approval at the end.

  "This mark is dark in color, ridged like a nipple, and rises from the clear skin around it. It may be on any part of the body. Sometimes it lies in the soft valley between a woman's breasts, the unnatural manifestation cruelly mimicking the natural. But the devil best likes it to be in the secret places of the body: in the groin, on the private parts, especially--"

  Bishop Richard said loudly: "Thank you, Friar Murdo, you need go no further. You are demanding that the woman's body be examined for the devil's mark."

  "Yes, my lord bishop, for--"

  "All right, no need for further argument, your point is well made." He looked around. "Is Mother Cecilia close by?"

  The prioress was sitting on a bench on one side of the court, with Sister Juliana and some of the senior nuns. Crazy Nell's naked body could not be examined by men, so women would have to do it in private and report back. The nuns were the obvious choice.

  Caris did not envy them their task. Most townspeople washed their hands and faces every day, and the smellier parts of their bodies once a week. All-over bathing was at best a twice-a-year ritual, necessary though dangerous to the health. However, Crazy Nell never seemed to wash at all. Her face was grimy, her hands were filthy, and she smelled like a dunghill.

  Cecilia stood up. Richard said: "Please take this woman to a private room, remove her clothing, examine her body carefully, and come back to report faithfully what you find."

  The nuns got up immediately and approached Nell. Cecilia spoke soothingly to the madwoman and took her gently by the arm. But Nell was not fooled. She twisted away, throwing her arms into the air.

  At that point, Friar Murdo shouted: "I see it! I see it!"

  Four of the nuns managed to hold Nell still.

  The friar said: "No need to take off her clothes. Just look under her right arm." As Nell started to wriggle again, he strode over to her and lifted her arm himself, holding it high above her head. "There!" he said, pointing into her armpit.

  The crowd surged forward. "I see it!" someone shouted, and others repeated the cry. Caris could see nothing other than normal armpit hair, and she was unwilling to commit the indignity of peering. She had no doubt that Nell had some kind of blemish or growth there. Lots of people had marks on their skin, especially the elderly.

  Archdeacon Lloyd called for order, and John Constable beat the crowd back with a stick. When at last the church was quiet, Richard stood up. "Crazy Nell of Kingsbridge, I find you guilty of heresy," he said. "You shall now be tied to the back of a cart and whipped through the town, then taken to the place known as Gallows Cross, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you die."

  The crowd cheered. Caris turned away in disgust. With justice like this, no woman was safe. Her eye lit on Merthin, waiting patiently for her. "All right," she said bad-temperedly. "What is it?"

  "It's stopped raining," he said. "Come down to the river."

  The priory had a string of ponies for the senior monks and nuns to use when traveling, plus some carthorses for transporting goods. These were kept, along with the mounts of prosperous visitors, in a run of stone stables at the south end of the cathedral close. The nearby kitchen garden was manured with the straw from the stalls.

  Ralph was in the stable yard, with the rest of Earl Roland's entourage. Their horses were saddled, ready to begin the two-day journey back to Roland's residence at Earlscastle, near Shiring. They were waiting only for the earl.

  Ralph was holding his horse, a bay called Griff, and talking to his parents. "I don't know why Stephen was made lord of Wigleigh while I got nothing," he said. "We're the same age, and he's no better than I am at riding or jousting or fenci
ng."

  Every time they met, Sir Gerald asked the same hopeful questions, and Ralph had to give him the same inadequate answers. Ralph could have borne his disappointment more easily had it not been for his father's pathetic eagerness to see him elevated.

  Griff was a young horse. He was a hunter: a mere squire did not merit a costly warhorse. But Ralph liked him. He responded gratifyingly well when Ralph urged him on in the hunt. Griff was excited by all the activity in the yard, and impatient to get going. Ralph murmured in his ear: "Quiet, my lovely lad, you shall stretch your legs later." The horse calmed down at the sound of his voice.

  "Be constantly on the alert for ways to please the earl," Sir Gerald said. "Then he will remember you when there is a post to be filled."

  That was all very well, Ralph thought, but the real opportunities came only in battle. However, war might be a little nearer today than it had been a week ago. Ralph had not been in on the meetings between the earl and the wool merchants, but he gathered that the merchants were willing to lend money to King Edward. They wanted the king to take some decisive action against France, in retaliation for French attacks on the south coast ports.

  Meanwhile, Ralph longed for some way to distinguish himself and begin to win back the honor the family had lost ten years ago--not just for his father, but for his own pride.

  Griff stamped and tossed his head. To calm him, Ralph began to walk him up and down, and his father walked with him. His mother stood apart. She was upset about his broken nose.

  With Father he walked past Lady Philippa, who was holding the bridle of a spirited courser with a firm hand while she talked to her husband, Lord William. She wore close-fitting clothes, which were suitable for a long ride but also emphasized her full bosom and long legs. Ralph was always on the lookout for excuses to talk to her, but it did him no good: he was just one of her father-in-law's followers, and she never spoke to him unless she had to.

  As Ralph watched, she smiled at her husband and tapped him on the chest with the back of her hand in a gesture of mock reprimand. Ralph was filled with resentment. Why should it not be him with whom she was sharing such a moment of private amusement? No doubt she would if he were lord of forty villages, as William was.