by Ken Follett
A voice behind him said: "I'll let you in."
He spun around to see Mother Cecilia.
She took a key from her belt and calmly unlocked the door. Merthin threw it open. Beyond it was a small room with a single window. All around the walls were shelves packed with folded clothes.
"This is where we keep our winter robes," Cecilia said. "It's a storeroom."
"Where is she?" Merthin shouted.
"She's in a room that is locked by her own request. You won't find the room and, if you did, you couldn't get in. She will not see you."
"How do I know she's not dead?" Merthin heard his voice crack with emotion, but he did not care.
"You know me," Cecilia said. "She's not dead." She looked at his hand. "You've hurt yourself," she said sympathetically. "Come with me and let me put some ointment on your cuts."
He looked at his hand, and then at her. "You're a devil," he said.
He ran from her, back the way he had come, into the hospital, past a scared-looking Julie, out into the open. He made his way through the end-of-fair chaos in front of the cathedral and emerged onto the main street. He thought of speaking to Edmund, but decided against it: someone else could tell Caris's ailing father the terrible truth. Whom could he trust? He thought of Mark Webber.
Mark and his family had moved to a big house on the main street, with a large stone-built ground-floor storeroom for bales of cloth. There was no loom in their kitchen now: all the weaving was done by others whom they organized. Mark and Madge were sitting on a bench, looking solemn. When Merthin walked in, Mark jumped up. "Have you seen her?" he cried.
"They won't let me."
"That's outrageous!" Mark said. "They don't have the right to stop her seeing the man she's supposed to marry!"
"The nuns say she doesn't want to see me."
"I don't believe them."
"Nor do I. I went in and looked for her, but I couldn't find her. There are a lot of locked doors."
"She must be there somewhere."
"I know. Will you come back with me, and bring a hammer, and help me break down every door until we find her?"
Mark looked uncomfortable. Strong as he was, he hated violence.
Merthin said: "I have to find her--she might be dead!"
Before he could reply, Madge said: "I've got a better idea."
The two men looked at her.
"I'll go to the nunnery," Madge said. "The nuns won't be so nervous of a woman. Perhaps they will persuade Caris to see me."
Mark nodded. "At least then we'll know that she's alive."
Merthin said: "But...I need more than that. What is she thinking? Is she going to wait until the fuss dies down, then escape? Should I try to break her out of there? Or should I just wait--and, if so, how long? A month? A year? Seven years?"
"I'll ask her, if they'll let me in." Madge stood up. "You wait here."
"No, I'm coming with you," Merthin said. "I'll wait outside."
"In that case, Mark, why don't you come, too, to keep Merthin company?"
To keep Merthin out of trouble, she meant, but he made no objection. He had asked for their help. And he was grateful to have two people he trusted on his side.
They hurried back to the priory close. Mark and Merthin waited outside the hospital while Madge went in. Merthin saw that Caris's old dog, Scrap, was sitting at the door, waiting for her to reappear.
After Madge had been gone for half an hour, Merthin said: "I think they must have let her in, otherwise she'd be back by now."
"We'll see," said Mark.
They watched the last of the traders pack up and depart, leaving the cathedral green a sea of churned mud. Merthin paced up and down while Mark sat like a statue of Samson. One hour followed another. Despite his impatience, Merthin was glad of the delay, for almost certainly Madge was talking to Caris.
The sun was sinking over the west side of town when at last Madge emerged. Her expression was solemn and her face was wet with tears. "Caris is alive," she said. "And there's nothing wrong with her, physically or mentally. She's in her right mind."
"What did she say?" Merthin asked urgently.
"I'll tell you every word. Come, let's sit in the garden."
They went to the vegetable patch and sat on the stone bench, looking at the sunset. Madge's equanimity gave Merthin a bad feeling. He would have preferred her to be spitting with rage. Her manner told him the news was bad. He felt hopeless. He said: "Is it true that she doesn't want to see me?"
Madge sighed. "Yes."
"But why?"
"I asked her that. She said it would break her heart."
Merthin began to cry.
Madge went on in a low, clear voice. "Mother Cecilia left us alone, so that we could speak frankly, without being overheard. Caris believes that Godwyn and Philemon are determined to get rid of her, because of the application for a borough charter. She's safe in the nunnery, but if she ever leaves they will find her and kill her."
"She could escape and I could take her to London!" Merthin said. "Godwyn would never find us there!"
Madge nodded. "I said that to her. We discussed it for a long time. She feels the two of you would be fugitives for the rest of your lives. She's not willing to condemn you to that. It's your destiny to be the greatest builder of your generation. You will be famous. But, if she is with you, you will always have to lie about your identity and hide from the light of day."
"I don't care about that!"
"She told me you would say that. But she believes you do care about it, and what is more she thinks you should. Anyway, she cares about it. She will not take away your destiny, even if you ask her to."
"She could say this to me herself!"
"She's afraid you would talk her around."
Merthin knew Madge was telling the truth. Cecilia had been telling the truth, too. Caris did not want to see him. He felt choked with grief. He swallowed, wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve, and struggled to speak. "But what will she do?" he said.
"Make the best of it. Try to be a good nun."
"She hates the church!"
"I know she has never been very respectful of the clergy. In this town, it's not surprising. But she believes she can find some kind of consolation in a life dedicated to healing her fellow women and men."
Merthin thought about that. Mark and Madge watched him in silence. He could imagine Caris working in the hospital, taking care of sick people. But how would she feel about spending half the night singing and praying? "She might kill herself," he said after a long pause.
"I don't think so," Madge said with conviction. "She's terribly sad, but I don't see her taking that way out."
"She might kill someone else."
"That's more likely."
"Then again," Merthin said slowly and reluctantly, "she might find a kind of happiness."
Madge said nothing. Merthin looked hard at her. She nodded.
That was the terrible truth, he realized. Caris might be happy. She was losing her home, her freedom, and her husband-to-be; but she might still be happy, in the end.
There was nothing more to say.
Merthin stood up. "Thank you for being my friends," he said. He began to walk away.
Mark said: "Where are you going?"
Merthin stopped and turned back. There was a thought spinning in his head, and he waited for it to become clear. When it did, he was astonished. But he saw immediately that the idea was right. It was not merely right, it was perfect.
He wiped the tears from his face and looked at Mark and Madge in the red light of the dying sun.
"I'm going to Florence," he said. "Good-bye."
PART V
March 1346 to December 1348
43
Sister Caris left the nuns' cloisters and walked briskly into the hospital. There were three patients lying in beds. Old Julie was now too infirm to attend services or climb the stairs to the nuns' dormitory. Bella Brewer, the wife of Dick Brewer's son Danny, was r
ecovering from a complicated birth. And Rickie Silvers, aged thirteen, had a broken arm which Matthew Barber had set. Two other people sat on a bench to one side, talking: a novice nun called Nellie, and a priory servant, Bob.
Caris's experienced gaze swept the room. Beside each bed was a dirty dinner plate. The dinner hour was long over. "Bob!" she said. He leaped to his feet. "Take away these plates. This is a monastery, and cleanliness is a virtue. Jump to it!"
"Sorry, Sister," he said.
"Nellie, have you taken Old Julie to the latrine?"
"Not yet, Sister."
"She always needs to go after dinner. My mother was the same. Take her quick, before she has an accident."
Nellie began to get the old nun up.
Caris was trying to develop the quality of patience, but after seven years as a nun she still had not succeeded, and she became frustrated by having to repeat instructions again and again. Bob knew he should clear away as soon as dinner was over--Caris had told him often. Nellie knew Julie's needs. Yet they sat on a bench gossiping until Caris surprised them with a lightning inspection.
She picked up the bowl of water that had been used for hand washing and walked the length of the room to throw it outside. A man she did not know was relieving himself against the outside wall. She guessed he was a traveler hoping for a bed. "Next time, use the latrine behind the stable," she snapped.
He leered at her, holding his penis in his hand. "And who are you?" he said insolently.
"I'm in charge of this hospital, and if you want to stay here tonight you'll have to improve your manners."
"Oh!" he said. "The bossy type, eh?" He took his time shaking the drops off.
"Put away your pathetic prick, or you won't be allowed to spend a night in this town, let alone at the priory." Caris threw the bowl of water at his middle. He jumped back, shocked, his hose soaked.
She went back inside and refilled the bowl at the fountain. There was an underground pipe running through the priory that brought clean water from upstream of the town and fed fountains in the cloisters, the kitchens, and the hospital. A separate branch of the subterranean stream flushed the latrines. One day, Caris wanted to build a new latrine adjacent to the hospital, so that senile patients such as Julie would not have to go so far.
The stranger followed her in. "Wash your hands," she said, handing him the bowl.
He hesitated, then took the bowl from her.
She looked at him. He was about her own age, twenty-nine. "Who are you?" she said.
"Gilbert of Hereford, a pilgrim," he said. "I've come to reverence the relics of St. Adolphus."
"In that case, you'll be welcome to stay a night here at the hospital, provided you speak respectfully to me--and to anyone else here, for that matter."
"Yes, Sister."
Caris returned to the cloisters. It was a mild spring day, and the sun shone on the smooth old stones of the courtyard. Along the west walk, Sister Mair was teaching the girls' school a new hymn, and Caris paused to observe. People said that Mair looked like an angel: she had clear skin, bright eyes, and a mouth shaped like a bow. The school was technically one of Caris's responsibilities--she was guest master, in charge of everyone who came into the nunnery from the outside world. She had attended this school herself, almost twenty years ago.
There were ten pupils, aged from nine to fifteen. Some were the daughters of Kingsbridge merchants; others were noblemen's children. The hymn, on the theme that God is good, came to an end, and one of the girls asked: "Sister Mair, if God is good, why did he let my parents die?"
It was the child's personal version of a classic question, one asked by all intelligent youngsters sooner or later: How can bad things happen? Caris had asked it herself. She looked with interest at the questioner. She was Tilly Shiring, twelve-year-old niece of Earl Roland, a girl with an impish look that Caris liked. Tilly's mother had bled to death after giving birth to her, and her father had broken his neck in a hunting accident not long afterward, so she had been brought up in the earl's household.
Mair gave a bland answer about God's mysterious ways. Tilly clearly was not satisfied, but was unable to articulate her misgivings, and fell silent. The question would come up again, Caris felt sure.
Mair started them singing the hymn again, then stepped over to speak to Caris.
"A bright girl," Caris said.
"The best in the class. In a year or two she'll be arguing with me fiercely."
"She reminds me of someone," Caris said, frowning. "I'm trying to remember her mother..."
Mair touched Caris's arm lightly. Gestures of affection were prohibited between nuns, but Caris was not strict about such things. "She reminds you of yourself," Mair said.
Caris laughed. "I was never that pretty."
But Mair was right: even as a child, Caris had asked skeptical questions. Later, when she became a novice nun, she had started an argument at every theology class. Within a week, Mother Cecilia had been obliged to order her to be silent during lessons. Then Caris had begun breaking the nunnery rules, and responding to correction by questioning the rationale behind convent discipline. Once again she had been enjoined to silence.
Before long, Mother Cecilia had offered her a deal. Caris could spend most of her time in the hospital--a part of the nuns' work she did believe in--and skip services whenever necessary. In exchange, Caris had to stop flouting discipline and keep her theological ideas to herself. Caris had agreed, reluctantly and sulkily, but Cecilia was wise, and the arrangement had worked. It was still working, for Caris now spent most of her time supervising the hospital. She missed more than half the services, and rarely said or did anything openly subversive.
Mair smiled. "You're pretty now," she said. "Especially when you laugh."
Caris found herself momentarily spellbound by Mair's blue eyes. Then she heard a child scream.
She turned away. The scream had come not from the group in the cloisters, but from the hospital. She hurried through the little lobby. Christopher Blacksmith was carrying a girl of about eight into the hospital. The child, whom Caris recognized as his daughter Minnie, was screaming in pain.
"Lay her on a mattress," Caris said.
Christopher put the child down.
"What happened?"
Christopher was a strong man in a panic, and he spoke in a strangely high-pitched voice. "She stumbled in my workshop and fell with her arm against a bar of red-hot iron. Do something for her, quickly, Sister, she's in such agony!"
Caris touched the child's cheek. "There, there, Minnie, we'll ease the pain very soon." Poppy-seed extract was too strong, she thought: it might kill such a small child. She needed a milder potion. "Nellie, go to my pharmacy and fetch the jar marked 'Hemp essence.' Walk quickly, but don't run--if you should stumble and break the vial, it will take hours to make up a new batch." Nellie hurried away.
Caris studied Minnie's arm. She had a nasty burn but, fortunately, it was restricted to the arm, nothing like as dangerous as the all-over burns people got in house fires. There were large angry blisters over most of the girl's forearm, and in the middle the skin was burned away to reveal charred flesh underneath.
Caris looked up for help and saw Mair. "Go to the kitchen and get me half a pint of wine and the same quantity of olive oil, in two separate jugs, please. Both need to be warm but not hot." Mair left.
Caris spoke to the child. "Minnie, you must try to stop screaming. I know it hurts, but you need to listen to me. I'm getting you some medicine. It will ease the pain." The screaming abated somewhat, and began to turn into sobbing.
Nellie arrived with the hemp essence. Caris poured some onto a spoon, then thrust the spoon into Minnie's open mouth and held her nose. The child swallowed. She screamed again, but after a minute she began to calm down.
"Give me a clean towel," Caris said to Nellie. They used a lot of towels in the hospital, and the cupboard behind the altar was always full of clean ones, by Caris's edict.
Mair came back from th
e kitchen with the oil and wine. Caris put a towel on the floor beside Minnie's mattress and moved the burned arm over the towel. "How do you feel?" she asked.
"It hurts," Minnie wailed.
Caris nodded in satisfaction. Those were the first coherent words the patient had uttered. The worst was over.
Minnie began to look sleepy as the hemp took effect. Caris said: "I'm going to put something on your arm to make it better. Try to keep still, will you?"
Minnie nodded.
Caris poured a little of the warm wine onto Minnie's wrist, where the burn was least bad. The child flinched, but did not try to snatch her arm away. Encouraged, Caris slowly moved the jug up the arm, pouring the wine over the worst of the burn to cleanse it. Then she did the same with the olive oil, which would soothe the place and protect the flesh from bad influences in the air. Finally she took a fresh towel and wrapped it lightly around the arm to keep the flies off.
Minnie was moaning, but half-asleep. Caris looked anxiously at her complexion. Her face was flushed pink with strain. That was good--if she had been turning pale, it would have been a sign that the dose had been too strong.
Caris was always nervous about drugs. The strength varied from batch to batch, and she had no precise way of measuring it. When weak, the medicine was ineffectual; when strong, dangerous. She was especially frightened of overdosing children, though the parents always pressured her for powerful medicine because they were so distressed by their children's pain.
At that point Brother Joseph came in. He was old now--somewhere in his late fifties--and all his teeth had fallen out, but he was still the priory's best monk-physician. Christopher Blacksmith immediately leaped to his feet. "Oh, Brother Joseph, thank God you're here," he said. "My little girl has a terrible burn."
"Let's have a look," said Joseph.
Caris stood back, hiding her irritation. Everyone believed the monks were powerful doctors, able to work near-miracles, whereas the nuns just fed the patients and cleared up. Caris had long ago stopped fighting that attitude, but it still annoyed her.
Joseph took off the towel and looked at the patient's arm. He prodded the burned flesh with his fingers. Minnie whimpered in her drugged sleep. "A bad burn, but not fatal," he said. He turned to Caris. "Make up a poultice of three parts chicken fat, three parts goat's dung, and one part white lead, and cover the burn with it. That will bring forth the pus."