by Ken Follett
"I've heard about it," she said. "Isn't it in southern France, too? It sounds dreadful."
"I caught the disease. I recovered, which is unusual. My wife, Silvia, died."
She looked shocked. "I'm so sorry," she said. "You must feel terribly sad."
"All her family died, and so did all my clients. It seemed like a good moment to come home. And you?"
"I've just been made cellarer," she said with evident pride.
To Merthin that seemed somewhat trivial, especially after the slaughter he had seen. However, such things were important in the life of the nunnery. He looked up at the great church. "Florence has a magnificent cathedral," he said. "Lots of patterns in colored stone. But I prefer this: carved shapes, all the same shade." As he studied the tower, gray stone against gray sky, it started to rain.
They went inside the church for shelter. A dozen or so people were scattered around the nave: visitors to the town looking at the architecture, devout locals praying, a couple of novice monks sweeping. "I remember feeling you up behind that pillar," Merthin said with a grin.
"I remember it, too," she said, but she did not meet his eye.
"I still feel the same about you as I did on that day. That's the real reason I came home."
She turned and looked at him with anger in her eyes. "But you got married."
"And you became a nun."
"But how could you marry her--Silvia--if you loved me?"
"I thought I could forget you. But I never did. Then, when I thought I was dying, I realized I would never get over you."
Her anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and tears came to her eyes. "I know," she said, looking away.
"You feel the same."
"I never changed."
"Did you try?"
She met his eye. "There's a nun..."
"The pretty one who was with you in the hospital?"
"How did you guess?"
"She cried when she saw me. I wondered why."
Caris looked guilty, and Merthin guessed she was feeling the way he had felt when Silvia used to say: "You're thinking about your English girl."
"Mair is dear to me," Caris said. "And she loves me. But..."
"But you didn't forget me."
"No."
Merthin felt triumphant, but he tried not to let it show. "In that case," he said, "you should renounce your vows, leave the nunnery, and marry me."
"Leave the nunnery?"
"You'll need first to get a pardon for the witchcraft conviction, I realize that, but I'm sure it can be done--we'll bribe the bishop and the archbishop and even the pope if necessary. I can afford it--"
She was not sure it would be as easy as he thought. But that was not her main problem. "It's not that I'm not tempted," she said. "But I promised Cecilia I would vindicate her faith in me...I have to help Mair take over as guest master...we need to build a new treasury...and I'm the only one who takes care of Old Julie properly..."
He was bewildered. "Is all that so important?"
"Of course it is!" she said angrily.
"I thought the nunnery was just old women saying prayers."
"And healing the sick, and feeding the poor, and managing thousands of acres of land. It's at least as important as building bridges and churches."
He had not anticipated this. She had always been skeptical of religious observance. She had gone into the nunnery under duress, when it was the only way to save her own life. But now she seemed to have grown to love her punishment. "You're like a prisoner who is reluctant to leave the dungeon, even when the door is opened wide," he said.
"The door isn't open wide. I would have to renounce my vows. Mother Cecilia--"
"We'll have to work on all these problems. Let's begin right away."
She looked miserable. "I'm not sure."
She was torn, he could see. It amazed him. "Is this you?" he said incredulously. "You used to hate the hypocrisy and falsehood that you saw in the priory. Lazy, greedy, dishonest, tyrannical--"
"That's still true of Godwyn and Philemon."
"Then leave."
"And do what?"
"Marry me, of course."
"Is that all?"
Once again he was bewildered. "It's all I want."
"No, it's not. You want to design palaces and castles. You want to build the tallest building in England."
"If you need someone to take care of..."
"What?"
"I've got a little girl. Her name is Lolla. She's three."
That seemed to settle Caris's mind. She sighed. "I'm a senior official in a convent of thirty-five nuns, ten novices, and twenty-five employees, with a school and a hospital and a pharmacy--and you're asking me to throw all that up to nursemaid one little girl I've never met."
He gave up arguing. "All I know is that I love you and I want to be with you."
She laughed humorlessly. "If you had said that and nothing else, you might have talked me into it."
"I'm confused," he said. "Are you refusing me, or not?"
"I don't know," she said.
55
Merthin lay awake much of the night. He was accustomed to bedding down in taverns, and the sounds Lolla made in her sleep only soothed him; but tonight he could not stop thinking about Caris. He was shocked by her reaction to his return. He realized, now, that he had never thought logically about how she would feel when he reappeared. He had indulged in unrealistic nightmares about how she might have changed, and in his heart he had hoped for a joyous reconciliation. Of course she had not forgotten him; but he could have figured out that she would not have spent nine years moping for him: she was not the type.
All the same, he would never have guessed that she would be so committed to her work as a nun. She had always been more or less hostile to the church. Given how dangerous it was to criticize religion in any way, she might well have concealed the true depth of her skepticism even from him. So it was a terrible shock to find her reluctant to leave the nunnery. He had anticipated fear of Bishop Richard's death sentence, or anxiety about being permitted to renounce her vows, but he had not suspected she might have found life in the priory so fulfilling that she hesitated to leave it to become his wife.
He felt angry with her. He wished he had said: "I've traveled a thousand miles to ask you to marry me--how can you say you're not sure?" He thought of a lot of biting remarks he might have made. Perhaps it was a good thing they had not occurred to him then. Their conversation had ended with her asking him to give her time to get over the shock of his sudden return and think about what she wanted to do. He had consented--he had no alternative--but it had left him hanging in agony like a man crucified.
Eventually he drifted into a troubled sleep.
Lolla woke him early, as usual, and they went down to the parlor for porridge. He repressed the impulse to go straight to the hospital and speak to Caris again. She had asked for time, and it would do his cause no good to pester her. It occurred to him that there might be more shocks in store for him, and that he had better try to catch up with what had been happening in Kingsbridge. So after breakfast he went to see Mark Webber.
The Webber family lived on the main street in a large house they had bought soon after Caris got them started in the cloth business. Merthin remembered the days when they and their four children had lived in one room that was not much bigger than the loom on which Mark worked. Their new house had a large stone-built ground floor used as a storeroom and shop. The living quarters were in the timber-built upper story. Merthin found Madge in the shop, checking a cartload of scarlet cloth that had just arrived from one of their out-of-town mills. She was almost forty now, with strands of gray in her dark hair. A short woman, she had become quite plump, with a prominent bosom and a vast behind. She made Merthin think of a pigeon, but an aggressive one, because of her jutting chin and assertive manner.
With her were two youngsters, a beautiful girl of about seventeen and a strapping boy a couple of years older. Merthin
recalled her two older children--Dora, a thin girl in a ragged dress, and John, a shy boy--and realized that these were the same, grown up. Now John was effortlessly lifting the heavy bales of cloth while Dora counted them by notching a stick. It made Merthin feel old. I'm only thirty-two, he thought; but that seemed old when he looked at John.
Madge gave a cry of surprise and pleasure when she saw him. She hugged him and kissed his bearded cheeks, then made a fuss over Lolla. "I thought she could come and play with your children," Merthin said ruefully. "Of course they're much too old."
"Dennis and Noah are at the priory school," she said. "They're thirteen and eleven. But Dora will entertain Lolla--she loves children."
The young woman picked Lolla up. "The cat next door has kittens," she said. "Do you want to see them?"
Lolla replied with a stream of Italian, which Dora took for assent, and they went off.
Madge left John to finish unloading the cart and took Merthin upstairs. "Mark has gone to Melcombe," she said. "We export some of our cloth to Brittany and Gascony. He should be back today or tomorrow."
Merthin sat in her parlor and accepted a cup of ale. "Kingsbridge seems to be prospering," he said.
"The trade in fleeces has declined," she said. "It's because of war taxes. Everything has to be sold through a handful of large traders so that the king can collect his share. There are still a few dealers here in Kingsbridge--Petranilla carries on the business Edmund left--but it's nothing like it used to be. Luckily, the trade in finished cloth has grown to replace it, in this town at least."
"Is Godwyn still prior?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Is he still making difficulties?"
"He's so conservative. He objects to any change and vetoes all progress. For example, Mark proposed opening the market on Saturday as well as Sunday, as an experiment."
"What possible objection could Godwyn have to that?"
"He said it would enable people to come to market without going to church, which would be a bad thing."
"Some of them might have gone to church on Saturday, too."
"Godwyn's cup is always half-empty, never half-full."
"Surely the parish guild opposes him?"
"Not very often. Elfric is alderman now. He and Alice got almost everything Edmund left."
"The alderman doesn't have to be the richest man in town."
"But he usually is. Remember, Elfric employs lots of craftsmen--carpenters, stonemasons, mortar makers, scaffolders--and buys from everyone who trades in building materials. The town is full of people who are more or less bound to support him."
"And Elfric has always been close to Godwyn."
"Exactly. He gets all the priory's building work--which means every public project."
"And he's such a shoddy builder!"
"Strange, isn't it?" Madge said in a musing tone. "You'd think Godwyn would want the best man for the job. But he doesn't. For him, it's all about who will be compliant, who will obey his wishes unquestioningly."
Merthin felt a bit depressed. Nothing had changed: his enemies were still in power. It might prove difficult for him to resume his old life. "No good news for me there, then." He stood up. "I'd better take a look at my island."
"I'm sure Mark will seek you out as soon as he returns from Melcombe."
Merthin went next door for Lolla, but she was having such a good time that he left her with Dora, and strolled through the town to the riverside. He took another look at the cracks in his bridge, but he did not need to study them long: the cause was obvious. He made a tour of Leper Island. Little had changed: there were a few wharves and storehouses at the west end and just one house, the one he had lent to Jimmie, at the east end, beside the road that led from one span of the bridge to the other.
When he first took possession of the island, he had had ambitious plans for developing it. Nothing had happened, of course, during his exile. Now he thought he could do something. He paced the ground, making rough measurements and visualizing buildings and even streets, until it was time for the midday meal.
He picked Lolla up and returned to the Bell. Bessie served a tasty pork stew thickened with barley. The tavern was quiet, and Bessie joined them for dinner, bringing a jug of her best red wine. When they had eaten, she poured him another cup, and he told her about his ideas. "The road across the island, from one bridge to the other, is an ideal place to put shops," he said.
"And taverns," she pointed out. "This place and the Holly Bush are the busiest inns in town simply because they are close to the cathedral. Any place where people are continually passing by is a good location for a tavern."
"If I built a tavern on Leper Island, you could run it."
She gave him a direct look. "We could run it together."
He smiled at her. He was full of her good food and wine, and any man would have loved to tumble into bed with her and enjoy her soft, round body; but it was not to be. "I was very fond of my wife, Silvia," he said. "But, all the time we were married, I kept thinking about Caris. And Silvia knew it."
Betty looked away. "That's sad."
"I know. And I'll never do it to another woman. I won't get married again, unless it's to Caris. I'm not a good man, but I'm not that bad."
"Caris may never marry you."
"I know."
She stood up, picking up their bowls. "You are a good man," she said. "Too good." She returned to the kitchen.
Merthin put Lolla to bed for a nap, then sat on a bench in front of the tavern, looking down the hillside at Leper Island, sketching on a big slate, enjoying the September sunshine. He did not get much work done because every other person who walked past wanted to welcome him home and ask what he had been doing for the last nine years.
Late in the afternoon he saw the massive figure of Mark Webber coming up the hill driving a cart bearing a barrel. Mark had always been a giant but now, Merthin observed, he was a plump giant.
Merthin shook his enormous hand. "I've been to Melcombe," Mark said. "I go every few weeks."
"What's in the barrel?"
"Wine from Bordeaux, straight off the ship--which also brought news. You know that Princess Joan was on her way to Spain?"
"Yes." Every well-informed person in Europe knew that the fifteen-year-old daughter of King Edward was to marry Prince Pedro, heir to the throne of Castile. The marriage would forge an alliance between England and the largest of the Iberian kingdoms, ensuring that Edward could concentrate on his interminable war against France without worrying about interference from the south.
"Well," said Mark, "Joan died of the plague in Bordeaux."
Merthin was doubly shocked: partly because Edward's position in France had suddenly become shaky, but mainly because the plague had spread so far. "They have the plague in Bordeaux?"
"Bodies piled in the streets, the French sailors told me."
Merthin was unnerved. He had thought he had left la moria grande behind him. Surely it would not come as far as England? He did not fear it personally: no one had ever caught it twice, so he was safe, and Lolla was among those who for some reason did not succumb to it. But he was afraid for everyone else--especially Caris.
Mark had other things on his mind. "You've returned at just the right time. Some of the younger merchants are getting fed up with Elfric as alderman. A lot of the time he's just a dogsbody for Godwyn. I'm planning to challenge him. You could be influential. There's a meeting of the parish guild tonight--come along and we'll get you admitted right away."
"Won't it matter that I never finished my apprenticeship?"
"After what you've built, here and abroad? Hardly."
"All right." Merthin needed to be a guild member if he was going to develop the island. People always found reasons to object to new buildings, and he might need support himself. But he was not as confident of his acceptance as Mark.
Mark took his barrel home and Merthin went inside to give Lolla her supper. At sundown Mark returned to the Bell, and Merthin walk
ed with him up the main street as the warm afternoon turned into a chilly evening.
The guildhall had seemed like a fine building to Merthin years ago, when he had stood here and presented his bridge design to the parish guild. But it appeared awkward and shabby now that he had seen the grand public buildings of Italy. He wondered what men such as Buonaventura Caroli and Loro Fiorentino must think of its rough stone undercroft, with the prison and the kitchen, and its main hall with a row of pillars running awkwardly down the middle to support the roof.
Mark introduced him to a handful of men who had arrived in Kingsbridge, or had come to prominence, in Merthin's absence. However, most of the faces were familiar, albeit a little older. Merthin greeted those few he had not already encountered in the last two days. Among these was Elfric, ostentatiously dressed in a brocade surcoat made with silver thread. He showed no surprise--someone had obviously told him Merthin was back--but glared with undisguised hostility.
Also present were Prior Godwyn and his subprior, Brother Philemon. Godwyn at forty-two was looking more like his uncle Anthony, Merthin observed, with downsloping lines of querulous discontent around his mouth. He put on a pretense of affability that might have fooled someone who did not know him. Philemon, too, had changed. He was no longer lean and awkward. He had filled out like a prosperous merchant, and carried himself with an air of arrogant self-assurance--although Merthin fancied he could still see, underneath the facade, the anxiety and self-hatred of the fawning toady. Philemon shook his hand as if touching a snake. It was depressing to realize that old hatreds were so long-lived.
A handsome, dark-haired young man crossed himself when he saw Merthin, then revealed that he was Merthin's former protege, Jimmie, now known as Jeremiah Builder. Merthin was delighted to find that he was doing well enough to belong to the parish guild. However, it seemed he was still as superstitious as ever.
Mark mentioned the news about Princess Joan to everyone he spoke to. Merthin answered one or two anxious questions about the plague, but the Kingsbridge merchants were more concerned that the collapse of the alliance with Castile would prolong the French war, which was bad for business.
Elfric sat on the big chair in front of the giant woolsack scales and opened the meeting. Mark immediately proposed that Merthin should be admitted as a member.