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 to 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.

Wulfric was relieved. “At least we know where the lad has got to,” he said, breathing easily despite his load.

“I want to go to Outhenby,” Gwenda said.

Wulfric nodded. “I thought you might.” He rarely challenged her, but now he expressed a misgiving. “Dangerous, though. You’ll have to make sure no one finds out where you’ve gone.”

“Exactly. Nate mustn’t know.”

“How will you manage that?”

“He’s sure to notice that I’m not in the village for a couple of days. We’ll have to think of a story.”

“We can say you’re sick.”

“Too risky. He’ll probably come to the house to check.”

“We could say you’re at your father’s place.”

“Nate won’t believe that. He knows I never stay there longer than I have to.” She gnawed at a hangnail, racking her brains. In the ghost stories and fairy tales that people told around the fire on long winter evenings, the characters generally believed one another’s lies without question; but real people were less easily duped. “We could say I’ve gone to Kingsbridge,” she said at last.

“What for?”

“To buy laying hens at the market, perhaps.”

“You could buy hens from Annet.”

“I wouldn’t buy anything from that bitch, and people know it.”

“True.”

“And Nate knows I’ve always been a friend of Caris, so he’ll believe I could be staying with her.”

“All right.”

It was not much of a story, but she could not think of anything better. And she was desperate to see her son.

She left the next morning.

She slipped out of the house before dawn, wrapped in a heavy cloak against the cold March wind. She walked softly through the village in pitch darkness, finding her way by touch and memory. She did not want to be seen and questioned before she had even left the neighborhood. But no one was up yet. Nathan Reeve’s dog growled quietly then recognized her tread, and she heard a soft thump as he wagged his tail against the side of his wooden kennel.

She left the village and followed the road through the fields. When dawn broke, she was a mile away. She looked at the road behind her. It was empty. No one had followed her.

She chewed a crust of stale bread for breakfast, then stopped at mid-morning at a tavern where the Wigleigh-to-Kingsbridge road crossed the Northwood-to-Outhenby road. She recognized no one at the inn. She watched the door nervously as she ate a bowl of salt-fish stew and drank a pint of cider. Every time someone came in she got ready to hide her face, but it was always a stranger, and no one took any notice of her. She left quickly, and set off on the road to Outhenby.

She reached the valley around mid-afternoon. It was twelve years since she had been here, but the place had not changed much. It had recovered from the plague remarkably quickly. Apart from some small children playing near the houses, most of the villagers were at work, plowing and sowing, or looking after new lambs. They stared at her across the fields, knowing she was a stranger, wondering about her identity. Some of them would recognize her close up. She had been here for only ten days, but those had been dramatic times, and they would remember. Villagers did not often see such excitement.

She followed the River Outhen as it meandered along the flat plain between two ranges of hills. She went from the main village through smaller settlements that she knew, from the time she had spent here, as Ham, Shortacre, and Longwater, to the smallest and most remote, Oldchurch.

Her excitement grew as she approached, and she even forgot her sore feet. Oldchurch was a hamlet, with thirty hovels, none big enough to be a manor house or even a bailiff’s home. However, in accordance with the name, there was an old church. It was several hundred years of age, Gwenda guessed. It had a squat tower and a short nave, all built of crude masonry, with tiny square windows placed apparently at random in the thick walls.

She walked to the fields beyond. She ignored a group of shepherds in a distant pasture: shrewd Harry Plowman would not waste big Sam on such light work. He would be harrowing, or clearing a ditch, or helping to manage the eight-ox plow team. Searching the three fields methodically, she looked for a crowd of mostly men, with warm hats and muddy boots and big voices to call to one another across the acres; and a young man a head taller than the others. When she did not at first see her son, she suffered renewed apprehension. Had he already been recaptured? Had he moved to another village?

She found him in a line of men digging manure into a newly plowed strip. He had his coat off, despite the cold, and he was hefting an oak spade, the muscles of his back and arms bunching and shifting under his old linen shirt. Her heart filled with pride to see him, and to think that such a man had come from her diminutive body.

They all looked up as she approached. The men stared at her in curiosity: Who was she and what was she doing here? She walked straight up to Sam and embraced him, even though he stank of horse dung. “Hello, Mother,” he said, and all the other men laughed.

She was puzzled by their hilarity.

A wiry man with one empty eye socket said: “There, there, Sam, you’ll be all right now,” and they laughed again.

Gwenda realized they thought it funny that a big man such as Sam should have his little mother come and check on him as if he were a wayward boy.

“How did you find me?” Sam said.

“I met Harry Plowman at Northwood market.”

“I hope no one tracked you here.”

“I left before it was light. Your father was to tell people I went to Kingsbridge. No one followed me.”

They talked for a few minutes, then he said he had to get back to work, or the other men would resent his leaving it all to them. “Go back to the village and find old Liza,” he said. “She lives opposite the church. Tell her who you are and she’ll give you some refreshment. I’ll be there at dusk.”

Gwenda glanced up at the sky. It was a dark afternoon, and the men would be forced to stop work in an hour or so. She kissed Sam’s cheek and left him.

She found Liza in a house slightly larger than most—it had two rooms rather than one. The woman introduced her husband, Rob, who was blind. As Sam had promised, Liza was hospitable: she put bread and pottage on the table and poured a cup of ale.

Gwenda asked about their son, and it was like turning on a tap. Liza talked unstoppably about him, from babyhood to apprenticeship, until the old man interrupted her harshly with one word: “Horse.”

They fell silent, and Gwenda heard the rhythmic thud of a trotting horse.

“Smallish mount,” blind Rob said. “A palfrey, or a pony. Too little for a nobleman or a knight, though it might be carrying a lady.”

Gwenda felt a shiver of fear.

“Two visitors within an hour,” Rob observed. “Must be connected.”

That was what Gwenda was afraid of.

She got up and looked out of the door. A sturdy black pony was trotting along the path between the houses. She recognized the rider immediately, and her heart sank: it was Jonno Reeve, the son of the bailiff of Wigleigh.

How had he found her?

She tried to duck quickly back into the house, but he had seen her. “Gwenda!” he shouted, and reined in his horse.

“You devil,” she said.

“I wonder what you’re doing here,” he said mockingly.

“How did you get here? No one was following me.”

“My father sent me to Kingsbridge, to see what mischief you might be making there, but on the way I stopped at the Cross Roads Tavern, and they remembered you taking the road to Outhenby.”

She wondered whether she could outwit this shrewd young man. “And why should I not visit my old friends here?”

“No reason,” he said. “Where’s your runaway son?”

“Not here, though I hoped he might be.”

He looked momentarily uncertain, as if he thought she might be telling the truth. Then he said: “Perhaps he’s hiding. I’ll look around.” He kicked his horse on.

Gwenda watched him go. She had not fooled him, but perhaps she had planted a doubt in his mind. If she could get to Sam first she might be able to conceal him.

She walked quickly through the little house, with a hasty word to Liza and Rob, and left by the back door. She headed across the field, staying close to the hedge. Looking back toward the village, she could see a man on horseback moving out at an angle to her direction. The day was dimming, and she thought her own small figure might be indistinguishable against the dark background of the hedge.

She met Sam and the others coming back, their spades over their shoulders, their boots thick with muck. From a distance, at first sight, Sam could have been Ralph: the figure was the same, and the confident stride, and the set of the handsome head on the strong neck. But as he talked she could see Wulfric in him, too: he had a way of turning his head, a shy smile, and a deprecating gesture of the hand that exactly imitated his foster father.

The men spotted her. They had been tickled by her arrival earlier, and now the one-eyed man called out: “Hello, Mother!” and they all laughed.

She took Sam aside and said: “Jonno Reeve is here.”

“Hell!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said you weren’t followed!”

“I didn’t see him, but he picked up my trail.”

“Damn. Now what do I do? I’m not going back to Wigleigh!”

“He’s looking for you, but he left the village heading east.” She scanned the darkening landscape but could not see much. “If we hurry back to Oldchurch, we could hide you—in the church, perhaps.”

“All right.”

They picked up their pace. Gwenda said over her shoulder: “If you men come across a bailiff called Jonno…you haven’t seen Sam from Wigleigh.”

“Never heard of him, Mother,” said one, and the others concurred. Serfs were generally ready to help one another outwit the bailiff.

Gwenda and Ralph reached the settlement without seeing Jonno. They headed for the church. Gwenda thought they could probably get in: country churches were usually empty and bare inside, and generally left open. But if this one should turn out to be an exception, she was not sure what they would do.

They threaded through the houses and came within sight of the church. As they passed Liza’s front door, Gwenda saw a black pony. She groaned. Jonno must have doubled back under cover of the dusk. He had gambled that Gwenda would find Sam and bring him to the village, and he had been right. He had his father Nate’s low cunning.

She took Sam’s arm to hurry him across the road and into the church—then Jonno stepped out from Liza’s house.

“Sam,” he said. “I thought you’d be here.”

Gwenda and Sam stopped and turned.

Sam leaned on his wooden spade. “What are you going to do about it?”

Jonno was grinning triumphantly. “Take you back to Wigleigh.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

A group of peasants, mostly women, appeared from the west side of the village and stopped to watch the confrontation.

Jonno reached into his pony’s saddlebag and brought out some kind of metal device with a chain. “I’m going to put a leg iron on you,” he said. “And if you’ve got any sense you won’t resist.”

Gwenda was surprised by Jonno’s nerve. Did he really expect to arrest Sam all on his own? He was a beefy lad, but not as big as Sam. Did he hope the villagers would help him? He had the law on his side, but few peasants would think his cause just. Typical young man, he had no sense of his own limitations.

Sam said: “I used to beat the shit out of you when we were boys, and I’ll do the same today.”

Gwenda did not want them to fight. Whoever won, Sam would be wrong in the eyes of the law. He was a runaway. She said: “It’s too late to go anywhere now. Why don’t we discuss this in the morning?”

Jonno gave a disparaging laugh. “And let Sam slip away before dawn, the way you sneaked out of Wigleigh? Certainly not. He sleeps in irons tonight.”

The men Sam had been working with appeared, and stopped to see what was going on. Jonno said: “All law-abiding men have a duty to help me arrest this runaway, and anyone who hinders me will be subject to the punishment of the law.”

“You can rely on me,” said the one-eyed man. “I’ll hold your horse.” The others chuckled. There was little sympathy for Jonno. On the other hand, no villager spoke in Sam’s defense.

Jonno moved suddenly. With the leg iron in both hands, he stepped toward Sam and bent down, trying to snap the device onto Sam’s leg in one surprise move.

It might have worked on a slow-moving older man, but Sam reacted quickly. He stepped back then kicked out, landing one muddy boot on Jonno’s outstretched left arm.

Jonno gave a grunt of pain and anger. Straightening up, he drew back his right arm and swung the iron, intending to hit Sam over the head with it. Gwenda heard a frightened scream and realized it came from herself. Sam darted back another step, out of range.

Jonno saw that his blow was going to miss, and let go of the iron at the last moment.

It flew through the air. Sam flinched away, turning and ducking, but he could not dodge it. The iron hit his ear and the chain whipped across his face. Gwenda cried out as if she herself had been hurt. The onlookers gasped. Sam staggered, and the iron fell to the ground. There was a moment of suspense. Blood came from Sam’s ear and nose. Gwenda took a step toward him, stretching out her arms.

Then Sam recovered from the shock.

He turned back to Jonno and swung his heavy wooden spade in one graceful movement. Jonno had not quite recovered his balance after the effort of his throw, and he was unable to dodge. The edge of the spade caught him on the side of the head. Sam was strong, and the sound of wood on bone rang out across the village street.

Jonno was still reeling when Sam hit him again. Now the spade came straight down from above. Swung by both Sam’s arms, it landed on top of Jonno’s head, edge first, with tremendous force. This time the impact did not ring out, but sounded more like a dull thud, and Gwenda feared Jonno’s skull had cracked.

As Jonno slumped to his knees, Sam hit him a third time, another full-force blow with the oak blade, this one across his victim’s forehead. An iron sword could hardly have been more damaging, Gwenda though despairingly. She stepped forward to restrain Sam, but the village men had had the same idea a moment earlier, and got there before her. They pulled Sam away, two of them holding each arm.

Jonno lay on the ground, his head in a pool of blood. Gwenda was sickened by the sight, and could not help thinking of the boy’s father, Nate, and how grieved he would be by his son’s injuries. Jonno’s mother had died of the plague, so at least she was in a place where grief could not afflict her.

Gwenda could see that Sam was not badly hurt. He was bleeding, but still struggling with his captors, trying to get free so that he could attack again. Gwenda bent over Jonno. His eyes were closed and he was not moving. She put a hand on his heart and felt nothing. She tried for a pulse, the way Caris had shown her, but there was none. Jonno did not seem to be breathing.

The implications of what had happened dawned on her, and she began to weep.

Jonno was dead, and Sam was a murderer.

82

On Easter Sunday that year, 1361, Caris and Merthin had been married ten years.

Standing in the cathedral, watching the Easter procession, Caris recalled their wedding. Because they had been lovers, off and on, for so long, they had seen the ceremony as no more than confirmation of a long-established fact, and they had foolishly envisaged a small, quiet event: a low-key service in St. Mark’s Church and a modest dinner for a few people afterward at the Bell. But Father Joffroi had informed them, the day before, that by his calculation at least two thousand people were planning to attend the wedding, and they had been forced to move it to the cathedral. Then it turned out that, without their knowledge, Madge Webber had organized a banquet in the guildhall for leading citizens and a picnic in Lovers’ Field for everyone else in Kingsbridge. So, in the end, it had been the wedding of the year.

Caris smiled at the recollection. She had worn a new robe of Kingsbridge Scarlet, a color the bishop probably thought appropriate for such a woman. Merthin had dressed in a richly patterned Italian coat, chestnut brown with gold threads, and had seemed to glow with happiness. They both had realized, belatedly, that their drawn-out love affair, which they had imagined to be a private drama, had been entertaining the citizens of Kingsbridge for years, and everyone wanted to celebrate its happy ending.

Caris’s pleasant memories evaporated as her old enemy Philemon mounted the pulpit. In the decade since the wedding he had grown quite fat. His monkish tonsure and shaved face revealed a ring of blubber around his neck, and the priestly robes billowed like a tent.

He preached a sermon against dissection.

Dead bodies belonged to God, he said. Christians were instructed to bury them in a carefully specified ritual; the saved in consecrated ground, the unforgiven elsewhere. To do anything else with corpses was against God’s will. To cut them up was sacrilege, he said with uncharacteristic passion. There was even a tremor in his voice as he asked the congregation to imagine the horrible scene of a body being opened, its parts separated and sliced and pored over by so-called medical researchers. True Christians knew there was no excuse for these ghoulish men and women.

The phrase “men and women” was not often heard from Philemon’s mouth, Caris thought, and could not be without significance. She glanced at her husband, standing next to her in the nave, and he raised his eyebrows in an expression of concern.

The prohibition against examining corpses was standard dogma, propounded by the church since before Caris could remember, but it had been relaxed since the plague. Progressive younger clergymen were vividly aware of how badly the church had failed its people then, and they were keen to change the way medicine was taught and practised by priests. However, conservative senior clergy clung to the old ways and blocked any change in policy. The upshot was that dissection was banned in principle and tolerated in practice.

Caris had been performing dissections at her new hospital from the start. She never talked about it outside the building: there was no point in upsetting the superstitious. But she did it every chance she got.

In recent years she had usually been joined by one or two younger monk-physicians. Many trained doctors never saw inside the body except when treating very bad wounds. Traditionally, the only carcasses they were allowed to open were those of pigs, thought to be the animals most like humans in their anatomy.

Caris was puzzled as well as worried by Philemon’s attack. He had always hated her, she knew, though she had never been sure why. But since the great standoff in the snowfall of 1351 he had ignored her. As if in compensation for his loss of power over the town, he had furnished his palace with precious objects: tapestries, carpets, silver tableware, stained-glass windows, illuminated manuscripts. He had become ever more grand, demanding elaborate deference from his monks and novices, wearing gorgeous robes for services, and traveling, when he had to go to other towns, in a charette that was furnished like a duchess’s boudoir.

There were several important visiting clergymen in the choir for the service—Bishop Henri of Shiring, Archbishop Piers of Monmouth, and Archdeacon Reginald of York—and presumably Philemon was hoping to impress them with this outburst of doctrinal conservatism. But to what end? Was he looking for promotion? The archbishop was ill—he had been carried into the church—but surely Philemon could not aspire to that post? It was something of a miracle that the son of Joby from Wigleigh should have risen to be prior of Kingsbridge. Besides, elevation from prior to archbishop would be an unusually big jump, a bit like going from knight to duke without becoming a baron or an earl in between. Only a special favorite could hope for such a rapid rise.

However, there was no limit to Philemon’s ambition. It was not that he felt himself to be superbly well qualified, Caris thought. That had been Godwyn’s attitude, arrogant self-confidence. Godwyn had assumed that God made him prior because he was the cleverest man in town. Philemon was at the opposite extreme: in his heart he believed he was a nobody. His life was a campaign to convince himself that he was not completely worthless. He was so sensitive to rejection that he could not bear to consider himself undeserving of any post, no matter how lofty.

She thought of speaking to Bishop Henri after the service. She might remind him of the ten-year-old agreement that the prior of Kingsbridge had no jurisdiction over the Hospital of St. Elizabeth on Leper Island, which came under the bishop’s direct control; so that any attack on the hospital was an attack on the rights and privileges of Henri himself. But, on further reflection, she realized that such a protest would confirm to the bishop that she was conducting dissections, and turn what might now be only a vague suspicion, easily ignored, into a known fact that must be dealt with. So she decided to remain silent.

Standing beside her were Merthin’s two nephews, the sons of Earl Ralph: Gerry, age thirteen, and Roley, ten. Both boys were enrolled in the monks’ school. They lived in the priory but spent much of their free time with Merthin and Caris at their house on the island. Merthin had his hand resting casually on the shoulder of Roley. Only three people in the world knew that Roley was not his nephew but his son. They were Merthin himself, Caris, and the boy’s mother, Philippa. Merthin tried not to show special favor to Roley, but found it hard to disguise his true feelings, and was especially delighted when Roley learned something new or did well at school.

Caris often thought about the child she had conceived with Merthin and then aborted. She always imagined it to have been a girl. She would be a woman now, Caris mused, twenty-three years old, probably married with children of her own. The thought was like the ache of an old wound, painful but too familiar to be distressing.

When the service was over, they all left together. The boys were invited to Sunday dinner, as always. Outside the cathedral, Merthin turned to look back at the tower that now soared high over the middle of the church.

As he examined his almost-finished work, frowning at some detail visible only to him, Caris studied him fondly. She had known him since he was eleven years old, and had loved him almost as long. He was forty-five now. His red hair was receding from his brow, and stood up around his head like a curly halo. He had carried his left arm stiffly ever since a small carved stone corbel, dropped from the scaffolding by a careless mason, had fallen on his shoulder. But he still had the expression of boyish eagerness that had drawn the ten-year-old Caris to him on All Hallows Day a third of a century ago.

She turned to share his view. The tower appeared to stand neatly on the four sides of the crossing, and to be exactly two bays square, even though in fact its weight was held up by massive buttresses built into the exterior corners of the transepts, which themselves rested on new foundations separate from the old original ones. The tower looked light and airy, with slender columns and multiple window openings through which you could see blue sky in fine weather. Above the square top of the tower, a web of scaffolding was rising for the final stage, the spire.

When Caris brought her gaze back down to ground level she saw her sister approaching. Alice was only a year older at forty-five, but Caris felt she was from another generation. Her husband, Elfric, had died in the plague, but she had not remarried, becoming frumpy, as if she thought that was how a widow should be. Caris had quarreled with Alice, many years ago, over Elfric’s treatment of Merthin. The passage of time had blunted the edge of their mutual hostility, but there was still a resentful tilt to Alice’s head when she said hello.

With her was Griselda, her stepdaughter, though only a year younger than Alice. Griselda’s son, known as Merthin Bastard, stood beside her, towering over her, a big man with superficial charm—just like his father, the long-gone Thurstan, and about as different from Merthin Bridger as could be. Also with her was her sixteen-year-old daughter, Petranilla.

Griselda’s husband, Harold Mason, had taken over the business after Elfric died. He was not much of a builder, according to Merthin, but he was doing all right, although he did not have the monopoly of priory repairs and extensions that had made Elfric rich. He stood next to Merthin now and said: “People think you’re going to build the spire with no formwork.”

Caris understood. Formwork, or centering, was the wooden frame that held the masonry in place until the mortar dried.

Merthin said: “Not much room for formwork inside that narrow spire. And how would it be supported?” His tone was polite, but Caris could tell from its briskness that he did not like Harold.

“I could believe it if the spire was going to be round.”

Caris understood this, too. A round spire could be built by placing one circle of stones on top of another, each a little narrower than the last. No formwork was needed because the circle was self-supporting: the stones could not fall inward because they pressed on one another. The same was not true of any shape with corners.

“You’ve seen the drawings,” Merthin said. “It’s an octagon.”

The corner turrets on the top of the square tower faced diagonally outward, easing the eye as it progressed upward to the different shape of the narrower spire. Merthin had copied this feature from Chartres. But it made sense only if the tower was octagonal.

Harold said: “But how can you build an octagonal tower without formwork?”

“Wait and see,” said Merthin, and he moved away.

As they walked down the main street Caris said: “Why won’t you tell people how you’re going to do it?”

“So that they can’t fire me,” he replied. “When I was building the bridge, as soon as I’d done the hard part they got rid of me, and hired someone cheaper.”

“I remember.”

“They can’t do that now, because no one else can build the spire.”

“You were a youngster then. Now you’re alderman. No one would dare sack you.”

“Perhaps not. But it’s nice to feel they can’t.”

At the bottom of the main street, where the old bridge had stood, there was a disreputable tavern called the White Horse. Caris saw Merthin’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Lolla, leaning on the wall outside, with a group of older friends. Lolla was an attractive girl, with olive skin and lustrous dark hair, a generous mouth and sultry brown eyes. The group was crowded around a dice game, and they were all drinking ale from large tankards. Caris was sorry, though not surprised, to see her stepdaughter carousing on the street at midday.

Merthin was angry. He went up to Lolla and took her arm. “You’d better come home for your dinner,” he said in a tight voice.

She tossed her head, shaking her thick hair in a gesture that was undoubtedly meant for the eyes of someone other than her father. “I don’t want to go home, I’m happy here,” she said.

“I didn’t ask what you wanted,” Merthin replied, and he jerked her away from the others.

A good-looking boy of about twenty detached himself from the crowd. He had curly hair and a mocking smile, and he was picking his teeth with a twig. Caris recognized Jake Riley, a lad of no particular profession who nevertheless always seemed to have money to spend. He sauntered over. “What’s going on?” he said. He spoke with the twig sticking out of his mouth like an insult.

“None of your damn business,” Merthin said.

Jake stood in his way. “The girl doesn’t want to leave.”

“You’d better get out of my way, son, unless you want to spend the rest of the day in the town stocks.”

Caris froze with anxiety. Merthin was in the right: he was entitled to discipline Lolla, who was still five years short of adulthood. But Jake was the kind of boy who might punch him anyway, and take the consequences. However, Caris did not intervene, knowing it might make Merthin angry with her instead of with Jake.

Jake said: “I suppose you’re her father.”

“You know perfectly well who I am, and you can call me Alderman, and speak respectfully to me, or suffer the consequences.”

Jake stared insolently at Merthin a moment longer then turned aside, casually saying: “Yes, all right.”

Caris was relieved that the confrontation had not turned into fisticuffs. Merthin never got into fights, but Lolla was capable of driving him to distraction.

They walked on toward the bridge. Lolla shook herself free of her father’s grasp and walked on ahead, arms folded under her breasts, head down, frowning and muttering to herself in a full-dress sulk.

This was not the first time Lolla had been seen in bad company. Merthin was horrified and enraged that his little girl should be so determined to seek out such people. “Why does she do it?” he said to Caris as they followed Lolla across the bridge to Leper Island.

“God knows.” Caris had observed that this kind of behavior was more common in youngsters who had suffered the loss of a parent. After Silvia died, Lolla had been mothered by Bessie Bell, Lady Philippa, Merthin’s housekeeper Em, and of course Caris herself. Perhaps she was confused about whom she should obey. But Caris did not voice this thought, as it might seem to suggest that Merthin had somehow failed as a parent. “I had terrible fights with Aunt Petranilla when I was that age.”

“What about?”

“Similar things. She didn’t like me spending time with Mattie Wise.”

“That’s completely different. You didn’t go to low taverns with rogues.”

“Petranilla thought Mattie was bad company.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I suppose not.”

“You learned a lot from Mattie.”

Lolla was undoubtedly learning a lot from handsome Jake Riley, but Caris kept that inflammatory thought to herself—Merthin was furious enough already.

The island was entirely built up now, and an integral part of the city. It even had its own parish church. Where once they had wandered across waste ground, they now followed a footpath that ran straight between houses and turned sharp corners. The rabbits had long gone. The hospital occupied most of the western end. Although Caris went there every day, she still felt a glow of pride when she looked at the clean gray stonework, the large windows in regular rows, and the chimneys lined up like soldiers.

They passed through a gate into Merthin’s grounds. The orchard was mature, and blossoms covered the apple trees like snow.

As always, they went in through the kitchen door. The house had a grand entrance on the river side which no one ever used. Even a brilliant architect can make a mistake, Caris thought with amusement; but, once again, she decided to give the thought no voice today.

Lolla stamped upstairs to her room.

From the front room a woman called: “Hello, everyone!” The two boys rushed into the parlor with glad cries. It was their mother, Philippa. Merthin and Caris greeted her warmly.

Caris and Philippa had become sisters-in-law when Caris married Merthin, but their past rivalry had continued to make Caris feel awkward in Philippa’s presence for some years. Eventually the boys had brought them together. When first Gerry then Roley enrolled at the priory school, it was natural for Merthin to look after his nephews, and then it became normal for Philippa to call at Merthin’s house whenever she was in Kingsbridge.

At first, Caris had felt jealous of Philippa for having attracted Merthin sexually. Merthin had never tried to pretend that his love for Philippa had been merely superficial. He clearly still cared about her. But Philippa nowadays cut a sad figure. She was forty-nine and looked older, her hair gray and her face lined with disappointment. She lived now for her children. She was a frequent guest of her daughter, Odila, the countess of Monmouth; and when she was not there she often visited Kingsbridge Priory to be close to her sons. She managed to spend very little time at Earlscastle with her husband Ralph.

“I’ve got to take the boys to Shiring,” she said, explaining her presence here. “Ralph wants them to attend the county court with him. He says it’s a necessary part of their education.”

“He’s right,” Caris said. Gerry would be the earl, if he lived long enough; and if he did not Roley would inherit the title. So they both needed to be familiar with courts.

Philippa added: “I intended to be in the cathedral for the Easter service, but my charette broke a wheel and I made an overnight stop.”

“Well, now that you’re here, let’s have dinner,” Caris said.

They went into the dining hall. Caris opened the windows that looked onto the river. Cool, fresh air came in. She wondered what Merthin would do about Lolla. He said nothing, leaving her to stew upstairs, to Caris’s relief: a brooding adolescent at the dinner table could bring down everyone’s spirits.

They ate mutton boiled with leeks. Merthin poured red wine, and Philippa drank thirstily. She had become fond of wine. Perhaps it was her consolation.

While they were eating, Em came in looking anxious. “There’s somebody at the kitchen door to see the mistress,” she said.

Merthin said impatiently: “Well, who is it?”

“He wouldn’t mention his name, but he said the mistress would know him.”

“What kind of person?”

“A young man. By his clothes a peasant, not a town dweller.” Em had a snobbish dislike of villagers.

“Well, he sounds harmless. Let him come in.”

A moment later, in walked a tall figure with a hood pulled forward to cover most of his face. When he drew it back, Caris recognized Gwenda’s elder son, Sam.

Caris had known him all his life. She had seen him born, had watched his slimy head emerge from the small body of his mother. She had observed him as he grew and changed and became a man. She saw Wulfric in him now, in the way he walked and stood and raised a hand slightly as he was about to speak. She had always suspected that Wulfric was not in fact his father—but, close as she was to Gwenda, she had never mentioned her doubt. Some questions were better left unasked. However, the suspicion had inevitably returned when she heard that Sam was wanted for the murder of Jonno Reeve. For Sam when born had had a look of Ralph.

Now he came up to Caris, lifted his hand in that gesture of Wulfric’s, hesitated, then went down on one knee. “Save me, please,” he said.

Caris was horrified. “How can I save you?”

“Hide me. I’ve been on the run for days. I left Oldchurch in the dark and walked through the night and I’ve hardly rested since. Just now I tried to buy something to eat in a tavern and someone recognized me, and I had to run.”

He looked so desperate that she felt a surge of compassion. Nevertheless, she said: “But you can’t hide here, you’re wanted for murder!”

“It was no murder, it was a fight. Jonno struck first. He hit me with a leg iron—look.” Sam touched his face in two places, ear and nose, to indicate two scabbed gashes.

The physician in Caris could not help noting that the injuries were about five days old, and the nose was healing well enough though the ear really needed a stitch. But her main thought was that Sam should not be here. “You have to face justice,” she said.

“They’ll take Jonno’s side, they’re sure to. I ran away from Wigleigh, for higher wages in Outhenby. Jonno was trying to take me back. They’ll say he was entitled to chain a runaway.”

“You should have thought of that before you hit him.”

He said accusingly: “You employed runaways at Outhenby, when you were prioress.”

She was stung. “Runaways, yes—killers, no.”

“They will hang me.”

Caris was torn. How could she turn him away?

Merthin spoke. “There are two reasons why you can’t hide here, Sam. One is that it’s a crime to conceal a fugitive, and I’m not willing to put myself on the wrong side of the law for your sake, fond though I am of your mother. But the second reason is that everyone knows your mother is an old friend of Caris’s, and if the Kingsbridge constables are searching for you this is the first place they will look.

“Is it?” Sam said.

He was not very bright, Caris knew—his brother, Davey, had all the brains.

Merthin said: “You could hardly think of a worse place than this to hide.” He softened. “Drink a cup of wine, and take a loaf of bread with you, and get out of town,” he said more kindly. “I’ll have to find Mungo Constable and report that you were here, but I can walk slowly.” He poured wine into a wooden cup.

“Thank you.”

“Your only hope is to go far away where you aren’t known and start a new life. You’re a strong boy, you’ll always find work. Go to London and join a ship. And don’t get into fights.”

Philippa said suddenly: “I remember your mother…Gwenda?”

Sam nodded.

Philippa turned to Caris. “I met her at Casterham, when William was alive. She came to me about that girl in Wigleigh who had been raped by Ralph.”

“Annet.”

“Yes.” Philippa turned back to Sam. “You must be the baby she had in her arms at the time. Your mother is a good woman. I’m sorry for her sake that you’re in trouble.”

There was a moment of quiet. Sam drained the cup. Caris was thinking, as no doubt Philippa and Merthin were too, about the passage of time, and how it can change an innocent, beloved baby into a man who commits murder.

In the silence, they heard voices.

It sounded like several men at the kitchen door.

Sam looked around him like a trapped bear. One door led to the kitchen, the other outside to the front of the house. He dashed to the front door, flung it open, and ran out. Without pausing he headed down toward the river.

A moment later Em opened the door from the kitchen, and Mungo Constable came into the dining hall, with four deputies crowding behind him, all carrying wooden clubs.

Merthin pointed at the front door. “He just left.”

“After him, lads,” said Mungo, and they all ran through the room and out the door.

Caris stood up and hurried outside, and the others followed her.

The house was built on a low, rocky bluff only three or four feet high. The river flowed rapidly past the foot of the little cliff. To the left, Merthin’s graceful bridge spanned the water; to the right was a muddy beach. Across the river, trees were coming into leaf in the old plague graveyard. Pokey little suburban hovels had grown up like weeds either side of the cemetery.

Sam could have turned left or right, and Caris saw with a feeling of despair that he had made the wrong choice. He had gone right, which led nowhere. She saw him running along the foreshore, his boots leaving big impressions in the mud. The constables were chasing him like dogs after a hare. She felt sorry for Sam, as she always felt sorry for the hare. It was nothing to do with justice, merely that he was the quarry.

Seeing he had nowhere to go, he waded into the water.

Mungo had stayed on the paved footpath at the front of the house, and now he turned in the opposite direction, to the left, and ran toward the bridge.

Two of the deputies dropped their clubs, pulled off their boots, got out of their coats, and jumped into the water in their undershirts. The other two stood on the shoreline, presumably unable to swim, or perhaps unwilling to jump into the water on a cold day. The two swimmers struck out after Sam.

Sam was strong, but his heavy winter coat was now sodden and dragging him down. Caris watched with horrid fascination as the deputies gained on him.

There was a shout from the other direction. Mungo had reached the bridge and was running across, and he had stopped to beckon the two nonswimming deputies to follow him. They acknowledged his signal and ran after him. He continued across the bridge.

Sam reached the far shore just before the swimmers caught up with him. He gained his footing and staggered through the shallows, shaking his head, water running from his clothing. He turned and saw a deputy almost on him. The man stumbled, bending forward inadvertently, and Sam swiftly kicked him in the face with a heavy waterlogged boot. The deputy cried out and fell back.

The second deputy was more cautious. He approached Sam then stopped, still out of reach. Sam turned and ran forward, coming out of the water onto the turf of the plague graveyard; but the deputy followed him. Sam stopped again, and the deputy stopped. Sam realized he was being toyed with. He gave a roar of anger and rushed at his tormentor. The deputy ran back, but he had the river behind him. He ran into the shallows, but the water slowed him, and Sam was able to catch him.

Sam grabbed the man by the shoulders, turned him, and head-butted him. On the far side of the river, Caris heard a crack as the poor man’s nose broke. Sam tossed him aside and he fell, spurting blood into the river water.

Sam turned again for the shore—but Mungo was waiting for him. Now Sam was lower down the slope of the foreshore and hampered by the water. Mungo rushed at him, stopped, let him come forward, then raised his heavy wooden club. He feinted, Sam dodged, then Mungo struck, hitting Sam on the top of his head.

It looked a dreadful blow, and Caris herself gasped with shock as if she had been hit. Sam roared with pain and reflexively put his hands over his head. Mungo, experienced in fighting with strong young men, hit him again with the club, this time in his unprotected ribs. Sam fell into the water. The two deputies who had run across the bridge now arrived on the scene. Both jumped on Sam, holding him down in the shallows. The two he had wounded took their revenge, kicking and punching him savagely while their colleagues held him down. When there was no fight left in him, they at last let up and dragged him out of the water.

Mungo swiftly tied Sam’s hands behind his back. Then the constables marched the fugitive back toward the town.

“How awful,” said Caris. “Poor Gwenda.”

83

The town of Shiring had a carnival air during sessions of the county court. All the inns around the square were busy, their parlors crowded with men and women dressed in their best clothes, all shouting for drinks and food. The town naturally took the opportunity to hold a market, and the square itself was so closely packed with stalls that it took half an hour to move a couple of hundred yards. As well as the legitimate stallholders there were dozens of strolling entrepreneurs: bakers with trays of buns, a busking fiddle player, maimed and blind beggars, prostitutes showing their breasts, a dancing bear, a preaching friar.

Earl Ralph was one of the few people who could cross the square quickly. He rode with three knights ahead of him and a handful of servants behind, and his entourage went through the melee like a plowshare, turning the crowd aside by the force of their momentum and their carelessness for the safety of people in their way.

They rode on up the hill to the sheriff’s castle. In the courtyard they wheeled with a flourish and dismounted. The servants immediately began shouting for hostlers and porters. Ralph liked people to know he had arrived.

He was tense. The son of his old enemy was about to be tried for murder. He was on the brink of the sweetest revenge imaginable, but some part of him feared it might not happen. He was so on edge that he felt slightly ashamed: he would not have wanted his knights to know how much this meant to him. He was careful to conceal, even from Alan Fernhill, how eager he was that Sam should hang. He was afraid something would go wrong at the last minute. No one knew better than he how the machinery of justice could fail: after all, he himself had escaped hanging twice.

He would sit on the judge’s bench during the trial, as was his right, and do his best to make sure there was no upset.

He handed his reins to a groom and looked around. The castle was not a military fortification. It was more like a tavern with a courtyard, though strongly built and well guarded. The sheriff of Shiring could live here safe from the vengeful relatives of the people he arrested. There were basement dungeons in which to keep prisoners, and guest apartments where visiting judges could stay unmolested.

Sheriff Bernard showed Ralph to his room. The sheriff was the king’s representative in the county, responsible for collecting taxes as well as administering justice. The post was lucrative, the salary usefully supplemented by gifts, bribes, and percentages skimmed off the top of fines and forfeited bail money. The relationship between earl and sheriff could be fractious: the earl ranked higher, but the sheriff’s judicial power was independent. Bernard, a rich wool merchant of about Ralph’s age, treated Ralph with an uneasy mixture of camaraderie and deference.

Philippa was waiting for Ralph in the apartment set aside for them. Her long gray hair was tied up in an elaborate headdress, and she wore an expensive coat in drab shades of gray and brown. Her haughty manner had once made her a proud beauty, but now she just looked like a grumpy old woman. She might have been his mother.

He greeted his sons, Gerry and Roley. He was not sure how to deal with children, and he had never seen much of his own: as babies they had been cared for by women, of course, and now they were at the monks’ school. He addressed them somewhat as if they were squires in his service, giving them orders at one moment and joshing them in a friendly way the next. He would find them easier to talk to when they were older. It did not seem to matter: they regarded him as a hero whatever he did.

“Tomorrow you shall sit on the judge’s bench in the courtroom,” he said. “I want you to see how justice is done.”

Gerry, the elder, said: “Can we look around the market this afternoon?”

“Yes—get Dickie to go with you.” Dickie was one of the Earlscastle servants. “Here, take some money to spend.” He gave them each a handful of silver pennies.

The boys went out. Ralph sat down across the room from Philippa. He never touched her, and tried always to keep his distance so that it would not happen by accident. He felt sure that she dressed and acted like an old woman to make sure he was not attracted to her. She also went to church every day.

It was a strange relationship for two people who had once conceived a child together, but they had been stuck in it for years and it would never change. At least it left him free to fondle servant girls and tumble tavern wenches.

However, they had to talk about the children. Philippa had strong views and, over the years, Ralph had realized it was easier to discuss things with her, rather than make unilateral decisions and then have a fight when she disagreed.

Now Ralph said: “Gerald is old enough to be a squire.”

Philippa said: “I agree.”

“Good!” said Ralph, surprised—he had expected an argument.

“I’ve already spoken to David Monmouth about him,” she added.

That explained her willingness. She was one jump ahead. “I see,” he said, playing for time.

“David agrees, and suggests we send him as soon as he is fourteen.”

Gerry was only just thirteen. Philippa was in fact postponing Gerry’s departure by almost a year. But this was not Ralph’s main worry. David, earl of Monmouth, was married to Philippa’s daughter, Odila. “Being a squire is supposed to turn a boy into a man,” Ralph said. “But Gerry will get too easy a ride with David. His stepsister is fond of him—she’ll probably protect him. He could have it too soft.” After a moment’s reflection, he added: “I expect that’s why you want him to go there.”

She did not deny it, but said: “I thought you would be glad to strengthen your alliance with the earl of Monmouth.”

She had a point. David was Ralph’s most important ally in the nobility. Placing Gerry in the Monmouth household would create another bond between the two earls. David might become fond of the boy. In later years, perhaps David’s sons would be squires at Earlscastle. Such family connections were priceless. “Will you undertake to make sure the boy isn’t mollycoddled there?” Ralph said.

“Of course.”

“Well, all right then.”

“Good. I’m glad that’s settled.” Philippa stood up.

But Ralph was not finished. “Now what about Roley? He could go too, so that they would be together.”

Philippa did not like this idea at all, Ralph could tell, but she was too clever to contradict him flatly. “Roley’s a bit young,” she said, as if thinking it over. “And he hasn’t properly learned his letters yet.”

“Letters aren’t as important to a nobleman as learning to fight. After all, he is second in line to the earldom. If anything should happen to Gerry…”

“Which God forbid.”

“Amen.”

“All the same, I think he should wait until he’s fourteen.”

“I don’t know. Roley’s always been a bit womanish. Sometimes he reminds me of my brother, Merthin.” He saw a flash of fear in her eyes. She was afraid of letting her baby go, he guessed. He was tempted to insist, just to torture her. But ten was young for a squire. “We’ll see,” he said noncommittally. “He’ll have to be toughened up sooner or later.”

“All in good time,” said Philippa.

 

The judge, Sir Lewis Abingdon, was not a local man, but a London lawyer from the king’s court, sent on tour to try serious cases in county courts. He was a beefy type with a pink face and a fair beard. He was also ten years younger than Ralph.

Ralph told himself he should not be surprised. He was now forty-four. Half his own generation had been wiped out by the plague. Nevertheless, he continued to be startled by distinguished and powerful men who were younger than he.

They waited, with Gerry and Roley, in a side chamber at the Court House Inn, while the jury assembled and the prisoners were brought down from the castle. It turned out that Sir Lewis had been at Crécy, as a young squire, though Ralph did not recall him. He treated Ralph with wary courtesy.

Ralph tried subtly to probe the judge, and find out how tough he was. “The Statute of Laborers is difficult to enforce, we find,” he said. “When peasants see a way to make money, they lose all respect for the law.”

“For every runaway who is working for an illegal wage, there is an employer who is paying it,” the judge said.

“Exactly! The nuns of Kingsbridge Priory have never obeyed the statute.”

“Difficult to prosecute nuns.”

“I don’t see why.”

Sir Lewis changed the subject. “You have a special interest in this morning’s proceedings?” he asked. He had probably been told that it was unusual for Ralph to exercise his right to sit beside the judge.

“The murderer is a serf of mine,” Ralph admitted. “But the main reason I’m here is to give these boys a look at how justice works. One of them is likely to be the earl when I give up the ghost. They can watch the hangings tomorrow, too. The sooner they get used to seeing men die, the better.”

Lewis nodded agreement. “The sons of the nobility cannot afford to be softhearted.”

They heard the clerk of the court bang his gavel, and the hubbub from the next room died down. Ralph’s anxiety was not allayed: Sir Lewis’s conversation had not told him much. Perhaps that in itself was revealing: it might mean he was not easily influenced.

The judge opened the door and stood aside for the earl to go first.

At the near end of the room, two large wooden chairs were set on a dais. Next to them was a low bench. A murmur of interest arose from the crowd as Gerry and Roley sat on the bench. The people were always fascinated to see the children who would grow into their overlords. But more than that, Ralph thought, there was a look of innocence about the two prepubescent boys that was strikingly out of place in a court whose business was violence, theft, and dishonesty. They looked like lambs in a pigpen.

Ralph sat in one of the two chairs and thought of the day, twenty-two years ago, when he had stood in this very courtroom as a criminal accused of rape—a ludicrous charge to bring against a lord when the so-called victim was one of his own serfs. Philippa had been behind that malicious prosecution. Well, he had made her suffer for it.

At that trial, Ralph had fought his way out of the room as soon as the jury pronounced him guilty, and then had been pardoned when he joined the king’s army and went to France. Sam was not going to escape: he had no weapon, and his ankles were chained. And the French wars seemed to have petered out, so there were no more free pardons.

Ralph studied Sam as the indictment was read. He had Wulfric’s build, not Gwenda’s: he was a tall lad, broad across the shoulders. He might have made a useful man-at-arms if he had been more nobly born. He did not really look like Wulfric, though something about the cast of his features rang a bell. Like so many accused men, he wore an expression of superficial defiance overlaying fear. That’s just how I felt, Ralph thought.

Nathan Reeve was the first witness. He was the father of the dead man but, more importantly, he testified that Sam was a serf of Earl Ralph’s and had not been given leave to go to Oldchurch. He said he had sent his son Jonno to follow Gwenda in the hope of tracking down the runaway. He was not likeable, but his grief was clearly genuine. Ralph was pleased: it was damning testimony.

Sam’s mother was standing next to him, the top of her head level with her son’s shoulder. Gwenda was not beautiful: her dark eyes were set close to a beaky nose, and her forehead and chin both receded sharply, giving her the look of a determined rodent. Yet there was something strongly sexual about her, even in middle age. It was more than twenty years since Ralph had lain with her, but he remembered her as if it were yesterday. They had done it in a room at the Bell in Kingsbridge, and he had made her kneel up on the bed. He could picture it now, and the memory of her compact body excited him. She had a lot of dark hair, he recollected.

Suddenly she met his eye. She held his gaze and seemed to sense what he was thinking. On that bed she had been indifferent and motionless, to begin with, accepting his thrusts passively because he had coerced her; but, at the end, something strange had come over her, and almost against her own will she had moved in rhythm with him. She must have remembered the same thing, for an expression of shame came over her plain face, and she looked quickly away.

Next to her was another young man, presumably the second son. This one was more like her, small and wiry, with a crafty look about him. He met Ralph’s gaze with a stare of intense concentration, as if he was curious what went on in the mind of an earl, and thought he might find the answer in Ralph’s face.

But Ralph was most interested in the father. He had hated Wulfric since their fight at the Fleece Fair of 1337. He touched his broken nose reflexively. Several other men had wounded him in later years, but none had hurt his pride so badly. However, Ralph’s revenge on Wulfric had been terrible. I deprived him of his birthright for a decade, Ralph thought. I lay with his wife. I gave him that scar across his cheek when he tried to stop me escaping from this very courtroom. I dragged him home when he tried to run away. And now I’m going to hang his son.

Wulfric was heavier than he used to be, but he carried it well. He had a salt-and-pepper beard that did not grow over the long scar of the sword wound Ralph had given him. His face was lined and weatherbeaten. Where Gwenda looked angry, Wulfric was grief-stricken. As the peasants of Oldchurch testified that Sam had killed Jonno with an oak spade, Gwenda’s eyes flashed defiance, whereas Wulfric’s broad forehead creased in anguish.

The foreman of the jury asked whether Sam had been in fear for his life.

Ralph was displeased. The question implied an excuse for the killer.

A thin peasant with one eye responded. “He wasn’t in fear of the bailiff, no. I think he was ascared of his mother, though.” The crowd tittered.

The foreman asked whether Jonno had provoked the attack, another question that bothered Ralph by indicating sympathy for Sam.

“Provoked?” said the one-eyed man. “Only by hitting him across the face with a leg iron, if you call that provoking.” They laughed loudly.

Wulfric looked bewildered. How can people be amused, his expression said, when my son’s life is at stake?

Ralph was feeling more anxious. The foreman seemed unsound.

Sam was called to testify, and Ralph noticed that the young man resembled Wulfric more when he spoke. There was a tilt of the head and a gesture of the hand that immediately brought Wulfric to mind. Sam told how he had offered to meet Jonno the following morning, and Jonno had responded by trying to put an iron on his leg.

Ralph spoke to the judge in an undertone. “None of this makes any difference,” he said with suppressed indignation. “Whether he was in fear, whether he was provoked, whether he offered to meet the following day.”

Sir Lewis said nothing.

Ralph said: “The bare fact is that he’s a runaway and he killed the man who came to fetch him.”

“He certainly did that,” said Sir Lewis guardedly, giving Ralph no satisfaction.

Ralph looked at the spectators while the jury questioned Sam. Merthin was in the crowd, with his wife. Before becoming a nun Caris had enjoyed dressing fashionably, and after renouncing her vows she had reverted to type. Today she wore a gown made of two contrasting fabrics, one blue and the other green, with a fur-trimmed cloak of Kingsbridge Scarlet and a little round hat. Ralph remembered that Caris had been a childhood friend of Gwenda’s, in fact she had been there the day they all saw Thomas Langley kill two men-at-arms in the woods. Merthin and Caris would be hoping, for Gwenda’s sake, that Sam would be treated mercifully. Not if I have anything to do with it, Ralph thought.

Caris’s successor as prioress, Mother Joan, was in court, presumably because the nunnery owned Outhenby Valley and was therefore the illegal employer of Sam. Joan ought to be in the dock with the accused, Ralph thought; but when he caught her eye she gave him an accusing glance, as if she thought the murder was his fault more than hers.

The prior of Kingsbridge had not shown up. Sam was Prior Philemon’s nephew, but Philemon would not want to draw attention to the fact that he was the uncle of a murderer. Philemon had once had a protective affection for his younger sister, Ralph recalled; but perhaps that had faded with the years.

Sam’s grandfather, the disreputable Joby, was present, a white-haired old man now, bent and toothless. Why was he here? He had been at odds with Gwenda for years, and was not likely to have much affection for his grandson. He had probably come to steal coins from people’s purses while they were absorbed in the trial.

Sam stood down and Sir Lewis spoke briefly. His summing-up pleased Ralph. “Was Sam Wigleigh a runaway?” he asked. “Did Jonno Reeve have the right to arrest him? And did Sam kill Jonno with his spade? If the answer to all three questions is yes, then Sam is guilty of murder.”

Ralph was surprised and relieved. There was no nonsense about whether Sam was provoked. The judge was sound after all.

“What is your verdict?” the judge asked.

Ralph looked at Wulfric. The man was stricken. This is what happens to those who defy me, Ralph thought, and he wished he could say it out loud.

Wulfric caught his eye. Ralph held his gaze, trying to read Wulfric’s mind. What emotion was there? Ralph saw that it was fear. Wulfric had never shown fear to Ralph before, but now he crumbled. His son was going to die, and that had weakened him fatally. A profound satisfaction filled Ralph’s being as he stared into Wulfric’s frightened eyes. I have crushed you at last, he thought, after twenty-four years. Finally, you’re scared.

The jury conferred. The foreman seemed to be arguing with the others. Ralph watched them impatiently. Surely they could not be in doubt, after what the judge had said? But there was no certainty with juries. It can’t all go wrong at this stage, Ralph thought, can it?

They seemed to come to a resolution, though he could not guess who had prevailed. The foreman stood up.

“We find Sam Wigleigh guilty of murder,” he said.

Ralph kept his eyes fixed on his old enemy. Wulfric looked as if he had been stabbed. His face went pale and he closed his eyes as if in pain. Ralph tried not to smile in triumph.

Sir Lewis turned to Ralph, and Ralph tore his gaze away from Wulfric. “What are your thoughts about the sentence?” said the judge.

“There’s only one choice, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sir Lewis nodded. “The jury has made no recommendation for mercy.”

“They don’t want a runaway to get away with murdering his bailiff.”

“The ultimate penalty, then?”

“Of course!”

The judge turned back to the court. Ralph locked his gaze on Wulfric again. Everyone else looked at Sir Lewis. The judge said: “Sam Wigleigh, you have murdered the son of your bailiff, and you are sentenced to death. You shall be hanged in Shiring market square tomorrow at dawn, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Wulfric staggered. The younger son grabbed his father’s arm and held him upright; otherwise he might have fallen to the floor. Let him drop, Ralph wanted to say; he’s finished.

Ralph looked at Gwenda. She was holding Sam’s hand, but she was looking at Ralph. Her expression surprised him. He expected grief, tears, screams, hysterics. But she stared back at him steadily. There was hatred in her eyes, and something else: defiance. Unlike her husband, she did not look crushed. She did not believe the case was over.

She looked, Ralph thought with dismay, as if she had something up her sleeve.

84

Caris was in tears as Sam was taken away, but Merthin could not pretend to be grief-stricken. It was a tragedy for Gwenda, and he felt desperately sorry for Wulfric. However, it was no bad thing, for the rest of the world, that Sam should be hanged. Jonno Reeve had been carrying out the law. It might well be a bad law, an unjust law, an oppressive law—but that did not give Sam the right to kill Jonno. After all, Nate Reeve was also bereaved. The fact that nobody liked Nate made no difference.

A thief was brought up before the bench, and Merthin and Caris left the courtroom and went into the parlor of the tavern. Merthin got some wine and poured a cup for Caris. A moment later, Gwenda came up to where they sat. “It’s noon,” she said. “We have eighteen hours to save Sam.”

Merthin looked up at her in surprise. “What do you propose?” he said.

“We must get Ralph to ask the king to pardon him.”

That seemed highly unlikely. “How would you persuade him to do that?”

“I can’t, obviously,” Gwenda said. “But you can.”

Merthin felt trapped. He did not believe Sam deserved a pardon. On the other hand, it was hard to refuse a pleading mother. He said: “I intervened with my brother on your behalf once before—do you remember?”

“Of course,” Gwenda said. “Over Wulfric not inheriting his father’s land.”

“He turned me down flat.”

“I know,” she said. “But you have to try.”

“I’m not sure I’m the best person.”

“Who else would he even listen to?”

That was right. Merthin had little chance of success, but no one else had any.

Caris could see that he was reluctant, and she threw her weight in on Gwenda’s side. “Please, Merthin,” she said. “Think how you would feel if it was Lolla.”

He was about to say that girls don’t get into fights, then he realized that in Lolla’s case it was all too likely. He sighed. “I think this is a doomed enterprise,” he said. He looked at Caris. “But, for your sake, I’ll try.”

Gwenda said: “Why don’t you go now?”

“Because Ralph is still in court.”

“It’s almost dinnertime. They’ll be finished soon. You could wait in the private chamber.”

He had to admire her resolve. “All right,” he said.

He left the parlor and walked around to the back of the tavern. A guard was standing outside the judge’s private room. “I’m the earl’s brother,” Merthin said to the sentry. “Alderman Merthin of Kingsbridge.”

“Yes, Alderman, I know you,” the guard said. “I’m sure it will be all right for you to wait inside.”

Merthin went into the little room and sat down. He felt uncomfortable asking his brother for a favor. The two of them had not been close for decades. Ralph had long ago turned into something Merthin did not recognize. Merthin did not know the man who could rape Annet and murder Tilly. It seemed impossible that such a one could have grown from the boy Merthin had called his brother. Since their parents had died, they had not met except on formal occasions, and even then they spoke little. It was presumptuous of him to use their relationship as justification for asking for a privilege. He would not have done it for Gwenda. But for Caris, he had to.

He did not wait long. After a few minutes the judge and the earl came in. Merthin noticed that his brother’s limp—the result of a wound suffered in the French wars—was getting worse as he aged.

Sir Lewis recognized Merthin and shook hands. Ralph did the same and said ironically: “A visit from my brother is a rare pleasure.”

It was not an unfair jibe, and Merthin acknowledged it with a nod. “On the other hand,” he said, “I suppose that if anyone is entitled to plead with you for mercy, I am.”

“What need do you have of mercy? Did you kill someone?”

“Not yet.”

Sir Lewis chuckled.

Ralph said: “What, then?”

“You and I have known Gwenda since we were all children together.”

Ralph nodded. “I shot her dog with that bow you made.”

Merthin had forgotten that incident. It was an early sign of how Ralph was going to turn out, he realized with hindsight. “Perhaps you owe her mercy on that account.”

“I think Nate Reeve’s son is worth more than a damn dog, don’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Just that you might balance cruelty then with kindness now.”

“Balance?” Ralph said, with anger rising in his voice, and Merthin knew then that his cause was lost. “Balance?” He tapped his broken nose. “What should I balance against this?” He pointed a finger aggressively at Merthin. “I’ll tell you why I won’t give Sam a pardon. Because I looked at Wulfric’s face in the courtroom today, as his son was declared guilty of murder, and do you know what I saw there? Fear. That insolent peasant is afraid of me, at last. He has been tamed.”

“He means so much to you?”

“I’d hang six men to see that look.”

Merthin was ready to give up, then he thought of Gwenda’s grief, and he tried once more. “If you’ve conquered him, your work is done, isn’t it?” he argued. “So let the boy go. Ask the king for a pardon.”

“No. I want to keep Wulfric the way he is.”

Merthin wished he had not come. Putting pressure on Ralph only brought out the worst in him. Merthin was appalled by his vengefulness and malice. He never wanted to speak to his brother again. The feeling was familiar: he had been through this with Ralph before. Somehow it always came as a shock to be reminded of what he was really like.

Merthin turned away. “Well, I had to try,” he said. “Good-bye.”

Ralph became cheery. “Come up to the castle for dinner,” he said. “The sheriff lays a good table. Bring Caris. We’ll have a real talk. Philippa’s with me—you like her, don’t you?”

Merthin had no intention of going. “Let me speak to Caris,” he said. Caris would rather have dinner with Lucifer, he knew.

“I may see you later, then.”

Merthin made his escape.

He returned to the parlor. Caris and Gwenda looked expectantly at him as he crossed the room. He shook his head. “I did my best,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

 

Gwenda had expected this. She was disappointed but not surprised. She had felt she had to try through Merthin. The other remedy she had at her disposal was so much more drastic.

She thanked Merthin perfunctorily and left the inn, heading for the castle on the hill. Wulfric and Davey had gone to a cheap tavern in the suburbs where they could get a filling dinner for a farthing. Wulfric was no good at this sort of thing anyway. His strength and honesty were useless in negotiations with Ralph and his kind.

Besides, Wulfric could not be allowed even to know about how she hoped to persuade Ralph.

As she was walking up the hill she heard horses behind her. She stopped and turned. It was Ralph and his entourage with the judge. She stood still and looked hard at Ralph, making sure he caught her eye as he passed. He would guess she was coming to see him.

A few minutes later she entered the courtyard of the castle, but access to the sheriff’s house was barred. She made her way to the porch of the main building and spoke to the marshal of the hall. “My name is Gwenda from Wigleigh,” she said. “Please tell Earl Ralph I need to see him in private.”

“Yes, yes,” said the marshal. “Look around you: all these people need to see the earl, the judge, or the sheriff.”

There were twenty or thirty people standing around the courtyard, some clutching rolls of parchment.

Gwenda was prepared to take a terrible risk to save her son from hanging—but she would not get the opportunity unless she succeeded in speaking to Ralph before dawn.

“How much?” she said to the marshal.

He looked at her with a little less disrespect. “I can’t promise he’ll see you.”

“You can give him my name.”

“Two shillings. Twenty-four silver pennies.”

It was a lot of money, but Gwenda had all their savings in her purse. However, she was not yet ready to hand over the money. “What is my name?” she said.

“I don’t know.”

“I just told you. How can you give Earl Ralph my name if you can’t remember it?”

He shrugged. “Tell me again.”

“Gwenda from Wigleigh.”

“All right, I’ll mention it to him.”

Gwenda slipped her hand into her purse, brought out a handful of little silver coins, and counted twenty-four. It was four weeks’ wages for a laborer. She thought of the backbreaking work she had done to earn the money. Now this idle, supercilious doorkeeper was going to get it for doing next to nothing.

The marshal held out his hand.

She said: “What’s my name?”

“Gwenda.”

“Gwenda from where?”

“Wigleigh.” He added: “That’s where this morning’s murderer came from, isn’t it?”

She gave him the money. “The earl will want to see me,” she said as forcefully as she could.

The marshal pocketed the coins.

Gwenda retreated into the courtyard, not knowing whether she had wasted her money.

A moment later she saw a familiar figure with a small head on wide shoulders: Alan Fernhill. That was a piece of luck. He was crossing from the stables to the hall. The other petitioners did not recognize him. Gwenda stood in his way. “Hello, Alan,” she said.

“It’s Sir Alan now.”

“Congratulations. Will you tell Ralph that I want to see him?”

“I don’t need to ask you what it’s about.”

“Say I want to meet him in private.”

Alan raised an eyebrow. “No offense, but you were a girl last time. You’re twenty years older today.”

“Do you think perhaps we should let him decide?”

“Of course.” He grinned insultingly. “I know he remembers that afternoon at the Bell.”

Alan had been there, of course. He had watched Gwenda take off her dress, and stared at her naked body. He had seen her walk to the bed and kneel on the mattress, facing away. He had laughed coarsely when Ralph said she was better looking from behind.

She hid her revulsion and shame. “I was hoping he would remember,” she said as neutrally as she could.

The other petitioners realized Alan must be someone important. They began to crowd around, speaking to him, begging and pleading. He pushed them aside and went into the hall.

Gwenda settled down to wait.

After an hour it was clear Ralph was not going to see her before dinner. She found a patch of ground that was not too muddy and sat with her back to a stone wall, but she never took her eyes off the entrance to the hall.

A second hour passed, and a third. Noblemen’s dinners often went on all afternoon. Gwenda wondered how they could keep on eating and drinking for such a long time. Why did they not burst?

She had eaten nothing all day, but she was too tense to feel hungry.

It was gray April weather, and the sky began to darken early. Gwenda shivered on the cold ground, but she stayed where she was. This was her only chance.

Servants came out and lit torches around the courtyard. Lights appeared behind the shutters in some of the windows. Night fell, and Gwenda realized there were about twelve hours left until dawn. She thought of Sam, sitting on the floor in one of the underground chambers beneath the castle, and wondered if he was cold. She fought back tears.

It’s not over yet, she told herself; but her courage was weakening.

A tall figure blocked the light from the nearest torch. She looked up to see Alan. Her heart leaped.

“Come with me,” he said.

She jumped to her feet and moved toward the hall door.

“Not that way.”

She looked inquiringly at him.

“You said privately, didn’t you?” Alan said. “He’s not going to see you in the chamber he shares with the countess. Come this way.”

She followed him through a small door near the stables. He led her through several rooms and up a staircase. He opened a door to a narrow bedchamber. She stepped inside. Alan did not follow her in, but closed the door from the outside.

It was a low room almost completely filled by a bedstead. Ralph stood by the window in his undershirt. His boots and outer clothing were piled on the floor. His face was flushed with drink, but his speech was clear and steady. “Take off your dress,” he said with a smile of anticipation.

Gwenda said: “No.”

He looked startled.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” she said.

“Why did you tell Alan you wanted to see me in private?”

“So that you would think I was willing to have sex with you.”

“But if not…why are you here?”

“To beg you to ask the king for a pardon.”

“But you’re not offering yourself to me?”

“Why would I? I did that once before, and you broke your word. You reneged on the deal. I gave you my body, but you didn’t give my husband his land.” She allowed the contempt she felt to be heard in her tone of voice. “You would do the same again. Your honor is nothing. You remind me of my father.”

Ralph colored. It was an insult to tell an earl that he could not be trusted, and even more offensive to compare him with a landless laborer who trapped squirrels in the woods. Angrily he said: “Do you imagine this is the way to persuade me?”

“No. But you’re going to get that pardon.”

“Why?”

“Because Sam is your son.”

Ralph stared at her for a moment. “Hah,” he said contemptuously. “As if I would believe that.”

“He is your son,” she repeated.

“You can’t prove that.”

“No, I can’t,” she said. “But you know that I lay with you at the Bell in Kingsbridge nine months before Sam was born. True, I lay with Wulfric, too. So which of you is his father? Look at the boy! He has some of Wulfric’s mannerisms, yes—he has learned those, in twenty-two years. But look at his features.”

She saw a thoughtful expression appear on Ralph’s face, and knew that something she had said had hit the mark.

“Most of all, think about his character,” she said, pressing home. “You heard the evidence at the trial. Sam didn’t just fight Jonno off, as Wulfric would have done. He didn’t knock him down then help him up again, which would have been Wulfric’s way. Wulfric is strong, and quick to anger, but he’s tenderhearted. Sam is not. Sam hit Jonno with a spade, a blow that would have knocked any man senseless; then, before Jonno fell, Sam hit him again, even harder, although he was already helpless; and then, before Jonno’s limp form reached the ground, Sam hit him a third time. If the Oldchurch peasants hadn’t jumped on Sam and restrained him, he would have continued to lash out with that bloody spade until Jonno’s head was smashed to a pulp. He wanted to kill!” She realized she was crying, and wiped the tears away with her sleeve.

Ralph was staring at her with a horrified look.

“Where does the killer instinct come from, Ralph?” she said. “Look in your own black heart. Sam is your son. And, God forgive me, he’s mine.”

 

When Gwenda had gone, Ralph sat on the bed in the little chamber, staring at the flame of the candle. Was it possible? Gwenda would lie, if it suited her, of course; there was no question of trusting her. But Sam could be Ralph’s son as easily as Wulfric’s. They had both lain with Gwenda at the crucial time. The truth might never be known for sure.

Even the possibility that Sam might be his child was enough to fill Ralph’s heart with dread. Was he about to hang his own son? The dreadful punishment he had devised for Wulfric might be inflicted on himself.

It was already night. The hanging would take place at dawn. Ralph did not have long to decide.

He picked up the candle and left the little room. He had intended to satisfy a carnal desire there. Instead he had been given the shock of his life.

He went outside and crossed the courtyard to the cell block. On the ground floor of the building were offices for the sheriff’s deputies. He went inside and spoke to the man on guard duty. “I want to see the murderer, Sam Wigleigh.”

“Very good, my lord,” the jailer said. “I’ll show you the way.” He led Ralph into the next room, carrying a lamp.

There was a grating set in the floor, and a bad smell. Ralph looked down through the grating. The cell was nine or ten feet deep with stone walls and a dirt floor. There was no furniture: Sam sat on the floor with his back against the wall. Beside him was a wooden jug, presumably containing water. A small hole in the floor appeared to be the toilet. Sam glanced up, then looked away indifferently.

“Open up,” said Ralph.

The jailer unlocked the grating with a key. It swung up on a hinge.

“I want to go down.”

The jailer was surprised, but did not dare argue with an earl. He picked up a ladder that was leaning against the wall and slid it into the cell. “Take care, please, my lord,” he said nervously. “Remember, the villain has nothing to lose.”

Ralph climbed down, carrying his candle. The smell was disgusting, but he hardly cared. He reached the foot of the ladder and turned.

Sam looked up at him resentfully and said: “What do you want?”

Ralph stared at him. He crouched down and held the candle close to Sam’s face, studying his features, trying to compare them with the face he saw when he looked into a mirror.

“What is it?” Sam said, spooked by Ralph’s intense stare.

Ralph did not answer. Was this his own child? It could be, he thought. It could easily be. Sam was a good-looking boy, and Ralph had been called handsome in his youth, before his nose got broken. In court earlier, Ralph had thought that something about Sam’s face rang a bell, and now he concentrated, searching his memory, trying to think who Sam reminded him of. That straight nose, the dark-eyed gaze, the head of thick hair that girls would envy…

Then he got it.

Sam looked like Ralph’s mother, the late Lady Maud.

“Dear God,” he said, and it came out as a whisper.

“What?” said Sam, his voice betraying fear. “What is this?”

Ralph had to say something. “Your mother…,” he began, then he trailed off. His throat was constricted with emotion, making it difficult for him to get words out. He tried again. “Your mother has pleaded for you…most eloquently.”

Sam looked wary and said nothing. He thought Ralph had come here to mock him.

“Tell me,” Ralph said. “When you hit Jonno with that spade…did you mean to kill him? You can be honest, you have nothing more to fear.”

“Of course I meant to kill him,” Sam said. “He was trying to take me in.”

Ralph nodded. “I would have felt the same,” he said. He paused, staring at Sam, then said it again. “I would have felt the same.”

He stood up, turned to the ladder, hesitated, then turned back and put the candle on the ground next to Sam. Then he climbed up.

The jailer replaced the grating and locked it.

Ralph said to him: “There will be no hanging. The prisoner will be pardoned. I will speak to the sheriff immediately.”

As he left the room, the jailer sneezed.

85

When Merthin and Caris returned from Shiring to Kingsbridge, they found that Lolla had gone missing.

Their long-standing house servants, Arn and Em, were waiting at the garden gate, and looked as if they had been stationed there all day. Em began to speak but burst into incoherent sobs, and Arn had to break the news. “We can’t find Lolla,” he said, distraught. “We don’t know where she is.”

At first Merthin misunderstood. “She’ll be here by suppertime,” he said. “Don’t upset yourself, Em.”

“But she didn’t come home last night, nor the night before,” Arn said.

Merthin realized then what they meant. She had run away. A blast of fear like a winter wind chilled his skin and gripped his heart. She was only sixteen. For a moment he could not think rationally. He just pictured her, halfway between child and adult, with the intense dark-brown eyes and sensual mouth of her mother, and an expression of blithe false confidence.

When rationality returned to him, he asked himself what had gone wrong. He had been leaving Lolla in the care of Arn and Em for a few days at a time ever since she was five years old, and she had never come to any harm. Had something changed?

He realized that he had hardly spoken to her since Easter Sunday, two weeks ago, when he had taken her by the arm and pulled her away from her disreputable friends outside the White Horse. She had sulked upstairs while the family ate dinner, and had not emerged even when Sam was arrested. She had still been in a snit a few days later, when Merthin and Caris had kissed her good-bye and set out for Shiring.

Guilt stabbed him. He had treated her harshly, and driven her away. Was Silvia’s ghost watching, and despising him for his failure to care for their daughter?

The thought of Lolla’s disreputable friends came back to him. “That fellow Jake Riley is behind this,” he said. “Have you spoken to him, Arn?”

“No, master.”

“I’d better do that right away. Do you know where he lives?”

“He lodges next to the fishmonger’s behind St. Paul’s Church.”

Caris said to Merthin: “I’ll go with you.”

They crossed the bridge back into the city and headed west. The parish of St. Paul took in the industrial premises along the waterfront: abattoirs, leather tanners, sawmills, manufactories, and the dyers that had sprung up like September mushrooms since the invention of Kingsbridge Scarlet. Merthin headed for the squat tower of St. Paul’s Church, visible over the low roofs of the houses. He found the fish shop by smell, and knocked at a large, run-down house next door.

It was opened by Sal Sawyers, poor widow of a jobbing carpenter who had died in the plague. “Jake comes and goes, Alderman,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for a week. He can do as he pleases, so long as he pays the rent.”

Caris said: “When he left, was Lolla with him?”

Sal warily looked sideways at Merthin. “I don’t like to criticize,” she said.

Merthin said: “Please just tell me what you know. I won’t be offended.”

“She’s usually with him. She does anything Jake wants, I’ll say no more than that. If you look for him, you’ll find her.”

“Do you know where he might have gone?”

“He never says.”

“Can you think of anyone who might know?”

“He doesn’t bring his friends here, except for her. But I believe his pals are usually to be found at the White Horse.”

Merthin nodded. “We’ll try there. Thank you, Sal.”

“She’ll be all right,” Sal said. “She’s just going through a wild phase.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Merthin and Caris retraced their steps until they came to the White Horse, on the riverside near the bridge. Merthin recalled the orgy he had witnessed here at the height of the plague, when the dying Davey Whitehorse had given away all his ale. The place had stood empty for several years afterward, but now it was once again a busy tavern. Merthin often wondered why it was popular. The rooms were cramped and dirty, and there were frequent fights. About once a year someone was killed there.

They went into a smoky parlor. It was mid-afternoon, but there were a dozen or so desultory drinkers sitting on benches. A small group was clustered around a backgammon board, and several small piles of silver pennies on the table indicated that money was being wagered on the outcome. A red-cheeked prostitute called Joy looked up hopefully at the newcomers, then saw who they were and relapsed into bored indolence. In a corner, a man was showing a woman an expensive-looking coat, apparently offering it for sale; but when he saw Merthin he folded the garment quickly and put it out of sight, and Merthin guessed it was stolen property.

The landlord, Evan, was eating a late dinner of fried bacon. He stood up, wiping his hands on his tunic, and said nervously: “Good day to you, Alderman—an honor to have you in the house. May I draw you a pot of ale?”

“I’m looking for my daughter, Lolla,” Merthin said briskly.

“I haven’t seen her for a week,” said Evan.

Sal had said exactly the same about Jake, Merthin recalled. He said to Evan: “She may be with Jake Riley.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that they’re friendly,” Evan said tactfully. “He’s been gone about the same length of time.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“He’s a close-lipped type, is Jake,” said Evan. “If you asked him how far it was to Shiring, he’d shake his head and frown and say it was none of his business to know such things.”

The whore, Joy, had been listening to the conversation, and now she chipped in. “He’s openhanded, though,” she said. “Fair’s fair.”

Merthin gave her a hard look. “And where does his money come from?”

“Horses,” she said. “He goes around the villages buying foals from peasants, and sells them in the towns.”

He probably stole horses from unwary travelers, too, Merthin thought sourly. “Is that what he’s doing now—buying horses?”

Evan said: “Very likely. The big fair season is coming up. He could be acquiring his stock-in-trade.”

“And perhaps Lolla went with him.”

“Not wishing to give offense, Alderman, but it’s quite likely.”

“It’s not you who has given offense,” Merthin said. He nodded a curt farewell and left the tavern, with Caris following.

“That’s what she’s done,” he said angrily. “She’s gone off with Jake. She probably thinks it’s a great adventure.”

“I’m afraid I think you’re right,” Caris said. “I hope she doesn’t become pregnant.”

“I wish that was the worst I feared.”

They headed automatically for home. Crossing the bridge, Merthin stopped at the highest point and looked out over the suburban rooftops to the forest beyond. His little girl was somewhere out there with a shady horse dealer. She was in danger, and there was nothing he could do to protect her.

 

When Merthin went to the cathedral the next morning, to check on the new tower, he found that all work had stopped. “Prior’s orders,” said Brother Thomas when Merthin questioned him. Thomas was almost sixty years old, and showing his age. His soldierly physique was bent, and he shuffled around the precincts unsteadily. “There’s been a collapse in the south aisle,” he added.

Merthin glanced at Bartelmy French, a gnarled old mason from Normandy, who was sitting outside the lodge sharpening a chisel. Bartelmy shook his head in silent negation.

“That collapse was twenty-four years ago, Brother Thomas,” Merthin said.

“Ah, yes, you’re right,” said Thomas. “My memory’s not as good as it used to be, you know.”

Merthin patted his shoulder. “We’re all getting older.”

Bartelmy said: “The prior is up the tower, if you want to see him.”

Merthin certainly did. He went into the north transept, stepped through a small archway, and climbed a narrow spiral stair within the wall. As he passed from the old crossing into the new tower, the color of the stones changed from the dark gray of storm clouds to the light pearl of the morning sky. It was a long climb: the tower was already more than three hundred feet high. However, he was used to it. Almost every day for eleven years he had climbed a stair that was higher each time. It occurred to him that Philemon, who was quite fat nowadays, must have had a compelling reason to drag his bulk up all these steps.

Near the top, Merthin passed through a chamber that housed the great wheel, a wooden winding mechanism twice as high as a man, used for hoisting stones, mortar, and timber up to where they were needed. When the spire was finished the wheel would be left here permanently, to be used for repair work by future generations of builders, until the trumpets sounded on the Day of Judgment.

He emerged on top of the tower. A stiff, cold breeze was blowing, though none had been noticeable at ground level. A leaded walkway ran around the inside of the tower’s summit. Scaffolding stood around an octagonal hole, ready for the masons who would build the spire. Dressed stones were piled nearby, and a heap of mortar was drying up wastefully on a wooden board.

There were no workmen here. Prior Philemon stood on the far side with Harold Mason. They were deep in conversation, but stopped guiltily when Merthin came into view. He had to shout into the wind to make himself heard. “Why have you stopped the building?”

Philemon had his answer ready. “There’s a problem with your design.”

Merthin looked at Harold. “You mean some people can’t understand it.”

“Experienced people say it can’t be built,” Philemon said defiantly.

“Experienced people?” Merthin repeated scornfully. “Who in Kingsbridge is experienced? Who has built a bridge? Who has worked with the great architects of Florence? Who has seen Rome, Avignon, Paris, Rouen? Certainly not Harold here. No offense, Harold, but you’ve never even been to London.”

Harold said: “I’m not the only one who thinks it’s impossible to build an octagonal tower with no formwork.”

Merthin was about to say something sarcastic, but stopped himself. Philemon must have more than this, he realized. The prior had deliberately chosen to fight this battle. Therefore he must have weapons more formidable than the mere opinion of Harold Mason. He had presumably won some support among members of the guild—but how? Other builders who were prepared to say that Merthin’s spire was impossible must have been offered some incentive. That probably meant construction work for them. “What is it?” he said to Philemon. “What are you hoping to build?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Philemon blustered.

“You’ve got an alternative project, and you’ve offered Harold and his friends a piece of it. What’s the building?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A bigger palace for yourself? A new chapter house? It can’t be a hospital, we’ve already got three. Come on, you might as well tell me. Unless you’re ashamed of it.”

Philemon was stung into a response. “The monks wish to build a Lady chapel.”

“Ah.” That made sense. The cult of the Virgin was increasingly popular. The church hierarchy approved because the wave of piety associated with Mary counterbalanced the skepticism and heresy that had afflicted congregations since the plague. Numerous cathedrals and churches were adding a special small chapel at the east end—the holiest part of the building—dedicated to the Mother of God. Merthin did not like the architecture: on most churches, a Lady chapel looked like an afterthought, which of course it was.

What was Philemon’s motive? He was always trying to ingratiate himself with someone—that was his modus operandi. A Lady chapel at Kingsbridge would undoubtedly please conservative senior clergy.

This was the second move Philemon had made in that direction. On Easter Sunday, from the pulpit of the cathedral, he had condemned dissection of corpses. He was mounting a campaign, Merthin realized. But what was its purpose?

Merthin decided to do nothing more until he had figured out what Philemon was up to. Without saying anything further, he left the roof and started down the series of staircases and ladders to the ground.

Merthin arrived home at the dinner hour, and Caris came in from the hospital a few minutes later. “Brother Thomas is getting worse,” he said to Caris. “Is there anything that can be done for him?”

She shook her head. “There’s no cure for senility.”

“He told me the south aisle had collapsed as if it had happened yesterday.”

“That’s typical. He remembers the distant past but doesn’t know what’s going on today. Poor Thomas. He’ll probably deteriorate quite fast. But at least he’s in a familiar place. Monasteries don’t change much over the decades. His daily routine is probably the same as it has always been. That will help.”

As they sat down to mutton stew with leeks and mint, Merthin explained the morning’s developments. The two of them had been battling Kingsbridge priors for decades: first Anthony, then Godwyn, and now Philemon. They had thought that the granting of the borough charter would put an end to the constant jockeying. It had certainly improved matters, but it seemed Philemon had not given up yet.

“I’m not really worried about the spire,” Merthin said. “Bishop Henri will overrule Philemon, and order the building restarted, just as soon as he hears. Henri wants to be bishop of the tallest cathedral in England.”

“Philemon must know that,” Caris said thoughtfully.

“Perhaps he simply wants to make the gesture toward a Lady chapel, and get the credit for trying, while blaming his failure on someone else.”

“Perhaps,” Caris said doubtfully.

In Merthin’s mind there was a more important question. “But what is he really after?”

“Everything Philemon does is driven by the need to make himself feel important,” Caris said confidently. “My guess is he’s after a promotion.”

“What job could he have in mind? The archbishop of Monmouth seems to be dying, but surely Philemon can’t hope for that position?”

“He must know something we don’t.”

Before they could say any more, Lolla walked in.

Merthin’s first reaction was a feeling of relief so powerful that it brought tears to his eyes. She was back, and she was safe. He looked her up and down. She had no apparent injuries, she walked with a spring in her step, and her face showed only the usual expression of moody discontent.

Caris spoke first. “You’re back!” she said. “I’m so glad!”

“Are you?” Lolla said. She often pretended to believe that Caris did not like her. Merthin was not fooled, but Caris could be thrown into doubt, for she was sensitive about not being Lolla’s mother.

“We’re both glad,” Merthin said. “You gave us a scare.”

“Why?” said Lolla. She hung her cloak on a hook and sat at the table. “I was perfectly all right.”

“But we didn’t know that, so we were terribly worried.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Lolla said. “I can take care of myself.”

Merthin suppressed an angry retort. “I’m not sure you can,” he said as mildly as possible.

Caris stepped in to try to lower the temperature. “Where did you go?” she asked. “You’ve been away for two weeks.”

“Different places.”

Merthin said tightly: “Can you give us one or two examples?”

“Mudeford Crossing. Casterham. Outhenby.”

“And what have you been doing?”

“Is this the catechism?” she said petulantly. “Do I have to answer all these questions?”

Caris put a restraining hand on Merthin’s arm and said to Lolla: “We just want to know that you haven’t been in danger.”

Merthin said: “I’d also like to know who you’ve been traveling with.”

“Nobody special.”

“Does that mean Jake Riley?”

She shrugged and looked embarrassed. “Yes,” she said, as if it were a trivial detail.

Merthin had been ready to forgive and embrace her, but she was making that difficult. Trying to keep his voice neutral, he said: “What sleeping arrangements did you and Jake have?”

“That’s my business!” she cried.

“No, it’s not!” he shouted back. “It’s mine, too, and your stepmother’s. If you’re pregnant, who will care for your baby? Are you confident that Jake is ready to settle down and be a husband and father? Have you talked to him about that?”

“Don’t speak to me!” she yelled. Then she burst into tears and stomped up the stairs.

Merthin said: “Sometimes I wish we lived in one room—then she wouldn’t be able to pull that trick.”

“You weren’t very gentle with her,” Caris said with mild disapproval.

“What am I supposed to do?” Merthin said. “She talks as if she’s done nothing wrong!”

“She knows the truth, though. That’s why she’s crying.”

“Oh, hell,” he said.

There was a knock, and a novice monk put his head around the door. “Pardon me for disturbing you, Alderman,” he said. “Sir Gregory Longfellow is at the priory, and would be grateful for a word with you, as soon as is convenient.”

“Damn,” said Merthin. “Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” the novice said, and left.

Merthin said to Caris: “Perhaps it’s just as well to give her time to cool off.”

“You, too,” Caris said.

“You’re not taking her side, are you?” he said with a touch of irritation.

She smiled and touched his arm. “I’m on your side, always,” she said. “But I remember what it was like to be a sixteen-year-old girl. She’s as worried as you are about her relationship with Jake. But she’s not admitting it, even to herself, because that would wound her pride. So she resents you for speaking the truth. She has constructed a fragile defense around her self-esteem, and you just tear it down.”

“What should I do?”

“Help her build a better fence.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I’d better go and see Sir Gregory.” Merthin stood up.

Caris put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips. “You’re a good man doing your best, and I love you with all my heart,” she said.

That took the edge off his frustration, and he felt himself calm down as he strode across the bridge and up the main street to the priory. He did not like Gregory. The man was sly and unprincipled, willing to do anything for his master the king, just as Philemon had been when he served Godwyn as prior. Merthin wondered uneasily what Gregory wanted to discuss with him. It was probably taxes—always the king’s worry.

Merthin went first to the prior’s palace where Philemon, looking pleased with himself, told him that Sir Gregory was to be found in the monks’ cloisters to the south of the cathedral. Merthin wondered what Gregory had done to win himself the privilege of holding audience there.

The lawyer was getting old. His hair was white, and his tall figure was stooped. Deep lines had appeared like brackets either side of that sneering nose, and one of the blue eyes was cloudy. But the other eye saw sharply enough, and he recognized Merthin instantly, though they had not met for ten years. “Alderman,” he said. “The archbishop of Monmouth is dead.”

“Rest his soul,” Merthin said automatically.

“Amen. The king asked me, as I was passing through his borough of Kingsbridge, to give you his greetings, and tell you this important news.”

“I’m grateful. The death is not unexpected. The archbishop has been ill.” The king certainly had not asked Gregory to meet with Merthin purely to give him interesting information, he thought suspiciously.

“You’re an intriguing man, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Gregory said expansively. “I first met your wife more than twenty years ago. Since then I’ve seen the two of you slowly but surely take control of this town. And you’ve got everything you set your hearts on: the bridge, the hospital, the borough charter, and each other. You’re determined, and you’re patient.”

It was condescending, but Merthin was surprised to detect a grain of respect in Gregory’s flattery. He told himself to remain mistrustful: men such as Gregory praised only for a purpose.

“I’m on my way to see the monks of Abergavenny, who must vote for a new archbishop.” Gregory leaned back in his chair. “When Christianity first came to England, hundreds of years ago, monks elected their own superiors.” Explaining was an old man’s habit, Merthin reflected: the young Gregory would not have bothered. “Nowadays, of course, bishops and archbishops are too important and powerful to be chosen by small groups of pious idealists living detached from the world. The king makes his choice, and His Holiness the Pope ratifies the royal decision.”

Even I know it’s not that simple, Merthin thought. There’s usually some kind of power struggle. But he said nothing.

Gregory continued: “However, the ritual of the monks’ election still goes on, and it is easier to control it than to abolish it. Hence my journey.”

“So you’re going to tell the monks whom to elect,” Merthin said.

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

“And what name will you give them?”

“Didn’t I say? It’s your bishop, Henri of Mons. Excellent man: loyal, trustworthy, never makes trouble.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You’re not pleased?” Gregory’s relaxed air evaporated, and he became keenly attentive.

Merthin realized that this was what Gregory had come for: to find out how the people of Kingsbridge—as represented by Merthin—would feel about what he was planning, and whether they would oppose him. He collected his thoughts. The prospect of a new bishop threatened the spire and the hospital. “Henri is the key to the balance of power in this town,” he said. “Ten years ago, a kind of armistice was agreed between the merchants, the monks, and the hospital. As a result, all three have prospered mightily.” Appealing to Gregory’s interest—and the king’s—he added: “That prosperity is of course what enables us to pay such high taxes.”

Gregory acknowledged this with a dip of his head.

“The departure of Henri obviously puts into question the stability of our relationships.”

“It depends on who replaces him, I should have thought.”

“Indeed,” said Merthin. Now we come to the crux, he thought. He said: “Have you got anyone in mind?”

“The obvious candidate is Prior Philemon.”

“No!” Merthin was aghast. “Philemon! Why?”

“He’s a sound conservative, which is important to the church hierarchy in these times of skepticism and heresy.”

“Of course. Now I understand why he preached a sermon against dissection. And why he wants to build a Lady chapel.” I should have foreseen this, Merthin thought

“And he has let it be known that he has no problem with taxation of the clergy—a constant source of friction between the king and some of his bishops.”

“Philemon has been planning this for some time.” Merthin was angry with himself for letting it sneak up on him.

“Since the archbishop fell ill, I imagine.”

“This is a catastrophe.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Philemon is quarrelsome and vengeful. If he becomes bishop he will create constant strife in Kingsbridge. We have to prevent him.” He looked Gregory in the eye. “Why did you come here to forewarn me?” As soon as he had asked the question, the answer came to him. “You don’t want Philemon either. You didn’t need me to tell you what a troublemaker he is—you knew already. But you can’t just veto him, because he has already won support among senior clergy.” Gregory just smiled enigmatically—which Merthin took to mean he was right. “So what do you want me to do?”

“If I were you,” Gregory said, “I’d start by finding another candidate to put up as the alternative to Philemon.”

So that was it. Merthin nodded pensively. “I’ll have to think about this,” he said.

“Please do.” Gregory stood up, and Merthin realized the meeting was over. “And let me know what you decide,” Gregory added.

Merthin left the priory and walked back to Leper Island, musing. Who could he propose as bishop of Kingsbridge? The townspeople had always got on well with Archdeacon Lloyd, but he was too old—they might succeed in getting him elected only to have to do the whole thing again in a year’s time.

He had not thought of anyone by the time he got home. He found Caris in the parlor and was about to ask her when she preempted him. Standing up, with a pale face and a frightened expression, she said: “Lolla’s gone again.”

86

The priests said Sunday was a day of rest, but it had never been so for Gwenda. Today, after church in the morning and then dinner, she was working with Wulfric in the garden behind their house. It was a good garden, half an acre with a hen house, a pear tree, and a barn. In the vegetable patch at the far end, Wulfric was digging furrows and Gwenda sowing peas.

The boys had gone to another village for a football game, their usual recreation on Sundays. Football was the peasant equivalent of the nobility’s tournaments: a mock battle in which the injuries were sometimes real. Gwenda just prayed her sons would come home intact.

Today Sam returned early. “The ball burst,” he said grumpily.

“Where’s Davey?” Gwenda asked.

“He wasn’t there.”