Read Epic Historial Collection Online
Authors: Ken Follett
Epic Historial Collection (220 page)
There was more to be done. When the last of the water was lifted out, the raft itself had to be dismantled and raised, plank by plank, up the ladders and out. Then dozens of fish were revealed, flapping in muddy pools on the bottom, and they had to be netted and shared out among the volunteers. But, when that was finished, Merthin stood on the ledge, weary but jubilant, and looked down a twenty-foot hole at the flat mud of the riverbed.
Tomorrow he would drop several tons of rubble into each hole, and drench the rubble with mortar, forming a massive, immovable foundation.
Then he would start building the bridge.
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Wulfric was in a depression.
He ate almost nothing and forgot to wash himself. He got up automatically at daybreak and lay down again when it got dark, but he did not work, and he did not make love to Gwenda in the night. When she asked him what was the matter, he would say: “I don't know, really.” He answered all questions with such uninformative replies, or just with grunts.
There was little to do in the fields anyway. This was the season when villagers sat by their fires, sewing leather shoes and carving oak shovels, eating salt pork and soft apples and cabbage preserved in vinegar. Gwenda was not worried about how they were going to feed themselves: Wulfric still had money from the sale of his crops. But she was desperately anxious about him.
Wulfric had always lived for his work. Some villagers grumbled constantly and were happy only on rest days, but he was not like that. The fields, the crops, the beasts, and the weather were what he cared about. On Sundays he had always been restless until he found some occupation that was not forbidden, and on holidays he had done all he could to circumvent the rules.
She knew she had to get him to return to his normal state of mind. Otherwise he might fall sick with some physical illness. And his money would not last forever. Sooner or later they must both work.
However, she did not give him her news until two full moons had passed, and she was sure.
Then, one morning in December, she said: “I have something to tell you.”
He grunted. He was sitting at the kitchen table, whittling a stick, and he did not look up from this idle occupation.
She reached across the table and held his wrists, stopping the whittling. “Wulfric, would you please look at me?”
He did so with a surly expression on his face, resentful at being ordered but too lethargic to defy her.
“It's important,” she said.
He looked at her in silence.
“I'm going to have a baby,” she said.
His expression did not change, but he dropped the knife and stick.
She looked back at him for a long moment. “Do you understand me?” she said.
He nodded. “A baby,” he said.
“Yes. We will have a child.”
“When?”
She smiled. It was the first question he had asked for two months. “Next summer, before the harvest.”
“The child must be cared for,” he said. “You, too.”
“Yes.”
“I must work.” He looked depressed again.
She held her breath. What was coming?
He sighed, then set his jaw. “I'll go and see Perkin,” he said. “He'll need help with his winter plowing.”
“And manuring,” she said happily. “I'll come with you. He offered to hire us both.”
“All right.” He was still staring at her. “A child,” he said, as if it were a marvel. “Boy or girl, I wonder.”
She got up and walked around the table to sit on the bench next to him. “Which would you prefer?”
“A little girl. It was all boys in my family.”
“I want a boy, a miniature version of you.”
“We might have twins.”
“One of each.”
He put his arm around her. “We should get Father Gaspard to marry us properly.”
Gwenda sighed contentedly and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps we should.”
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Merthin moved out of his parents' house just before Christmas. He had built a one-room house for himself on Leper Island, which was now his land. He said he needed to guard the growing stockpile of valuable building materials he was keeping on the islandâtimber, stones, lime, ropes, and iron tools.
At the same time, he stopped coming to Caris's house for meals.
On the last but one day of December, she went to see Mattie Wise.
“No need to tell me why you're here,” said Mattie. “Three months gone?”
Caris nodded and avoided her eye. She looked around the little kitchen, with its bottles and jars. Mattie was heating something in a small iron pot, and it gave off an acrid smell that made Caris want to sneeze.
“I don't want to have a baby,” Caris said.
“I wish I had a chicken for every time I've heard that said.”
“Am I wicked?”
Mattie shrugged. “I make potions, not judgments. People know the difference between right and wrongâand if they don't, that's what priests are for.”
Caris was disappointed. She had been hoping for sympathy. More coolly, she said: “Do you have a potion to get rid of this pregnancy?”
“I do⦔ Mattie looked uneasy.
“Is there a snag?”
“The way to get rid of a pregnancy is to poison yourself. Some girls drink a gallon of strong wine. I make up a dose with several toxic herbs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it always makes you feel dreadful.”
“Is it dangerous? Could I die?”
“Yes, though it's not as risky as childbirth.”
“I'll take it.”
Mattie took her pot off the fire and put it on a stone slab to cool. Turning to her scarred old workbench, she took a small pottery bowl from a cupboard and poured into it small quantities of different powders.
Caris said: “What's the matter? You say you don't make judgments, but you look disapproving.”
Mattie nodded. “You're right. I do make judgments, of course; everyone does.”
“And you're judging me.”
“I'm thinking that Merthin is a good man and you love him, but you don't seem able to find happiness with him. That makes me sad.”
“You think I should be like other women, and throw myself at the feet of some man.”
“It seems to make them happy. But I chose a different way of life. And so will you, I suppose.”
“Are you happy?”
“I wasn't born to be happy. But I help people, I make a living, and I'm free.” She poured her mixture into a cup, added some wine, and stirred, dissolving the powders. “Have you had breakfast?”
“Just some milk.”
She dripped a little honey into the cup. “Drink this, and don't bother to eat dinnerâyou'll only throw it up.”
Caris took the cup, hesitated, then swallowed the draft. “Thank you.” It had a vilely bitter taste that was only partly masked by the sweetness of the honey.
“It should be all over by tomorrow morningâone way or the other.”
Caris paid her and left. Walking home, she felt an odd mixture of elation and sadness. Her spirits were lifted by having made a decision, after all the weeks of worry; but she also felt a tug of loss, as if she were saying good-bye to someoneâMerthin, perhaps. She wondered if their separation would be permanent. She could contemplate the prospect calmly, because she still felt angry with him, but she knew she would miss him terribly. He would find another lover eventuallyâBessie Bell, perhapsâbut Caris felt sure she would not do the same. She would never love anyone as she had loved Merthin.
When she got home, the smell of roasting pork in the house nauseated her, and she went out again. She did not want to gossip with other women in the main street or talk business with the men at the guildhall, so she drifted into the priory grounds, her heavy wool cloak wrapped around her for warmth, and sat on a tombstone in the graveyard, looking at the north wall of the cathedral, marveling at the perfection of its carved moldings and the grace of its flying buttresses.
It was not long before she felt ill.
She puked on a grave, but her stomach was empty, and nothing came up except a sour fluid. Her head began to ache. She wanted to lie down, but she was reluctant to go home because of the kitchen smell. She decided to go to the priory hospital. The nuns would let her lie down for a minute. She left the graveyard, crossed the green in front of the cathedral, and entered the hospital. Suddenly she was terribly thirsty.
She was greeted by the kindly, podgy face of Old Julie. “Oh, Sister Juliana,” Caris said gratefully. “Would you bring me a cup of water?” The priory had water piped from upstream, cool and clear and safe to drink.
“Are you ill, child?” said Old Julie anxiously.
“A little nauseated. If I may, I'll just lie down for a moment.”
“Of course. I'll fetch Mother Cecilia.”
Caris lay down on one of the straw mattresses lined up neatly on the floor. For a few moments she felt better, then the headache became worse. Julie returned with a jug and a cup, and Mother Cecilia. Caris drank some water, threw up, and drank some more.
Cecilia asked her some questions then said: “You've eaten something corrupt. You need to be purged.”
Caris hurt so much she could make no response. Cecilia left and returned moments later with a bottle and a spoon. She gave Caris a spoonful of treacly medicine that tasted of cloves.
Caris lay back with her eyes closed and longed for the pain to go away. After a while, she was afflicted with stomach cramps, followed by uncontrollable diarrhea. She assumed vaguely that it had been brought on by the treacle. After an hour it went away. Julie undressed her, washed her, gave her a nun's robe instead of her own soiled dress, and put her on a clean mattress. She lay down and closed her eyes, exhausted.
Prior Godwyn came to see her and said she must be bled. Another monk came to do the job. He made her sit up and stretch out her arm with her elbow over a large bowl. Then he took a sharp knife and opened the vein in the crook of her arm. She hardly noticed the pain of the cut or the slow throb of the bleeding. After a while the monk put a dressing on the cut and told her to hold it there firmly. He took away the bowl of blood.
She was vaguely conscious of people coming to see her: her father, Petranilla, Merthin. Old Julie put a cup to her lips from time to time, and she always drank, for she was insatiably thirsty. At some point she noticed candles, and realized it must be night. Eventually she fell into a troubled sleep, and had terrifying dreams about blood. Every time she woke, Julie gave her water.
At last she woke to daylight. The pain had receded, leaving only a dull headache. The next thing she realized was that someone was washing her thighs. She raised herself on her elbow.
A novice nun with the face of an angel crouched beside the mattress. Caris's dress was up around her waist, and the nun was bathing her with a cloth dipped in warm water. After a moment, she remembered the girl's name. “Mair,” she said.
“Yes,” the novice answered with a smile.
As she squeezed out the cloth into a bowl, Caris was frightened to see that it was red. “Blood!” she said fearfully.
“Don't worry,” said Mair. “It's just your monthly cycle. Heavy, but normal.”
Caris saw that her dress and the mattress were soaked with blood.
She lay back, looking up at the ceiling. Tears came to her eyes, but she did not know whether she was crying out of relief or sadness.
She was no longer pregnant.
June 1338 to May 1339
30
T
he June of 1338 was dry and sunny, but the Fleece Fair was a catastropheâfor Kingsbridge in general, and for Edmund Wooler in particular. By the middle of the week, Caris knew that her father was bankrupt.
The townspeople had expected that it would be difficult, and had done all they could to prepare. They commissioned Merthin to build three large rafts that could be poled across the river, to supplement the ferry and Ian's boat. He could have built more, but there was no room to land them on the banks. The priory's grounds were opened a day early, and the ferry operated all night, by torchlight. They persuaded Godwyn to give permission for Kingsbridge shopkeepers to cross to the suburban side and sell to the queue, in the hope that Dick Brewer's ale and Betty Baxter's buns would mollify the people waiting.
It was not enough.
Fewer people than usual came to the fair, but the queues were worse than ever. The extra rafts were insufficient but, even so, the shore on both sides became so swampy that carts were constantly getting stuck in the mud and having to be towed out by teams of oxen. Worse, the rafts were difficult to steer, and on two occasions there were collisions that threw passengers into the water, though fortunately no one drowned.
Some traders anticipated these problems and stayed away. Others turned back when they saw the length of the queue. Of those willing to wait half a day to get into the city, some then did such paltry business that they left after a day or two. By Wednesday the ferry was taking more people away than it was bringing in.
That morning, Caris and Edmund made a tour of the bridge works with Guillaume of London. Guillaume was not as big a customer as Buonaventura Caroli, but he was the best they had this year, and they were making a fuss over him. He was a tall, beefy man in a cloak of expensive Italian cloth, bright red.
They borrowed Merthin's raft, which had a raised deck and a builtin hoist for transporting building materials. His young assistant, Jimmie, poled them out into the river.
The midstream piers that Merthin had constructed in such a rush last December were still surrounded by their cofferdams. He had explained to Edmund and Caris that he would leave the dams in place until the bridge was almost finished, to protect the stonework from accidental damage by his own workmen. When he demolished them, he would put in their place a pile of loose large stones, called riprap, which he said would prevent the current undermining the piers.
The massive stone columns had now grown, like trees, spreading their arches sideways toward smaller piers built in the shallower water near the banks. These in turn were growing arches, on one side toward the central piers and on the other toward abutments on the bank. A dozen or more masons were busy on the elaborate scaffolding that clung to the stonework like gulls' nests on a cliff.
They landed on Leper Island and found Merthin with Brother Thomas, supervising the masons building the abutment from which the bridge would spring across the northern branch of the river. The priory still owned and controlled the bridge, even though the land was leased to the parish guild and the construction was financed by loans from individual townspeople. Thomas was often on-site. Prior Godwyn took a proprietorial interest in the work, and especially in how the bridge would look, evidently feeling it was going to be some kind of monument to him.
Merthin looked up at the visitors with his golden brown eyes, and Caris's heart seemed to beat faster. She hardly saw him, these days, and when they spoke it was always about business; but she still felt strange in his presence. She had to make an effort to breathe normally, to meet his eye with feigned indifference, and to slow her speech to a moderate speed.
They had never patched up their quarrel. She had not told him about her abortion, so he did not know whether her pregnancy had terminated spontaneously or otherwise. Neither of them had ever referred to it. On two occasions since then he had come to talk to her, solemnly, and had begged her to make a fresh start with him. Both times, she had told him that she would never love another man, but she was not going to spend her life as someone's wife and someone else's mother. “How
will
you spend your life, then?” he had asked, and she had replied simply that she did not know.
Merthin was not as impish as he used to be. His hair and beard were neatly trimmedâhe was now a regular customer of Matthew Barber. He was dressed in a russet tunic, like the masons, but he wore a yellow cape trimmed with fur, a sign of his status as a master, and a cap with a feather in it, which made him look a bit taller.
Elfric, whose enmity continued, had objected to Merthin dressing like a master, on the grounds that he was not a member of any guild. Merthin's reply was that he was a master, and the solution to the problem was for him to be admitted to a guild. And there the matter remained, unresolved.
Merthin was still only twenty-one, and Guillaume looked at him and said: “He's young!”
Caris said defensively: “He's been the best builder in town since he was about seventeen.”
Merthin said a few more words to Thomas then came over. “The abutments of a bridge need to be heavy, with deep foundations,” he said, explaining the massive bulwark of stone he was constructing.
Guillaume said: “Why is that, young man?”
Merthin was used to being condescended to, and he took it lightly. With a small smile, he said: “Let me show you. Stand with your feet as far apart as you can, like this.” Merthin demonstrated, and Guillaumeâafter a moment's hesitationâimitated him. “Your feet feel as if they might slide farther apart, don't they?”
“Yes.”
“And the ends of a bridge tend to spread, like your feet. This puts a strain on the bridge, just as you're now feeling the tension in your groin.” Merthin stood upright and placed his own booted foot firmly up against Guillaume's soft leather shoe. “Now your foot can't move, and the strain on your groin has eased, hasn't it?”
“Yes.”
“The abutment has the same effect as my foot, in bracing your foot and relieving the strain.”
“Very interesting,” Guillaume said thoughtfully as he straightened up, and Caris knew he was telling himself not to underestimate Merthin.
“Let me show you around,” Merthin said.
The island had changed completely in the last six months. All signs of the old leper colony had gone. Much of the rocky land was now taken up with stores: neat piles of stone, barrels of lime, stacks of timber, and coils of rope. The place was still infested with rabbitsâbut they were now competing for space with the builders. There was a smithy, where a blacksmith was repairing old tools and forging new ones; several masons' lodges; and Merthin's new house, small but carefully built and beautifully proportioned. Carpenters, stone carvers, and mortar makers were laboring to keep the men on the scaffolding supplied with materials.
“There seem to be more people at work than usual,” Caris murmured in Merthin's ear.
He grinned. “I've put as many as possible in highly visible positions,” he replied quietly. “I want every visitor to notice how fast we're working to build the new bridge. I want them to believe the fair will be back to normal next year.”
At the west end of the island, away from the twin bridges, were storage yards and warehouses on plots of land Merthin had rented to Kingsbridge merchants. Although his rents were lower than what tenants would have to pay within the city walls, Merthin was already earning a good deal more than the token sum he paid every year for the lease.
He was also seeing a lot of Elizabeth Clerk. Caris thought she was a cold bitch, but she was the only other woman in town with the brains to challenge Merthin. She had a small box of books she had inherited from her father, the bishop, and Merthin spent evenings at her house, reading. Whether anything else went on, Caris did not know.
When the tour was over, Edmund took Guillaume back across the water, but Caris stayed behind to talk to Merthin. “Good customer?” he asked as they watched the raft being poled away.
“We've just sold him two sacks of cheap wool for less than we paid.” A sack was 364 pounds weight of wool, washed clean and dried. This year, the cheap wool was selling for thirty-six shillings a sack, the good quality for about double that.
“Why?”
“When prices are falling, it's better to have cash than wool.”
“But surely you anticipated a poor fair.”
“We didn't expect it to be this bad.”
“I'm surprised. In the past, your father has always had a supernatural ability to foresee trends.”
Caris hesitated. “It's the combination of slack demand and the lack of a bridge.” In truth, she was surprised, too. She had watched her father buy fleeces in the same quantity as usual, despite the poor prospects, and had wondered why he did not play safe by reducing his purchases.
“I suppose you'll try to sell your surplus at the Shiring Fair,” Merthin said.
“It's what Earl Roland wants everyone to do. The trouble is, we're not regulars there. The locals will cream off the best of the business. It's what happens in Kingsbridge: my father and two or three others strike large deals with the biggest buyers, leaving smaller operators and outsiders to scrabble for the leftovers. I'm sure the Shiring merchants do the same. We might sell a few sacks there, but there's no real chance we can get rid of it all.”
“What will you do?”
“That's why I've come to talk to you. We may have to stop work on the bridge.”
He stared at her. “No,” he said quietly.
“I'm very sorry, but my father doesn't have the money. He's put it all into fleeces that he can't sell.”
Merthin looked as if he had been slapped. After a moment he said: “We have to find another way!”
Her heart went out to him, but she could think of nothing hopeful to say. “My father pledged seventy pounds to the bridge. He's paid out half already. The rest, I'm afraid, is in woolsacks at his warehouse.”
“He can't be completely penniless.”
“Very nearly. And the same applies to several other citizens who promised money for the bridge.”
“I could slow down,” Merthin said desperately. “Lay off some craftsmen, and run down the stocks of materials.”
“Then you wouldn't have a bridge ready by next year's fair, and we'd be in worse trouble.”
“Better than giving up altogether.”
“Yes, it would be,” she said. “But don't do anything yet. When the Fleece Fair is over, we'll think again. I just wanted you to know the situation.”
Merthin still looked pale. “I appreciate it.”
The raft came back, and Jimmie waited to take her to the shore. As she walked on board, Caris said casually: “And how is Elizabeth Clerk?”
Merthin pretended to be a little surprised by the question. “She's fine, I think,” he said.
“You seem to be seeing a lot of her.”
“Not especially. We've always been friends.”
“Yes, of course,” Caris said, though it was not really true. Merthin had completely ignored Elizabeth for most of last year, when he and Caris were spending so much time together. But it would have been undignified to contradict him, so she said no more.
She waved good-bye and Jimmie pushed the raft off. Merthin was trying to give the impression that his relationship with Elizabeth was not a romance. Perhaps that was true. Or perhaps he was embarrassed to admit to Caris that he was in love with someone else. She could not tell. One thing she felt sure of: it was a romance on Elizabeth's side. Caris could tell, just by the way Elizabeth looked at him. Elizabeth might be an ice maiden, but she was hot for Merthin.
The raft bumped against the opposite bank. Caris stepped off and walked up the hill into the center of the city.
Merthin had been deeply shaken by her news. Caris felt like crying when she recalled the shock and dismay on his face. That was how he had looked when she had refused to rekindle their love affair.
She still did not know how she was going to spend her life. She had always assumed that, whatever she did, she would live in a comfortable house paid for by a profitable business. Now even that ground was moving under her feet. She racked her brains for some way out of the mess. Her father was oddly serene, as if he had not yet grasped the scale of his losses; but she knew that something had to be done.
Walking up the main street, she passed Elfric's daughter, Griselda, carrying her six-month-old baby. It was a boy, and she had named him Merthin, a permanent reproach to the original Merthin for not marrying her. Griselda was still maintaining a pretense of injured innocence. Everyone else now accepted that Merthin was not the father, though some townspeople still thought he should have married her anyway, as he had lain with her.
As Caris came to her own house, her father came out. She stared at him in astonishment. He was dressed only in his underwear: a long undershirt, drawers, and hose. “Where are your clothes?” she said.
He looked down at himself and made a disgusted sound. “I'm getting absentminded,” he said, and he went back indoors.
