The flagellants came back on a Saturday evening in June.
Caris was in the scriptorium, writing her book. She had decided to begin with the plague and how to deal with it, then go on to lesser ailments. She was describing the linen face masks she had introduced in the Kingsbridge hospital. It was hard to explain that the masks were effective but did not offer total immunity. The only certain safeguard was to leave town before the plague arrived and stay away until it had gone, but that was never going to be an option for the majority of people. Partial protection was a difficult concept for people who believed in miracle cures. The truth was that some masked nuns still caught the plague, but not as many as would otherwise have been expected. She decided to compare the masks to shields. A shield did not guarantee that a man would survive attack, but it certainly gave him valuable protection, and no knight would go into battle without one. She was writing this down, on a pristine sheet of blank parchment, when she heard the flagellants, and groaned in dismay.
The drums sounded like drunken footsteps, the bagpipes like a wild creature in pain, and the bells like a parody of a funeral. She went outside just as the procession entered the precincts. There were more of them this time, seventy or eighty, and they seemed wilder than before: their hair long and matted, their clothing a few shreds, their shrieks more lunatic. They had already been around the town and gathered a long tail of followers, some looking on in amusement, others joining in, tearing their clothes and lashing themselves.
She had not expected to see them again. The pope, Clement VI, had condemned flagellants. But he was a long way away, at Avignon, and it was up to others to enforce his rulings.
Friar Murdo led them, as before. When he approached the west front of the cathedral, Caris saw to her astonishment that the great doors were open wide. She had not authorized that. Thomas would not have done it without asking her. Philemon must be responsible. She recalled that Philemon on his travels had met up with Murdo. She guessed that Murdo had forewarned Philemon of this visit, and they had conspired together to get the flagellants into the church. No doubt Philemon would argue that he was the only ordained priest in the priory, therefore he had the right to decide what kind of services were conducted.
But what was Philemon's motive? Why did he care about Murdo and the flagellants?
Murdo led the procession through the tall central doorway and into the nave. The townspeople crowded in afterward. Caris hesitated to join in such a display, but she felt the need to know what was going on, so she reluctantly followed the crowd inside.
Philemon was at the altar. Friar Murdo joined him. Philemon raised his hands for quiet, then said: 'We come here today to confess our wickedness, repent our sins, and do penance in propitiation.'
Philemon was no preacher, and his words drew a muted reaction; but the charismatic Murdo immediately took over. 'We confess that our thoughts are lascivious and our deeds are filthy!' he cried, and they shouted their approval.
The proceedings took the same form as before. Worked into a frenzy by Murdo's preaching, people came to the front, cried out that they were sinners, and flogged themselves. The townspeople looked on, mesmerized by the violence and nudity. It was a performance, but the lashes were real, and Caris shuddered to see the weals and cuts on the backs of the penitents. Some of them had done this many times before and were scarred. Others had recent wounds that were reopened by the fresh whipping.
Townspeople soon joined in. As they came forward, Philemon held out a collection bowl, and Caris realized that his motivation was money. Nobody got to confess and kiss Murdo's feet until they put a coin in Philemon's bowl. Murdo was keeping an eye on the takings, and Caris assumed the two men would share out the coins afterward.
There was a crescendo of drumming and piping as more and more townspeople came forward. Philemon's bowl filled up rapidly. Those who had been 'forgiven' danced ecstatically to the mad music.
Eventually all the penitents were dancing and no more were coming forward. The music built to a climax and stopped suddenly, whereupon Caris noticed that Murdo and Philemon had disappeared. She assumed they had slipped out through the south transept to count their takings in the monks' cloisters.
The spectacle was over. The dancers lay down, exhausted. The spectators began to disperse, drifting out through the open doors into the clean air of the summer evening. Soon Murdo's followers found the strength to leave the church, and Caris did the same. She saw that most of the flagellants were heading for the Holly Bush.
She returned with relief to the cool hush of the nunnery. As dusk gathered in the cloisters, the nuns attended Evensong and ate their supper. Before going to bed, Caris went to check on the hospital. The place was still full: the plague raged unabated.
She found little to criticize. Sister Oonagh followed Caris's principles: face masks, no bloodletting, fanatical cleanliness. Caris was about to go to bed when one of the flagellants was brought in.
It was a man who had fainted in the Holly Bush and cracked his head on a bench. His back was still bleeding, and Caris guessed that loss of blood was as much responsible as the blow to his head for the loss of consciousness.
Oonagh bathed his wounds with salt water while he was unconscious. To bring him round, she set fire to the antler of a deer and wafted the pungent smoke under his nose. Then she made him drink two pints of water mixed with cinnamon and sugar, to replace the fluid his body had lost.
But he was only the first. Several more men and women were brought in suffering from some combination of loss of blood, excess of strong drink, and injuries received in accidents or fights. The orgy of flagellation increased the number of Saturday-night patients tenfold. There was also a man who had flogged himself so many times that his back was putrid. Finally, after midnight, a woman was brought in after having been tied up, flogged, and raped.
Fury stoked up in Caris as she worked with the other nuns to tend these patients. All their injuries arose from the perverted notions of religion put about by men such as Murdo. They said the plague was God's punishment for sin, but people could avoid the plague by punishing themselves another way. It was as if God were a vengeful monster playing a game with insane rules. Caris believed that God's sense of justice must be more sophisticated than that of the twelve-year-old leader of a boys' gang.
She worked until Matins on Sunday morning, then went to sleep for a couple of hours. When she got up, she went to see Merthin.
He was now living in the grandest of the houses he had built on Leper Island. It was on the south shore, and stood in a broad garden newly planted with apple and pear trees. He had hired a middle-aged couple to take care of Lolla and maintain the place. Their names were Arnaud and Emily, but they called one another Arn and Em. Caris found Em in the kitchen, and was directed to the garden.
Merthin was showing Lolla how her name was written, using a pointed stick to form the letters in a patch of bare earth, and he made her laugh by drawing a face in the 'o'. She was four years old, a pretty girl with olive skin and brown eyes.
Watching them, Caris suffered a pang of regret. She had been sleeping with Merthin for almost half a year. She did not want to have a baby, for it would mean the end of all her ambitions; yet a part of her was sorry that she had not become pregnant. She was torn, which was probably why she had taken the risk. But it had not happened. She wondered whether she had lost the ability to conceive. Perhaps the potion Mattie Wise had given her to abort her pregnancy a decade ago had harmed her womb in some way. As always, she wished she knew more about the body and its ills.
Merthin kissed her and they walked around the grounds, with Lolla running in front of them, playing in her imagination an elaborate and impenetrable game that involved talking to each tree. The garden looked raw, all the plants new, the soil carted in from elsewhere to enrich the island's stony ground. 'I've come to talk to you about the flagellants,' Caris said, and she told him about last night at the hospital. 'I want to ban them from Kingsbridge,' she finished.
'Good idea,' Merthin said. 'The whole performance is just another moneymaker for Murdo.'
'And Philemon. He was holding the bowl. Will you talk to the parish guild?'
'Of course.'
As acting prior, Caris was in the position of lord of the manor, and she could theoretically have banned the flagellants herself, without asking anyone else. However, her application for a borough charter was before the king, and she expected soon to hand over the government of the town to the guild, so she treated the current situation as a transition. Besides, it was always smarter to win support before trying to enforce a rule.
She said: 'I'd like to have the constable escort Murdo and his followers out of town before the midday service.'
'Philemon will be furious.'
'He shouldn't have opened the church to them without consulting anyone.' Caris knew there would be trouble, but she could not allow fear of Philemon's reaction to prevent her doing the right thing for the town. 'We've got the pope on our side. If we handle this discreetly and move fast, we can solve the problem before Philemon's had breakfast.'
'All right,' said Merthin. 'I'll try to get the guildsmen together at the Holly Bush.'
'I'll meet you there in an hour.'
The parish guild was badly depleted, like every other organization in town, but a handful of leading merchants had survived the plague, including Madge Webber, Jake Chepstow, and Edward Slaughterhouse. The new constable, John's son Mungo, attended, and his deputies waited outside for their instructions.
The discussion did not last long. None of the leading citizens had taken part in the orgy, and they all disapproved of such public displays. The pope's ruling clinched the matter. Formally, Caris as prior promulgated a bylaw forbidding whipping in the streets and public nudity, violators to be expelled from the town by the constable on the instructions of any three guildsmen. The guild then passed a resolution supporting the new law.
Then Mungo went upstairs and roused Friar Murdo from his bed.
Murdo did not go quietly. Coming down the stairs he raved, he wept, he prayed, and he cursed. Two of Mungo's deputies took him by the arms and half-carried him out of the tavern. In the street he became louder. Mungo led the way, and the guildsmen followed. Some of Murdo's adherents came to protest and were themselves put under escort. A few townspeople tagged along as the group headed down the main street toward Merthin's bridge. None of the citizens objected to what was being done, and Philemon did not appear. Even some who had flogged themselves yesterday said nothing today, looking a bit shamefaced about it all.
The crowd fell away as the group crossed the bridge. With a reduced audience, Murdo became quieter. His righteous indignation was replaced by smoldering malevolence. Released at the far end of the double bridge, he stumped away through the suburbs without looking back. A handful of disciples trailed after him uncertainly.
Caris had a feeling she would not see him again.
She thanked Mungo and his men, then returned to the nunnery.
In the hospital, Oonagh was releasing the overnight accident cases to make room for new plague victims. Caris worked in the hospital until midday, then left gratefully and led the procession into the church for the main Sunday service. She found she was looking forward to an hour or two of psalms and prayers and a boring sermon: it would seem restful.
Philemon had a thunderous look when he led Thomas and the novice monks in. He had obviously heard about the expulsion of Murdo. No doubt he had seen the flagellants as a source of income for himself independent of Caris. That hope had been dashed, and he was livid.
For a moment, Caris wondered what he would do in his anger. Then she thought: Let him do what he likes. If it were not this, it would be something else. Whatever she did, sooner or later Philemon would be angry with her. There was no point in worrying about it.
She nodded off during the prayers and woke up when he began to preach. The pulpit seemed to heighten his charmlessness, and his sermons were poorly received, in general. However, today he grabbed the attention of his audience at the start by announcing that his subject would be fornication.
He took as his text a verse from St. Paul's first letter to the early Christians at Corinth. He read it in Latin, then translated it in ringing tones: 'Now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone who is a fornicator!'
He elaborated tediously on the meaning of keeping company. 'Don't eat with them, don't drink with them, don't live with them, don't talk to them.' But Caris was wondering anxiously where he was going with this. Surely he would not dare to attack her directly from the pulpit? She glanced across the choir to Thomas, on the other side with the novice monks, and caught a worried look from him.
She looked again at Philemon's face, dark with resentment, and realized he was capable of anything.
'Who does this refer to?' he asked rhetorically. 'Not to outsiders, the saint specifically writes. It is for God to judge them. But, he says, you are judges within the fellowship.' He pointed at the congregation. 'You!' He looked down again at the book and read: 'Put away from among yourselves that wicked person!'
The congregation was quiet. They sensed that this was not the usual generalized exhortation to better behavior. Philemon had a message.
'We must look around ourselves,' he said. 'In our town - in our church - in our priory! Are there any fornicators? If so, they must be put out!'
There was no doubt now in Caris's mind that he was referring to her. And all the more astute townspeople would have come to the same conclusion. But what could she do? She could hardly get up and contradict him. She could not even walk out of the church, for that would underline his point and make it obvious, to the stupidest member of the congregation, that she was the target of his tirade.
So she listened, mortified. Philemon was speaking well for the first time ever. He did not hesitate or stumble, he enunciated clearly and projected his voice, and he managed to vary his usual dull monotone. For him, hatred was inspirational.
No one was going to put her out of the priory, of course. Even if she had been an incompetent prioress the bishop would have kept her on, simply because the scarcity of clergy was chronic. Churches and monasteries all over the country were closing because there was no one to hold services or sing psalms. Bishops were desperate to appoint more priests, monks, and nuns, not sack them. Anyway, the townspeople would have revolted against any bishop who tried to get rid of Caris.
All the same, Philemon's sermon was damaging. It would now be more difficult for the town's leaders to turn a blind eye to Caris's liaison with Merthin. This kind of thing undermined people's respect. They would forgive a man for a sexual peccadillo more readily than a woman. And, as she was painfully aware, her position invited the accusation of hypocrisy.
She sat grinding her teeth through the peroration, which was the same message shouted louder, and the remainder of the service. As soon as the nuns and monks had processed out of the church, she went to her pharmacy and sat down to compose a letter to Bishop Henri, asking him to move Philemon to another monastery.
Instead, Henri promoted him.
It was two weeks after the expulsion of Friar Murdo. They were in the north transept of the cathedral. The summer day was hot, but the interior of the church was always cool. The bishop sat on a carved wooden chair, and the others on benches: Philemon, Caris, Archdeacon Lloyd, and Canon Claude.
'I'm appointing you prior of Kingsbridge,' Henri said to Philemon.
Philemon smirked with delight and shot a triumphant look at Caris.
She was appalled. Two weeks ago she had given Henri a long list of sound reasons why Philemon could not be permitted to continue in a responsible position here - starting with his theft of a gold candlestick. But it seemed her letter had had the opposite effect.
She opened her mouth to protest, but Henri glared at her and raised his hand, and she decided to remain silent and find out what else he had to say. He continued to address Philemon. 'I'm doing this despite, not because of, your behavior since you returned here. You've been a malicious troublemaker, and if the church were not desperate for people I wouldn't promote you in a hundred years.'
Then why do it now? Caris wondered.
'But we have to have a prior, and it simply is not satisfactory for the prioress to play that role, despite her undoubted ability.'
Caris would have preferred him to appoint Thomas. But Thomas would have refused, she knew. He had been scarred by the bitter struggle over who was to succeed Prior Anthony, twelve years ago, and had sworn then never again to get involved in a priory election. In fact the bishop might well have spoken to Thomas, without Caris's knowledge, and learned this.
'However, your appointment is fenced about with provisos,' Henri said to Philemon. 'First, you will not be confirmed in the role until Kingsbridge has obtained its borough charter. You are not capable of running the town and I won't put you in that position. In the interim, therefore, Mother Caris will continue as acting prior, and you will live in the monks' dormitory. The palace will be locked up. If you misbehave in the waiting period, I will rescind the appointment.'
Philemon looked angry and wounded by this, but he kept his mouth shut tight. He knew he had won and he was not going to argue about the conditions.
'Secondly, you will have your own treasury, but Brother Thomas is to be the treasurer, and no money will be spent nor precious objects removed without his knowledge and consent. Furthermore, I have ordered the building of a new tower, and I have authorized payments according to a schedule prepared by Merthin Bridger. The priory will make these payments from the monks' funds, and neither Philemon nor anyone else shall have the power to alter this arrangement. I don't want half a tower.'
Merthin would get his wish, at least, Caris thought gratefully.
Henri turned to Caris. 'I have one more command to issue, and it is for you, Mother Prioress.'
Now what? she thought.
'There has been an accusation of fornication.'
Caris stared at the bishop, thinking about the time she had surprised him and Claude naked. How did he dare to raise this subject?
He went on: 'I say nothing about the past. But for the future, it is not possible that the prioress of Kingsbridge should have a relationship with a man.'
She wanted to say: But you live with your lover! However, she suddenly noticed the expression on Henri's face. It was a pleading look. He was begging her not to make the accusation that, he well knew, would show him up as a hypocrite. He knew that what he was doing was unjust, she realized, but he had no choice. Philemon had forced him into this position.
She was tempted, all the same, to sting him with a rebuke. But she restrained herself. It would do no good. Henri's back was to the wall and he was doing his best. Caris clamped her mouth shut.
Henri said: 'May I have your assurance, Mother Prioress, that from this moment on there will be absolutely no grounds for the accusation?'
Caris looked at the floor. She had been here before. Once again her choice was to give up everything she had worked for - the hospital, the borough charter, the tower - or to part with Merthin. And, once again, she chose her work.
She raised her head and looked him in the eye. 'Yes, my lord bishop,' she said. 'You have my word.'
She spoke to Merthin in the hospital, surrounded by other people. She was trembling and close to tears, but she could not see him in private. She knew that if they were alone her resolve would weaken, and she would throw her arms around him and tell him that she loved him, and promise to leave the nunnery and marry him. So she sent a message, and greeted him at the door of the hospital, then spoke to him in a matter-of-fact voice, her arms folded tightly across her chest so that she would not be tempted to reach out with a fond gesture and touch the body she loved so much.
When she had finished telling him about the bishop's ultimatum and her decision, he looked at her as if he could kill her. 'This is the last time,' he said.
'What do you mean?'
'If you do this, it's permanent. I'm not going to wait around anymore, hoping that one day you will be my wife.'
She felt as if he had hit her.
He went on, delivering another blow with each sentence. 'If you mean what you're saying, I'm going to try to forget you now. I'm thirty-three years old. I don't have forever - my father is dying at the age of fifty-eight. I'll marry someone else and have more children and be happy in my garden.'
The picture he painted tortured her. She bit her lip, trying to control her grief, but hot tears ran down her face.
He was remorseless. 'I'm not going to waste my life loving you,' he said, and she felt as if he had stabbed her. 'Leave the nunnery now, or stay there forever.'
She tried to look steadily at him. 'I won't forget you. I will always love you.'
'But not enough.'
She was silent for a long moment. It wasn't like that, she knew. Her love was not weak or inadequate. It just presented her with impossible choices. But there seemed no point in arguing. 'Is that what you really believe?' she said.
'It seems obvious.'
She nodded, though she did not really agree. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'More sorry than I have ever been in my whole life.'
'So am I,' he said, and he turned away and walked out of the building.