91
The plague faded away in September. Caris's hospital gradually emptied, as patients died without being replaced by new ones. The vacant rooms were swept and scrubbed, and juniper logs were burned in the fireplaces, filling the hospital with a sharp autumn fragrance. Early in October, the last victim was laid to rest in the hospital's graveyard. A smoky red sun rose over Kingsbridge Cathedral as four strong young nuns lowered the shrouded corpse into the hole in the ground. The body was that of a crookbacked weaver from Outhenby, but as Caris gazed into the grave she saw her old enemy, the plague, lying on the cold earth. Under her breath, she said: 'Are you really dead, or will you come back again?'
When the nuns returned to the hospital after the funeral, there was nothing to do.
Caris washed her face, brushed her hair, and put on the new dress she had been saving for this day. It was the bright red of Kingsbridge Scarlet. Then she walked out of the hospital for the first time in half a year.
She went immediately into Merthin's garden.
His pear trees cast long shadows in the morning sun. The leaves were beginning to redden and crisp, while a few late fruits still hung on the boughs, round-bellied and brown. Arn, the gardener, was chopping firewood with an axe. When he saw Caris, he was at first startled and frightened; then he realized what her appearance meant, and his face split in a grin. He dropped his axe and ran into the house.
In the kitchen, Em was boiling porridge over a cheerful fire. She looked at Caris as at a heavenly apparition. She was so moved that she kissed Caris's hands.
Caris went up the stairs and into Merthin's bedroom.
He was standing at the window in his undershirt, looking out at the river that flowed past the front of the house. He turned toward her, and her heart faltered to see his familiar, irregular face, the gaze of alert intelligence and the quick humor in the twist of his lips. His golden-brown eyes looked lovingly at her, and his mouth widened in a welcoming smile. He showed no surprise: he must have noticed that there had been fewer and fewer patients arriving at the hospital, and he would have been expecting her to reappear any day. He looked like a man whose hopes have been fulfilled.
She stood beside him at the window. He put his arm around her shoulders, and she put hers around his waist. There was a little more gray in his red beard than six months ago, she thought, and his halo of hair seemed to have receded a little farther, unless it was her imagination.
For a moment, they both looked out at the river. In the gray morning light, the water was the color of iron. The surface shifted endlessly, mirror-bright or deep black in irregular patterns, always changing and always the same.
'It's over,' Caris said.
Then they kissed.
Merthin announced a special Autumn Fair to celebrate the reopening of the town. It was held during the last week of October. The wool dealing season was over, but anyway fleeces were no longer the principal commodity traded in Kingsbridge, and thousands of people came to buy the scarlet cloth for which the town was now famous.
At the Saturday night banquet that opened the fair, the guild honored Caris. Although Kingsbridge had not totally escaped the plague, it had suffered much less than other cities, and most people felt they owed their lives to her precautions. She was everyone's hero. The guildsmen insisted on marking her achievement, and Madge Webber devised a new ceremony in which Caris was presented with a gold key, symbolizing the key to the city gate. Merthin felt very proud.
Next day, Sunday, Merthin and Caris went to the cathedral. The monks were still at St.-John-in-the-Forest, so the service was taken by Father Michael from St. Peter's parish church in the town. Lady Philippa, countess of Shiring, showed up.
Merthin had not seen Philippa since Ralph's funeral. Not many tears had been shed for his brother, her husband. The earl would normally have been buried at Kingsbridge Cathedral but, because the town had been closed, Ralph had been interred in Shiring.
His death remained a mystery. His body had been found in a hunting lodge, stabbed through the chest. Alan Fernhill lay on the floor nearby, also dead of stab wounds. The two men appeared to have had dinner together, for the remains of a meal were still on the table. Obviously there had been a fight, but it was not clear whether Ralph and Alan had inflicted fatal wounds on one another, or someone else had been involved. Nothing had been stolen: money was found on both bodies, their costly weapons lay beside them, and two valuable horses were cropping the grass in the clearing outside. Because of that, the Shiring coroner inclined to the theory that the two men had killed one another.
In another sense, there was no mystery. Ralph had been a man of violence, and it was no surprise that he had died a violent death. They that live by the sword shall die by the sword, Jesus said, although that verse was not often quoted by the priests of King Edward III's reign. If anything was remarkable, it was that Ralph had survived so many military campaigns, so many bloody battles, and so many charges by the French cavalry, to die in a squabble a few miles from his home.
Merthin had surprised himself by weeping at the funeral. He wondered what he was sad about. His brother had been a wicked man who caused a great deal of misery, and his death was a blessing. Merthin had not been close to him since he murdered Tilly. What was there to mourn? In the end, Merthin decided he was grieving for a Ralph that might have been - a man whose violence was not indulged but controlled; whose aggression was directed, not by ambition for personal glory, but by a sense of justice. Perhaps it had once been possible for Ralph to grow into such a man. When the two of them had played together, aged five and six, floating wooden boats on a muddy puddle, Ralph had not been cruel and vengeful. That was why Merthin cried.
Philippa's two boys had been at the funeral, and they were with her today. The elder, Gerry, was Ralph's son by poor Tilly. The younger, Roley, was believed by everyone to be Ralph's son by Philippa, though in fact he was Merthin's. Fortunately, Roley was not a small, lively redhead like Merthin. He was going to be tall and dignified like his mother.
Roley was clutching a small wooden carving, which he presented solemnly to Merthin. It was a horse, and he had done it rather well for a ten-year-old, Merthin realized. Most children would have sculpted the animal standing firmly on all four feet, but Roley had made it move, its legs in different positions and its mane flying in the wind. The boy had inherited his real father's ability to visualize complex objects in three dimensions. Merthin felt an unexpected lump in his throat. He bent down and kissed Roley's forehead.
He gave Philippa a grateful smile. He guessed she had encouraged Roley to give him the horse, knowing what it would mean to him. He glanced at Caris and saw that she, too, understood its significance; though nothing was said.
The atmosphere in the great church was joyful. Father Michael was not a charismatic preacher, and he went through the mass in a mumble. But the nuns sang as beautifully as ever, and an optimistic sun shone through the rich dark colors of the stained-glass windows.
Afterward they walked around the fair in the crisp autumn air. Caris held Merthin's arm and Philippa walked on his other side. The two boys ran on ahead while Philippa's bodyguard and lady-in-waiting followed behind. Business was good, Merthin saw. Kingsbridge craftsmen and traders were already beginning to rebuild their fortunes. The town would recover from this epidemic faster than from the last.
Senior members of the guild were going around checking weights and measures. There were standards for the weight of a woolsack, the width of a piece of cloth, the size of a bushel, and so on, so that people knew what they were buying. Merthin encouraged guildsmen to perform these checks ostentatiously, so that buyers could see how carefully the town monitored its tradesmen. Of course, if they really suspected someone of cheating, they would check discreetly and then, if he was guilty, get rid of him quietly.
Philippa's two sons ran excitedly from one stall to the next. Watching Roley, Merthin said quietly to Philippa: 'Now that Ralph has gone, is there any reason why Roley should not know the truth?'
She looked thoughtful. 'I wish I could tell him - but would it be for his sake, or ours? For ten years he's believed Ralph to be his father. Two months ago he wept at Ralph's graveside. It would be a terrible shock to tell him now that he is another man's son.'
They were speaking in low voices, but Caris could hear, and she said: 'I agree with Philippa. You have to think of the child, not of yourself.'
Merthin saw the sense of what they were saying. It was a small sadness on a happy day.
'There is another reason,' Philippa said. 'Gregory Longfellow came to see me last week. The king wants to make Gerry earl of Shiring.'
'At the age of thirteen?' Merthin said.
'The title of earl is always hereditary, once it has been granted, although baronies are not. Anyway, I would administer the earldom for the next three years.'
'As you did all the time Ralph was away fighting the French. You'll be relieved the king isn't asking you to marry again.'
She made a face. 'I'm too old.'
'So Roley will be second in line for the earldom - provided we keep our secret.' If something should happen to Gerry, Merthin thought, my son will become earl of Shiring. Fancy that.
'Roley would be a good ruler,' Philippa said. 'He's intelligent and quite strong-willed, but not cruel like Ralph.'
Ralph's mean nature had been obvious at an early age: he had been ten, Roley's age now, when he shot Gwenda's dog. 'But Roley might prefer to be something else.' He looked again at the carved wooden horse.
Philippa smiled. She did not smile often, but when she did it was dazzling. She was still beautiful, he thought. She said: 'Give in to it, and be proud of him.'
Merthin recalled how proud his father had been when Ralph became the earl. But he knew he would never feel the same way. He would be proud of Roley whatever he did, as long as he did it well. Perhaps the boy would become a stonemason, and carve saints and angels. Perhaps he would be a wise and merciful nobleman. Or he might do something else, something his parents had never anticipated.
Merthin invited Philippa and the boys to dinner, and they all left the cathedral precincts. They walked over the bridge against the flow of loaded carts coming to the fair. They crossed Leper Island together and went through the orchard into the house.
In the kitchen they found Lolla.
As soon as she saw her father, she burst into tears. He put his arms around her and she sobbed on his shoulder. Wherever she had been, she must have got out of the habit of washing, for she smelled like a pigsty, but he was too happy to care.
It was a while before they could get any sense out of her. When at last she spoke, she said: 'They all died!' Then she burst into fresh tears. After a while she calmed down, and spoke more coherently. 'They all died,' she repeated, suppressing her sobs. 'Jake, and Boyo, Netty and Hal, Joanie and Chalkie and Ferret, one by one, and nothing I did made any difference!'
They had been living in the forest, Merthin gathered, a group of youngsters pretending to be nymphs and shepherds. The details came out gradually. The boys would kill a deer every now and again, and sometimes they would go away for a day and come back with a barrel of wine and some bread. Lolla said they bought their supplies, but Merthin guessed they had robbed travelers. Lolla had somehow imagined they could live like that forever: she had not thought about how things might be different in the winter. But, in the end, it was the plague rather than the weather that brought the idyll to an end. 'I was so frightened,' Lolla said. 'I wanted Caris.'
Gerry and Roley listened with mouths agape. They idolized their older cousin Lolla. Although she had come home in tears, the story of her adventure only enhanced her in their eyes.
'I never want to feel like that again,' Lolla said. 'So powerless, with my friends all sick and dying around me.'
'I can understand that,' Caris said. 'It's how I felt when my mother died.'
'Will you teach me to heal people?' Lolla said to her. 'I want to really help them, as you do, not just sing hymns and show them a picture of an angel. I want to understand about bones and blood, and herbs and things that make people better. I want to be able to do something when a person is sick.'
'Of course I'll teach you, if that's what you want,' Caris said. 'I would be pleased.'
Merthin was astonished. Lolla had been rebellious and bad-tempered for some years now, and part of her rejection of authority had been a pretense that Caris, her stepmother, was not really her parent, and need not be respected. He was delighted by the turnaround. It was almost worth the agony of worry he had been through.
A moment later, a nun came into the kitchen. 'Little Annie Jones is having a fit, and we don't know why,' she said to Caris. 'Can you come?'
'Of course,' Caris said.
Lolla said: 'Can I go with you?'
'No,' said Caris. 'Here's your first lesson: you have to be clean. Go and wash now. You can come with me tomorrow.'
As she was leaving, Madge Webber came in. 'Have you heard the news?' she said, her face grim. 'Philemon is back.'
On that Sunday, Davey and Amabel were married at the little church in Wigleigh.
Lady Philippa gave permission for the manor house to be used for the party. Wulfric killed a pig and roasted it whole over a fire in the yard. Davey had bought sweet currants, and Annet baked them in buns. There was no ale - much of the barley harvest had rotted in the fields for want of reapers - but Philippa had sent Sam home with a present of a barrel of cider.
Gwenda still thought, every day, about that scene in the hunting lodge. In the middle of the night she stared into the darkness and saw Ralph with her knife in his mouth, the hilt sticking out between his brown teeth, and Sam's sword nailing him to the wall.
When she and Sam had retrieved their weapons, pulling them grimly out of Ralph, and the corpse had fallen to the floor, it had looked as if the two dead men had killed one another. Gwenda had smeared blood on their unstained weapons and left them where they lay. Outside, she had loosened the horses' tethers, so that they could survive for a few days, if necessary, until someone found them. Then she and Sam had walked away.
The Shiring coroner had speculated that outlaws might have been involved in the deaths, but in the end had come to the conclusion Gwenda expected. No suspicion had fallen on her or Sam. They had got away with murder.
She had told Sam an edited version of what had happened between her and Ralph. She pretended that this was the first time he had tried to coerce her, and she said he had simply threatened to kill her if she refused. Sam was awestruck to think that he had killed an earl, but he had no doubt that his action had been justified. He had the right temperament for a soldier, Gwenda realized: he would never suffer agonies of remorse over killing.
Nor did she, even though she often recalled the scene with revulsion. She had killed Alan Fernhill and finished Ralph off, but she had not a twinge of regret. The world was a better place without both of them. Ralph had died in the agony of knowing that his own son had stabbed him through the heart, and that was exactly what he deserved. In time, she felt sure, the vision of what she had done would cease to come to her by night.
She put the memory out of her mind and looked around the hall of the manor house at the carousing villagers.
The pig was eaten, and the men were drinking the last of the cider. Aaron Appletree produced his bagpipes. The village had had no drummer since the death of Annet's father, Perkin. Gwenda wondered whether Davey would take up drumming now.
Wulfric wanted to dance, as he always did when he had had a bellyful of drink. Gwenda partnered him for the first number, laughing as she tried to keep up with his cavorting. He lifted her, swung her through the air, crushed her to his body, and put her down again only to circle her with great leaps. He had no sense of rhythm, but his sheer enthusiasm was infectious. Afterward she declared herself exhausted, and he danced with his new daughter-in-law, Amabel.
Then, of course, he danced with Annet.
His eye fell on her as soon as the tune ended and he let go of Amabel. Annet was sitting on a bench at one side of the hall of the manor house. She wore a green dress that was girlishly short and showed her dainty ankles. The dress was not new, but she had embroidered the bosom with yellow and pink flowers. As always, a few ringlets had escaped from her headdress, and they hung around her face. She was twenty years too old to dress that way, but she did not know it, and nor did Wulfric.
Gwenda smiled as they began to dance. She wanted to look happy and carefree, but she realized her expression might be more like a grimace, and she gave up trying. She tore her gaze away from them and watched Davey and Amabel. Perhaps Amabel would not turn out quite like her mother. She had some of Annet's coquettish ways, but Gwenda had never seen her actually flirting, and right now she seemed uninterested in anyone but her husband.
Gwenda scanned the room and located her other son, Sam. He was with the young men, telling a story, miming it, holding the reins of an imaginary horse and almost falling off. He had them spellbound. They probably envied his luck in becoming a squire.
Sam was still living at Earlscastle. Lady Philippa had kept on most of the squires and men-at-arms, for her son Gerry would need them to ride and hunt with him, and practise with the sword and the lance. Gwenda hoped that, during the period of Philippa's regency, Sam would learn a more intelligent and merciful code that he would have got from Ralph.
There was not much else to look at, and Gwenda's gaze returned to her husband and the woman he had once wanted to marry. As Gwenda had feared, Annet was making the most of Wulfric's exuberance and inebriation. She gave him sexy smiles when they danced apart, and when they came together she clung to him, Gwenda thought, like a wet shirt.
The dance seemed to go on forever, Aaron Appletree repeating the bouncy melody endlessly on his bagpipes. Gwenda knew her husband's moods, and now she saw the glint in his eye that always appeared when he was about to ask her to lie with him. Annet knew exactly what she was doing, Gwenda thought furiously. She shifted restlessly on her bench, willing the music to stop, trying not to let her anger show.
However, she was seething with indignation when the tune ended with a flourish. She made up her mind to get Wulfric to calm down and sit beside her. She would keep him close for the rest of the afternoon, and there would be no trouble.
But then Annet kissed him.
While he still had his hands on her waist she stood on tiptoe and tilted her face and kissed him full on the lips, briefly but firmly; and Gwenda boiled over.
She jumped up from her bench and strode across the hall. As she passed the bridal couple, her son Davey saw the expression on her face and tried to detain her, but she ignored him. She went up to Wulfric and Annet, who were still gazing at one another and smiling stupidly. She poked Annet's shoulder with her finger and said loudly: 'Leave my husband alone!'
Wulfric said: 'Gwenda, please - '
'Don't you say anything,' Gwenda said. 'Just stay away from this whore.'
Annet's eyes flashed defiance. 'It's not dancing that whores are paid for.'
'I'm sure you know all about what whores do.'
'How dare you!'
Davey and Amabel intervened. Amabel said to Annet: 'Please don't make a scene, Ma.'
Annet said: 'It's not me, it's Gwenda!'
Gwenda said: 'I'm not the one trying to seduce someone else's husband.'
Davey said: 'Mother, you're spoiling the wedding.'
Gwenda was too enraged to listen. 'She always does this. She jilted him twenty-three years ago, but she's never let him go!'
Annet began to cry. Gwenda was not surprised. Annet's tears were just another means of getting her way.
Wulfric reached out to pat Annet's shoulder, and Gwenda snapped: 'Don't touch her!' He jerked back his hand as if burned.
'You don't understand,' Annet sobbed.
'I understand you all too well,' Gwenda said.
'No, you don't,' Annet said. She wiped her eyes and gave Gwenda a surprisingly direct, candid look. 'You don't understand that you have won. He's yours. You don't know how he adores you, respects you, admires you. You don't see the way he looks at you when you're speaking to someone else.'
Gwenda was taken aback. 'Well,' she mumbled, but she did not know what else to say.
Annet went on: 'Does he eye younger women? Does he ever sneak away from you? How many nights have you slept apart in the last twenty years - two? Three? Can't you see that he will never love another woman as long as he lives?'
Gwenda looked at Wulfric and realized that all this was true. In fact it was obvious. She knew it and so did everyone. She tried to remember why she was so angry with Annet, but somehow the logic of it had slipped her mind.
The dancing had stopped and Aaron had put down his pipes. All the villagers now gathered around the two women, mothers of the bridal couple.
Annet said: 'I was a foolish and selfish girl, and I made a stupid decision, and lost the best man I've ever met. And you got him. Sometimes I can't resist the temptation to pretend it happened the other way around, and he's mine. So I smile at him, and I pat his arm; and he's kind to me because he knows he broke my heart.'
'You broke your own heart,' Gwenda said.
'I did. And you were the lucky girl who benefited from my folly.'
Gwenda was dumbfounded. She had never looked at Annet as a sad person. To her, Annet had always been a powerful, threatening figure, ever scheming to take Wulfric back. But that was never going to come to pass.
Annet said: 'I know it annoys you when Wulfric is nice to me. I'd like to say it won't happen again, but I know my own weakness. Do you have to hate me for it? Don't let this spoil the joy of the wedding and of the grandchildren we both want. Instead of regarding me as your lifelong enemy, couldn't you think of me as a bad sister, who sometimes misbehaves and makes you cross, but still has to be treated as one of the family?'
She was right. Gwenda had always thought of Annet as a pretty face with an empty head, but on this occasion Annet was the wiser of the two, and Gwenda felt humbled. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Perhaps I could try.'
Annet stepped forward and kissed Gwenda's cheek. Gwenda felt Annet's tears on her face. 'Thank you,' Annet said.
Gwenda hesitated, then put her arms around Annet's bony shoulders and hugged her.
All around them, the villagers clapped and cheered.
A moment later, the music began again.