World Without End

39

'Earl Roland was clever,' Merthin said to Elizabeth Clerk. 'He allowed justice to take its course almost to the end. He didn't bribe the judge or influence the jury or intimidate the witnesses, and he avoided a quarrel with his son, Lord William. But he escaped the humiliation of seeing one of his men hanged.'

'Where is your brother now?' she said.

'No idea. I haven't spoken to him or even seen him since that day.'

They were sitting in Elizabeth's kitchen on Sunday afternoon. She had made dinner for him: boiled ham with stewed apples and winter greens, and a small jug of wine that her mother had bought, or perhaps stolen, from the inn where she worked.

Elizabeth said: 'What will happen now?'

'The sentence of death still hangs over him. He can't return to Wigleigh, or come here to Kingsbridge, without getting arrested. In effect, he's declared himself an outlaw.'

'Is there nothing he can do?'

'He could get a pardon from the king - but that costs a fortune, far more money than he or I could raise.'

'And how do you feel about him?'

Merthin winced. 'Well, he deserves punishment for what he did, of course. All the same, I can't wish it on him. I just hope he's all right, wherever he is.'

He had told the story of Ralph's trial many times in the last few days, but Elizabeth had asked the most astute questions. She was intelligent and sympathetic. The thought crossed his mind that it would be no hardship to spend every Sunday afternoon this way.

Her mother, Sairy, was dozing by the fire, as usual, but now she opened her eyes and said: 'My soul! I've forgotten the pie.' She stood up, patting her mussed gray hair. 'I promised to ask Betty Baxter to make a pie with ham and eggs for the leather-tanners guild. They're holding their last-before-Lent dinner at the Bell tomorrow.' She draped a blanket around her shoulders and went out.

It was unusual for them to be left alone together, and Merthin felt slightly awkward, but Elizabeth seemed relaxed enough. She said: 'What are you doing with yourself, now that you no longer work on the bridge?'

'I'm building a house for Dick Brewer, among other things. Dick's ready to retire and hand over to his son, but he says he'll never stop work while he's living at the Copper, so he wants a house with a garden outside the old city walls.'

'Oh - is that the building site beyond Lovers' Field?'

'Yes. It will be the biggest house in Kingsbridge.'

'A brewer is never short of money.'

'Would you like to see it?'

'The site?'

'The house. It's not finished, but it's got four walls and a roof.'

'Now?'

'There's still an hour of daylight.'

She hesitated, as if she might have had another plan; but then she said: 'I'd love to.'

They put on heavy cloaks with hoods and went out. It was the first day of March. Flurries of snow chased them down the main street. They took the ferry to the suburban side.

Despite the ups and downs of the wool trade, the town seemed to grow a little every year, and the priory turned more and more of its pasture and orchards into house plots for rent. Merthin guessed there must be fifty dwellings that had not been here when he first came to Kingsbridge, as a boy, twelve years ago.

Dick Brewer's new home was a two-story structure set back from the road. As yet it had no window shutters or doors, so the gaps in the walls had been temporarily covered with hurdles, wood frames filled in with woven reeds. The front entrance was thus blocked, but Merthin took Elizabeth to the back, where there was a temporary wooden door with a lock.

Merthin's sixteen-year-old assistant, Jimmie, was in the kitchen, guarding the place from thieves. He was a superstitious boy, always crossing himself and throwing salt over his shoulder. He was sitting on a bench in front of a big fire, but he looked anxious. 'Hello, master,' he said. 'Now that you're here, may I go and get my dinner? Lol Turner was supposed to bring it, but he hasn't come.'

'Make sure you're back before it gets dark.'

'Thank you.' He hurried off.

Merthin stepped through the doorway to the interior of the house. 'Four rooms downstairs,' he said, showing her.

She was incredulous. 'What will they use them all for?'

'Kitchen, parlor, dining room, and hall.' There was no staircase yet, but Merthin climbed a ladder to the upper floor, and Elizabeth followed. 'Four bedrooms,' he said as she reached the top.

'Who will live here?'

'Dick and his wife, his son Danny and his wife, and his daughter, who probably won't remain single for ever.'

Most Kingsbridge families lived in one room, and all slept side by side on the floor: parents, children, grandparents, and in-laws. Elizabeth said: 'This place has more rooms than a palace!'

It was true. A nobleman with a big entourage might still live in two rooms: a bedchamber for himself and his wife, and a great hall for everyone else. But Merthin had now designed several houses for wealthy Kingsbridge merchants, and the luxury they all craved was privacy. It was a new trend, he thought.

'I suppose there will be glass in the windows,' Elizabeth said.

'Yes.' That was another trend. Merthin could remember the time when there was no glazier in Kingsbridge, just an itinerant who called every year or two. Now the city had a resident glazier.

They returned to the ground floor. Elizabeth sat on Jimmie's bench in front of the fire and warmed her hands. Merthin sat beside her. 'I'll build a house like this for myself, one day,' he said. 'In a big garden with fruit trees.'

To his surprise, she leaned her head on his shoulder. 'What a nice dream,' she said.

They both stared into the fire. Her hair tickled Merthin's cheek. After a moment, she laid a hand on his knee. In the silence, he could hear her breathing, and his own, and the crackle of burning logs.

'In your dream, who's in the house?' she said.

'I don't know.'

'Just like a man. I can't see my house, but I know who's in it: a husband, some babies, my mother, an elderly parent-in-law, and three servants.'

'Men and women have different dreams.'

She lifted her head, looked at him, and touched his face. 'And when you put them together, you have a life.' She kissed his mouth.

He closed his eyes. He remembered the soft touch of her lips from years ago. Her mouth lingered on his for just a moment, then she drew back.

He felt oddly detached, as if he were watching himself from a corner of the room. He did not know how he felt. He looked at her and saw again how lovely she was. He asked himself what was so striking about her, and realized immediately that everything was in harmony, like the parts of a beautiful church. Her mouth, her chin, her cheekbones, and her forehead were just as he would have drawn them if he had been God creating a woman.

She looked back at him with calm blue eyes. 'Touch me,' she said. She opened her cloak.

He took her breast gently in his hand. He remembered doing this, too. Her breasts were firm and flat against her chest. Her nipple hardened immediately to his touch, betraying her calm demeanor.

'I want to be in your dream house,' she said, and she kissed him again.

She was not acting on the spur of the moment; Elizabeth never did. She had been thinking about this. While he had been casually visiting her, enjoying her company without thinking any farther, she had been imagining their life together. Perhaps she had even planned this scene. That would explain why her mother had left them with an excuse about a pie. He had almost spoiled her plan by proposing to show her Dick Brewer's house, but she had improvised.

There was nothing wrong with such an unemotional approach. She was a reasoning person. It was one of the things he liked about her. He knew that passions burned nonetheless beneath the surface.

What seemed wrong was his own lack of feeling. It was not his way to be coolly rational about women - quite the reverse. When he had felt love, it had taken him over, making him feel rage and resentment as well as lust and tenderness. Now he felt interested, flattered, and titillated, but he was not out of control.

She sensed that his kiss was lukewarm, and drew back. He saw the ghost of an emotion on her face, fiercely suppressed, but he knew there was fear behind the mask. She was so poised, by nature, that it must have cost her a lot to be so forward, and she dreaded rejection.

She drew away from him, stood up, and lifted the skirt of her dress. She had long, shapely legs covered with nearly invisible fine blond hair. Although she was tall and slim, her body widened just below the hips in a delightfully womanly way. His gaze homed in helplessly on the delta of her sex. Her hair was so fair that he could see through it, to the pale swelling of the lips and the delicate line between them.

He looked up to her face and read desperation there. She had tried everything, and she saw that it had not worked.

Merthin said: 'I'm sorry.'

She dropped her skirts.

'Listen,' he said. 'I think - '

She interrupted him. 'Don't speak.' Her desire was turning to anger. 'Whatever you say now will be a lie.'

She was right. He had been trying to formulate some soothing half-truth: he was not feeling well, or Jimmie might be back at any moment. But she did not want to be mollified. She had been rebuffed, and feeble excuses would only make her feel patronized as well.

She stared at him, grief struggling with rage on the battleground of her beautiful face. Tears of frustration came to her eyes. 'Why not?' she cried; but when he opened his mouth to reply she said: 'Don't answer! It won't be the truth'; and again she was right.

She turned to go, then came back. 'It's Caris,' she said, her face working with emotion. 'That witch has cast a spell on you. She won't marry you, but no one else can have you. She's evil!'

At last she walked away. She flung open the door and stepped out. He heard her sob once, then she was gone.

Merthin stared into the fire. 'Oh, hell,' he said.

'There's something I need to explain to you,' Merthin said to Edmund a week later, as they were leaving the cathedral.

Edmund's face took on a look of mild amusement that was familiar to Merthin. I'm thirty years older than you, the look said, and you should be listening to me, not giving me lessons; but I enjoy youthful enthusiasm. Besides, I'm not yet too old to learn something. 'All right,' he said. 'But explain it in the Bell. I want a cup of wine.'

They went into the tavern and sat close to the fire. Elizabeth's mother brought their wine, but she stuck her nose in the air and did not talk to them. Edmund said: 'Is Sairy angry with you or me?'

'Never mind that,' said Merthin. 'Have you ever stood at the edge of the ocean, with your bare feet on the sand, and felt the sea wash over your toes?'

'Of course. All children play in water. Even I was a boy once.'

'Do you remember how the action of the waves, flowing in and out, seems to scour the sand from under the edges of your feet, making a little channel?'

'Yes. It's a long time ago, but I think I know what you mean.'

'That's what happened to the old wooden bridge. The flowing river scoured the earth from under the central pier.'

'How do you know?'

'By the pattern of cracks in the woodwork just before the collapse.'

'What's your point?'

'The river hasn't changed. It will undermine the new bridge just as surely as it did the old - unless we prevent it.'

'How?'

'In my drawing, I showed a pile of large, loose stones surrounding each of the piers of the new bridge. They will break up the current and enfeeble its effect. It's the difference between being tickled by loose thread and being flogged with a tightly woven rope.'

'How do you know?'

'I asked Buonaventura about it, immediately after the bridge collapsed, before he went back to London. He said he had seen such piles of stones around the piers of bridges in Italy, and he had often wondered what they were for.'

'Fascinating. Are you telling me this for general enlightenment, or is there some more specific purpose?'

'People like Godwyn and Elfric don't understand this, and wouldn't listen if I told them. Just in case Elfric takes it into his fool head not to follow my design exactly, I want to be sure that at least one person in town knows the reason for the pile of stones.'

'But one person does - you.'

'I'm leaving Kingsbridge.'

That shocked him. 'Leaving?' he said. 'You?'

At that moment, Caris appeared. 'Don't stay here too long,' she said to her father. 'Aunt Petranilla is preparing dinner. Do you want to join us, Merthin?'

Edmund said: 'Merthin's leaving Kingsbridge.'

Caris paled.

Seeing her reaction, Merthin felt a jolt of satisfaction. She had rejected him, but she was dismayed to hear that he was leaving town. He immediately felt ashamed of such an unworthy emotion. He was too fond of her to want her to suffer. All the same, he would have felt worse if she had received the news with equanimity.

'Why?' she said.

'There's nothing for me here. What am I going to build? I can't work on the bridge. The town already has a cathedral. I don't want to do nothing but merchants' houses for the rest of my life.'

In a quiet voice, she said: 'Where will you go?'

'Florence. I've always wanted to see the buildings of Italy. I'll ask Buonaventura Caroli for letters of introduction. I might even be able to travel with one of his consignments.'

'But you own property here in Kingsbridge.'

'I wanted to speak to you about that. Would you manage it for me? You could collect my rents, take a commission, and give the balance to Buonaventura. He can transfer money to Florence by letter.'

'I don't want a damn commission,' she said huffily.

Merthin shrugged. 'It's work, you should be paid.'

'How can you be so cold about it?' she said. Her voice was shrill, and around the parlor of the Bell several people looked up. She took no notice. 'You'll be leaving all your friends!'

'I'm not cold about it. Friends are great. But I'd like to get married.'

Edmund put in: 'Plenty of girls in Kingsbridge would marry you. You're not handsome, but you're prosperous, and that's worth more than good looks.'

Merthin smiled wryly. Edmund could be disarmingly blunt. Caris had inherited the trait. 'For a while I thought I might marry Elizabeth Clerk,' he said.

Edmund said: 'So did I.'

Caris said: 'She's a cold fish.'

'No, she's not. But when she asked me, I backed off.'

Caris said: 'Oh - so that's why she's so bad-tempered lately.'

Edmund said: 'And why her mother won't look at Merthin.'

'Why did you refuse her?' Caris asked.

'There's only one woman in Kingsbridge I could marry - and she doesn't want to be anyone's wife.'

'But she doesn't want to lose you.'

Merthin became angry. 'What should I do?' he said. His voice was loud, and people around them stopped their conversations to listen. 'Godwyn has fired me, you've rejected me, and my brother is an outlaw. In God's name, why should I stay here?'

'I don't want you to go,' she said.

'That's not enough!' he shouted.

The room was silent now. Everyone there knew them: the landlord, Paul Bell, and his curvy daughter Bessie; the gray-haired barmaid Sairy, Elizabeth's mother; Bill Watkin, who had refused to employ Merthin; Edward Butcher, the notorious adulterer; Jake Chepstow, Merthin's tenant; Friar Murdo, Matthew Barber, and Mark Webber. They all knew the history of Merthin and Caris, and they were fascinated by the quarrel.

Merthin did not care. Let them listen. He said furiously: 'I'm not going to spend my life hanging around you, like your dog Scrap, waiting for your attention. I'll be your husband, but I won't be your pet.'

'All right, then,' she said in a small voice.

Her sudden change of tone surprised him, and he was not sure what she meant. 'All right, what?'

'All right, I'll marry you.'

For a moment, he was too shocked to speak. Then he said suspiciously: 'Do you mean it?'

She looked up at him at last and smiled shyly. 'Yes, I mean it,' she said. 'Just ask me.'

'All right.' He took a deep breath. 'Will you marry me?'

'Yes, I will,' she said.

Edmund shouted: 'Hoorah!'

Everyone in the tavern cheered and clapped.

Merthin and Caris started laughing. 'Will you, really?' he said.

'Yes.'

They kissed, then he put his arms around her and squeezed as hard as he could. When he let her go, he saw that she was crying.

'Some wine for my betrothed,' he called out. 'A barrel, in fact - give everyone a cup, so they can all drink our health!'

'Coming right up,' said the landlord, and they all cheered again.

A week later, Elizabeth Clerk became a novice nun.