Epic Historial Collection (165 page)

Caris had liked Merthin. His boring brother, Ralph, was just like every other boy in Kingsbridge, boastful and aggressive and stupid, but Merthin seemed different. He had intrigued her right from the start.

Two new friends in one day, she thought, looking at Gwenda. The little girl was not pretty. She had dark brown eyes set close together above a beaky nose. She had picked a dog that looked a bit like her, Caris realized with amusement. Gwenda's clothes were old, and must have been worn by many children before her. Gwenda was calmer now. She no longer looked as if she might burst into tears at any moment. She, too, had been soothed by the puppies.

There was a familiar lopsided tread in the hall below, and a moment later a voice bellowed: “Bring me a flagon of ale, for the love of the saints, I've got a thirst like a cart horse.”

“It's my father,” Caris said. “Come and meet him.” Seeing that Gwenda looked anxious, she added: “Don't worry, he always shouts like that, but he's really nice.”

The girls went downstairs with their puppies. “What's happened to all my servants?” Papa roared. “Have they run away to join the fairy folk?” He came stomping out of the kitchen, trailing his twisted right leg as always, carrying a big wooden cup slopping over with ale. “Hello, my little buttercup,” he said to Caris in a softer voice. He sat on the big chair at the head of the table and took a long draft from the cup. “That's better,” he said, wiping his straggly beard with his sleeve. He noticed Gwenda. “A little daisy to go with my buttercup?” he said. “What's your name?”

“Gwenda, from Wigleigh, my lord,” she said, awestruck.

“I gave her a puppy,” Caris explained.

“That's a good idea!” Papa said. “Puppies need affection, and no one can love a puppy the way a little girl does.”

On the stool beside the table Caris saw a cloak of scarlet cloth. It had to be imported, for English dyers did not know how to achieve such a bright red. Following her eye, Papa said: “It's for your mother. She's always wanted a coat of Italian red. I'm hoping it will encourage her to get well enough to wear it.”

Caris touched it. The wool was soft and close-woven, as only the Italians could make it. “It's beautiful,” she said.

Aunt Petranilla entered from the street. She bore some resemblance to Papa, but was purse-mouthed where he was hearty. She was more like her other brother, Anthony, the prior of Kingsbridge: they were both tall, imposing figures, whereas Papa was short, barrel-chested, and lame.

Caris disliked Petranilla. She was clever as well as mean, a deadly combination in an adult: Caris was never able to outwit her. Gwenda sensed Caris's dislike, and looked apprehensively at the newcomer. Only Papa was pleased to see her. “Come in, sister,” he said. “Where are all my servants?”

“I can't think why you imagine I should know that, having just come from my own house at the other end of the street, but if I had to guess, Edmund, I should say that your cook is in the henhouse, hoping to find an egg to make you a pudding, and your maid is upstairs, helping your wife to a close stool, which she generally requires about midday. As for your apprentices, I hope they are both on guard duty at the warehouse by the riverside, making sure that no holiday revelers take it into their drunken heads to light a bonfire within a spark's fly of your wool store.”

She often spoke like this, giving a little sermon in answer to a simple question. Her manner was supercilious, as always, but Papa did not mind, or pretended not to. “My remarkable sister,” he said. “You're the one who inherited our father's wisdom.”

Petranilla turned to the girls. “Our father was descended from Tom Builder, the stepfather and mentor of Jack Builder, architect of Kingsbridge Cathedral,” she said. “Father vowed to give his firstborn to God but, unfortunately, his firstborn was a girl—me. He named me after Saint Petranilla—who was the daughter of Saint Peter, as I'm sure you know—and he prayed for a boy next time. But his first son was born deformed, and he did not want to give God a flawed gift, so he brought Edmund up to take over the wool business. Happily, his third child was our brother Anthony, a well behaved and God-fearing child, who entered the monastery as a boy and is now, we are all proud to say, the prior.”

She would have become a priest, had she been a man, but as it was she had done the next best thing and brought up her son, Godwyn, to be a monk at the priory. Like Grandfather Wooler, she had given a child to God. Caris had always felt sorry for Godwyn, her older cousin, for having Petranilla as a mother.

Petranilla noticed the red coat. “Whose is this?” she said. “It's the most expensive Italian cloth!”

“I bought it for Rose,” said Papa.

Petranilla stared at him for a moment. Caris could tell she thought he was a fool to buy such a coat for a woman who had not left the house for a year. But all she said was: “You're very good to her,” which might have been a compliment or not.

Father did not care. “Go up and see her,” he urged. “You'll cheer her up.”

Caris doubted that, but Petranilla suffered no such misgivings, and she went up the stairs.

Caris's sister, Alice, came in from the street. She was eleven, a year older than Caris. She stared at Gwenda and said: “Who's she?”

“My new friend Gwenda,” said Caris. “She's going to take a puppy.”

“But she's got the one I wanted!” Alice protested.

She had not said that before. “Ooh—you never picked one!” Caris said, outraged. “You're just saying that to be mean.”

“Why should she have one of our puppies?”

Papa intervened. “Now, now,” he said. “We've got more puppies than we need.”

“Caris should have asked me which one I wanted first!”

“Yes, she should,” Papa said, even though he knew perfectly well that Alice was only making trouble. “Don't do it again, Caris.”

“Yes, Papa.”

The cook came in from the kitchen with jugs and cups. When Caris was learning to talk she had called the cook Tutty, no one knew why, but the name had stuck. Papa said: “Thank you, Tutty. Sit at the table, girls.” Gwenda hesitated, not sure if she was invited, but Caris nodded at her, knowing that Papa intended her to be included—he generally asked everyone within his range of vision to come to dinner.

Tutty refilled Papa's cup with ale, then gave Alice, Caris, and Gwenda ale mixed with water. Gwenda drank all of hers immediately, with relish, and Caris guessed she did not often get ale: poor people drank cider made from crab apples.

Next, the cook put in front of each of them a thick slice of rye bread a foot square. Gwenda picked hers up to eat it, and Caris realized she had never dined at a table before. “Wait,” she said quietly, and Gwenda put the bread down again. Tutty brought in the ham on a board and a dish of cabbage. Papa took a big knife and cut slices off the ham, piling it on their bread trenchers. Gwenda stared big-eyed at the quantity of meat she was given. Caris spooned cabbage leaves on top of the ham.

The chambermaid, Elaine, came hurrying down the stairs. “The mistress seems worse,” she said. “Mistress Petranilla says we should send for Mother Cecilia.”

“Then run to the priory and beg her to come,” Papa said.

The maid hurried off.

“Eat up, children,” said Papa, and he speared a slice of hot ham with his knife; but Caris could see that the dinner now had no relish for him, and he seemed to be looking at something far away.

Gwenda ate some cabbage and whispered: “This is food from Heaven.” Caris tried it. The cabbage was cooked with ginger. Gwenda had probably never tasted ginger: only rich people could afford it.

Petranilla came down, put some ham on a wooden platter, and took it up for Mama; but she came back a few moments later with the food untouched. She sat at the table to eat it herself, and the cook brought her a bread trencher. “When I was a girl, we were the only family in Kingsbridge who had meat for dinner every day,” she said. “Except on fast days—my father was very devout. He was the first wool merchant in town to deal directly with the Italians. Everyone does now—although my brother Edmund is still the most important.”

Caris had lost her appetite, and she had to chew for a long time before she could swallow. At last Mother Cecilia arrived, a small, vital woman with a reassuringly bossy manner. With her was Sister Juliana, a simple person with a warm heart. Caris felt better as she watched them climb the stairs, a chirpy sparrow with a hen waddling behind. They would wash Mama in rose water to cool her fever, and the fragrance would lift her spirits.

Tutty brought in apples and cheese. Papa peeled an apple absentmindedly with his knife. Caris remembered how, when she was younger, he used to feed her peeled slices then eat the skin himself.

Sister Juliana came downstairs, a worried look on her pudgy face. “The prioress wants Brother Joseph to come and see Mistress Rose,” she said. Joseph was the senior physician at the monastery: he had trained with the masters at Oxford. “I'll just go and fetch him,” Juliana said, and she ran out through the door to the street.

Papa put his peeled apple down uneaten.

Caris said: “What is going to happen?”

“I don't know, buttercup. Will it rain? How many sacks of wool do the Florentines need? Will the sheep catch a murrain? Is the baby a girl, or a boy with a twisted leg? We never know, do we? That's…” He looked away. “That's what makes it so hard.”

He gave her the apple. Caris gave it to Gwenda, who ate it entire, core and pips, too.

Brother Joseph arrived a few minutes later with a young assistant whom Caris recognized as Saul Whitehead, so called because his hair—what little he had left after his monkish haircut—was ash blond.

Cecilia and Juliana came downstairs, no doubt to make room for the two men in the small bedroom. Cecilia sat at the table, but did not eat. She had a small face with sharp features: a little pointed nose, bright eyes, a chin like the prow of a boat. She looked with curiosity at Gwenda. “Well, now,” she said brightly, “who is this little girl, and does she love Jesus and His Holy Mother?”

Gwenda said: “I'm Gwenda, I'm Caris's friend.” She looked anxiously at Caris, as if she feared it might have been presumptuous of her to claim friendship.

Caris said: “Will the Virgin Mary make my mama better?”

Cecilia raised her eyebrows. “Such a direct question. I could have guessed you're Edmund's daughter.”

“Everyone prays to her, but not everyone gets well,” Caris said.

“And do you know why that is?”

“Perhaps she never helps anyone, and it's just that the strong people get well and the weak don't.”

“Now, now, don't be silly,” said Papa. “Everyone knows the Holy Mother helps us.”

“That's all right,” Cecilia told him. “It's normal for children to ask questions—especially the bright ones. Caris, the saints are always powerful, but some prayers are more effective than others. Do you understand that?”

Caris nodded reluctantly, feeling not convinced so much as outwitted.

“She must come to our school,” Cecilia said. The nuns had a school for the daughters of the nobility and of the more prosperous townspeople. The monks ran a separate school for boys.

Papa looked stubborn. “Rose has taught both girls their letters,” he said. “And Caris knows her numbers as well as I do—she helps me in the business.”

“She should learn more than that. Surely you don't want her to spend her life as your servant?”

Petranilla put in: “She has no need of book learning. She will marry extremely well. There will be crowds of suitors for both sisters. Sons of merchants, even sons of knights will be eager to marry into this family. But Caris is a willful child: we must take care she doesn't throw herself away on some penniless minstrel boy.”

Caris noticed that Petranilla did not anticipate trouble with obedient Alice, who would probably marry whomever they picked for her.

Cecilia said: “God might call Caris to his service.”

Papa said grumpily: “God has already called two from this family—my brother and my nephew. I'd have thought He would be satisfied by now.”

Cecilia looked at Caris. “What do you think?” she said. “Will you be a wool merchant, a knight's wife, or a nun?”

The idea of being a nun horrified Caris. She would have to obey someone else's orders every hour of the day. It would be like remaining a child all your life, and having Petranilla for a mother. Being the wife of a knight, or of anyone else, seemed almost as bad, for women had to obey their husbands. Helping Papa, then perhaps taking over the business when he was too old, was the least unattractive option, but on the other hand it was not exactly her dream. “I don't want to be any of those,” she said.

“Is there something you would like?” Cecilia asked.

There was, although Caris had not told anyone before, in fact had not fully realized it until now; but the ambition seemed fully formed, and suddenly she knew without doubt that it was her destiny. “I'm going to be a doctor,” she said.