Epic Historial Collection (226 page)

He was not going to be pushed into anything. “The price will come down if there's a lot of cloth for sale.”

“It will have to fall a long way before the business becomes unprofitable.”

He nodded. “That's true. But can you sell that much in Kingsbridge and Shiring? There aren't that many rich people.”

“Then I'll take it to London.”

“All right.” He smiled. “You're so determined. It's a good plan—but even if it were a bad one, you'd probably make it work.”

She went immediately to Mark Webber's house and arranged for him to begin work on another sack of wool. She also arranged for Madge to take one of Edmund's oxcarts and four sacks of wool, and go around neighboring villages looking for weavers.

But the rest of Caris's family were not happy. Next day, Alice came to dinner. As they sat down, Petranilla said to Edmund: “Alice and I think you should reconsider your cloth-making project.”

Caris wanted him to tell her that the decision was made and it was too late to go back. But instead he said mildly: “Really? Tell me why.”

“You'll be risking just about every penny you've got, that's why!”

“Most of it's at risk now,” he said. “I've got a warehouse full of wool that I can't sell.”

“But you could make a bad situation worse.”

“I've decided to take that chance.”

Alice broke in: “It's not fair on me!”

“Why not?”

“Caris is spending my inheritance!”

His face darkened. “I'm not dead yet,” he said.

Petranilla clamped her mouth shut, recognizing the undertone in his low voice; but Alice did not notice how angry he was, and plowed on. “We have to think about the future,” she said. “Why should Caris be allowed to spend my birthright?”

“Because it's not yours yet, and perhaps it never will be.”

“You can't just throw away money that should come to me.”

“I won't be told what to do with my money—especially by my children,” he said, and his voice was so taut with anger that even Alice noticed.

More quietly, she said: “I didn't intend to annoy you.”

He grunted. It was not much of an apology, but he could never remain grumpy for long. “Let's have dinner and say no more about it,” he said; and Caris knew that her project had survived another day.

After dinner she went to see Peter Dyer, to warn him of the large quantity of work coming his way. “It can't be done,” he said.

That took her by surprise. He always looked gloomy, but he normally did what she wanted. “Don't worry, you won't have to dye it all,” she said. “I'll give some of the work to others.”

“It's not the dyeing,” he said. “It's the fulling.”

“Why?”

“We're not allowed to full the cloth ourselves. Prior Godwyn has issued a new edict. We have to use the priory's fulling mill.”

“Well, then, we'll use it.”

“It's too slow. The machinery is old, and keeps breaking down. It's been repaired again and again, so the wood is a mixture of new and old, which never sorts well. It's no faster than a man treading in a bath of water. And there's only one mill. It will barely cope with the normal work of Kingsbridge weavers and dyers.”

This was maddening. Surely her whole scheme could not fail because of a stupid ruling by her cousin Godwyn? She said indignantly: “But if the mill can't do the work, the prior must permit us to tread the cloth by foot!”

Peter shrugged. “Tell him that.”

“I will!”

She marched off toward the priory, but before she got there, she thought again. The hall of the prior's house was used for his meetings with townspeople, but all the same it would be unusual for a woman to go in alone without an appointment, and Godwyn was increasingly touchy about such things. Moreover, a straight confrontation might not be the best way to change his mind. She realized she would do better to think this through. She returned to her house and sat down with her father in the parlor.

“Young Godwyn is on weak ground here,” Edmund said immediately. “There never was a charge for using the fulling mill. According to legend, it was built by a townsman, Jack Builder, for the great Prior Philip; and, when Jack died, Philip gave the town the right to use the mill in perpetuity.”

“Why did people stop using it?”

“It fell into disrepair, and I think there was an argument about who should pay for its upkeep. The argument was never resolved, and people went back to treading cloth themselves.”

“Why, then, he has no right to charge a fee, nor to force people to use it!”

“No, indeed.”

Edmund sent a message to the priory asking when it might be convenient for Godwyn to see him, and the reply came back saying he was free right away, so Edmund and Caris crossed the street and went to the prior's house.

Godwyn had changed a lot in a year, Caris thought. There was no boyish eagerness left. He seemed wary, as if he expected them to be aggressive. She was beginning to wonder whether he had the strength of character to be prior.

Philemon was with him, pathetically eager as ever to fetch chairs and pour drinks, but with a new touch of assurance in his manner, the look of someone who knew he belonged here.

“So, Philemon, you're an uncle now,” Caris said. “What do you think of your new nephew, Sam?”

“I'm a novice monk,” he said prissily. “We give up all worldly relations.”

Caris shrugged. She knew he was fond of his sister Gwenda, but if he wanted to pretend otherwise, she was not going to argue.

Edmund laid out the problem starkly for Godwyn. “Work on the bridge will have to stop if the wool merchants of Kingsbridge can't improve their fortunes. Happily, we have come up with a new source of income. Caris has discovered how to produce high-quality scarlet cloth. Only one thing stands in the way of the success of this new enterprise: the fulling mill.”

“Why?” said Godwyn. “The scarlet cloth can be fulled at the mill.”

“Apparently not. It's old and inefficient. It can barely handle the existing production of cloth. It has no capacity for extra. Either you build a new fulling mill—”

“Out of the question,” Godwyn interrupted. “I have no spare cash for that sort of thing.”

“Very well, then,” said Edmund. “You'll have to permit people to full cloth in the old way, by putting it in a bath of water and stamping on it with their bare feet.”

The look that came over Godwyn's face was familiar to Caris. It was compounded of resentment, injured pride, and mulish obstinacy. In childhood he had looked like that whenever he was opposed. It meant he would try to bully the other children into submission or, failing that, stamp his foot and go home. Wanting his own way was only part of it. He seemed, Caris thought, to feel humiliated by disagreement, as if the idea that someone might think him wrong was too wounding to be borne. Whatever the explanation, she knew as soon as she saw the look that he was not going to be reasonable.

“I knew you would oppose me,” he said petulantly to Edmund. “You seem to think the priory exists for the benefit of Kingsbridge. You'll just have to realize that it's the other way around.”

Edmund rapidly became exasperated. “Don't you see that we depend on one another? We thought you understood that interrelationship—that's why we helped you get elected.”

“I was elected by the monks, not the merchants. The town may depend on the priory, but there was a priory here before there was a town, and we can exist without you.”

“You can exist, perhaps, but as an isolated outpost, rather than as the throbbing heart of a bustling city.”

Caris put in: “You must want Kingsbridge to prosper, Godwyn—why else would you have gone to London to oppose Earl Roland?”

“I went to the royal court to defend the ancient rights of the priory—as I am trying to do here and now.”

Edmund said indignantly: “This is treachery! We supported you as prior because you led us to believe you would build a bridge!”

“I owe you nothing,” Godwyn replied. “My mother sold her house to send me to the university—where was my rich uncle then?”

Caris was amazed that Godwyn was still resentful over what had happened ten years ago.

Edmund's expression became coldly hostile. “I don't think you have the right to force people to use the fulling mill,” he said.

A glance passed between Godwyn and Philemon, and Caris realized they knew this. Godwyn said: “There may have been times when the prior generously allowed the townspeople to use the mill without charge.”

“It was the gift of Prior Philip to the town.”

“I know nothing of that.”

“There must be a document in your records.”

Godwyn became angry. “The townspeople have allowed the mill to fall into disrepair, so that the priory has to pay to put it right. That is enough to annul any gift.”

Edmund was right, Caris realized: Godwyn was on weak ground. He knew about Prior Philip's gift, but he intended to ignore it.

Edmund tried again. “Surely we can settle this between us?”

“I will not back down from my edict,” Godwyn said. “It would make me appear weak.”

That was what really bothered him, Caris realized. He was frightened that the townspeople would disrespect him if he changed his mind. His obstinacy came, paradoxically, from a kind of timidity.

Edmund said: “Neither of us wants the trouble and expense of another visit to the royal court.”

Godwyn bristled. “Are you threatening me with the royal court?”

“I'm trying to avoid it. But…”

Caris closed her eyes, praying that the two men would not push their argument to the brink. Her prayer was not answered.

“But what?” said Godwyn challengingly.

Edmund sighed. “But yes, if you force the townspeople to use the fulling mill, and prohibit home fulling, I will appeal to the king.”

“So be it,” said Godwyn.

34

T
he deer was a young female, a year or two old, sleek across the haunches, well muscled under a soft leather skin. She was on the far side of a clearing, pushing her long neck through the branches of a bush to reach a patch of scrubby grass. Ralph Fitzgerald and Alan Fernhill were on horseback, the hooves of their mounts muffled by the carpet of wet autumn leaves, and their dogs were trained to silence. Because of this, and perhaps because she was concentrating on straining to reach her fodder, the deer did not hear their approach until it was too late.

Ralph saw her first, and pointed across the clearing. Alan was carrying his longbow, grasping it and the reins in his left hand. With the speed of long practice, he fitted an arrow to the string in a heartbeat, and shot.

The dogs were slower. Only when they heard the thrum of the bowstring and the whistle of the arrow as it flew through the air did they react. Barley, the bitch, froze in place, head up, ears erect; and Blade, her puppy, now grown larger than his mother, uttered a low, startled woof.

The arrow was a yard long, flighted with swan feathers. Its tip was two inches of solid iron with a socket into which the shaft fitted tightly. It was a hunting arrow, with a sharp point: a battle arrow would have had a square head, so that it would punch through armor without being deflected.

Alan's shot was good, but not perfect. It struck the deer low in the neck. She jumped with all four feet—shocked, presumably, by the sudden, agonizing stab. Her head came up out of the bush. For an instant, Ralph thought she was going to fall down dead, but a moment later she bounded away. The arrow was still buried in her neck, but the blood was oozing rather than spurting from the wound, so it must have lodged in her muscles, missing the major blood vessels.

The dogs leaped forward as if they, too, had been shot from bows; and the two horses followed without urging. Ralph was on Griff, his favorite hunter. He felt the rush of excitement that was what he mainly lived for. It was a tingling in the nerves, a constriction in the neck, an irresistible impulse to yell at the top of his voice; a thrill so like sexual excitement that he could hardly have said what the difference was.

Men such as Ralph existed to fight. The king and his barons made them lords and knights, and gave them villages and lands to rule over, for a reason: so that they would be able to provide themselves with horses, squires, weapons, and armor whenever the king needed an army. But there was not a war every year. Sometimes two or three years would go by without so much as a minor police action on the borders of rebellious Wales or barbarian Scotland. Knights needed something to do in the interim. They had to keep fit and maintain their horsemanship and—perhaps most important of all—their bloodlust. Soldiers had to kill, and they did it better when they longed for it.

Hunting was the answer. All noblemen, from the king down to minor lords such as Ralph, hunted whenever they got the chance, often several times a week. They enjoyed it, and it ensured they were fit for battle whenever called upon. Ralph hunted with Earl Roland on his frequent visits to Earlscastle, and often joined Lord William's hunt at Casterham. When he was at his own village of Wigleigh, he went out with his squire, Alan, in the forests round about. They usually killed boar—there was not much meat on the wild pigs, but they were exciting to hunt because they put up a good fight. Ralph also went after foxes and the occasional, rare, wolf. But a deer was best: agile, fast, and a hundred pounds of good meat to take home.