Epic Historial Collection (275 page)

“You count them, then.”

The door opened, letting in a blast of icy air. Caris came in, wrapped in a heavy cloak. Merthin smiled: every time he saw her, he felt glad she was still alive.

Bessie looked at her warily, but spoke a welcome. “Hello, Sister,” she said. “It's kind of you to remember my father.”

Caris said: “I'm very sorry you have lost him. He was a good man.” She, too, was being formally polite. Merthin realized that these two women saw themselves as rivals for his affections. He did not know what he had done to deserve such devotion.

“Thank you,” Bessie said to Caris. “Will you have a cup of ale?”

“That's very kind, but no. I need to speak to Merthin.”

Bessie looked at Lolla. “Shall we roast some nuts on the fire?”

“Yes, please!”

Bessie took Lolla away.

“They get on well together,” Caris said.

Merthin nodded. “Bessie has a warm heart, and no children of her own.”

Caris looked sad. “I have no children…but perhaps I haven't got the warm heart.”

Merthin touched her hand. “I know better,” he said. “You have such a warm heart you have to take care of not just one or two children but dozens of people.”

“It's kind of you to see it that way.”

“It's true, that's all. How are things at the hospital?”

“Unbearable. The place is full of people dying, and I can't do anything for them except bury them.”

Merthin felt a surge of compassion. She was always so competent, so reliable, but the strain told on her, and she was willing to show it to him, if to no one else. “You look tired,” he said.

“I am, God knows.”

“I suppose you're worrying about the election, too.”

“I came to ask for your help with that.”

Merthin hesitated. He was torn by contradictory feelings. Part of him wanted her to achieve her ambition and become prioress. But then would she ever be his wife? He had a shamefully selfish hope that she would lose the election and renounce her vows. All the same, he wanted to give her whatever help she asked for, just because he loved her. “All right,” he said.

“Godwyn's sermon yesterday hurt me.”

“Will you never be rid of that old accusation of witchcraft? It's so absurd!”

“People are stupid. The sermon had a big impact on the nuns.”

“As was intended, of course.”

“No doubt of it. Few of them believed Elizabeth when she said that my linen masks were heathenish. Only her close friends discarded the mask: Cressie, Elaine, Jeannie, Rosie, and Simone. But when the others heard the message from the pulpit of the cathedral, it was different. The more impressionable sisters have all now discarded the mask. A few avoid making an obvious choice by never coming into the hospital. Only a handful still wear it: me and four nuns I'm close to.”

“I was afraid of this.”

“Now that Mother Cecilia, Mair, and Old Julie are dead, there are only thirty-two nuns eligible to vote. Seventeen votes are all you need to win. Elizabeth originally had five sworn supporters. The sermon has given her eleven more. With her own vote, that makes seventeen. I have only five, and even if all the waverers came over to me, I would lose.”

Merthin felt angry on her behalf. It must be hurtful to be rejected like this after all she had done for the nunnery. “What can you do?”

“The bishop is my last hope. If he sets his face against Elizabeth, and announces that he will not ratify her election, some of her support may fall away, and I could have a chance.”

“How can you influence him?”

“I can't, but you could—or, at least, the parish guild could.”

“I suppose so…”

“They have a meeting this evening. You'll be there, I imagine.”

“Yes.”

“Think about it. Godwyn already has the town in a stranglehold. He's close to Elizabeth—her family are tenants of the priory, and Godwyn has always been careful to favor them. If she becomes prioress, she will be as compliant as Elfric. Godwyn will have no opposition in or out of the priory. It will be the death of Kingsbridge.”

“That's true, but whether the guildsmen will agree to intercede with the bishop…”

Suddenly she looked terribly disheartened. “Just try. If they turn you down, so be it.”

Her desperation touched him, and he wished he could be more optimistic. “I will, of course.”

“Thank you.” She stood up. “You must have conflicting feelings about this. Thank you for being a true friend.”

He smiled wryly. He wanted to be her husband, not her friend. But he would take what he could get.

She went out into the cold.

Merthin joined Bessie and Lolla at the fireside, and sampled their roasted nuts, but he was preoccupied. Godwyn's influence was malign, but all the same his power never ceased to grow. Why was that? Perhaps because he was an ambitious man with no conscience—a potent combination.

As darkness fell, he put Lolla to bed and paid a neighbor's daughter to watch her. Bessie left the barmaid, Sairy, in charge of the tavern. Wearing heavy cloaks, they walked up the main street to the guildhall for the midwinter meeting of the parish guild.

At the back of the long room there was a seasonal barrel of ale for the members. The merrymaking seemed to have a driven quality this Christmas, Merthin thought. They had been drinking hard at Paul Bell's wake, and some of those people now followed Merthin in and filled their tankards again as eagerly as if they had not tasted ale for a week. Perhaps it took their minds off the plague.

Bessie was one of four people introduced as new members. The other three were eldest sons of leading merchants who had died. Godwyn, as overlord of the townspeople, must be enjoying a rise in his income from inheritance tax, Merthin realized.

When the routine business had been dealt with, Merthin raised the subject of the election of the new prioress.

“That's none of our business,” Elfric said immediately.

“On the contrary, the result will affect commerce in this town for years to come, perhaps decades,” Merthin argued. “The prioress is one of the richest and most powerful people in Kingsbridge, and we ought to do what we can to get one who will do nothing to fetter trade.”

“But there's nothing we can do—we have no vote.”

“We have influence. We could petition the bishop.”

“It's never been done before.”

“That's not much of an argument.”

Bill Watkin interrupted. “Who are the candidates?”

Merthin replied: “Sorry, I thought you'd know. Sister Caris and Sister Elizabeth. I think we should support Caris.”

“Of course you do,” said Elfric. “And we all know why!”

There was a ripple of laughter. Everyone knew about the longstanding on-off love affair between Merthin and Caris.

Merthin smiled. “Go on, laugh—I don't mind. Just remember that Caris grew up in the wool business and helped her father, so she understands the problems and challenges that merchants face—whereas her rival is the daughter of a bishop, and more likely to sympathize with the prior.”

Elfric was looking red in the face—partly because of the ale he had drunk, Merthin thought, but mainly through anger. “Why do you hate me, Merthin?” he said.

Merthin was surprised. “I thought it was the other way around.”

“You seduced my daughter, then refused to marry her. You tried to prevent my building the bridge. I thought we'd got rid of you, then you came back and humiliated me over the cracks in the bridge. You hadn't been back more than a few days before you tried to get me ousted as alderman and replaced by your friend Mark. You even hinted that the cracks in the cathedral were my fault, although it was built before I was born. I repeat, why do you hate me?”

Merthin did not know what to say. How could Elfric not know what he had done to Merthin? But Merthin did not want to have this argument in front of the parish guild—it seemed childish. “I don't hate you, Elfric. You were a cruel master when I was an apprentice, and you're a slipshod builder, and you toady to Godwyn, but all the same I don't hate you.”

One of the new members, Joseph Blacksmith, said: “Is this what you do at the parish guild—have stupid arguments?”

Merthin felt hard done by. It was not he who had introduced the personal note. But for him to say that would be seen as continuing a stupid argument. So he said nothing, and reflected that Elfric was ever sly.

“Joe's right,” said Bill Watkin. “We didn't come here to listen to Elfric and Merthin squabbling.”

Merthin was troubled by Bill's willingness to put him and Elfric on the same level. Generally, the guildsmen liked him and felt mildly hostile to Elfric, since the dispute over the bridge cracks. Indeed, they would have ousted Elfric if Mark had not died. But something had changed.

Merthin said: “Can we return to the matter in hand, which is petitioning the bishop to favor Caris as prioress?”

“I'm against it,” Elfric said. “Prior Godwyn wants Elizabeth.”

A new voice spoke up. “I'm with Elfric. We don't want to quarrel with the father prior.” It was Marcel Chandler, who had the contract to supply wax candles to the priory. Godwyn was his biggest customer. Merthin was not surprised.

However, the next speaker shocked him. It was Jeremiah Builder, who said: “I don't think we should favor someone who has been accused of heresy.” He spat on the floor twice, left and right, and crossed himself.

Merthin was too surprised to reply. Jeremiah had always been fearfully superstitious, but Merthin would never have imagined it would lead him to betray his mentor.

It was left to Bessie to defend Caris. “That charge was always ludicrous,” she said.

“It was never disproved, though,” said Jeremiah.

Merthin stared at him, but Jeremiah would not meet his eye. “What's got into you, Jimmie?” Merthin said.

“I don't want to die of the plague,” Jeremiah said. “You heard the sermon. Anyone practising heathen remedies should be shunned. We're talking about asking the bishop to make her prioress—that's not shunning her!”

There was a murmur of assent, and Merthin realized that the tide of opinion had turned. The others were not as credulous as Jeremiah, but they shared his fear. The plague had spooked them all, undermining their rationality. Godwyn's sermon had been more effective than Merthin had imagined.

He was ready to give up—then he thought of Caris, and how weary and demoralized she had looked, and he gave it one more try. “I've lived through this once, in Florence,” he said. “I warn you now, priests and monks won't save anyone from the plague. You'll have handed the town to Godwyn on a plate, and all for nothing.”

Jeremiah said: “That sounds awfully close to blasphemy.”

Merthin looked around. The others agreed with Jeremiah. They were too scared to think straight. There was nothing more he could do.

They decided to take no action on the election for prioress, and soon afterward the meeting broke up in somewhat bad humor, the members taking burning sticks from the fire to light their way home.

Merthin decided it was too late to report to Caris—the nuns, like the monks, went to bed at nightfall and got up in the early hours of the morning. However, there was a figure wrapped in a big wool cloak waiting outside the guildhall, and to his surprise his torch revealed the troubled face of Caris. “What happened?” she said anxiously.

“I failed,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

In the torchlight she looked wounded. “What did they say?”

“They won't intervene. They believed the sermon.”

“Fools.”

Together they walked down the main street. At the priory gates, Merthin said: “Leave the nunnery, Caris. Not for my sake, but for your own. You can't work under Elizabeth. She hates you, and she'll block everything you want to do.”

“She hasn't won yet.”

“She will, though—you said so yourself. Renounce your vows, and marry me.”

“Marriage is a vow. If I break my vow to God, why would you trust me to keep my promise to you?”

He smiled. “I'll risk it.”

“Let me think about it.”

“You've been thinking about it for months,” Merthin said with resentment. “If you don't leave now, you never will.”

“I can't leave now. People need me more than ever.”

He began to feel angry. “I won't keep asking forever.”

“I know.”

“In fact, I won't ask you again, after tonight.”

She began to cry. “I'm sorry, but I can't abandon the hospital in the midst of a plague.”

“The hospital.”

“And the people of the town.”