World Without End

It was small consolation. For the first time in her life she felt tired – not just weary from hard work, but drained of energy, short of will power, enfeebled by adversity. The plague was worse than ever, killing two hundred people a week, and she did not know how she was going to carry on. Her muscles ached, her head hurt, and sometimes her vision seemed to blur. Where would it end, she wondered dismally. Would everyone die?

Two men staggered in through the door, both bleeding. Caris hurried forward. Before she got within touching distance she picked up the sweetly rotten smell of drink on them. They were both nearly helpless, although it was not yet di

She knew the men vaguely: Barney and Lou, two strong youngsters employed in the abattoir owned by Edward Slaughterhouse. Barney had one arm hanging limp, possibly broken. Lou had a dreadful injury to his face: his nose was crushed and one eye was a ghastly pulp. Both seemed too drunk to feel pain. “It was a fight,” Barney slurred, his words only just comprehensible. “I didn’t mean it. He’s my best friend. I love him.”

Caris and Sister Nellie got the two drunks lying down on adjacent mattresses. Nellie examined Barney and said his arm was not broken but dislocated, and sent a novice to fetch Matthew Barber, the surgeon, who would try to relocate it. Caris bathed Lou’s face. There was nothing she could do to save his eye: it had burst like a soft-boiled egg.

This kind of thing made her furious. The two men were not suffering from a disease or an accidental injury: they had harmed one another while drinking to excess. After the first wave of the plague, she had managed to galvanize the townspeople into restoring law and order; but the second wave had done something terrible to people’s souls. When she called again for a return to civilized behaviour, the response had been apathetic. She did not know what to do next, and she felt so tired.

As she contemplated the two maimed men lying shoulder to shoulder on the floor, she heard a strange noise from outside. For an instant, she was transported back three years, to the battle of Crécy, and the terrifying booming sound made by King Edward’s new machines that shot stone balls into the enemy ranks. A moment later the noise came again and she realized it was a drum – several drums, in fact, being struck in no particular rhythm. Then she heard pipes and bells whose notes failed to form any kind of tune; then hoarse cries, wailing, and shouts that might have indicated triumph or agony, or both. It was not unlike the noise of battle, but without the swish of deadly arrows or the screams of maimed horses. Frowning, she went outside.

A group of forty or so people had come on to the cathedral green, dancing a mad antic jig. Some played on musical instruments, or rather sounded them, for there was no melody or harmony to the noise. Their flimsy light-coloured clothes were ripped and stained, and some were half naked, carelessly exposing the intimate parts of their bodies. All those who did not have instruments were carrying whips. A crowd of townspeople followed, staring in curiosity and amazement.

The dancers were led by Friar Murdo, fatter than ever but cavorting energetically, sweat pouring down his dirty face and dripping from his straggly beard. He led them to the great west door of the cathedral, where he turned to face them. “We have all si

His followers cried out in response, inarticulate shrieks and groans.

“We are dirt!” he said thrillingly. “We wallow in lasciviousness like pigs in filth. We yield, quivering with desire, to our fleshly lusts. We deserve the plague!”

“Yes!”

“What must we do?”

“Suffer!” they called. “We must suffer!”

One of the followers dashed forward, flourishing a whip. It had three leather thongs, each of which appeared to have sharp stones attached to a knot. He threw himself at Murdo’s feet and began to lash his own back. The whip tore the thin material of his robe and drew blood from the skin of his back. He cried out in pain, and the rest of Murdo’s followers groaned in sympathy.

Then a woman came forward. She pulled her robe down to her waist and turned, exposing her bare breasts to the crowd; then lashed her bare back with a similar whip. The followers moaned again.

As they came forward in ones and twos, flogging themselves, Caris saw that many of them had bruises and half-healed cuts on their skin: they had done this before, some of them many times. Did they go from town to town repeating the performance? Given Murdo’s involvement, she felt sure that sooner or later someone would start collecting money.

A woman in the watching crowd suddenly ran forward screaming: “Me, too, I must suffer!” Caris was surprised to see that it was Mared, the browbeaten young wife of Marcel Chandler. Caris could not imagine that she had committed many sins, but perhaps she had at last seen a chance to make her life dramatic. She threw off her dress and stood stark naked before the friar. Her skin was unmarked, in fact she looked beautiful.

Murdo gazed at her for a long moment then said: “Kiss my feet.”

She knelt in front of him, exposing her rear obscenely to the crowd, and lowered her face to his filthy feet.

He took a whip from another penitent and handed it to her. She lashed herself, then shrieked in pain, and red marks appeared instantly on her white skin.

Several more ran forward eagerly from the crowd, mostly men, and Murdo went through the same ritual with each. Soon there was an orgy. When they were not whipping themselves they were banging their drums and clanging their bells and dancing their fiendish jig.

Their actions had a mad abandon, but Caris’s professional eye noted that the strokes of the whips, though dramatic and undoubtedly painful, did not appear to inflict permanent damage.

Merthin appeared beside Caris and said: “What do you think of this?”

She frowned and said: “Why does it make me feel indignant?”

“I don’t know.”

“If people want to whip themselves, why should I object? Perhaps it makes them feel better.”

“I agree with you, though,” Merthin said. “There’s generally something fraudulent about anything Murdo is involved with.”

“That’s not it.”

The mood here was not one of penitence, she decided. These dancers were not looking back contemplatively over their lives, feeling sorrow and regret for sins committed. People who genuinely repented tended to be quiet, thoughtful and undemonstrative. What Caris sensed in the air here was quite different. It was excitement.

“This is a debauch,” she said.

“Only instead of drink, they’re overindulging in self-loathing.”

“And there’s a kind of ecstasy in it.”

“But no sex.”

“Give them time.”

Murdo led the procession off again, heading out of the priory precincts. Caris noticed that some of the flagellants had produced bowls and were begging coins from the crowd. They would go through the principal streets of the town like this, she guessed. They would probably finish up at one of the larger taverns, where people would buy them food and drink.

Merthin touched her arm. “You look pale,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Just tired,” she said curtly. She had to soldier on regardless of how she felt, and it did not help her to be reminded of her tiredness. However, it was kind of him to notice, and she softened her tone to say: “Come to the prior’s house. It’s almost di

They walked across the green as the procession disappeared. They stepped inside the palace. As soon as they were alone, Caris put her arms around Merthin and kissed him. She suddenly felt very physical, and she thrust her tongue into his mouth, which she knew he liked. In response, he took both her breasts in his hands and squeezed gently. They had never kissed like this inside the palace, and Caris wondered vaguely whether something about Friar Murdo’s bacchanal had weakened her normal inhibitions.