World Without End

She followed his gaze and strained to imagine what he perceived in the old bridge. It was sixty yards from end to end, the longest bridge she had ever seen. The roadbed was supported by massive oak piers in two rows, like the pillars that marched either side of the nave of the cathedral. There were five pairs of piers. The end ones, where the water was shallow, were quite short, but the three central pairs stood fifteen feet above the water line.

Each pier consisted of four oak beams in a cluster, held together by plank braces. Legend said that the king had given Kingsbridge Priory the twenty-four best oak trees in England to build the three central pairs of piers. The tops were linked by beams in two parallel lines. Shorter beams crossed from one line to the other, forming the roadbed; and longitudinal planks had been laid on top to form the road surface. On each side was a wooden railing that served as a flimsy parapet. Every couple of years a drunk peasant would drive a cart through the rail and kill himself and his horse in the river.

“What are you looking at?” Caris asked Merthin.

“The cracks.”

“I don’t see any.”

“The timbers on either side of the central pier are splitting. You can see where Elfric has reinforced them with iron braces.”

Now that he pointed them out, Caris could see the flat metal strips nailed across the cracks. “You look worried,” she said to him.

“I don’t know why the timbers cracked in the first place.”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does.”

He was not very talkative this morning. She was about to ask him why, when he said: “Here comes your father.”

She looked along the street. The two brothers made an odd pair. Tall Anthony fastidiously held up the skirts of his monkish robe and stepped gingerly around the puddles, wearing an expression of distaste on his pale indoor face. Edmund, more vigorous despite being the elder, had a red face and a long untidy grey beard, and he walked carelessly, dragging his withered leg through the mud, speaking argumentatively and gesturing extravagantly with both arms. When Caris saw her father at a distance, the way a stranger might see him, she always felt a surge of love.

The dispute was in full swing when they got to the bridge, and they continued without pause. “Look at that queue!” Edmund shouted. “Hundreds of people not trading at the fair because they haven’t got there yet! And you can be sure half of them will meet a buyer or seller while waiting, and conduct their business right then and there, then go home without even entering the city!”

“That’s forestalling, and it’s against the law,” said Anthony.

“You could go and tell them that, if you could get across the bridge, but you can’t, because it’s too narrow! Listen, Anthony. If the Italians pull out, the Fleece Fair will never be the same again. Your prosperity and mine are based on the fair – we must not just let it go!”

“We can’t force Buonaventura to do business here.”

“But we can make our fair more attractive than Shiring’s. We need to a

Merthin looked startled, but he answered. “Finding the trees would be the hard part. You need very long timbers, well seasoned. Then the piers have to be driven into the river bed – that’s tricky, because you’re working in ru

Anthony said: “There’s no certainty the Caroli family will change its plans if we build a new bridge.”

“They will,” Edmund said forcefully. “I guarantee it.”

“Anyway, I can’t afford to build a bridge. I don’t have the money.”

“You can’t afford not to build a bridge,” Edmund shouted. “You’ll ruin yourself as well as the town.”

“It’s out of the question. I don’t even know where I’m going to get the money for the repairs in the south aisle.”

“So what will you do?”

“Trust in God.”

“Those who trust in God and sow a seed may reap a harvest. But you’re not sowing the seed.”

Anthony got irritated. “I know this is difficult for you to understand, Edmund, but Kingsbridge Priory is not a commercial enterprise. We’re here to worship God, not to make money.”

“You won’t worship God for long if you’ve nothing to eat.”

“God will provide.”

Edmund’s red face flushed with anger, turning a purplish colour. “When you were a boy, our father’s business fed you and clothed you and paid for your education. Since you’ve been a monk, the citizens of this town and the peasants of the surrounding countryside have kept you alive by paying you rents, tithes, charges for market stalls, bridge tolls, and a dozen other different fees. All your life you’ve lived like a flea on the backs of hard-working people. And now you have the nerve to tell us that God provides.”

“That’s perilously close to blasphemy.”

“Don’t forget that I’ve known you since you were born, Anthony. You always had a talent for avoiding work.” Edmund’s voice, so often raised in a shout, now dropped – a sign, Caris knew, that he was really furious. “When it was time to empty out the privy, you went off to bed, so that you would be rested for school the next day. Father’s gift to God, you always had the best of everything, and never lifted your hand to earn it. Strengthening food, the warmest bedroom, the best clothes – I was the only boy who wore his younger brother’s cast-off outfits!”

“And you never let me forget it.”

Caris had been waiting for the opportunity to halt the flow, and now she took it. “There ought to be a way around this.”

They both looked at her, surprised to be interrupted.

She went on: “For example, couldn’t the townspeople build a bridge?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Anthony. “The town belongs to the priory. A servant doesn’t furnish his master’s house.”

“But if your permission was sought, you would have no reason to refuse it.”

Anthony did not immediately contradict that, which was encouraging; but Edmund was shaking his head. “I don’t think I could persuade them to put up the money,” he said. “It would be in their interests, long term, of course; but people are very reluctant to think in the long term when being asked to part with their money.”

“Ha!” said Anthony. “Yet you expect me to think long term.”

“You deal with eternal life, don’t you?” Edmund shot back. “You of all people ought to be able to see beyond the end of next week. Besides, you get a pe

Caris said: “But Uncle Anthony is a spiritual leader, and he feels it’s not his role.”

“But he owns the town!” Papa protested. “He’s the only one who can do it!” Then he gave her an inquiring look, realizing that she would not have contradicted him without a reason. “What are you thinking?”

“Suppose the townspeople built a bridge, and were repaid out of the pe

Edmund opened his mouth to express an objection, but could not think of one.

Caris looked at Anthony.

Anthony said: “When the priory was new, its only income came from that bridge. I can’t give it away.”

“But think what you would gain, if the Fleece Fair and the weekly market began to return to their former size: not just the bridge tolls, but stallholders’ fees, the percentage you take of all transactions at the fair, and gifts to the cathedral too!”

Edmund added: “And the profits on your own sales: wool, grain, hides, books, statues of the saints-”

Anthony said: “You pla