World Without End

While the important personages slept, the nuns and the priory employees were hard at work preparing the funeral di

As the sun rose beyond the river, throwing a slanting yellow light on the rooftops of Kingsbridge, Caris studied the marks made on the town by nine months of plague. From this height she could see gaps in the rows of houses, like bad teeth. Timber buildings collapsed all the time, of course – because of fire, rain damage, incompetent construction or just old age. What was different now was that no one bothered to repair them. If your house fell down you just moved into one of the empty homes in the same street. The only person building anything was Merthin, and he was seen as a mad optimist with too much money.

Across the river, the gravediggers were already at work in another newly consecrated cemetery. The plague showed no signs of relenting. Where would it end? Would the houses just continue to fall down, one at a time, until there was nothing left, and the town was a wasteland of broken tiles and scorched timbers, with a deserted cathedral in the middle and a hundred-acre graveyard at its edge?

“I’m not going to let this happen,” she said.

Merthin did not at first understand. “The funeral?” he said, frowning.

Caris made a sweeping gesture to take in the city and the world beyond it. “Everything. Drunks maiming one another. Parents abandoning their sick children on the doorstep of my hospital. Men queuing to fuck a drunken woman on a table outside the White Horse. Livestock dying in the pastures. Half-naked penitents whipping themselves then collecting pe

“What are you going to do?”

She smiled gratefully at Merthin. Most people would have told her she was powerless to fight the situation, but he was always ready to believe in her. She looked at the stone angels carved on a pi

“All right,” he said.

“This is the moment to do it.”

“Because everyone is so angry about Tilly?”

“And because they’re frightened at the thought that armed men can come into the town at night and murder whomever they will. They think no one’s safe.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m going to tell them it must never happen again.”

“This must never happen again!” she cried, and her voice rang out across the graveyard and echoed off the ancient walls of the cathedral.

A woman could never speak out as part of a service in church, but the graveside ceremony was a grey area, a solemn moment that took place outside the church, a time when lay people such as the family of the deceased would sometimes make speeches or pray aloud.

All the same, Caris was sticking her neck out. Bishop Henri was officiating, backed up by Archdeacon Lloyd and Canon Claude. Lloyd had been diocesan clerk for decades, and Claude was a colleague of Henri’s from France. In such distinguished clerical company, it was audacious for a nun to make an unscheduled speech.

Such considerations had never meant much to Caris, of course.

She spoke just as the small coffin was being lowered into the grave. Several of the congregation had begun to cry. The crowd was at least five hundred strong, but they fell silent at the sound of her voice.

“Armed men have come into our town at night and killed a young woman in the nu

There was a rumble of assent from the crowd.

She raised her voice. “The priory will not stand for it – the bishop will not stand for it – and the men and women of Kingsbridge will not stand for it!”

The support became louder, the crowd shouting: “No!” and “Amen!”

“People say the plague is sent by God. I say that when God sends rain we take shelter. When God sends winter, we build up the fire. When God sends weeds, we pull them up by the roots. We must defend ourselves!”

She glanced at Bishop Henri. He was looking bemused. He had had no warning of this sermon, and if he had been asked for his permission he would have refused it; but he could tell that Caris had the people on her side, and he did not have the nerve to intervene.

“What can we do?”

She looked around. All faces were turned to her expectantly. They had no idea what to do, but they wanted a solution from her. They would cheer at anything she said, if only it gave them hope.

“We must rebuild the city wall!” she cried.

They roared their approval.

“A new wall that is taller, and stronger, and longer than the broken-down old one.” She caught the eye of Ralph. “A wall that will keep murderers out!”

The crowd shouted: “Yes!” Ralph looked away.

“And we must elect a new constable, and a force of deputies and sentries, to uphold the law and enforce good behaviour.”

“Yes!”

“There will be a meeting of the parish guild tonight to work out the practical details, and the guild’s decisions will be a

At the funeral banquet, in the grand dining hall of the prior’s palace, Bishop Henri sat at the head of the table. On his right was Lady Philippa, the widowed countess of Shiring. Next to her was seated the chief mourner, Tilly’s widower, Sir Ralph Fitzgerald.

Ralph was delighted to be next to Philippa. He could stare at her breasts while she concentrated on her food, and every time she leaned forward he could peek down the square neckline of her light summer dress. She did not know it yet, but the time was not far away when he would command her to take off her clothes and stand naked in front of him, and he would see those magnificent breasts in their entirety.

The di

She said to him gravely: “This is a terrible tragedy. You have my most profound sympathy.”

People had been so compassionate that sometimes, for a few moments, Ralph thought of himself as the pitiable victim of a dreadful bereavement, and forgot that he was the one who had slid the knife into Tilly’s young heart. “Thank you,” he said solemnly. “Tilly was so young. But we soldiers get used to sudden death. One day a man will save your life, and swear eternal friendship and loyalty; and the next day he is struck down by a crossbow bolt through the heart, and you forget him.”

She gave him an odd look that reminded him of the way Sir Gregory had regarded him, with a mixture of curiosity and distaste, and he wondered what it was about his attitude to Tilly’s death that provoked this reaction.

Philippa said: “You have a baby boy.”

“Gerry. The nuns are looking after him today, but I’ll take him home to Tench Hall tomorrow. I’ve found a wet nurse.” He saw an opportunity to drop a hint. “Of course, he needs someone to mother him properly.”