World Without End

“How should we do that?”

To her surprise, he kissed her.

He held her slender shoulders in his rough hands, bent his head, and pressed his lips to hers. If Brother Sime had done this she would have recoiled. But Harry was different, and perhaps she had been titillated by his air of vigorous masculinity. Whatever the reason, she submitted to the kiss, letting him pull her unresisting body to his own, and moving her lips against his bearded mouth. He pressed up against her so that she could feel his erection. She realized that he would cheerfully take her here on the newly laid tiles of the latrine floor, and that thought brought her to her senses. She broke the kiss and pushed him away. “Stop!” she said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He was unabashed. “Kissing you, my dear,” he said.

She realized that she had a problem. No doubt gossip about her and Merthin was widespread: they were probably the two best-known people in Shiring. While Harry surely did not know the truth, the rumours had been enough to embolden him. This kind of thing could undermine her authority. She must squash it now. “You must never do anything like that again,” she said as severely as she could.

“You seemed to like it!”

“Then your sin is all the greater, for you have tempted a weak woman to perjure her holy vows.”

“But I love you.”

It was true, she realized, and she could guess why. She had swept into his village, reorganized everything and bent the peasants to her will. She had recognized Harry’s potential and elevated him above his fellows. He must think of her as a goddess. It was not surprising that he had fallen in love with her. He had better fall out of love as soon as possible. “If you ever speak to me like that again, I’ll have to get another bailiff in Outhenby.”

“Oh,” he said. That stopped him short more effectively than the accusation of sin.

“Now, go home.”

“Very well, Mother Caris.”

“And find yourself another woman – preferably one who has not taken a vow of chastity.”

“Never,” he said, but she did not believe him.

He left, but she stayed where she was. She felt restless and lustful. If she could have felt sure of being alone for a while she would have touched herself. This was the first time in nine months that she had been bothered by physical desire. After finally splitting up with Merthin she had fallen into a kind of neutered state, in which she did not think about sex. Her relationships with other nuns gave her warmth and affection: she was fond of both Joan and Oonagh, though neither loved her in the physical way Mair had. Her heart beat with other passions: the new hospital, the tower, and the rebirth of the town.

Thinking of the tower, she left the hospital and walked across the green to the cathedral. Merthin had dug four enormous holes, the deepest anyone had ever seen, outside the church around the foundations of the old tower. He had built great cranes to lift the earth out. Throughout the wet autumn months, ox-carts had lumbered all day long down the main street and across the first span of the bridge to dump the mud on rocky Leper Island. There they had picked up building stones from Merthin’s wharf, then climbed the street again, to stack the stones around the grounds of the church in ever-growing piles.

As soon as the winter frost was over, his masons had begun laying the foundations. Caris went to the north side of the cathedral and looked into the hole in the angle formed by the outside wall of the nave and the outside wall of the north transept. It was dizzyingly deep. The bottom was already covered with neat masonry, the squared-off stones laid in straight lines and joined by thin layers of mortar. Because the old foundations were inadequate, the tower was being built on its own new, independent foundations. It would rise outside the existing walls of the church, so no demolition would be needed over and above what Elfric had already done in taking down the upper levels of the old tower. Only when it was finished would Merthin remove the temporary roof Elfric had built over the crossing. It was a typical Merthin design: simple yet radical, a brilliant solution to the unique problems of the site.

As at the hospital, no builders were at work on Easter Monday, but she saw movement in the hole and realized someone was walking around on the foundations. A moment later she recognized Merthin. She went to one of the surprisingly flimsy rope-and-branch ladders the masons used, and clambered shakily down.

She was glad to reach the bottom. Merthin helped her off the ladder, smiling. “You look a little pale,” he said.

“It’s a long way down. How are you getting on?”

“Fine. It will take many years.”

“Why? The hospital seems more complicated, and that’s finished.”

“Two reasons. The higher we go, the fewer masons will be able to work on it. Right now I’ve got twelve men laying the foundations. But as it rises it will get narrower, and there just won’t be room for them all. The other reason is that mortar takes so long to set. We have to let it harden over a winter before we put too much weight on it.”

She was hardly listening. Watching his face, she was remembering making love to him in the prior’s palace, between Matins and Lauds, with the first gleam of daylight coming in through the open window and falling over their naked bodies like a blessing.

She patted his arm. “Well, the hospital isn’t taking so long.”

“You should be able to move in by Whitsun.”

“I’m glad. Although we’re having a slight respite from the plague: fewer people are dying.”

“Thank God,” he said fervently. “Perhaps it may be coming to an end.”

She shook her head bleakly. “We thought it was over once before, remember? About this time last year. Then it came back worse.”

“Heaven forbid.”

She touched his cheek with her palm, feeling his wiry beard. “At least you’re safe.”

He looked faintly displeased. “As soon as the hospital is finished we can start on the wool exchange.”

“I hope you’re right to think that business must pick up soon.”

“If it doesn’t, we’ll all be dead anyway.”

“Don’t say that.” She kissed his cheek.

“We have to act on the assumption that we’re going to live.” He said it irritably, as if she had a

“Let’s not think about the worst.” She put her arms around his waist and hugged him, pressing her breasts against his thin body, feeling his hard bones against her yielding flesh.

He pushed her away violently. She stumbled backwards and almost fell. “Don’t do that!” he shouted.

She was as shocked as if he had slapped her. “What’s the matter?”

“Stop touching me!”

“I only…”

“Just don’t do it! You ended our relationship nine months ago. I said it was the last time, and I meant it.”

She could not understand his anger. “But I only hugged you.”

“Well, don’t. I’m not your lover. You have no right.”

“I have no right to touch you?”

“No!”

“I didn’t think I needed some kind of permission.”

“Of course you knew. You don’t let people touch you.”

“You’re not people. We’re not strangers.” But as she said these things she knew she was wrong and he was right. She had rejected him, but she had not accepted the consequences. The encounter with Harry from Outhenby had fired her lust, and she had come to Merthin looking for release. She had told herself she was touching him in affectionate friendship, but that was a lie. She had treated him as if he were still available to her, as a rich and idle lady might put down a book and pick it up again. Having denied him the right to touch her all this time, it was wrong of her to try to reinstate the privilege just because a muscular young ploughman had kissed her.

All the same, she would have expected Merthin to point this out in a gentle and affectionate way. But he had been hostile and brutal. Had she thrown away his friendship as well as his love? Tears came to her eyes. She turned away from him and went back to the ladder.