World Without End

“All the more reason to seek out the charter. I think Thomas is a man with a secret. And a secret is always a weakness.”

“I’ll look into it. What do you think I should say to people who want me to stand for election?”

Petranilla smiled slyly. “I think you should tell them you’re not going to be a candidate.”

Breakfast was over by the time Godwyn left his mother.

Latecomers were not allowed to eat, by a longstanding rule. But the kitchener, Brother Reynard, could always find a morsel for someone he liked. Godwyn went to the kitchen and got a slice of cheese and a heel of bread. He ate it standing up, while around him the priory servants brought the breakfast bowls back from the refectory and scrubbed out the iron pot in which the porridge had been cooked.

As he ate he mulled over his mother’s advice. The more he thought about it, the cleverer it seemed. Once he had a

Brother Theodoric found him there. Theodoric’s fair complexion was flushed with indignation. “Brother Simeon spoke to us at breakfast about Carlus becoming prior,” he said. “It was all about continuing the wise traditions of Anthony. He’s not going to change anything!”

That was sly, Godwyn thought. Simeon had taken advantage of Godwyn’s absence to say, with authority, things that Godwyn would have challenged if he had been present. He said sympathetically: “That’s disgraceful.”

“I asked whether the other candidates would be permitted to address the monks at breakfast in the same way.”

Godwyn gri

“Simeon said there was no need for other candidates. ‘We’re not holding an archery contest,’ he said. In his view, the decision has already been made: Prior Anthony chose Carlus as his successor by making him sub-prior.”

“That’s complete rubbish.”

“Exactly. The monks are furious.”

This was very good, Godwyn thought. Carlus had offended even his supporters by trying to take away their right to vote. He was undermining his own candidacy.

Theodoric went on: “I think we should press Carlus to withdraw himself from the contest.”

Godwyn wanted to say: Are you mad? He bit his tongue and tried to look as if he were mulling over what Theodoric had said. “Is that the best way to deal with it?” he asked, as if genuinely unsure.

Theodoric was surprised by the question. “What do you mean?”

“You say the brothers are all furious with Carlus and Simeon. If this goes on, they won’t vote for Carlus. But if Carlus withdraws, the old guard will come up with another candidate. They could make a better choice the second time. It might be someone popular – Brother Joseph, for example.”

Theodoric was thunderstruck. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Perhaps we should hope that Carlus remains the choice of the old guard. Everyone knows he’s against any kind of change. The reason he’s a monk is that he likes to know that every day will be the same: he’ll walk the same paths, sit in the same seats, eat and pray and sleep in the same places. Perhaps it’s because of his blindness, though I suspect he might have been like that anyway. The cause doesn’t matter. He believes that nothing here needs changing. Now, there aren’t many monks who are that contented – which makes Carlus relatively easy to beat. A candidate who represented the old guard but advocated a few minor reforms would be much more likely to win.” Godwyn realized he had forgotten to seem tentative and had started laying down the law. Backtracking quickly, he added: “I don’t know – what do you think?”

“I think you’re a genius,” said Theodoric.

I’m not a genius, Godwyn thought, but I learn fast.

He went to the hospital, where he found Philemon sweeping out the private guest rooms upstairs. Lord William was still here, watching over his father, waiting for him to wake up or die. Lady Philippa was with him. Bishop Richard had returned to his palace in Shiring, but was expected back today for the big funeral service.

Godwyn took Philemon to the library. Philemon could barely read, but he would be useful for getting out the charters.

The priory had more than a hundred charters. Most were deeds to landholdings, the majority near Kingsbridge, some scattered around far parts of England and Wales. Other charters entitled the monks to establish their priory, to build a church, to take stone from a quarry on the earl of Shiring’s land without payment, to parcel the land around the priory into house plots and rent them out, to hold courts, to have a weekly market, to charge a toll for crossing the bridge, to have an a

The documents were written with pen and ink on parchment, thin leather painstakingly cleaned and scraped and bleached and stretched to form a writing surface. Longer ones were rolled up and tied with a fine leather thong. They were kept in an ironbound chest. The chest was locked, but the key was in the library, in a small carved box.

Godwyn frowned with disapproval when he opened the chest. The charters were not lined up in neat stacks, but tumbled in the box in no apparent order. Some had small rips and frayed edges, and all were covered with dust. They should be kept in date sequence, he thought, each one numbered, and the numbered list fixed to the inside of the lid, so that any particular charter could be quickly located. If I become prior…

Philemon took the charters out one by one, blew off the dust, and laid them on a table for Godwyn. Most people disliked Philemon. One or two of the older monks mistrusted him, but Godwyn did not: it was hard to mistrust someone who treated you like a god. Most of the monks were just used to him – he had been around for so long. Godwyn remembered him as a boy, tall and awkward, always hanging around the priory, asking the monks which saint was best to pray to, and had they ever witnessed a miracle.

Most of the charters had originally been written out twice on a single sheet. The word ‘chirograph’ had been written in large letters between the two copies, then the sheet had been cut in half with a zigzag line through the word. Each of the parties kept half the sheet, and the match between the zigzags was taken as proof that both documents were genuine.

Some of the sheets had holes, probably where the living sheep had been bitten by an insect. Others appeared to have been nibbled, at some point in their history, presumably by mice.

They were written in Latin, of course. The more recent ones were easier to read, but the older style of handwriting was sometimes hard for Godwyn to decipher. He sca

He examined every sheet and found nothing.

The nearest was a deed dated some weeks later in which Earl Roland gave permission to Sir Gerald to transfer his lands to the ownership of the priory, in exchange for which the priory would forgive Gerald’s debts and support him and his wife for the rest of their lives.

Godwyn was not really disappointed. Rather the contrary. Either Thomas had been admitted without the usual gift – which would in itself be curious – or the charter was kept somewhere else, away from prying eyes. Either way, it seemed increasingly likely that Petranilla’s instinct was right, and Thomas had a secret.