Ken Follett - World Without End

Caris followed the two men out of the parlour and embraced Gwenda. “Who was that man?” Gwenda asked as soon as he had left.

“His name is Gregory Longfellow. He’s the lawyer hired by Prior Godwyn.”

“Hired for what?”

“Earl Roland has stopped the priory taking stone from its quarry. He’s trying to charge a penny a cartload. Godwyn is going to appeal to the king.”

“Are you involved?”

“Gregory thinks we must argue that the town will be unable to pay its taxes without a bridge. That’s the best way to persuade the king, he says. So my father will go with Godwyn to testify at the royal court.”

“Will you go too?”

“Yes. But tell me why you’re here?”

“I lay with Wulfric.”

Caris smiled. “Really? At last! How was it?”

“It was wonderful. I lay beside him all night while he slept, then when he woke up I… persuaded him.”

“Tell me more, I want all the details.”

Gwenda told Caris the story. At the end, even though she was impatient to get on to the real purpose of her visit, she said: “But something tells me you have news of the same kind.”

Caris nodded. “I lay with Merthin. I told him I didn’t want to get married, and he went off to see that fat sow Bessie Bell, and I got upset at the thought of her sticking out her big tits at him – then he came back, and I was so pleased I just had to do it with him.”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it. It’s the best thing ever. And it gets better. We do it whenever we get the chance.”

“What if you get pregnant?”

“I’m not even thinking about that. I don’t care if I die. One time -” she lowered her voice – “one time, we bathed in a pool in the forest, and afterwards he licked me… down there.”

“Oh, disgusting! What was it like?”

“Nice. He liked it, too.”

“You didn’t do the same to him.”

“Yes.”

“But did he…?”

Caris nodded. “In my mouth.”

“Wasn’t it foul?”

Caris shrugged. “It tastes funny… but it’s so exciting to feel that happen. And he enjoyed it so much.”

Gwenda was shocked but intrigued. Perhaps she should do that to Wulfric. She knew a place where they could bathe, a stream in the forest far from any roads…

Caris said: “But you didn’t come all this way just to tell me about Wulfric.”

“No. It’s about his inheritance.” Gwenda explained Ralph’s decision. “Philemon thought perhaps Merthin could persuade Ralph to change his mind.”

Caris shook her head pessimistically. “I doubt it. They’ve quarrelled.”

“Oh, no!”

“It was Ralph who stopped the carts leaving the quarry. Unfortunately, Merthin was there at the time. There was a fight. Ben Wheeler killed one of the earl’s ruffians, and Ralph killed Ben.”

Gwenda gasped. “But Lib Wheeler has a two-year-old!”

“And now little Bennie has no father.”

Gwenda was dismayed for herself as well as for Lib. “So a brother’s influence won’t help.”

“Let’s go and see Merthin anyway. He’s working on Leper Island today.”

They left the house and walked down the main street to the riverside. Gwenda was discouraged. Everyone believed her chances were slender. It was so unfair.

They got Ian Boatman to row them across to the island. Caris explained that the old bridge was to be replaced by two new ones which would use the island as a stepping stone.

They found Merthin with his boy assistant, fourteen-year-old Jimmie, laying out the abutments of the new bridge. His measuring stick was an iron pole more than twice the height of a man, and he was hammering pointed stakes into the rocky ground to mark where the foundations must be dug.

Gwenda watched the way Caris and Merthin kissed. It was different. There was a cosy relish in one another’s bodies that seemed new. It matched how Gwenda herself felt about Wulfric. His body was not just desirable, it was hers to enjoy. It seemed to belong to her the way her own body did.

She and Caris watched while Merthin finished what he was doing, tying a length of twine between two stakes. Then he told Jimmie to pack up the tools.

Gwenda said: “I suppose there’s not much you can do without stone.”

“There are some preparations we can make. But I’ve sent all the masons to the quarry. They’re dressing the stones there, instead of here on site. We’re building a stockpile.”

“So, if you win your case in the royal court, you can start building right away.”

“I hope so. It depends on how long the case takes – and the weather. We can’t build in deepest winter, in case the frost freezes the mortar. It’s October already. We normally stop around the middle of November.” He looked up at the sky. “We might have a bit longer, this year – rain clouds keep the earth warm.”

Gwenda told him what she wanted.

“I wish I could help you,” Merthin said. “Wulfric is a decent man, and that fight was entirely Ralph’s fault. But I’ve quarrelled with my brother. Before asking him a favour, I’d have to make friends. And I can’t forgive him for killing Ben Wheeler.”

It was the third negative response in a row, Gwenda thought glumly. Perhaps this was a foolish errand.

Caris said: “You may have to do this on your own.”

“Yes, I will,” Gwenda said decisively. It was time to stop asking for other people’s help, and start relying on herself – the way she had all her life. “Ralph is here in town, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Merthin said. “He came to tell our parents the good news about his promotion. They’re the only people in the county who are celebrating.”

“But he’s not staying with them.”

“He’s too grand for that, now. He’s at the Bell.”

“What would be the best way to persuade him?”

Merthin thought for a few moments. “Ralph feels our father’s humiliation – a knight reduced to the status of a pensioner of the priory. He’ll do anything that seems to enhance his social position.”

Gwenda thought about that as Ian Boatman rowed them all back to the city. How could she present her request as a way for Ralph to raise his standing? It was midday as she walked up the main street with the others. Merthin was going to Caris’s house for dinner, and Caris invited Gwenda to join them, but she was impatient to see Ralph, and she went on to the Bell.

A potboy told her Ralph was upstairs in the best room. Most lodgers slept in a communal dormitory: Ralph was emphasizing his new position by taking an entire room – paid for, Gwenda thought sourly, out of the meagre harvests of Wigleigh peasants.

She knocked at the door and went in.

Ralph was there with his squire, Alan Fernhill, a boy of about eighteen with big shoulders and a small head. On the table between them stood a jug of ale, a loaf and a joint of hot beef with a wisp of steam coming from it. They were finishing their dinner, and looked thoroughly contented with their lot in life, Gwenda thought. She hoped they were not too drunk: men in that state could not talk to women, all they could do was make ribald remarks and laugh helplessly at each other’s wit.

Ralph peered at her: the room was not well lit. “You’re one of my serfs, aren’t you?”

“No, my lord, but I’d like to be. I’m Gwenda, and my father is Joby, a landless labourer.”

“And what are you doing so far from the village? It’s not market day.”

She moved a step farther into the room so that she could see his face more clearly. “Sir, I come to plead for Wulfric, son of the late Samuel. I know that he behaved disrespectfully to you once but, since then, he has suffered the torments of Job. His parents and brother were killed when the bridge collapsed, all the family’s money was lost, and now his fiancee has married someone else. I hope you might feel that God has punished him harshly for the wrong he did you, and it is time for you to show mercy.” Remembering what Merthin had advised, she added: “The mercy characteristic of the true nobleman.”