Ken Follett - World Without End

Edmund was at the head of the table. Prior Godwyn sat next to him. The prior was not a member of the guild: his presence suggested that Merthin’s surmise had been right, and the meeting was about the bridge. However, Thomas the matricularius was not present, although Philemon was. That was odd.

Merthin had recently had a small dispute with Godwyn. His contract had been for a year at two pence a day plus the lease on Leper Island. It was due for renewal, and Godwyn had proposed to continue paying him two pence a day. Merthin had insisted on four pence, and in the end Godwyn had conceded the point. Had he complained about this to the guild?

Edmund spoke with characteristic abruptness. “We’ve called you here because Prior Godwyn wishes to dismiss you as master builder in charge of the bridge.”

Merthin felt as if he had been punched in the face. He was not expecting anything like this. “What?” he said. “But Godwyn appointed me!”

Godwyn said: “And therefore I have the right to dismiss you.”

“But why?”

“The work is behind schedule and over budget.”

“It’s behind schedule because the earl closed the quarry – and it’s over budget because I had to spend money to catch up.”

“Excuses.”

“Am I inventing the death of a carter?”

Godwyn shot back: “Killed by your own brother!”

“What has that to do with anything?”

Godwyn ignored the question. “A man who is accused of rape!” he added.

“You can’t dismiss a master builder because of his brother’s behaviour.”

“Who are you to say what I can do?”

“I’m the builder of your bridge!” Then it occurred to Merthin that much of his work as master builder was complete. He had designed all the most complicated parts, and made wooden templates to guide the stonemasons. He had built the coffer dams, which no one else knew how to do. And he had constructed the floating cranes and hoists needed to move the heavy stones into position in midstream. Any builder could now finish the job, he realized with dismay.

“There is no guarantee of renewal of your contract,” Godwyn said.

It was true. Merthin looked around the room for support. No one would meet his eye. They had already argued this out with Godwyn, he deduced. Despair overwhelmed him. Why had this happened? It was not because the bridge was behind schedule and over budget – the delay was not Merthin’s fault, and anyway he was catching up. What was the real reason? As soon as he had asked the question, the answer came into his mind. “This is because of the fulling mill at Wigleigh!” he said.

Godwyn said primly: “The two things are not necessarily connected.”

Edmund said quietly but distinctly: “Lying monk.”

Philemon spoke for the first time. “Take care, alderman!” he said.

Edmund was undeterred. “Merthin and Caris outwitted you, didn’t they, Godwyn? Their mill at Wigleigh is entirely legitimate. You brought defeat on yourself by your greed and obstinacy. And this is your revenge.”

Edmund was right. No one was as capable a builder as Merthin. Godwyn must know that, but clearly he did not care. “Who will you hire instead of me?” Merthin asked. Then he answered the question himself. “Elfric, I suppose.”

“That has to be decided.”

Edmund said: “Another lie.”

Philemon spoke again, his voice more shrill. “You can be brought before the ecclesiastical court for talk like that!”

Merthin wondered if this might be no more than a move in the game, a way for Godwyn to renegotiate his contract. He said to Edmund: “Is the parish guild in agreement with the prior on this?”

Godwyn said: “It is not for them to agree or disagree!”

Merthin ignored him and looked expectantly at Edmund.

Edmund was shamefaced. “It cannot be denied that the prior has the right. The guildsmen are financing the bridge by loans, but the prior is overlord of the town. This was agreed from the start.”

Merthin turned to Godwyn. “Do you have anything else to say to me, lord prior?” He waited, hoping in his heart that Godwyn would come out with his real demands.

But Godwyn said stonily: “No.”

“Goodnight, then.”

He waited a second longer. No one spoke. The silence told him it was all over.

He left the room.

Outside the building, he took a deep breath of the cold night air. He could hardly believe what had happened. He was no longer master of the bridge.

He walked through the dark streets. It was a clear night, and he could find his way by starlight. He walked past Elizabeth’s house: he did °ot want to talk to her. He hesitated outside Caris’s, but passed that too and went down to the waterside. His small rowing-boat was tied up opposite Leper Island. He got in and rowed himself across.

When he reached his house, he paused outside and looked up at the stars, fighting back tears. The truth was that in the end he had not outwitted Godwyn – rather the reverse. He had underestimated the lengths to which the prior would go to punish those who opposed him. Merthin had thought himself clever, but Godwyn had been cleverer, or at least more ruthless. He was prepared to damage the town and the priory, if necessary, to avenge a wound to his pride. And that had given him victory.

Merthin went inside and lay down, alone and beaten.

Ralph lay awake all through the night before his trial.

He had seen many people die by hanging. Every year, twenty or thirty men and a few women rode the sheriffs cart from the prison in Shiring Castle down the hill to the market square where the gallows stood waiting. It was a common occurrence, but those people had remained in Ralph’s memory, and on this night they returned to torment him.

Some died fast, their necks snapped by the drop; but not many. Most strangled slowly. They kicked and struggled and opened their mouths wide in silent breathless screaming. They pissed and shat themselves. He recalled an old woman convicted of witchcraft: when she dropped she bit right through her tongue and spat it out, and the crowd around the gallows had backed away in fright from the bloody lump of flesh as it flew through the air and fell on the dusty ground.

Everyone told Ralph he was not going to be hanged, but he could not get the thought out of his mind. People said that Earl Roland could not allow one of his lords to be executed on the word of a serf. However, so far the earl had done nothing to intervene.

The preliminary jury had returned an indictment against Ralph to the justice of the peace in Shiring. Like all such juries, it had consisted mainly of knights of the county owing allegiance to Earl Roland – but, despite this, they had acted on the evidence of the Wigleigh peasants. The men – jurors were never women, of course – had not flinched from indicting one of their own. In fact the jurors had shown, by their questions, some distaste for what Ralph had done, and several had refused to shake his hand afterwards.

Ralph had planned to prevent Annet testifying again, at the trial proper, by imprisoning her in Wigleigh before she could leave for Shiring. However, when he went to her house to seize her he found she had already departed. She must have anticipated his move and left earlier to foil him.

Today another jury would hear the case but, to Ralph’s dismay, at least four of the men had been on the preliminary jury too. Since the evidence on both sides was likely to be exactly the same, he could not see how this group could return a different verdict, unless some kind of pressure was put on the jurors – and it was getting very late for that.

He got up at first light and went downstairs to the ground floor of the Courthouse inn on the market square of Shiring. He found a shivering boy breaking the ice on the well in the back yard and told him to fetch bread and ale. Then he went to the communal dormitory and woke his brother, Merthin.