Ken Follett - World Without End

Godwyn’s heart missed a beat. An audit would find the reserves short by fifty ducats. And he was going to need the rest to build his palace. He had not been expecting this so soon. He cursed Caris. How had she guessed what he had done so secretly?

“When?” he said, and there was a catch in his voice.

“Today. I don’t know at what hour – it could be any time. But Caris was most emphatic that you should have no advance warning.”

He was going to have to put the ducats back, and fast. “Thank you very much,” he said. “I appreciate your telling me this.”

“It’s because you showed favour to my family in Long Ham,” she said; and she got up and went out.

Godwyn hurried after her. What luck that Elizabeth felt indebted to him! Philemon’s instinct for intrigue was invaluable. As that thought crossed his mind, he saw Philemon in the cloisters. “Get those tools and meet me in the treasury!” he whispered. Then he left the priory.

He hurried across the green and into the main street. Elfric’s wife, Alice, had inherited the house of Edmund Wooler, one of the largest homes in town, along with all the money Caris had made dyeing cloth. Elfric now lived in great luxury.

Godwyn knocked on the door and entered the hall. Alice was sitting at the table amid the remains of dinner. With her was her stepdaughter Griselda, and Griselda’s son, Little Merthin. No one now believed that Merthin Fitzgerald was the little boy’s father – he looked just like Griselda’s runaway boyfriend Thurstan. Griselda had married one of her father’s employees, Harold Mason. Polite people called the eight-year-old Merthin Haroldson, and the others called him Merthin Bastard.

Alice leaped up from her seat when she saw Godwyn. “Well, Cousin Prior, what a pleasure to have you in our house! Will you take a little wine?”

Godwyn ignored her polite hospitality. “Where’s Elfric?”

“He’s upstairs, taking a short nap before he goes back to work. Sit in the parlour, and I’ll fetch him.”

“Right away, if you please.” Godwyn stepped into the next room. There were two comfortable-looking chairs, but he paced up and down.

Elfric came in rubbing his eyes. “Sorry about this,” he said. “I was just-”

“Those fifty ducats I gave you three days ago,” Godwyn said. “I need them back.”

Elfric was startled. “But the money was for stone.”

“I know what it was for! I have to have it right now.”

“I’ve spent some of it, paying carters to bring the stones from the quarry.”

“How much?”

“About half.”

“Well, you can make that up out of your own funds, can’t you?”

“Don’t you want a palace any more?”

“Of course I do, but I must have that money. Don’t ask why, just give it to me.”

“What am I to do with the stones I’ve bought?”

“Just keep them. You’ll get the money again, I just need it for a few days. Hurry!”

“All right. Wait here. If you will.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Elfric went out. Godwyn wondered where he kept his money. In the hearth, under the firestone was the usual place. Being a builder, Elfric might have a more cunning hidey-hole. Wherever it was, he was back in a few moments.

He counted fifty gold coins into Godwyn’s hand.

Godwyn said: “I gave you ducats – some of these are florins.” The florin was the same size, but stamped with different images: John the Baptist on one side and a flower on the other.

“I don’t have the same coins! I told you I’ve spent some of them. They’re all worth the same, aren’t they?”

They were. Would the nuns notice the difference?

Godwyn thrust the money into the wallet at his belt and left without another word.

He hurried back to the cathedral and found Philemon in the treasury. “The nuns are going to carry out an audit,” he explained breathlessly. “I’ve got the money back from Elfric. Open that chest, quickly.”

Philemon opened the vault in the floor, took out the chest and removed the nails. He lifted the lid.

Godwyn sifted through the coins. They were all ducats.

It could not be helped. He dug down into the money and pushed his florins to the bottom. “Close it up and put it back,” he said.

Philemon did so.

Godwyn felt a moment of relief. His crime was partly concealed. At least now it would not be glaringly obvious.

“I want to be here when she counts it,” he said to Philemon. “I’m worried about whether she’ll notice that she’s now got some florins mixed in with her ducats.”

“Do you know when they intend to come?”

“No.”

“I’ll put a novice to sweeping the choir. When Beth shows up, he can come and fetch us.” Philemon had a little coterie of admiring novice monks eager to do his bidding.

However, the novice was not needed. As they were about to leave the treasury, Sister Beth and Sister Caris arrived.

Godwyn pretended to be in the middle of a conversation about accounts. “We’ll have to look in an earlier account roll, brother,” he said to Philemon. “Oh, good day, sisters.”

Caris opened both nuns’ vaults and took out the two chests.

“Something I can help you with?” Godwyn said.

Caris ignored him.

Beth said: “We’re just checking something, thank you, Father Prior. We won’t be long.”

“Go ahead, go ahead,” he said benevolently, though his heart was hammering in his chest.

Caris said irritably: “There’s no need to apologize for our being here, Sister Beth. It’s our treasury and our money.”

Godwyn opened an account roll at random, and he and Philemon pretended to study it. Beth and Caris counted the silver in the first chest: farthings, halfpennies, pennies and a few Luxembourgs, forged pennies crudely made of adulterated silver and used as small change. There were a few assorted gold coins, too: florins, ducats and similar coins – the genovino from Genoa and the reale from Naples – plus some larger French moutons and new English nobles. Beth checked the totals against a small notebook. When they had finished she said: “Exactly right.”

They replaced all the coins in the chest, locked it and put it back in its underfloor vault.

They began counting the gold coins in the other chest, putting them in piles of ten. When they got towards the bottom of the chest, Beth frowned and made a puzzled sound.

“What is it?” Caris said.

Godwyn felt a guilty dread.

Beth said: “This chest contains only the bequest from the pious woman of Thornbury. I kept it separate.”

“And…?”

“Her husband traded with Venice. I was sure the entire amount was in ducats. But there are some florins here too.”

Godwyn and Philemon froze, listening.

“That’s odd,” Caris said.

“Perhaps I made a mistake.”

“It’s a bit suspicious.”

“Not really,” Beth said. “Thieves don’t put money into your treasury, do they?”

“You’re right, they don’t,” Caris said reluctantly.

They finished counting. They had one hundred stacks of ten coins, worth a hundred and fifty pounds. “That’s the exact figure in my book,” Beth said.

“So every pound and penny is correct,” Caris said.

Beth said: “I told you so.”

Caris spent many hours thinking about Sister Mair.

She had been startled by the kiss, but more surprised at her own reaction to it. She had found it exciting. Until now, she had not felt attracted to Mair or any other woman. In fact there was only one person who had ever made her yearn to be touched and kissed and penetrated, and that was Merthin. In the nunnery she had learned to live without physical contact. The only hand that touched her sexually was her own, in the darkness of the dormitory, when she remembered the days of her courtship, and buried her face in the pillow so that the other nuns would not hear her panting.