Ken Follett - World Without End

“Prior Godwyn won’t like that.”

“I know,” Merthin said. “But I don’t think he’s got any choice.”

Next day Merthin rode out of Kingsbridge with Lolla on the saddle in front of him. As they travelled through the forest, he obsessively ran over his fraught exchange with Caris. He knew he had been ungenerous. How foolish that was, when he was trying to win back her love. What had got into him? Caris’s request was perfectly reasonable. Why would he not wish to perform a small service for the woman he wanted to marry?

But she had not agreed to marry him. She was still reserving the right to reject him. That was the source of his anger. She was exercising the privileges of a fiancee without making the commitment.

He could see, now, that it was petty of him to object on these grounds. He had been stupid, and turned what could have been a delightful moment of intimacy into a squabble.

On the other hand, the underlying cause of his distress was all too real. How long did Caris expect him to wait for an answer? How long was he prepared to wait? He did not like to think about that.

Anyway, it would do him nothing but good if he could persuade Ralph to stop persecuting poor Wulfric.

Tench was on the far side of the county, and on the way Merthin spent a night at windy Wigleigh. He found Gwenda and Wulfric thin after a rainy summer and the second poor harvest in a row. Wulfric’s scar seemed to stand out more on a hollowed cheek. Their two small sons looked pale, and had runny noses and sores on their lips.

Merthin gave them a leg of mutton, a small barrel of wine and a gold florin that he pretended were gifts from Caris. Gwenda cooked the mutton over the fire. She was possessed by rage, and she hissed and spat like the turning meat as she talked of the injustice that had been done to them. “Perkin has almost half the land in the village!” she said. “The only reason he can manage it all is that he’s got Wulfric, who does the work of three men. Yet he must demand more, and keep us in poverty.”

“I’m sorry that Ralph still bears a grudge,” Merthin said.

“Ralph himself provoked that fight!” Gwenda said. “Even Lady Philippa said so.”

“Old quarrels,” Wulfric said philosophically.

“I’ll try to get him to see reason,” Merthin said. “In the unlikely event that he listens to me, what do you really want from him?”

“Ah,” said Wulfric, and he got a faraway look in his eyes, which was unusual for him. “What I pray for every Sunday is to get back the lands that my father farmed.”

“That will never happen,” Gwenda said quickly. “Perkin is too well entrenched. And, if he should die, he has a son and a married daughter waiting to inherit, and a couple of grandsons growing taller every day. But we’d like a piece of land of our own. For the last eleven years Wulfric has been working hard to feed other men’s children. It’s time he got some of the benefit of his strength.”

“I’ll tell my brother he has punished you long enough,” Merthin said.

Next day he and Lolla rode from Wigleigh to Tench. Merthin was even more resolved to do something for Wulfric. It was not just that he wanted to please Caris, and atone for his curmudgeonly attitude. He also felt sad and indignant that two such honest and hard-working people as Wulfric and Gwenda should be poor and thin, and their children sickly, just because of Ralph’s vindictiveness.

His parents were living in a house in the village, not in Tench Hall itself. Merthin was shocked by how much his mother had aged, though she perked up when she saw Lolla. His father looked better. “Ralph is very good to us,” Gerald said in a defensive way that made Merthin think the opposite. The house was pleasant enough, but they would have preferred to live at the hall with Ralph. Merthin guessed that Ralph did not want his mother watching everything he did.

They showed him around their home, and Gerald asked Merthin how things were in Kingsbridge. “The town is still prospering, despite the effects of the king’s French war,” Merthin replied.

“Ah – but Edward must fight for his birthright,” his father said. “He is the legitimate heir to the throne of France, after all.”

“I think that’s a dream, father,” said Merthin. “No matter how many times the king invades, the French nobility will not accept an Englishman as their king. And a king can’t rule without the support of his earls.”

“But we had to stop the French raids on our south coast ports.”

“That hasn’t been a major problem since the battle of Sluys, when we destroyed the French fleet – which was eight years ago. Anyway, burning the crops of the peasants won’t stop pirates – it might even add to their numbers.”

“The French support the Scots, who keep invading our northern counties.”

“Don’t you think the king would be better able to deal with Scottish incursions if he were in the north of England rather than the north of France?”

Gerald looked baffled. It had probably never occurred to him to question the wisdom of the war. “Well, Ralph has been knighted,” he said. “And he brought your mother a silver candlestick from Calais.”

That was about the size of it, Merthin thought. The real reason for the war was booty and glory.

They all walked to the manor house. Ralph was out hunting with Alan Fernhill. In the great hall was a huge carved wooden chair, obviously the lord’s. Merthin saw what he thought was a young servant girl, heavily pregnant, and was dismayed to be introduced to her as Ralph’s wife, Tilly. She went to the kitchen to fetch wine.

“How old is she?” Merthin said to his mother while she was gone.

“Fourteen.”

It was not unknown for girls to become pregnant at fourteen, but all the same Merthin felt that decent people behaved otherwise. Such early pregnancies usually happened in royal families, for whom there was intense political pressure to produce heirs, and among the lowest and most ignorant of peasants, who knew no better. The middle classes maintained higher standards. “She’s a bit young, isn’t she?” he said quietly.

Maud replied: “We all asked Ralph to wait, but he would not.” Clearly she too disapproved.

Tilly returned with a servant carrying a jug of wine and a bowl of apples. She might have been pretty, Merthin thought, but she looked worn out. His father addressed her with forced jollity. “Cheer up, Tilly! Your husband will be home soon – you don’t want to greet him with a long face.”

“I’m fed up with being pregnant,” she said. “I just wish the baby would come as soon as possible.”

“It won’t be long, now,” Maud said. “Three or four weeks, I’d say.”

“It seems like for ever.”

They heard horses outside. Maud said: “That sounds like Ralph.”

Waiting for the brother he had not seen for nine years, Merthin had mixed feelings, as ever. His affection for Ralph was always contaminated by his knowledge of the evil Ralph had done. The rape of Annet had been only the beginning. During his days as an outlaw Ralph had murdered innocent men, women and children. Merthin had heard, travelling through Normandy, of the atrocities perpetrated by King Edward’s army and, while he did not know specifically what Ralph had done, it would have been foolish to hope that Ralph had held himself aloof from that orgy of rape, burning, looting and slaughter. But Ralph was his brother.

Ralph, too, would have mixed feelings, Merthin was sure. He might not have forgiven Merthin for giving away the location of his outlaw hideout. And, although Merthin had made Brother Thomas promise not to kill Ralph, he had known that Ralph, once captured, was likely to be hanged. The last words Ralph had spoken to Merthin, in the jail in the basement of the guild hall at Kingsbridge, were: “You betrayed me.”