Ken Follett - World Without End

“How much?”

“The talk is of two hundred thousand pounds, nationwide, as an advance against the wool tax.”

Mother said bleakly: “The king should take care not to tax the wool merchants to death.”

Father said: “The merchants have plenty of money – just look at their fine clothes.” There was bitterness in his tone, and Ralph observed that he had on a worn linen undershirt and old shoes. “Anyway, they want us to stop the French navy interfering with their trade.” Over the last year, French ships had raided towns on the south coast of England, sacking the ports and setting fire to ships in the harbours.

“The French attack us, so we attack the French,” said Mother. “What is the sense of it?”

“Women will never understand,” Father replied.

“That’s the truth,” she said crisply.

Ralph changed the subject. “How is my brother?”

“He’s a fine craftsman,” said his father, and he sounded, Ralph thought, like a horse salesman saying that an undersized pony was a good mount for a woman.

Mother said: “He’s smitten with Edmund Wooler’s daughter.”

“Caris?” Ralph smiled. “He always liked her. We played together as children. She was a bossy little minx, but Merthin never seemed to mind. Will he marry her?”

“I expect so,” Mother said. “When he finishes his apprenticeship.”

“He’ll have his hands full.” Ralph got up. “Where do you think he is now?”

“He’s working in the north porch of the cathedral,” Father said. “But he might be having his dinner.”

“I’ll find him.” Ralph kissed them both and went out.

He returned to the priory and wandered through the fair. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining fitfully, glinting in the puddles and raising steam off the stallholders’ wet covers. He saw a familiar profile, and the regular footsteps of his heart faltered. It was the straight nose and strong jaw of Lady Philippa. She was older than Ralph, about twenty-five, he guessed. She was standing at a stall, looking at bolts of silk from Italy, and he drank in the way her light summer dress draped itself lasciviously over the curves of her hips. He made her an unnecessarily elaborate bow.

She glanced up and gave a perfunctory nod.

“Beautiful materials,” he said, trying to open a conversation.

“Yes.”

At that moment, a diminutive figure with untidy carrot-coloured hair approached: Merthin. Ralph was delighted to see him. “This is my clever older brother,” he said to Philippa.

Merthin said to Philippa: “Buy the pale green – it matches your eyes.”

Ralph winced. Merthin should not have addressed her in such a familiar way.

However, she did not seem to mind too much. She spoke in a tone of mild reproof, saying: “When I want a boy’s opinion, I’ll ask my son,” but as she said it she gave him a smile that was almost flirtatious.

Ralph said: “This is the Lady Philippa, you fool! I apologize for my brother’s cheek, my lady.”

“What’s his name, anyway?”

“I’m Merthin Fitzgerald, at your service any time you find yourself hesitating over silks.”

Ralph took his arm and led him away before he could say anything else indiscreet. “I don’t know how you do it!” he said, with exasperation and admiration equally mixed. “It matches her eyes, does it? If I said something like that, she’d have me flogged.” He was exaggerating, but it was true that Philippa usually responded sharply to insolence. He did not know whether to be amused or angry that she had been indulgent to Merthin.

“That’s me,” Merthin said. “Every woman’s dream.”

Ralph detected bitterness in his tone. “Is anything wrong?” he said. “How’s Caris?”

“I’ve done something stupid,” Merthin replied. “I’ll tell you later. Let’s look around while the sun’s out.”

Ralph noticed a stall where a monk with ash-blond hair was selling cheese. “Watch this,” he said to Merthin. He approached the stall and said: “This looks tasty, brother – where does it come from?”

“We make it at St-John-in-the-Forest. It’s a small cell, or branch, of Kingsbridge Priory. I’m the prior there – my name is Saul Whitehead.”

“It makes me hungry to look at it. I wish I could buy some – but the earl keeps us squires penniless.”

The monk cut a slice off the wheel of cheese and gave it to Ralph. “Then you shall have some for nothing, in the name of Jesus,” he said.

“Thank you, Brother Saul.”

As they walked away, Ralph grinned at Merthin and said: “See? As easy as taking an apple from a child.”

“And about as admirable,” Merthin said.

“But what a fool, to give his cheese away to anyone with a sob story!”

“He probably thinks it’s better to risk being made a fool of than to deny food to a starving man.”

“You’re a bit sour today. How come you’re allowed to cheek a noblewoman, but I can’t talk a stupid monk into giving me free cheese?”

Merthin surprised him with a grin. “Just like when we were boys, eh?”

“Exactly!” Now Ralph did not know whether to be angry or amused. Before he could make up his mind, a pretty girl approached him with eggs on a tray. She was slim, with a small bust under a homespun dress, and he imagined her breasts to be pale and round like the eggs. He smiled at her: “How much?” he said, though he had no need of eggs.

“A penny for twelve.”

“Are they good?”

She pointed at a nearby stall. “They’re from these hens.”

“And have the hens been well serviced by a healthy rooster?” Ralph saw Merthin roll up his eyes in mock despair at this sally.

However, the girl played along. “Yes, sir,” she said with a smile.

“Lucky hens, eh?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course not. A maid understands little of these things.” Ralph scrutinized her. She had fair hair and a turned-up nose. She was about eighteen, he guessed.

She batted her eyelids and said: “Don’t stare at me, please.”

From behind the stall a peasant – no doubt the girl’s father – had called: “Annet! Come here.”

“So your name is Annet,” Ralph said.

She ignored the summons.

Ralph said: “Who is your father?”

“Perkin from Wigleigh.”

“Really? My friend Stephen is lord of Wigleigh. Is Stephen good to you?”

“Lord Stephen is just and merciful,” she said dutifully.

Her father called again. “Annet! You’re wanted here.”

Ralph knew why Perkin was trying to get her away. He would not mind if a squire wanted to marry his daughter: that would be a step up the social ladder for her. But he feared that Ralph wanted to dally with her then discard her. And he was right.

“Don’t go, Annet Wigleigh,” Ralph said.

“Not until you’ve bought what I’m offering.”

Beside them, Merthin groaned: “One is as bad as the other.”

Ralph said: “Why don’t you put down the eggs and come with me. We could stroll along the river bank.” Between the river and the wall of the priory grounds there was a wide bank, covered at this time of year with wild flowers and bushes, where courting couples traditionally went.

But Annet was not that easy. “My father would be displeased,” she said.

“Let’s not worry about him.” There was not much a peasant could do to oppose the will of a squire, especially when the squire was wearing the livery of a great earl. It was an insult to the earl to lay hands on one of his servants. The peasant might try to dissuade his daughter, but it would be risky for him to restrain her forcibly.

However, someone else came to Perkin’s aid. A youthful voice said: “Hello, Annet, is all well?”

Ralph turned to the newcomer. He looked about sixteen, but he was almost as tall as Ralph, with broad shoulders and big hands. He was strikingly handsome, with regular features that might have been carved by a cathedral sculptor. He had thick tawny hair and the beginnings of a beard the same colour.