Ken Follett - World Without End

Merthin craned his neck to look up at the vaulted ceiling over the aisle. The repairs were not quite finished: a small section of the vault was still open, and a sheet of canvas, painted white, was stretched across the gap, so that the ceiling looked complete to a casual glance.

“He’s doing a decent job,” Merthin said. “I wonder how long it will last?”

“Why wouldn’t it last indefinitely?” Caris asked.

“Because we don’t know why the vault crumbled. These things don’t happen for no reason – they’re not acts of God, regardless of what the priests may say. Whatever caused the stonework to collapse once will, presumably, do so again.”

“Is it possible to discover the cause?”

“It’s not easy. Elfric certainly can’t do it. I might.”

“But you’ve been sacked.”

“Exactly.” He stood there for a few moments, head tilted back, then said: “I want to see this from above. I’m going into the loft.”

“I’ll come with you,”

They both looked around, but there was no one nearby except for the red-haired wedding guest, who was still loitering in the south transept. Merthin led Caris to a small door that opened on a narrow spiral staircase. She followed him up, wondering what the monks would think if they knew a woman was exploring their secret passageways. The staircase emerged into an attic over the south aisle.

Caris was intrigued to see the vault from the other side. “What you’re looking at is called the extrados,” Merthin said. She liked the casual way he gave her architectural information, assuming she would be interested and knowing she would understand. He never made stupid jokes about women not grasping technicalities.

He moved along the narrow walkway then lay down to examine the new stonework closely. Mischievously, she lay beside him and put her arm around him, as if they were in bed. Merthin touched the mortar between the new stones then put his finger on his tongue. “It’s drying out quite quickly,” he said.

“I’m sure it’s very dangerous if there’s moisture in the cleft.”

He looked at her. “I’ll give you moisture in the cleft.”

“You already have.”

He kissed her. She closed her eyes to enjoy it more.

After a minute she said: “Let’s go to my house. We’ll have it to ourselves – my father and my aunt are both at the wedding banquet.”

They were about to get up when they heard voices. A man and a woman had come into the south aisle, immediately below the repair work. What they said was only a little muffled by the canvas sheet covering the hole in the ceiling. “Your son is thirteen now,” the woman said. “He wants to be a knight.”

“All boys do,” came the reply.

Merthin whispered: “Don’t move – they’ll hear us.”

Caris presumed the female voice to be that of the wedding guest. The male voice was familiar, and she had the feeling the speaker was a monk – but a monk could not have a son.

“And your daughter is twelve. She’s going to be beautiful.”

“Like her mother.”

“A little.” There was a pause, then the woman went on: “I can’t stay long – the countess may look for me.”

So she was in the entourage of the countess of Monmouth. She might be a lady-in-waiting, Caris guessed. She seemed to be giving news of children to a father who had not seen them for years. Who could it be?

He said: “Why did you want to meet me, Loreen?”

“Just to look at you. I’m sorry you lost your arm.”

Caris gasped, then covered her mouth, hoping she had not been heard. There was only one monk who had lost an arm: Thomas. Now that the name had come into her mind, she knew that the voice was his. Could it be that he had a wife? And two children? Caris looked at Merthin and saw that his face was a mask of incredulity.

“What do you tell the children of me?” Thomas asked.

“That their father is dead,” Loreen replied harshly. Then she began to cry. “Why did you do it?”

“I had no choice. If I had not come here, I would have been killed. Even now, I almost never leave the precincts.”

“Why would anyone want to kill you?”

“To protect a secret.”

“I’d be better off if you’d died. As a widow, I could find a husband, someone to be a father to my children. But this way I have all the burdens of a wife and mother but no one to help me… no one to put his arms around me in the night.”

“I’m sorry I’m still alive.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that. I don’t wish you dead. I loved you once.”

“And I loved you as much as a man of my kind can love a woman.”

Caris frowned. What did he mean by ‘a man of my kind’? Was he one of those men who loved other men? Monks often were.

Whatever he meant, Loreen seemed to understand, for she said gently: “I know you did.”

There was a long silence. Caris knew she and Merthin should not be eavesdropping on such an intimate conversation – but it was now too late to reveal themselves.

Loreen said: “Are you happy?”

“Yes. I was not made to be a husband, or a knight. I pray for my children every day – and for you. I ask God to wash from my hands the blood of all the men I killed. This is the life I always wanted.”

“In that case, I wish you well.”

“You’re very generous.”

“You’ll probably never see me again.”

“I know.”

“Kiss me, and say goodbye.”

There was a long silence, then light footsteps receded. Caris lay still, hardly daring to breathe. After another pause, she heard Thomas crying. His sobs were muffled, but seemed to come from deep inside. Tears came to her own eyes as she listened.

Eventually Thomas got himself under control. He sniffed, coughed, and muttered something that might have been a prayer; then she heard his steps as he walked away.

At last she and Merthin could move. They stood up and walked back along the loft and down the spiral stairs. Neither spoke as they went down the nave of the great church. Caris felt as if she had been staring at a painting of high tragedy, the figures frozen in their dramatic attitudes of the moment, their past and future only to be guessed at.

Like a painting, the scene aroused different emotions in different People, and Merthin’s reaction was not the same as hers. As they emerged into a damp summer afternoon, he said: “What a sad story.”

“It makes me angry,” Caris said. “That woman has been ruined by Thomas.”

“You can hardly blame him. He had to save his life.”

“And now her life is over. She has no husband, but she can’t marry again. She’s forced to raise two children alone. At least Thomas has the monastery.”

“She has the court of the countess.”

“How can you compare the two?” Caris said irritably. “She’s probably a distant relation, kept on as an act of charity, asked to perform menial tasks, helping the countess dress her hair and choose her clothes. She’s got no choice – she’s trapped.”

“So is he. You heard him say he can’t leave the precincts.”

“But Thomas has a role, he’s the matricularius, he makes decisions, he does something.”

“Loreen has her children.”

“Exactly! The man takes care of the most important building for miles around, and the woman is stuck with her children.”

“Queen Isabella had four children, and for a while she was one of the most powerful people in Europe.”

“But she had to get rid of her husband first.”

They went on in silence, walking out of the priory grounds into the main street, and stopped in front of Caris’s house. She realized that this was another quarrel, and it was on the same subject as last time: marriage.

Merthin said: “I’m going to the Bell for dinner.”