Ken Follett - World Without End

Edmund said: “But how would the guild recoup the cost of construction?”

“With Merthin’s design, the number of people and carts crossing should rise. Theoretically it could double. Everything over thirty-six pounds is the guild’s. Then we could put up buildings either side to service travellers – taverns, stables, cook shops. They should be profitable – we could charge a good rent.”

“I don’t know,” said Edmund. “It seems very risky to me.”

For a moment, Caris felt furious with her father. She had come up with a brilliant solution, and he seemed to be finding unnecessary fault with it. Then she realized he was faking. She could see the light of enthusiasm in his eyes, not quite concealed. He loved the idea, but he did not want Godwyn to know how keen he was. He was hiding his feelings, for fear the prior would try to negotiate a better bargain. It was a ploy father and daughter had used before, when bargaining over wool.

Having figured out what he was up to, Caris played along, pretending to share his misgivings. “I know it’s hazardous,” she said gloomily. “We could lose everything. But what alternative do we have? We’ve got our backs to the wall. If we don’t build the bridge we’ll go out of business.”

Edmund shook his head dubiously. “All the same, I can’t agree to this on behalf of the guild. I’ll have to talk to the people who are putting up the money. I can’t say what their reply will be.” He looked Godwyn in the eye. “But I’ll do my best to persuade them, if this is your best offer.”

Godwyn had not actually made an offer, Caris reflected; but he had forgotten that. “It is,” he said firmly.

Got you, Caris thought triumphantly.

“You’re really very shrewd,” Merthin said.

He was lying between Caris’s legs, his head on her thigh, toying with her pubic hair. They had just made love for the second time ever, and he had found it even more joyous than the first. As they dozed in the pleasant daydream of satisfied lovers, she had told him about her negotiation with Godwyn. He was impressed.

Caris said: “The best of it is, he thinks he’s driven a hard bargain. In fact, a perpetual lease on the bridge and the land around it is priceless.”

“All the same, it’s a bit dismaying if he’s going to be no better at managing the priory’s money than your uncle Anthony was.”

They were in the forest, in a clearing hidden by brambles and shaded by a stand of tall beech trees, where a stream ran over rocks to form a pool. It had probably been used by lovers for hundreds of years. They had stripped naked and bathed in the pool before making love on the grassy bank. Anyone travelling clandestinely through the woods would skirt the thicket, so they were not likely to be discovered, unless by children picking blackberries – which was how Caris had originally discovered the glade, she told Merthin.

Now he said idly: “Why did you ask for that island?”

“I’m not sure. It’s obviously not as valuable as the land at either end of the bridge, and it’s no good for cultivation, but it could still be developed. The truth is, I guessed he wouldn’t object, so I just threw it in.”

“Will you take over your father’s wool business one day?”

“No.”

“So definite? Why?”

“It’s too easy for the king to tax the wool trade. He has just imposed an extra duty of a pound per sack of wool – that’s on top of the existing tax of two-thirds of a pound. The price of wool is now so high that the Italians are looking for wool from other countries, such as Spain. The business is too much at the mercy of the monarch.”

“Still, it’s a living. What else would you do?” Merthin was edging the conversation towards marriage, a subject she never raised.

“I don’t know.” She smiled. “When I was ten, I wanted to be a doctor. I thought that if I had known about medicine I could have saved my mother’s life. They all laughed at me. I didn’t realize only men could be physicians.”

“You could be a wise woman, like Mattie.”

“That would shock the family. Imagine what Petranilla would say! Mother Cecilia thinks it’s my destiny to be a nun.”

He laughed. “If she could see you now!” He kissed the soft inside of her thigh.

“She’d probably want to do what you’re doing,” Caris said. “You know what people say about nuns.”

“Why would she think you wanted to join the convent?”

“It’s because of what we did after the bridge collapsed. I helped her take care of the injured. She said I had a natural gift for it.”

“You have. Even I could see it.”

“I just did what Cecilia said.”

“But people seemed to feel better as soon as you spoke to them. And then you always listened to what they had to say before telling them what they should do.”

She stroked his cheek. “I couldn’t be a nun. I’m too fond of you.”

Her triangle of hair was reddish-brown with golden lights. “You’ve got a little mole,” he said. “Right here, on the left, beside the cleft.”

“I know. It’s been there since I was a little girl. I used to think it was ugly. I was so pleased when my hair grew, because I thought that meant my husband wouldn’t see it. I never imagined anyone would look as closely as you.”

“Friar Murdo would call you a witch – you’d better not let him see it.”

“Not if he were the last man on earth.”

“This is the blemish that saves you from blasphemy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the Arab world, every work of art has a tiny flaw, so that it doesn’t sacrilegiously compete with the perfection of God.”

“How do you know that?”

“One of the Florentines told me. Listen, do you think the parish guild will want the island?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I’d like to own it.”

“Four acres of rock and rabbits. Why?”

“I’d build a dock and a builder’s yard. Stone and timber coming by river could be delivered directly to my dock. When the bridge is finished, I’d build a house on the island.”

“Nice idea. But they wouldn’t give it to you free.”

“How about as part payment for building the bridge? I could take, say, half wages for two years.”

“You charge four pence a day… so the price of the island would be just over five pounds. I should think the guild would be pleased to get that much for barren land.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea?”

“I think you could build houses there and rent them, as soon as the bridge is finished and people can travel to and from the island easily.”

“Yes,” said Merthin thoughtfully. “I’d better talk to your father about it.”

Returning to Earlscastle at the end of a day’s hunting, when all the men in Earl Roland’s entourage were in a good mood, Ralph Fitzgerald was happy.

They crossed the drawbridge like an invading army, knights and squires and dogs. Rain was falling in a light drizzle, coolly welcome to the men and animals, who were hot and tired and content. They had taken several summer-fat hinds that would make good eating, plus a big old stag, too tough for anything but dog meat, killed for its magnificent antlers.

They dismounted in the outer compound, within the lower circle of the figure-eight moat. Ralph unsaddled Griff, murmured a few words of thanks in his ear, fed him a carrot and handed him to a groom to be rubbed down. Kitchen boys dragged away the bloody carcasses of the deer. The men were noisily recalling the day’s incidents, boasting and jeering and laughing, remembering remarkable jumps and dangerous falls and hair’s-breadth escapes. Ralph’s nostrils filled with a smell he loved, a mixture of sweating horses, wet dogs, leather and blood.