World Without End

by Ken Follett

  "Of course."

  Caris said: "If I may make one suggestion?"

  "Please."

  "Find another post for Philemon. Propose him as, I don't know, archdeacon of Lincoln. Something he would like, but that would take him many miles from here."

  "That's a sound idea," Henri said. "If he's up for two posts, it weakens his case for either one. I'll keep my ear to the ground."

  Claude stood up. "This is all very exciting," he said. "Will you have dinner with us?"

  A servant came in and addressed Caris. "There's someone asking for you, mistress," the man said. "It's only a boy, but he seems distressed."

  Henri said: "Let him come in."

  A boy of about thirteen appeared. He was dirty, but his clothes were not cheap, and Caris guessed he came from a family that was comfortably off but suffering some kind of crisis. "Will you come to my house, Mother Caris?"

  "I'm not a nun anymore, child, but what's the problem?"

  The boy spoke fast. "My father and mother are ill and so is my brother, and my mother heard someone say you were at the bishop's palace and said to fetch you, and she knows you help the poor but she can pay, but will you please come, please?"

  This type of request was not unusual, and Caris carried a leather case of medical supplies with her wherever she went. "Of course I'll come, lad," she said. "What's your name?"

  "Giles Spicers, Mother, and I'm to wait and bring you."

  "All right." Caris turned to the bishop. "Go ahead with your dinner, please. I'll join you as soon as I can." She picked up her case and followed the boy out.

  Shiring owed its existence to the sheriff's castle on the hill, just as Kingsbridge did to the priory. Near the market square were the grand houses of the leading citizens, the wool merchants and sheriff's deputies and royal officials such as the coroner. A little farther out were the homes of moderately prosperous traders and craftsmen, goldsmiths and tailors and apothecaries. Giles's father was a dealer in spices, as his name indicated, and Giles led Caris to a street in this neighborhood. Like most houses of this class, it had a stone-built ground floor that served as warehouse and shop, and flimsier timber living quarters above. Today the shop was closed and locked. Giles led Caris up the outside staircase.

  She smelled the familiar odor of sickness as soon as she walked in. Then she hesitated. There was something special about the smell, something that struck a chord in her memory that for some reason made her feel very frightened.

  Rather than ponder it, she walked through the living room into the bedroom, and there she found the dreadful answer.

  Three people lay on mattresses around the room: a woman of her own age, a slightly older man, and an adolescent boy. The man was farthest gone in sickness. He lay moaning and sweating in a fever. The open neck of his shirt showed that he had a rash of purple-black spots on his chest and throat. There was blood on his lips and nostrils.

  He had the plague.

  "It's come back," said Caris. "God help me."

  For a moment fear paralyzed her. She stood motionless, staring at the scene, feeling powerless. She had always known, in theory, that the plague might return--that was half the reason she had written her book--but even so she was not prepared for the shock of once again seeing that rash, that fever, that nosebleed.

  The woman lifted herself on one elbow. She was not so far gone: she had the rash and the fever, but did not appear to be bleeding. "Give me something to drink, for the love of God," she said.

  Giles picked up a jug of wine, and at last Caris's mind started to work and her body unfroze. "Don't give her wine--it will make her thirstier," she said. "I saw a barrel of ale in the other room--draw her a cup of that."

  The woman focused on Caris. "You're the prioress, aren't you?" she said. Caris did not correct her. "People say you're a saint. Can you make my family well?"

  "I'll try, but I'm not a saint, just a woman who has observed people in sickness and health." Caris took from her bag a strip of linen and tied it over her mouth and nose. She had not seen a case of the plague for ten years, but she had got into the habit of taking this precaution whenever she dealt with patients whose illness might be catching. She moistened a clean rag with rose water and bathed the woman's face. As always, the action soothed the patient.

  Giles came back with a cup of ale, and the woman drank. Caris said to him: "Let them have as much to drink as they want, but give them ale or watered wine."

  She moved to the father, who did not have long to live. He was not speaking coherently and his eyes failed to focus on Caris. She bathed his face, cleaning the dried blood from around his nose and mouth. Finally she attended to Giles's elder brother. He had only recently succumbed, and was still sneezing, but he was old enough to realize how seriously ill he was, and he looked terrified.

  When she had finished, she said to Giles: "Try to keep them comfortable and give them drinks. There's nothing else you can do. Do you have any relations? Uncles or cousins?"

  "They're all in Wales."

  She made a mental note to warn Bishop Henri that he might need to make arrangements for an orphan boy.

  "Mother said to pay you," the boy said.

  "I haven't done much for you," Caris said. "You can pay me sixpence."

  There was a leather purse beside his mother's bed. He took out six silver pennies.

  The woman raised herself again. Speaking more calmly now, she said: "What's wrong with us?"

  "I'm sorry," said Caris. "It's the plague."

  The woman nodded fatalistically. "That's what I was afraid of."

  "Don't you recognize the symptoms from last time?"

  "We were living in a small town in Wales--we escaped it. Are we all going to die?"

  Caris did not believe in deceiving people about such important questions. "A few people survive it," she said. "Not many, though."

  "May God have mercy on us, then," said the woman.

  Caris said: "Amen."

  All the way back to Kingsbridge, Caris brooded on the plague. It would spread, of course, just as fast as last time. It would kill thousands. The prospect filled her with rage. It was like the senseless carnage of war, except that war was caused by men, and the plague was not. What was she going to do? She could not sit back and watch as the events of thirteen years ago were cruelly repeated.

  There was no cure for the plague, but she had discovered ways to slow its murderous progress. As her horse jogged the well-worn road through the forest, she thought over what she knew about the illness and how to combat it. Merthin was quiet, recognizing her mood, probably guessing accurately what she was thinking about.

  When they got home, she explained to him what she wanted to do. "There will be opposition," he warned. "Your plan is drastic. Those who did not lose family and friends last time may imagine they are invulnerable, and say you're overreacting."

  "That's where you can help me," she said.

  "In that case, I recommend we divide up the potential objectors and deal with them separately."

  "All right."

  "You have three groups to win over: the guild, the monks, and the nuns. Let's start with the guild. I'll call a meeting--and I won't invite Philemon."

  Nowadays the guild met in the Cloth Exchange, a large new stone building on the main street. It enabled traders to do business even in bad weather. It had been paid for by profits from Kingsbridge Scarlet.

  But before the guild convened, Caris and Merthin met individually with the leading members, to win their support in advance, a technique Merthin had developed long ago. His motto was: "Never call a meeting until the result is a foregone conclusion."

  Caris herself went to see Madge Webber.

  Madge had married again. Much to everyone's amusement, she had enchanted a villager as handsome as her first husband and fifteen years her junior. His name was Anselm, and he seemed to adore her, though she was as plump as ever and covered her gray hair with a selection of exotic caps. Even more surprising, in her forties s
he had conceived again and given birth to a healthy baby girl, Selma, now eight years old and attending the nuns' school. Motherhood had never kept Madge from doing business, and she continued to dominate the market in Kingsbridge Scarlet, with Anselm as her lieutenant.

  Her home was still the large house on the main street that she and Mark had moved into when she first began to profit from weaving and dyeing. Caris found her and Anselm taking delivery of a consignment of red cloth, trying to find room for it in the overcrowded storeroom on the ground floor. "I'm stocking up for the Fleece Fair," Madge explained.

  Caris waited while she checked the delivery, then they went upstairs, leaving Anselm in charge of the shop. As Caris entered the living room she was vividly reminded of the day, thirteen years ago, when she had been summoned here to see Mark--the first Kingsbridge victim of the plague. She suddenly felt depressed.

  Madge noticed her expression. "What is it?" she said.

  You could not hide things from women the way you could from men. "I walked in here thirteen years ago because Mark was ill," Caris said.

  Madge nodded. "That was the beginning of the worst time of my life," she said in her matter-of-fact voice. "That day, I had a wonderful husband and four healthy children. Three months later I was a childless widow with nothing to live for."

  "Days of grief," Caris said.

  Madge went to the sideboard, where there were cups and a jug, but instead of offering Caris a drink she stood staring at the wall. "Shall I tell you something strange?" she said. "After they died, I couldn't say Amen to the paternoster." She swallowed, and her voice went quieter. "I know what the Latin means, you see. My father taught me. Fiat voluntas tua: 'Thy will be done.' I couldn't say that. God had taken my family, and that was sufficient torture--I would not acquiesce in it." Tears came to her eyes as she remembered. "I didn't want God's will to prevail, I wanted my children back. 'Thy will be done.' I knew I'd go to Hell, but still I couldn't say Amen."

  Caris said: "The plague has come back."

  Madge staggered, and clutched the sideboard for support. Her solid figure suddenly looked frail, and as the confidence went from her face she appeared old. "No," she said.

  Caris pulled a bench forward and held Madge's arm while she sat on it. "I'm sorry to shock you," she said.

  "No," Madge said again. "It can't come back. I can't lose Anselm and Selma. I can't bear it. I can't bear it." She looked so white and drawn that Caris began to fear she might suffer some kind of attack.

  Caris poured wine from the jug into a cup. She gave it to Madge, who drank it automatically. A little of her color came back.

  "We understand it better now," Caris said. "Perhaps we can fight it."

  "Fight it? How can we do that?"

  "That's what I've come to tell you. Are you feeling a little better?"

  Madge met Caris's eye at last. "Fight it," she said. "Of course that's what we must do. Tell me how."

  "We have to close the city. Shut the gates, man the walls, prevent anyone coming in."

  "But the city has to eat."

  "People will bring supplies to Leper Island. Merthin will act as middleman, and pay them--he contracted the plague last time and survived, and no one has ever got it twice. Traders will leave their goods on the bridge. Then, when they have gone, people will come out from the city and get the food."

  "Could people leave the city?"

  "Yes, but they couldn't come back."

  "What about the Fleece Fair?"

  "That may be the hardest part," Caris said. "It must be canceled."

  "But Kingsbridge merchants will lose hundreds of pounds!"

  "It's better than dying."

  "If we do as you say, will we avoid the plague? Will my family survive?"

  Caris hesitated, resisting the temptation to tell a reassuring lie. "I can't promise," she said. "The plague may already have reached us. There may be someone right now dying alone in a hovel near the waterfront, with nobody to get help. So I fear we may not escape entirely. But I believe my plan gives you the best chance of still having Anselm and Selma by your side at Christmas."

  "Then we'll do it," Madge said decisively.

  "Your support is crucial," Caris said. "Frankly, you will lose more money than anyone else from the cancellation of the fair. For that reason, people are more likely to believe you. I need you to say how serious it is."

  "Don't worry," said Madge. "I'll tell them."

  "A very sound idea," said Prior Philemon.

  Merthin was surprised. He could not remember a time when Philemon had agreed readily with a proposal of the guild's. "Then you will support it," he said, to make sure he had heard aright.

  "Yes, indeed," said the prior. He was eating a bowl of raisins, stuffing handfuls into his mouth as fast as he could chew them. He did not offer Merthin any. "Of course," he said, "it wouldn't apply to monks."

  Merthin sighed. He might have known better. "On the contrary, it applies to everyone," he said.

  "No, no," said Philemon, in the tone of one who instructs a child. "The guild has no power to restrict the movements of monks."

  Merthin noticed a cat at Philemon's feet. It was fat, like him, with a mean face. It looked just like Godwyn's cat, Archbishop, though that creature must be long dead. Perhaps it was a descendant. Merthin said: "The guild has the power to close the city gates."

  "But we have the right to come and go as we please. We're not subject to the authority of the guild--that would be ridiculous."

  "All the same, the guild controls the city, and we have decided that no one can enter while the plague is rife."

  "You cannot make rules for the priory."

  "But I can for the city, and the priory happens to be in the city."

  "Are you telling me that if I leave Kingsbridge today, you will refuse me admission tomorrow?"

  Merthin was not sure. It would be highly embarrassing, at a minimum, to have the prior of Kingsbridge standing outside the gate demanding admission. He had been hoping to persuade Philemon to accept the restriction. He did not want to put the resolve of the guild to the test quite so dramatically. However, he tried to make his answer sound confident. "Absolutely."

  "I shall complain to the bishop."

  "Tell him he can't enter Kingsbridge."

  The personnel of the nunnery had hardly changed in ten years, Caris realized. Nunneries were like that, of course: you were supposed to stay forever. Mother Joan was still prioress, and Sister Oonagh ran the hospital under the supervision of Brother Sime. Few people came here for medical care now: most preferred Caris's hospital on the island. Those patients Sime did have, devoutly religious for the most part, were cared for in the old hospital, next to the kitchens, while the new building was used for guests.

  Caris sat down with Joan, Oonagh, and Sime in the old pharmacy, now used as the prioress's private office, and explained her plan. "People outside the walls of the old city who fall victim to the plague will be admitted to my hospital on the island," she said. "While the plague lasts, the nuns and I will stay within the building night and day. Nobody will leave, except those lucky few who recover."

  Joan asked: "What about here in the old city?"

  "If the plague gets into the city despite our precautions, there may be too many victims for the accommodation you have. The guild has ruled that plague victims and their families will be confined to their homes. The rule applies to anyone who lives in a house struck by plague: parents, children, grandparents, servants, apprentices. Anyone caught leaving such a house will be hanged."

  "It's very harsh," Joan said. "But if it prevents the awful slaughter of the last plague, it's worthwhile."

  "I knew you'd see that."

  Sime was saying nothing. The news of the plague seemed to have deflated his arrogance.

  Oonagh said: "How will the victims eat, if they're imprisoned in their homes?"

  "Neighbors can leave food on the doorstep. No one may go in--except monk-physicians and nuns. They will visit the
sick, but they must have no contact with the healthy. They will go from the priory to the home, and from the home back to the priory, without entering any other building or even speaking to anyone on the street. They should wear masks at all times, and wash their hands in vinegar each time they touch a patient."

  Sime was looking terrified. "Will that protect us?" he said.

  "To some degree," Caris said. "Not completely."

  "But then it will be highly dangerous for us to attend the sick!"

  Oonagh answered him. "We have no fear," she said. "We look forward to death. For us, it is the longed-for reunion with Christ."

  "Yes, of course," said Sime.

  The next day, all the monks left Kingsbridge.

  88

  Gwenda felt murderously angry when she saw what Ralph had done to Davey's madder plants. Wanton destruction of crops was a sin. There should be a special place in Hell for noblemen who despoiled what peasants had sweated to grow.

  But Davey was not dismayed. "I don't think it matters," he said. "The value is in the roots, and he hasn't touched them."

  "That would have been too much like work," Gwenda said sourly, but she cheered up.

  In fact the shrubs recovered remarkably quickly. Ralph probably did not know that madder propagated underground. Throughout May and June, as reports began to reach Wigleigh of an outbreak of the plague, the roots sent up new shoots, and at the beginning of July, Davey decided it was time to harvest the crop. One Sunday Gwenda, Wulfric, and Davey spent the afternoon digging up the roots. They would first loosen the soil around the plant, then pull it out of the ground, then strip its foliage, leaving the root attached to a short stem. It was back-aching work of the kind Gwenda had done all her life.

  They left half the plantation untouched, in the hope that it would regenerate itself next year.

  They pulled a handcart piled with madder roots back through the woods to Wigleigh, then unloaded the roots into the barn and spread them in the hayloft to dry.

  Davey did not know when he would be able to sell his crop. Kingsbridge was a closed city. The people still bought supplies, of course, but only through brokers. Davey was doing something new, and he would need to explain the situation to his buyer. It would be awkward to do that through an intermediary. But perhaps he would have to try. He had to dry the roots first, then grind them to a powder, and that would take time anyway.