Pillars of the Earth, book 2 61 страница

Merthin was with Caris, who had been summoned here by the countess, Lady Philippa. Earl William had fallen sick, and Philippa thought her husband had the plague. Caris had been dismayed. She had thought the plague was over. No one had died of it in Kingsbridge for six weeks.

Caris and Merthin had set out immediately. However, the messenger had taken two days to travel from Earlscastie to Kingsbridge, and they had taken the same time to get here, so the likelihood was that the earl would now be dead, or nearly so. “All I will be able to do is give him some poppy essence to ease the final agony,” Caris had said as they rode along.

“You do more than that,” Merthin had said. “Your presence comforts people. You’re calm and knowledgeable, and you talk about things they understand, swelling and confusion and pain – you don’t try to impress them with jargon about humours, which just makes them feel more ignorant and powerless and frightened. When you’re there, they feel that everything possible is being done; and that’s what they want.”

“I hope you’re right.”

If anything, Merthin was understating. More than once he had seen a hysterical man or woman change, after just a few calming moments with Caris, into a sensible person capable of coping with whatever should happen.

Her inborn gift had been augmented, since the advent of the plague, by an almost supernatural reputation. Everyone for miles around knew that she and her nuns had carried on caring for the sick, despite the risk to themselves, even when the monks had fled. They thought she was a saint.

The atmosphere inside the castle compound was subdued. Those who had routine tasks were performing them: fetching firewood and water, feeding horses and sharpening weapons, baking bread and butchering meat. Many others – secretaries, men-at-arms, messengers – sat around doing nothing, waiting for news from the sick room.

The rooks cawed a sarcastic welcome as Merthin and Caris crossed the inner bridge to the keep. Merthin’s father, Sir Gerald, always claimed to be directly descended from Jack and Aliena’s son, Earl Thomas. As Merthin counted the steps to the great hall, placing his feet carefully in the smooth hollows worn by thousands of boots, he reflected that his ancestors had probably trodden on just these old stones. To him, such notions were intriguing but trivial. By contrast his brother Ralph was obsessed with restoring the family to its former glory.

Caris was ahead of him, and the sway of her hips as she climbed the steps made his lips twitch in a smile. He was frustrated by not being able to sleep with her every night, but the rare occasions when they could be alone together were all the more thrilling. Yesterday they had spent a mild spring afternoon making love in a sunlit forest glade, while the horses grazed nearby, oblivious to their passion.

It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl.

The hall was full of people. Some were working, laying down fresh straw, building up the fire, preparing the table for dinner; and others were simply waiting. At the far end of the long room, sitting near the foot of the staircase that led up to the earl’s private quarters, Merthin saw a well-dressed girl of about fifteen. She stood up and came towards them with a rather stately walk, and Merthin realized she must be Lady Philippa’s daughter. Like her mother she was tall, with an hourglass figure. “I am the Lady Odila,” she said with a touch of hauteur that was pure Philippa. Despite her composure, the skin around her young eyes was red and creased with crying. “You must be Mother Caris. Thank you for coming to attend my father.”

Merthin said: “I’m the alderman of Kingsbridge, Merthin Bridger. How is Earl William?”

“He is very ill, and both my brothers have been laid low.” Merthin recalled that the earl and countess had two boys of nineteen and twenty or thereabouts. “My mother asks that the lady prioress should come to them immediately.”

Caris said: “Of course.”

Odila went up the stairs. Caris took from her purse a strip of linen cloth and fastened it over her nose and mouth, then followed.

Merthin sat on a bench to wait. Although he was reconciled to infrequent sex, that did not stop him looking out eagerly for extra opportunities, and he surveyed the building with a keen eye, figuring out the sleeping arrangements. Unfortunately the house had a traditional layout. This large room, the great hall, would be where almost everyone ate and slept. The staircase presumably led to a solar, a bedroom for the earl and countess. Modern castles had a whole suite of apartments for family and guests, but there appeared to be no such luxury here. Merthin and Caris might lie side by side tonight, on the floor here in the hall, but they could do nothing more than sleep, not without causing a scandal.

After a while, Lady Philippa emerged from the solar and came down the stairs. She entered a room like a queen, aware that all eyes were on her, Merthin always thought. The dignity of her posture only emphasized the alluring roundness of her hips and her proud bosom. However, today her normally serene face was blotchy and her eyes were red. Her fashionably piled hairstyle was slightly awry, with stray locks of hair escaping from her headdress, adding to her air of glamorous distraction.

Merthin stood up and look at her expectantly.

She said: “My husband has the plague, as I feared; and so do both my sons.”

The people around murmured in dismay.

It might turn out to be no more than the last remnants of the epidemic, of course; but it could just as easily be the start of a new outbreak – God forbid, Merthin thought.

He said: “How is the earl feeling?”

Philippa sat on the bench next to him. “Mother Caris has eased his pain. But she says he’s near the end.”

Their knees were almost touching. He felt the magnetism of her sexuality, even though she was drowning in grief and he was dizzy with love for Caris. “And your sons?” he said.

She looked down at her lap, as if studying the pattern of gold and silver threads woven into her blue gown. “The same as their father.”

Merthin said quietly: “This is very hard for you, my lady, very hard.”

She gave him a wary glance. “You’re not like your brother, are you.”

Merthin knew that Ralph had been in love with Philippa, in his own obsessive way, for many years. Did she realize that? Merthin did not know. Ralph had chosen well, he thought. If you were going to have a hopeless love, you might as well pick someone singular. “Ralph and I are very different,” he said neutrally.

“I remember you as youngsters. You were the cheeky one – you told me to buy a green silk to match my eyes. Then your brother started a fight.”

“I sometimes think the younger of two brothers deliberately tries to be the opposite of the elder, just to differentiate himself.”

“It’s certainly true of my two. Rollo is strong-willed and assertive, like his father and grandfather; and Rick has always been sweet-natured and obliging.” She began to cry. “Oh, God, I’m going to lose them all.”

Merthin took her hand. “You can’t be sure what will happen,” he said gently. “I caught the plague in Florence, and I survived. My daughter didn’t catch it at all.”

She looked up at him. “And your wife?”

Merthin looked down at their entwined hands. Philippa’s was perceptibly more wrinkled than his, he saw, even though there was only four years’ difference in their ages. He said: “Silvia died.”

“I pray to God that I will catch it. If all my men die, I want to go too.”

“Surely not.”

“It’s the fate of noblewomen to marry men they don’t love – but I was lucky, you see, in William. He was chosen for me, but I loved him from the start.” Her voice began to fail her. “I couldn’t bear to have someone else…”

“You feel that way now, of course.” It was odd to be talking like this while her husband was still alive, Merthin thought. But she was so stricken by grief that she had little thought for niceties, and said just what was in her mind.

She collected herself with an effort. “What about you?” she said. “Have you remarried?”

“No.” He could hardly explain that he was having a love affair with the prioress of Kingsbridge. “I think I could, though, if the right woman were… willing. You might come to feel the same, eventually.”

“But you don’t understand. As the widow of an earl with no heirs, I would have to marry someone King Edward chose for me. And the king would have no thought for my wishes. His only concern would be who should be the next earl of Shiring.”

“I see.” Merthin had not thought of that. He could imagine that an arranged marriage might be particularly loathsome to a widow who had truly loved her first husband.

“How dreadful of me to be speaking of another husband while my first is alive,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Merthin patted her hand sympathetically. “It’s understandable.”

The door at the top of the stairs opened and Caris came out, drying her hands on a cloth. Merthin suddenly felt uncomfortable about holding Philippa’s hand. He was tempted to thrust it away from him, but realized how guilty that would look, and managed to resist the impulse. He smiled at Caris and said: “How are your patients?”

Caris’s eyes went to their linked hands, but she said nothing. She came down the stairs, untying her linen mask.

Philippa unhurriedly withdrew her hand.

Caris took off her mask and said: “I’m very sorry to have to tell you, my lady, that Earl William is dead.”

*

“I need a new horse,” said Ralph Fitzgerald. His favourite mount, Griff, was getting old. The spirited bay palfrey had suffered a sprain in its left hind leg that had taken months to heal, and now it was lame again in the same leg. Ralph felt sad. Griff was the horse Earl Roland had given him when he was a young squire, and it had been with him ever since, even going to the French wars. It might serve him a few years longer for unhurried trips from village to village within his domain, but its hunting days were over.

“We could go to Shiring market tomorrow and buy another,” Alan Fernhill said.

They were in the stable, looking at Griff’s fetlock. Ralph liked stables. He enjoyed the earthy smell, the strength and beauty of the horses, and the company of rough-handed men engrossed in physical tasks. It took him back to his youth, when the world had seemed a simple place.

He did not at first respond to Alan’s suggestion. What Alan did not know was that Ralph did not have the money to buy a horse.

The plague had at first enriched him, through the inheritance tax: land that normally passed from father to son once in a generation had changed hands twice or more in a few months, and he got a payment every time – traditionally the best beast, but often a fixed sum in cash. But then land had started to fall into disuse for lack of people to farm it. At the same time, agricultural prices had dropped. The upshot was that Ralph’s income, in money and produce, fell drastically.

Things were bad, he thought, when a knight could not afford a horse.

Then he remembered that Nate Reeve was due to come to Tench Hall today with the quarterly dues from Wigleigh. Every spring that village was obliged to provide its lord with twenty-four hoggets, year-old sheep. They could be driven to Shiring market and sold, and they should raise enough cash to pay for a palfrey, if not a hunter. “All right,” Ralph said to Alan. “Let’s see if the bailiff of Wigleigh is here.”

They went into the hall. This was a feminine zone, and Ralph’s spirits dropped immediately. Tilly was sitting by the fire, nursing their three-month-old son, Gerry. Mother and baby were in vigorous good health, despite Tilly’s youth. Her slight, girlish body had changed drastically: she now had swollen breasts with large, leathery nipples at which the baby sucked greedily. Her belly sagged loosely like that of an old woman. Ralph had not lain with her for many months and he probably never would again.

Nearby sat the grandfather after whom the baby was named, Sir Gerald, with Lady Maud. Ralph’s parents were now old and frail, but every morning they walked from their house in the village to the manor house to see their grandson. Maud said the baby looked like Ralph, but he could not see the resemblance.

Ralph was pleased to see that Nate was also in the hall.

The hunchbacked bailiff sprang up from his bench. “Good day to you, Sir Ralph,” he said.

He had a hangdog look about him, Ralph observed. “What’s the matter with you, Nate?” he said. “Have you brought my hoggets?”

“No, sir.”

“Why the devil not?”

“We’ve got none, sir. There are no sheep left in Wigleigh, except for a few old ewes.”

Ralph was shocked. “Has someone stolen them?”

“No, but some have been given to you already, as heriot when their owners died, and then we couldn’t find a tenant to take over Jack Shepherd’s land, and many sheep died over the winter. Then there was no one to look to the early lambs this spring, so we lost most of those, and some of the mothers.”

“But this is impossible!” Ralph said angrily. “How are noblemen to live if their serfs let the livestock perish?”

“We thought perhaps the plague was over, when it died down in January and February, but now it seems to be coming back.”

Ralph repressed a shudder of terror. Like everyone else, he had been thanking God that he had escaped the plague. Surely it could not return?

Nate went on: “Perkin died this week, and his wife, Peg, and his son, Rob, and his son-in-law, Billy Howard. That’s left Annet with all those acres to manage, which she can’t possibly do.”

“Well, there must be a heriot due on that property, then.”

“There will be, when I can find a tenant to take it over.”

Parliament was in the process of passing new legislation to stop labourers flitting about the country demanding even higher wages. As soon as the ordinance became law, Ralph would enforce it and get his workers back. Even then, he now realized, he would be desperate to find tenants.

Nate said: “I expect you’ve heard of the death of the earl.”

“No!” Ralph was shocked again.

“What’s that?” Sir Gerald said. “Earl William is dead?”

“Of the plague,” Nate explained.

Tilly said: “Poor Uncle William!”

The baby sensed her mood and wailed.

Ralph spoke over the noise. “When did this happen?”

“Only three days ago,” Nate replied.

Tilly gave the baby the nipple again, and he shut up.

“So William’s elder son is the new earl,” Ralph mused. “He can’t be more than twenty.”

Nate shook his head. “Rollo also died of the plague.”

“Then the younger son-”

“Dead too.”

“Both sons!” Ralph’s heart leaped. It had always been his dream to become the earl of Shiring. Now the plague had given him the opportunity. And the plague had also improved his chances, for many likely candidates for the title had been wiped out.

He caught his father’s eye. The same thought had occurred to Sir Gerald.

Tilly said: “Rollo and Rick dead – it’s so awful.” She began to cry.

Ralph ignored her and tried to think through the possibilities. “Let’s see, what surviving relatives are there?”

Gerald said to Nate: “I presume the countess died too?”

“No, sir. Lady Philippa lives. So does her daughter, Odila.”

“Ah!” said Gerald. “So, whoever the king chooses will have to marry Philippa in order to become earl.”

Ralph was thunderstruck. Since he was a lad he had dreamed of marrying Lady Philippa. Now there was an opportunity to achieve both his ambitions at one stroke.

But he was already married.

Gerald said: “That’s it, then.” He sat back in his chair, his excitement gone as quickly as it had come.

Ralph looked at Tilly, suckling their child and weeping at the same time. Fifteen years old and barely five feet tall, she stood like a castle wall between him and the future he had always yearned for.

He hated her.

*

Earl William’s funeral took place at Kingsbridge Cathedral. There were no monks except Brother Thomas, but Bishop Henri conducted the service and the nuns sang the hymns. Lady Philippa and Lady Odila, both heavily veiled, followed the coffin. Despite their dramatic black-clad presence, Ralph found the occasion lacked the momentous feeling that usually attended the funeral of a magnate, the sense of historical time passing by like the flow of a great river. Death was everywhere, every day, and even noble deaths were now commonplace.

He wondered whether someone in the congregation was infected, and was even now spreading the disease through his breath, or the invisible beams from his eyes. The thought made Ralph shaky. He had faced death many times, and learned to control his fear in battle; but this enemy could not be fought. The plague was an assassin who slid his long knife into people from behind then slipped away before he was spotted. Ralph shuddered and tried not to think about it.

Next to Ralph was the tall figure of Sir Gregory Longfellow, a lawyer who had been involved in suits concerning Kingsbridge in the past. Gregory was now a member of the king’s council, an elite group of technical experts who advised the monarch – not on what he should do, for that was the job of Parliament, but on how he could do it.

Royal announcements were often made at church services, especially big ceremonies such as this. Today Bishop Henri took the opportunity to explain the new Ordinance of Labourers. Ralph guessed that Sir Gregory had brought the news and stayed to see how it was received.

Ralph listened attentively. He had never been summoned to Parliament, but he had talked about the labour crisis to Earl William, who had sat with the Lords, and to Sir Peter Jeffries, who represented Shiring in the Commons; so he knew what had been discussed.

“Every man must work for the lord of the village where he lives, and may not move to another village or work for another master, unless his lord should release him,” the bishop said.

Ralph rejoiced. He had known this was coming but he was delighted that at last it was official.

Before the plague there had never been a shortage of labourers. On the contrary, many villages had more than they knew what to do with. When landless men could find no paid work they sometimes threw themselves on the charity of the lord – which was an embarrassment to him, whether he helped them or not. So, if they wanted to move to another village, the lord was if anything relieved, and certainly had no need of legislation to keep them where they were. Now the labourers had the whip hand – a situation that obviously could not be allowed to continue.

There was a rumble of approval from the congregation at the bishop’s announcement. Kingsbridge folk themselves were not much affected, but those in the congregation who had come in from the countryside for the funeral were predominantly employers rather than employees. The new rules had been devised by and for them.

The bishop went on: “It is now a crime to demand, to offer or to accept wages higher than those paid for similar work in 1347.”

Ralph nodded approval. Even labourers who stayed in the same village had been demanding more money. This would put a stop to that, he hoped.

Sir Gregory caught his eye. “I see you nodding,” he said. “Do you approve?”

“It’s what we wanted,” Ralph said. “I’ll begin to enforce it in the next few days. There are a couple of runaways from my territory that I particularly want to bring home.”

“I’ll come with you, if I may,” the lawyer said. “I should like to see how things work out.”

The priest at Outhenby had died of the plague, and there had been no services at the church since; so Gwenda was surprised when the bell began to toll on Sunday morning.

Wulfric went to investigate and came back to report that a visiting priest, Father Derek, had arrived; so Gwenda washed the boys’ faces quickly and they all went out.

It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bathed the old grey stones of the little church in a clear light. All the villagers turned out, curious to view the newcomer.

Father Derek turned out to be a well-spoken city clergyman, too richly dressed for a village church. Gwenda wondered whether any special significance attached to his visit. Was there a reason why the church hierarchy had suddenly remembered the existence of this parish? She told herself that it was a bad habit always to imagine the worst, but all the same she felt something was wrong.

She stood in the nave with Wulfric and the boys, watching the priest go through the ritual, and her sense of doom grew stronger. A priest usually looked at the congregation while he was praying or singing, to emphasize that all this was for their benefit, not a private communication between himself and God; but Father Derek’s gaze went over their heads.

She soon found out why. At the end of the service, he told them of a new law passed by the king and Parliament. “Landless labourers must work for the lord in their village of origin, if required,” he said.

Gwenda was outraged. “How can that be?” she shouted out. “The lord is not obliged to help the labourer in hard times – I know, my father was a landless labourer, and when there was no work we went hungry. So how can the labourer owe loyalty to a lord who gives him nothing?”

A rumble of agreement broke out, and the priest had to raise his voice. “This is what the king has decided, and the king is chosen by God to rule over us, so we must all do as he wishes.”

“Can the king change the custom of hundreds of years?” Gwenda persisted.

“These are difficult times. I know that many of you have come to Outhenby in the last few weeks-”

“Invited by the ploughman,” the voice of Carl Shaftesbury interrupted. His scarred face was livid with rage.

“Invited by all the villagers,” the priest acknowledged. “And they were grateful to you for coming. But the king in his wisdom has ruled that this kind of thing must not go on.”

“And poor people must remain poor,” Carl said.

“God has ordained it so. Each man in his place.”

Harry Ploughman said: “And has God ordained how we are to till our fields with no help? If all the newcomers leave, we will never finish the work.”

“Perhaps not all the newcomers will have to leave,” said Derek. “The new law says only that they must go home if required.”

That quietened them. The immigrants were trying to figure out whether their lords would be able to track them down; the locals were wondering how many labourers would be left here. But Gwenda knew what her own future held. Sooner or later Ralph would come back for her and her family.

By then, she decided, they would be gone.

The priest retired and the congregation began to drift to the door. “We’ve got to leave here,” Gwenda said to Wulfric in a low voice. “Before Ralph comes back for us.”

“Where will we go?”

“I don’t know – but perhaps that’s better. If we don’t know where we’re going, no one else will.”

“But how will we live?”

“We’ll find another village where they need labourers.”

“Are there many others, I wonder?”

He was always slower-thinking than she. “There must be lots,” she said patiently. “The king didn’t pass this ordinance just for Outhenby.”

“Of course.”

“We should leave today,” she said decisively. “It’s Sunday, so we’re not losing any work.” She glanced at the church windows, estimating the time of day. “It’s not yet noon – we could cover a good distance before nightfall. Who knows, we could be working in a new place tomorrow morning.”

“I agree,” Wulfric said. “There’s no telling how fast Ralph might move.”

“Say nothing to anyone. We’ll go home, pick up whatever we want to take with us and just slip away.”

“All right.”

They reached the door and stepped outside into the sunshine, and Gwenda saw that it was already too late.

Six men on horseback were waiting outside the church: Ralph, his sidekick Alan, a tall man in London clothes, and three dirty, scarred, evil-looking ruffians of the kind that could be hired for a few pennies in any low tavern.

Ralph caught Gwenda’s eye and smiled triumphantly.

Gwenda looked around desperately. A few days ago the men of the village had stood shoulder to shoulder against Ralph and Alan – but this was different. They were up against six men, not two. The villagers were unarmed, coming out of church, whereas previously they had been returning from the fields with tools in their hands. And, most important, on that first occasion they had believed they had right on their side, whereas today they were not so sure.

Several men met her eye and looked quickly away. That confirmed her suspicion. The villagers would not fight today.

Gwenda was so disappointed that she felt weak. Fearing that she might fall down, she leaned on the stonework of the church porch for support. Her heart had turned into something heavy and cold and damp, like a clod from a winter grave. A grim hopelessness possessed her completely.

For a few days they had been free. But it had just been a dream. And now the dream was over.

*

Ralph rode slowly through Wigleigh, leading Wulfric by a rope around his neck.

They arrived late in the afternoon. For speed, Ralph had let the two small boys ride, sharing the horses of the hired men. Gwenda was walking behind. Ralph had not bothered to tie her in any way. She could be relied upon to follow her children.

Because it was Sunday, most of the Wigleigh folk were outside their houses, enjoying the sun, as Ralph had anticipated. They all stared in horrified silence at the dismal procession. Ralph hoped the sight of Wulfric’s humiliation might deter others from going in search of higher wages.

They reached the small manor house that had been Ralph’s home before he moved to Tench Hall. He released Wulfric and sent him and his family off to their old home. He paid off the hired men, then took Alan and Sir Gregory into the manor house.

It was kept clean and ready for his visits. He ordered Vira to bring wine then prepare supper. It was too late now to go on to Tench: they could not get there before nightfall.

Gregory sat down and stretched out his long legs. He seemed like a man who could make himself comfortable anywhere. His straight dark hair was now tweeded with grey, but his long nose with its flared nostrils still gave him a supercilious look. “How do you feel that went?” he said.

Ralph had been thinking about the new ordinance all the way home, and he had his answer ready. “It’s not going to work,” he said.

Gregory raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Alan said: “I agree with Sir Ralph.”

“Reasons?”

Ralph said: “First of all, it’s difficult to find out where the runaways have gone.”

Alan put in: “It was only by luck that we traced Wulfric. Someone had overheard him and Gwenda planning where to go.”

“Second,” Ralph went on, “recovering them is too troublesome.”

Gregory nodded. “I suppose we have been all day at it.”

“And I had to hire those ruffians and get them horses. I can’t spend my time and money chasing all over the countryside after runaway labourers.”

“I see that.”

“Third, what is to stop them running away again next week?”

Alan said: “If they keep their mouths shut about where they’re headed, we might never find them.”

“The only way it will work,” Ralph said, “is if someone can go to a village, find out who the migrants are and punish them.”

Gregory said: “You’re talking about a sort of Commission of Labourers.”

“Exactly. Appoint a panel in each county, a dozen or so men who go from place to place ferreting out runaways.”

“You want someone else to do the work for you.”

It was a taunt, but Ralph was careful not to appear stung. “Not necessarily – I’ll be one of the commissioners, if you wish. It’s just the way the job is to be done. You can’t reap a field of grass one blade at a time.”

“Interesting,” said Gregory.

Vira brought a jug and some goblets, and poured wine for the three of them.

Gregory said: “You’re a shrewd man, Sir Ralph. You’re not a Member of Parliament, are you?”

“No.”

“Pity. I think the king would find your counsel helpful.”

Ralph tried not to beam with pleasure. “You’re very kind.” He leaned forward. “Now that Earl William is dead, there is of course a vacancy-” He saw the door open, and broke off.

Nate Reeve came in. “Well done, Sir Ralph, if I may say so!” he said. “Wulfric and Gwenda back in the fold, the two hardest-working people we’ve got.”

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04