She nodded. “He’s just back.” But she did not want to believe Merthin. “All the same, can you be sure it’s the plague?”

‘The symptoms are the same: fever, purple-black spots, bleeding, buboes in the armpits, and most of all the thirst. I remember it, by Christ. I was one of the few to recover. Almost everyone dies within five days, often less.”

She felt as if doomsday had come. She had heard the terrible stories from Italy and southern France: entire families wiped out, unburied bodies rotting in empty palaces, orphaned toddlers wandering the streets crying, livestock dying untended in ghost villages. Was this to happen to Kingsbridge? “What did the Italian doctors do?”

“Prayed, sang hymns, took blood, prescribed their favourite nostrums and charged a fortune. Everything they tried was useless.”

They were standing close together and speaking in low tones. She could see his face by the faint light of the monks’ distant candles. He was staring at her with a strange intensity. He was deeply moved, she could tell, but it did not seem to be grief for Mark that possessed him. He was focused on her.

She asked: “What are the Italian doctors like, compared with our English physicians?”

“After the Muslims, the Italian doctors are supposed to be the most knowledgeable in the world. They even cut up dead bodies to learn more about sickness. But they never cured a single sufferer from this plague.”

Caris refused to accept such complete hopelessness. “We can’t be utterly helpless.”

“No. We can’t cure it, but some people think you can escape it.”

Caris said eagerly: “How?”

“It seems to spread from one person to another.”

She nodded. “Lots of diseases do that.”

“Usually, when one in a family gets it, they all do. Proximity is the key factor.”

“That makes sense. Some say you fall ill from looking at sick people.”

“In Florence, the nuns counselled us to stay at home as much as possible, and avoid social gatherings, markets and meetings of guilds and councils.”

“And church services?”

“No, they didn’t say that, though lots of people stayed home from church too.”

This chimed with what Caris had been thinking for years. She felt renewed hope: perhaps her methods could stave off the plague. “What about the nuns themselves, and the physicians, people who have to meet the sick and touch them?”

“Priests refused to hear confessions in whispers, so that they did not have to get too near. Nuns wore linen masks over their mouths and noses so that they would not breathe the same air. Some washed their hands in vinegar every time they touched a patient. The priest-physicians said none of this would do any good, but most of them left the city anyway.”

“And did these precautions help?”

“It’s hard to say. None of this was done until the plague was rampant. And it wasn’t systematic – just everyone trying different things.”

“All the same, we must make the effort.”

He nodded. After a pause he said: “However, there is one precaution that is sure.”

“What’s that?”

“Run away.”

This was what he had been waiting to say, she realized.

He went on: “The saying goes: ‘Leave early, go far and stay long.’ People who did that escaped the sickness.”

“We can’t go away.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be silly. There are six or seven thousand people in Kingsbridge – they can’t all leave town. Where would they go?”

“I’m not talking about them – just you. Listen, you may not have caught the plague from Mark. Madge and the children almost certainly have, but you spent less time close to him. If you’re still all right, we could escape. We could leave today, you and me and Lolla.”

Caris was appalled by the way he assumed it had spread by now. Was she doomed already? “And… and go where?”

“To Wales, or Ireland. We need to find a remote village where they don’t see a stranger from one year to the next.”

“You’ve had the sickness. You told me people don’t get it twice.”

“Never. And some people don’t catch it at all. Lolla must be like that. If she didn’t pick it up from her mother, she’s not likely to get it from anyone else.”

“So why do you want to go to Wales?”

He just stared at her with that intense look, and she realized that the fear she had detected in him was for her. He was terrified that she would die. Tears came to her eyes. She remembered what Madge had said: “Knowing there’s one person in the world who will always be on your side.” Merthin tried to look after her, no matter what she did. She thought of poor Madge, blasted by grief at the loss of the one who was always on her side. How could she, Caris, even think of rejecting Merthin?

But she did. “I can’t leave Kingsbridge,” she said. “Of all times, not now. They rely on me if someone is sick. When the plague strikes, I’m the one they will turn to for help. If I were to flee… well, I don’t know how to explain this.”

“I think I understand,” Merthin said. “You’d be like a soldier who runs away as soon as the first arrow is shot. You’d feel a coward.”

“Yes – and a cheat, after all these years of being a nun and saying that I live to serve others.”

“I knew you would feel this way,” Merthin said. “But I had to try.” The sadness in his voice nearly broke her heart as he added: “And I suppose this means you won’t be renouncing your vows in the foreseeable future.”

“No. The hospital is where they come for help. I have to be here at the priory, to play my role. I have to be a nun.”

“All right, then.”

“Don’t be too downhearted.”

With wry sorrow he said: “And why should I not be downhearted?”

“You said that it killed half the population of Florence?”

“Something like that.”

“So at least half the people just didn’t catch it.”

“Like Lolla. No one knows why. Perhaps they have some special strength. Or maybe the disease strikes at random, like arrows fired into the enemy ranks, killing some and missing others.”

“Either way, there’s a good chance I’ll escape the illness.”

“One chance in two.”

“Like the toss of a coin.”

“Heads or tails,” he said. “Life or death.”

58

Hundreds of people came to Mark Webber’s funeral. He had been one of the town’s leading citizens, but it was more than that. Poor weavers arrived from the surrounding villages, some of them having walked for hours. He had been unusually well loved, Merthin reflected. The combination of his giant’s body and his gentle temperament cast a spell.

It was a wet day, and the bared heads of rich and poor men were soaked as they stood around the grave. Cold rain mingled with hot tears on the faces of the mourners. Madge stood with her arms around the shoulders of her two younger sons, Dennis and Noah. They were flanked by the eldest son, John, and the daughter, Dora, who were both much taller than their mother, and looked as if they might be the parents of the three short people in the middle.

Merthin wondered grimly whether Madge or one of her children would be the next to die.

Six strong men grunted with the effort of lowering the extra-large coffin into the grave. Madge sobbed helplessly as the monks sang the last hymn. Then the gravediggers started to shovel the sodden earth back into the hole, and the crowd began to disperse.

Brother Thomas approached Merthin, pulling up his hood to keep the rain off. “The priory has no money to rebuild the tower,” he said. “Godwyn has commissioned Elfric to demolish the old tower and just roof the crossing.”

Merthin tore his mind away from apocalyptic thoughts of the plague. “How will Godwyn pay Elfric for that?”

“The nuns are putting up the money.”

“I thought they hated Godwyn.”

“Sister Elizabeth is the treasurer. Godwyn is careful to be kind to her family, who are tenants of the priory. Most of the other nuns do hate him, it’s true – but they need a church.”