Carl said: “No, it won’t. I’m going to stop him taking you away, whether you want me to or not. It’s for my own good.”

There was a murmur of assent. Gwenda looked around. Most of the men were holding shovels or hoes, and they looked ready to swing them, though they also looked scared.

Wulfric turned his back on Ralph and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “You women, take the children into the church – quickly, now!”

Several women snatched up toddlers and grabbed youngsters by the arms. Gwenda stayed where she was, and so did several of the younger women. The villagers instinctively moved closer together, standing shoulder to shoulder.

Ralph and Alan looked disconcerted. They had not expected to face a crowd of fifty or more belligerent peasants. But they were on horseback, so they could get away any time they wanted.

Ralph said: “Well, perhaps I’ll just take this little boy to Wigleigh.”

Gwenda gasped with horror.

Ralph went on: “Then, if his parents want him, they can come back where they belong.”

Gwenda was beside herself. Ralph had Sam, and he could ride away at any moment. She fought down a hysterical scream. If he turned his horse, she decided, she would throw herself at him and try to drag him off the saddle. She moved a step closer.

Then, behind Ralph and Alan, she saw the oxen. Harry Ploughman was driving them through the village from the other end. Eight massive beasts lumbered up to the scene in front of the church, then stopped, looking around dumbly, not knowing which way to go. Harry stood behind them. Ralph and Alan found themselves in a triangular trap, hemmed in by the villagers, the oxen and the stone church.

Harry had planned this to stop Ralph riding away with Wulfric and herself, Gwenda guessed. But the tactic did just as well for this situation.

Carl said: “Put the child down, Sir Ralph, and go in peace.”

The trouble was, Gwenda thought, it was now difficult for Ralph to back down without losing face. He was going to have to do something to avoid looking foolish, which was the ultimate horror for proud knights. They talked all the time about their honour, but that meant nothing – they were thoroughly dishonourable when it suited them. What they really prized was their dignity. They would rather die than be humiliated.

The tableau was frozen for several moments: the knight and the child on the horse, the mutinous villagers, and the dumb oxen.

Then Ralph lowered Sam to the ground.

Tears of relief came to Gwenda’s eyes.

Sam ran to her, threw his arms around her waist and began to cry.

The villagers relaxed, the men lowering their shovels and hoes.

Ralph pulled on his horse’s reins and shouted: “Hup! Hup!” The horse reared. He dug in his spurs and rode straight at the crowd. They scattered. Alan rode behind him. The villagers desperately threw themselves out of the way, ending up in tangled heaps on the muddy ground. They were trampled by one another but not, miraculously, by the horses.

Ralph and Alan laughed loudly as they rode out of the village, as if the entire encounter had been nothing more than a huge joke.

But, in reality, Ralph had been shamed.

And that, Gwenda felt sure, meant that he would be back.

68

Earlscastie had not changed. Twelve years ago, Merthin recalled, he had been asked to demolish the old fortress and build a new, modern palace fit for an earl in a peaceful country. But he had refused, preferring to design the new bridge at Kingsbridge. Since then, it seemed, the project had languished, for here was the same figure-eight wall with two drawbridges, and the old-fashioned keep ensconced in the upper loop, where the family lived like frightened rabbits at the end of a burrow, unaware that there was no longer any danger from the fox. The place must have been much the same in the days of Lady Aliena and Jack Builder.

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.”