World Without End Page 0,186

Sir Wilbert was being clever. He was forcing Roland to consent to his ruling, making it difficult for him to appeal personally to the king later.

Alter a long pause, Roland said: "Yes."

"And to the transport of stones through your territory without tax."

Roland knew he had lost. There was fury in his voice as he said again: "Yes."

"So ordered," the judge said. "Next case."

It was a great victory, but it had probably come too late.

November had turned into December. Building normally stopped about now. Because of the rainy weather, the frosts would come late this year but, even so, there were at most a couple of weeks left. Merthin had hundreds of stones stockpiled at the quarry, cut and shaped and ready to be laid. However, it would take months to cart them all to Kingsbridge. Although Earl Roland had lost the court case, he had almost certainly succeeded in delaying the building of the bridge by a year.

Caris returned to Kingsbridge, with Edmund and Godwyn, in sombre mood. Reining in on the suburban side of the river, she saw that Merthin had already constructed his coffer dams. In each of the channels that ran either side of Leper Island, the ends of wooden boards stuck a couple of feet above the surface in a big circle. She recalled Merthin explaining, in the guild hall, how he planned to drive stakes into the river bed in a double ring then fill the gap between the rings with clay mortar to make a watertight seal. The water inside the coffer could then be taken out so that the builders could lay a foundation on the river bed.

One of Merthin's workmen, Harold Mason, was on the ferry as they crossed the river, and Caris asked him if the coffer dams had been drained. "Not yet," he said. "The master wants to leave it until we're ready to start building."

Caris noticed with pleasure that Merthin was now called the master, despite his youth. "But why?" she said. "I thought we wanted everything ready for a quick start."

"He says the force of the river puts more strain on the dam when there's no water inside."

Caris wondered how Merthin knew such things. He had learned the basics from his first master, Joachim, Elfric's father. He always talked a lot to strangers who came to town, especially men who had seen tall buildings in Florence and Rome. And he had read all about the construction of the cathedral in Timothy's Book. But he seemed also to have remarkable intuition about these matters. She would never have guessed that an empty dam would be weaker than a full one.

Although they were subdued as they entered the town, they wanted to tell Merthin the good news right away and find out what, if anything, he could get done before the end of the season. Pausing only to entrust their horses to stable boys, they went in search of him. They found him in the mason's loft, high in the north-west tower of the cathedral, working by the light of several oil lamps, scratching a design for a parapet on the tracing floor.

He looked up from his drawing, saw their faces and grinned widely. "We won?" he said.

"We won," said Edmund.

"Thanks to Gregory Longfellow," Godwyn added. "He cost a lot of money, but he was worth it."

Merthin embraced both men - his quarrel with Godwyn forgotten, at least for now. He kissed Caris tenderly. "I missed you," he murmured. "It's been eight weeks! I felt as if you were never coming back."

She made no reply. She had something momentous to say to him, but she wanted privacy.

Her father did not notice her reticence. "Well, Merthin, you can start building right away."

"Good."

Godwyn said: "You can begin carting stones from the quarry tomorrow - but I suppose it's too late to get much building done before the winter frosts."

"I've been thinking about that," Merthin said. He glanced at the windows. It was mid-afternoon, the December day already darkening to evening. "There might be a way to do it."

Edmund was immediately enthusiastic. "Well, out with it, lad! What's your idea?"

Merthin turned to the prior. "Would you grant an indulgence to volunteers who bring stones from the quarry?" An indulgence was a special act of forgiveness of sins. Like a gift of money, it could either pay for past debts or stand in credit for future liabilities.

"I could," Godwyn said. "What have you got in mind?"

Merthin turned to Edmund. "How