World Without End Page 0,346

scrap of parchment. Merthin guessed it would have a prayer written on it, or a verse of the Bible, or perhaps a magic spell. That would be Madge's idea - Caris had no faith in writing as a remedy.

Prior Godwyn came into the hospital, trailed as usual by Philemon. "Stand away from the bed!" Philemon said immediately. "How will the man get well if he cannot see the altar?"

Merthin and the two women stood back, and Godwyn bent over the patient. He touched Mark's forehead and neck, then felt his pulse. "Show me the urine," he said.

The monk-physicians set great store by examination of the patient's urine. The hospital had special glass bottles, called urinals, for the purpose. Caris handed one to Godwyn. It did not take an expert to see that there was blood in Mark's urine.

Godwyn handed it back. "This man is suffering from overheated blood," he said. "He must be bled, then fed sour apples and tripes."

Merthin knew, from his experience of the plague in Florence, that Godwyn was talking rubbish, but he made no comment. In his mind there was no longer much room for doubt about what was wrong with Mark. The skin rash, the bleeding, the thirst: this was the illness he himself had suffered in Florence, the one that had killed Silvia and all her family. This was la moria grande.

The plague had come to Kingsbridge.

As darkness fell on All Hallows' Eve, Mark Webber's breathing became more difficult. Caris watched him weaken. She felt the angry impotence that possessed her when she was unable to help a patient. Mark passed into a state of troubled unconsciousness, sweating and gasping although his eyes were closed and he showed no awareness. At Merthin's quiet suggestion, Caris felt in Mark's armpits, and found large boil-like swellings there. She did not ask him the significance of this: she would question him later. The nuns prayed and sang hymns while Madge and her four children stood around, helplessly distraught.

At the end Mark convulsed, and blood jetted from his mouth in a sudden flood. Then he fell back, lay still and stopped breathing.

Dora wailed loudly. The three sons looked bewildered, and struggled to hold back unmanly tears. Madge wept bitterly. "He was the best man in the world," she said to Caris. "Why did God have to take him?"

Caris had to fight back her own grief. Her loss was nothing compared with theirs. She did not know why God so often took the best people and left the wicked alive to do more wrong. The whole idea of a benevolent deity watching over everyone seemed unbelievable at moments such as this. The priests said sickness was a punishment for sin. Mark and Madge loved one another, cared for their children and worked hard: why should they be punished?

There were no answers to religious questions, but Caris had some urgent practical inquiries to make. She was deeply worried by Mark's illness, and she could guess that Merthin knew something about it. She swallowed her tears.

First she sent Madge and her children home to rest, and told the nuns to prepare the body for burial. Then she said to Merthin: "I want to talk to you."

"And I to you," he said.

She noticed that he looked frightened. That was rare. Her fear deepened. "Come to the church," she said. "We can talk privately there."

A wintry wind swept across the cathedral green. It was a clear night, and they could see by starlight. In the chancel, monks were preparing for the All Hallows dawn service. Caris and Merthin stood in the northwest corner of the nave away from the monks, so that they could not be overheard. Caris shivered, and pulled her robe closer around her. She said: "Do you know what killed Mark?"

Merthin took a shaky breath. "It's the plague," he said. "La moria grande."

She nodded. This was what she had feared. But all the same she challenged him. "How do you know?"

"Mark goes to Melcombe and talks to sailors from Bordeaux, where the bodies are piled in the streets."

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