World Without End Page 0,349

be useful."

"All right. Listen, if I design a large tower, will you back me, here at the parish guild, at the next meeting?"

Bill looked dubious. "The guild members aren't likely to approve of extravagance."

"I don't think it needs to be extravagant, just high. If we put a domed ceiling over the crossing, I can build that with no centering."

"A dome? That's a new idea."

"I saw domes in Italy."

"I can see how it would save money."

"And the tower can be topped by a slender wooden spire, which will save money and look wonderful."

"You've got this all worked out, haven't you?"

"Not really. But it's been at the back of my mind ever since I returned from Florence."

"Well, it sounds good to me - good for business, good for the town."

"And good for our eternal souls."

"I'll do my best to help you push it through."

"Thank you."

Merthin mulled over the design of the tower as he went about his more mundane work, repairing the bridge and building new houses on Leper Island. It helped turn his mind away from dreadful, obsessive visions of Caris ill with the plague. He thought a lot about the south tower at Chartres. It was a masterpiece, albeit a little old-fashioned, having been built about two hundred years ago.

What Merthin had liked about it, he recalled very clearly, was the transition from the square tower to the octagonal spire above. At the top of the tower, perched on each of the four corners, were pinnacles facing diagonally outwards. On the same level, at the midpoint of each side of the square, were dormer windows similar in shape to the pinnacles. These eight structures matched the eight sloping sides of the tower rising behind them, so that the eye hardly noticed the change of shape from square to octagon.

However, Chartres was unnecessarily chunky by the standards of the fourteenth century. Merthin's tower would have slender columns and large window openings, to lighten the weight on the pillars below, and to reduce stress by allowing the wind to blow through.

He made his own tracing floor at his workshop on the island. He enjoyed himself planning the details, doubling and quadrupling the narrow lancets of the old cathedral to make the large windows of the new tower, updating the clusters of columns and the capitals.

He hesitated over the height. He had no way to calculate how high it had to be in order to be visible from Mudeford Crossing. That could be done only by trial and error. When he had finished the stone tower he would have to erect a temporary spire, then go to Mudeford on a clear day and determine whether it could be seen. The cathedral was built on elevated ground, and at Mudeford the road breasted a rise just before descending to the river crossing. His instinct told him that if he went a little higher than Chartres - say about four hundred feet - that would be sufficient.

The tower at Salisbury cathedral was four hundred and four feet high.

Merthin planned his to be four hundred and five.

While he was bent over the tracing floor, drawing the roof pinnacles, Bill Watkin appeared. "What do you think of this?" Merthin said to him. "Does it need a cross on top, to point to heaven? Or an angel, to watch over us?"

"Neither," said Bill. "It's not going to get built."

Merthin stood up, holding a straight-edge in his left hand and a sharpened iron drawing-needle in his right. "What makes you say that?"

"I've had a visit from Brother Philemon. I thought I might as well let you know as soon as possible."

"What did that snake have to say?"

"He pretended to be friendly. He wanted to give me a piece of advice for my own good. He said it wouldn't be wise of me to support any plan for a tower designed by you."

"Why not?"

"Because it would annoy Prior Godwyn, who was not going to approve your plans, regardless."

Merthin could hardly be surprised. If Mark Webber had become alderman, the balance of power in the town would have changed, and Merthin might have won the commission to build the new tower. But Mark's death meant the odds were against him. He had clung to hope, however, and now he felt the deep ache of heavy disappointment. "I suppose he'll commission Elfric?"

"That was the implication."

"Will he never learn?"

"When a man is proud, that counts for more than common sense."

"Will the parish guild pay for a stumpy