World Without End Page 0,356

king was the worst offence imaginable, a double outrage, combining murder with treason, both of them capital crimes. Even knowing about such a thing was dangerous. No wonder Anthony had kept it a secret.

Cecilia went on: "The queen and her lover, Mortimer, wanted Edward II out of the way. The heir to the throne was a little boy. Mortimer became king in all but name. In the upshot, it didn't last as long as he might have hoped, of course - young Edward III grew up too fast." She coughed again, more weakly.

"Mortimer was executed while I was an adolescent."

"But even Edward didn't want anyone to know what had really happened to his father. So the secret was kept."

Caris was awestruck. Queen Isabella was still alive, living in lavish circumstances in Norfolk, the revered mother of the king. If people found out that she had her husband's blood on her hands there would be a political earthquake. Caris felt guilty just knowing about it.

"So he was murdered?" she asked.

Cecilia made no reply. Caris looked harder. The prioress was still, her face immobile, her eyes staring upward. She was dead.

Chapter 60

The day after Cecilia died, Godwyn asked Sister Elizabeth to have dinner with him.

This was a dangerous moment. Cecilia's death unbalanced the power structure. Godwyn needed the nunnery, because the monastery on its own was not viable: he had never succeeded in improving its finances. Yet most of the nuns were now angry about the money he had taken from them, and bitterly hostile to him. If they fell under the control of a prioress bent on revenge - Caris, perhaps - it could mean the end of the monastery.

He was frightened of the plague, too. What if he caught it? What if Philemon died? Such flashes of nightmare unnerved him, but he succeeded in pushing them to the back of his mind. He was determined not to be distracted from his long-term purpose by the plague.

The election of the prioress was an immediate danger. He had visions of the monastery closing down, and himself leaving Kingsbridge in disgrace, being forced to become an ordinary monk in some other place, subordinate to a prior who would discipline and humiliate him. If that happened he thought he might kill himself.

On the other hand, this was an opportunity as well as a threat. If he handled things cleverly he might get a prioress sympathetic to him who would be content to let him take the lead. And Elizabeth was his best bet.

She would make an imperious leader, one who would stand on her dignity. But he could work with her. She was pragmatic: she had proved that, the time she had warned him that Caris was planning to audit the treasury. She would be his ally.

She walked in with her head held high. She knew she had suddenly become important, and she was enjoying it, Godwyn realized. He wondered anxiously if she would go along with the plan he was about to propose. She might need careful handling.

She looked around the grand dining hall. "You built a splendid palace," she said, reminding him that she had helped him get the money for it.

She had never been inside the place, he realized, although it had been finished a year ago. He preferred not to have females in the monks' part of the priory. Only Petranilla and Cecilia had been admitted here, until today. He said: "Thank you. I believe it wins us respect from the noble and powerful. Already we have entertained the archbishop of Monmouth here."

He had used the last of the nuns' florins to buy tapestries showing scenes from the lives of the prophets. She studied a picture of Daniel in the lions' den. "This is very good," she said.

"From Arras."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that your cat under the sideboard?"

Godwyn tutted. "I can't get rid of it," he lied. He shooed it out of the room. Monks were not supposed to have pets, but he found the cat a soothing presence.

They sat at one end of the long banqueting table. He hated having a woman here, sitting down to dinner as if she were just as good as a man; but he hid his discomfort.

He had ordered an expensive dish, pork cooked with ginger and apples. Philemon poured wine from Gascony. Elizabeth tasted the pork and said: "Delicious."

Godwyn was not very interested in food, except as a means of impressing people, but Philemon tucked