World Without End Page 0,395

named Thomas."

"He petitioned the queen for a favour, like hundreds of others, and she graciously granted it, as great ladies sometimes do."

"Usually when they have some connection with the petitioner."

"No, no, I'm sure there's no connection."

His anxiety made Caris sure he was lying, and just as sure that he would not tell her the truth, so she dropped the subject, and sent Andrew off to have supper in the hospital.

Next morning she was accosted in the cloisters by Brother Thomas, the only monk left in the monastery. Looking angry, he said: "Why did you interrogate Andrew Lynn?"

"Because I was curious," she said, taken aback.

"What are you trying to do?"

"I'm not trying to do anything." She was offended by his aggressive manner, but she did not want to quarrel with him. To ease the tension, she sat on the low wall around the edge of the arcade. A spring sun was shining bravely into the quadrangle. She spoke in a conversational tone. "What's this all about?"

Thomas said stiffly: "Why are you investigating me?"

"I'm not," she said. "Calm down. I'm going through all the charters, listing them and having them copied. I came across one that puzzled me."

"You're delving into matters that are none of your business."

She bridled. "I'm the prioress of Kingsbridge, and the acting prior - nothing here is secret from me."

"Well, if you start digging up all that old stuff, you'll regret it, I promise you."

It sounded like a threat, but she decided not to challenge him. She tried a different tack. "Thomas, I thought we were friends. You have no right to forbid me to do anything, and I'm disappointed that you should even try. Don't you trust me?"

"You don't know what you're asking."

"Then enlighten me. What does Queen Isabella have to do with you, me and Kingsbridge?"

"Nothing. She's an old woman now, living in retirement."

"She's fifty-three. She's deposed one king, and she could probably depose another if she had a mind to. And she has some long-hidden connection with my priory which you are determined to keep from me."

"For your own good."

She ignored that. "Twenty-two years ago someone was trying to kill you. Was it the same person who, having failed to do away with you, paid you off by getting you admitted to the monastery?"

"Andrew is going to go back to Lynn and tell Isabella that you've been asking these questions - do you realize that?"

"Why would she care? Why are people so afraid of you, Thomas?"

"Everything will be answered when I'm dead. None of it will matter then." He turned round and walked away.

The bell rang for dinner. Caris went to the prior's palace, deep in thought. Godwyn's cat, Archbishop, was sitting on the doorstep. It glared at her and she shooed it away. She would not have it in the house.

She had got into the habit of dining every day with Merthin. Traditionally the prior regularly dined with the alderman, though to do so every day was unusual - but these were unusual times. That, at any rate, would have been her excuse, had anyone challenged her; but nobody did. Meanwhile they both looked out eagerly for another excuse to go on a trip so that they could again be alone together.

He came in muddy from his building site on Leper Island. He had stopped asking her to renounce her vows and leave the priory. He seemed content, at least for the moment, to see her every day and hope for future chances to be more intimate.

A priory employee brought them ham stewed with winter greens. When the servant had gone, Caris told Merthin about the charter and Thomas's reaction. "He knows a secret that could damage the old queen if it got out."

"I think that must be right," Merthin said thoughtfully.

"On All Hallows' Day in 1327, after I ran away, he caught you, didn't he?"

"Yes. He made me help him bury a letter. I had to swear to keep it secret - until he dies, then I am to dig it up and give it to a priest."

"He told me all my questions would be answered when he died."

"I think the letter is the threat he holds over his enemies. They must know that its contents will be revealed when he dies. So they fear to kill him - in fact they have made sure he remains alive and well by helping him become a monk of Kingsbridge."

"Can it matter, still?"

"Ten years after