World Without End Page 0,468

pretended to think - that he was playing one of his teasing games. When he asked her where she imagined ripe pears came from, she looked at him reproachfully and said: "The market, silly!"

She, too, would ripen one day, he thought, although it was hard to imagine her bony body rounding out into the soft shape of a woman. He wondered whether she would bear him grandchildren. She was five years old, so that day might be only a decade or so away.

His thoughts were on ripeness when he saw Philippa coming towards him through the garden, and it struck him how round and full her breasts were. It was unusual for her to visit him in daylight, and he wondered what had brought her here. In case they were observed, he greeted her with only a chaste kiss on the cheek, such as a brother-in-law might give without arousing comment.

She looked troubled, and he realized that for a few days now she had been more reserved and thoughtful than usual. As she sat beside him on the grass he said: "Something on your mind?"

"I've never been good at breaking news gently," she said. "I'm pregnant."

"Good God!" He was too shocked to hold back his reaction. "I'm surprised because you told me..."

"I know. I was sure I was too old. For a couple of years my monthly cycle was irregular, and then it stopped altogether - I thought. But I've been vomiting in the morning, and my nipples hurt."

"I noticed your breasts as you came into the garden. But can you be sure?"

"I've been pregnant six times previously - three children and three miscarriages - and I know the feeling. There's really no doubt."

He smiled. "Well, we're going to have a child."

She did not return the smile. "Don't look pleased. You haven't thought through the implications. I'm the wife of the earl of Shiring. I haven't slept with him since October, haven't lived with him since February, yet in July I'm two or at most three months pregnant. He and the whole world will know that the baby is not his, and that the countess of Shiring has committed adultery."

"But he wouldn't..."

"Kill me? He killed Tilly, didn't he?"

"Oh, my God. Yes, he did. But..."

"And if he killed me, he might kill my baby, too."

Merthin wanted to say it was not possible, that Ralph would not do such a thing - but he knew otherwise.

"I have to decide what to do," said Philippa.

"I don't think you should try to end the pregnancy with potions - it's too dangerous."

"I won't do that."

"So you'll have the baby."

"Yes. But then what?"

"Suppose you stayed in the nunnery, and kept the baby secret? The place is full of children orphaned by the plague."

"But what couldn't be kept secret is a mother's love. Everyone would know that the child was my particular care. And then Ralph would find out."

"You're right."

"I could go away - vanish. London, York, Paris, Avignon. Not tell anyone where I was going, so that Ralph could never come after me."

"And I could go with you."

"But then you wouldn't finish your tower."

"And you would miss Odila."

Philippa's daughter had been married to Earl David for six months. Merthin could imagine how hard it would be for Philippa to leave her. And the truth was that he would find it agony to abandon his tower. All his adult life he had wanted to build the tallest building in England. Now that he had at last begun, it would break his heart to abandon the project.

Thinking of the tower brought Caris to mind. He knew, intuitively, that she would be devastated by this news. He had not seen her for weeks: she had been ill in bed after suffering a blow on the head at the Fleece Fair, and now, though she was completely recovered, she rarely emerged from the priory. He guessed that she had lost some kind of power struggle, for the hospital was being run by Brother Sime. Philippa's pregnancy would be another shattering blow for Caris.

Philippa added: "And Odila, too, is pregnant."

"So soon! That's good news. But even more reason why you can't go into exile and never see her, or your grandchild."

"I can't run, and I can't hide. But, if I do nothing, Ralph will kill me."

"There must be a way out of this," Merthin said.

"I can think of only one answer."

He looked at her. She had thought