World Without End Page 0,474

to have a woman in that position.

Among Merthin's many enterprises was a workshop turning out the treadle looms that had improved the quality of Kingsbridge Scarlet. Madge bought more than half his production, but enterprising merchants came from as far away as London to place orders for the rest. The looms were complex pieces of machinery that had to be made accurately and assembled with precision, so Merthin had to employ the best carpenters available; but he priced the finished product at more than double what it cost him to make, and still people could hardly wait to give him the money.

Several people had hinted that he should marry Madge, but the idea did not tempt him or her. She had never been able to find a man to match Mark, who had had the physique of a giant and the disposition of a saint. She had always been chunky, but these days she was quite fat. Now in her forties, she was growing into one of those women who looked like barrels, almost the same width all the way from shoulders to bottom. Eating and drinking well were now her chief pleasures, Merthin thought as he watched her tuck into gingered ham with a sauce made of apples and cloves. That and making money.

At the end of the meal they had a mulled wine called hippocras. Madge took a long draught, belched, and moved closer to Merthin on the bench. "We have to do something about the hospital," she said.

"Oh?" He was not aware of a problem. "Now that the plague has ended, I would have thought people didn't have much need of a hospital."

"Of course they do," she said briskly. "They still get fevers and bellyache and cancer. Women want to get pregnant and can't, or they suffer complications giving birth. Children burn themselves and fall out of trees. Men are thrown by their horses or knifed by their enemies or have their heads broken by angry wives-"

"Yes, I get the picture," Merthin said, amused by her garrulousness. "What's the problem?"

"Nobody will go to the hospital any more. They don't like Brother Sime and, more importantly, they don't trust his learning. While we were all coping with the plague, he was at Oxford reading ancient textbooks, and he still prescribes remedies such as bleeding and cupping that no one believes in any more. They want Caris - but she never appears."

"What do people do when they're sick, if they don't go to the hospital?"

"They see Matthew Barber, or Silas Pothecary, or a newcomer called Maria Wisdom, who specializes in women's problems."

"So what's worrying you?"

"They're starting to mutter about the priory. If they don't get help from the monks and nuns, they say, why should they pay towards building the tower?"

"Oh." The tower was a huge project. No individual could possibly finance it. A combination of monastery, nunnery and city funds was the only way to pay for it. If the town defaulted, the project could be threatened. "Yes, I see," said Merthin worriedly. "That is a problem."

It had been a good year for most people, Caris thought as she sat through the Christmas Day service. People were adjusting to the devastation of the plague with astonishing speed. As well as bringing terrible suffering and a near-breakdown of civilized life, the disease had provided the opportunity for a shake-up. Almost half the population had died, by her calculations; but one effect was that her remaining peasants were farming only the most fertile soils, so each man produced more. Despite the Ordinance of Labourers, and the efforts of noblemen such as Earl Ralph to enforce it, she was gratified to see that people continued to move to where the pay was highest, which was usually where the land was most productive. Grain was plentiful and herds of cattle and sheep were growing again. The nunnery was thriving and, because Caris had reorganized the monks' affairs as well as the nuns' after the flight of Godwyn, the monastery was now more prosperous than it had been for a hundred years. Wealth created wealth, and good times in the countryside brought more business to the towns, so Kingsbridge craftsmen and shopkeepers were beginning to return to their former affluence.

As the nuns left the church at the end of the service, Prior Philemon spoke to her. "I need to talk to you, Mother Prioress. Would you come to my house?"

There had been a time when she would have politely acceded to