World Without End Page 0,86

and monks were alerted to the disaster, then she had found Matthew Barber and Mattie Wise. Finally she had checked on her own family.

Only Uncle Anthony and Griselda had been on the bridge at the time of the collapse. She had found her father at the guild hall with Buonaventura Caroli. Edmund had said: "They'll have to build a new bridge now!" Then he had gone limping down to the river bank to help pull people out of the water. The others were safe: Aunt Petranilla had been at home, cooking; Caris's sister Alice had been with Elfric at the Bell inn; her cousin Godwyn had been in the cathedral, checking on the repairs to the south side of the chancel.

Griselda had now gone home to rest. Anthony was still unaccounted for. Caris was not fond of her uncle, but she would not wish him dead, and she looked anxiously for him every time a new body was brought into the nave from the river.

Mother Cecilia and the nuns were washing wounds, applying honey as an antiseptic, affixing bandages and giving out restorative cups of hot spiced ale. Matthew Barber, the briskly efficient battlefield surgeon, was working with a panting, overweight Mattie Wise, Mattie administering a calming medicine a few minutes before Matthew set the broken arms and legs.

Caris walked to the south transept. There, away from the noise, the bustle and the blood in the nave, the senior physician-monks were clustered around the still-unconscious figure of the earl of Shiring. His wet clothes had been removed, and he had been covered with a heavy blanket. "He's alive," said Brother Godwyn. "But his injury is very serious." He pointed to the back of the head. "Part of his skull has shattered."

Caris peered over Godwyn's shoulder. She could see the skull, like a broken pie crust, stained with blood. Through the gaps she could see grey matter underneath. Surely nothing could be done for such a dreadful injury?

Brother Joseph, the oldest of the physicians, felt the same. He rubbed his large nose and spoke through a mouth full of bad teeth. "We must bring the relics of the saint," he said, slurring his sibilants like a drunk, as always. "They are his best hope for recovery."

Caris had little faith in the power of the bones of a long-dead saint to heal a living man's broken head. She said nothing, of course: she knew she was peculiar in this respect, and she kept her views to herself most of the time.

The earl's sons, Lord William and Bishop Richard, stood looking on. William, with his tall, soldierly figure and black hair, was a younger version of the unconscious man on the table. Richard was fairer and rounder. Merthin's brother, Ralph, was with them. "I pulled the earl out of the water," he said. It was the second time Caris had heard him say it.

"Yes, well done," said William.

William's wife, Philippa, was as dissatisfied as Caris with Brother Joseph's pronouncement. "Isn't there something you can do to help the earl?" she said.

Godwyn replied: "Prayer is the most effective cure."

The relics were kept in a locked compartment under the high altar. As soon as Godwyn and Joseph left to fetch them, Matthew Barber bent over the earl, peering at the head wound. "It will never heal like that," he said. "Not even with the help of the saint."

William said sharply: "What do you mean?" Caris thought he sounded just like his father.

"The skull is a bone like any other," Matthew answered. "It can mend itself, but the pieces need to be in the right place. Otherwise it will grow back crooked."

"Do you think you know better than the monks?"

"My lord, the monks know how to call upon the help of the spirit world. I only set broken bones."

"And where did you get this knowledge?"

"I was surgeon with the king's armies for many years. I marched alongside your father, the earl, in the Scottish wars. I have seen broken heads before."

"What would you do for my father now?"

Matthew was nervous under William's aggressive questioning, Caris felt; but he seemed sure of what he was saying. "I would take the pieces of broken bone out of the brain, clean them, and try to fit them together again."

Caris gasped. She could hardly imagine such a bold operation. How did Matthew have the nerve to propose it? And what if it went wrong?

William said: "And he would recover?"

"I don't know," Matthew replied. "Sometimes a head wound has strange effects,