World Without End Page 0,95

carving a cog wheel with sixteen teeth. On the floor close by was another, smaller wheel, and Merthin stopped carving for a moment to put the two together and see how well they fitted. Caris had seen such cogs, or gears, in water mills, connecting the mill paddle to the grindstone.

He must have heard her footsteps on the stone staircase, but he was too absorbed in his work to glance up. She regarded him for a second, anger competing with love in her heart. He had the look of total concentration that she knew so well: his slight body bent over his work, his strong hands and dextrous fingers making fine adjustments, his face immobile, his gaze unwavering. He had the perfect grace of a young deer bending its head to drink from a stream. This was what a man looked like, she thought, when he was doing what he was born to do. He was in a state like happiness, but more profound. He was fulfilling his destiny.

She burst out: "Why did you lie to me?"

His chisel slipped. He cried out in pain and looked at his finger. "Christ," he said, and put his finger in his mouth.

"I'm sorry," Caris said. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing much. When did I lie to you?"

"You gave me the impression that Griselda seduced you one time. The truth is that the two of you have been at it for months."

"No, we haven't." He sucked his bleeding finger.

"She's three months pregnant."

"She can't be, it happened two weeks ago."

"She is, you can tell by her figure."

"Can you?"

"Mattie Wise told me. Why did you lie?"

He looked her in the eye. "But I didn't lie," he said. "It happened on the Sunday of Fleece Fair week. That was the first and only time."

"Then how could she be sure she's pregnant, after only two weeks?"

"I don't know. How soon can women tell, anyway?"

"Don't you know?"

"I've never asked. Anyway, three months ago Griselda was still with..."

"Oh, God!" Caris said. A spark of hope flared in her breast. "She was still with her old boyfriend - Thurstan." The spark blazed into a flame. "It must be his baby, Thurstan's - not yours. You're not the father!"

"Is it possible?" Merthin seemed hardly to dare to hope.

"Of course - it explains everything. If she had suddenly fallen in love with you, she'd be after you every chance she gets. But you said she hardly speaks to you."

"I thought that was because I was reluctant to marry her."

"She's never liked you. She just needed a father for her baby. Thurstan ran away - probably when she told him she was pregnant - and you were right there in the house, and stupid enough to fall for her trick. Oh, thank God!"

"Thank Mattie Wise," said Merthin.

She caught sight of his left hand. Blood was welling from a finger. "Oh, I made you hurt yourself!" she cried. She took his hand and examined the cut. It was small, but deep. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not that bad."

"But it is," she said, not knowing whether she was talking about the cut or something else. She kissed his hand, feeling his hot blood on her lips. She put his finger in her mouth, sucking the wound clean. It was so intimate that it felt like a sexual act, and she closed her eyes, feeling ecstatic. She swallowed, tasting his blood, and shuddered with pleasure.

A week after the bridge collapsed, Merthin had built a ferry.

It was ready at dawn on Saturday morning, in time for the weekly Kingsbridge market. He had worked on it by lamplight all Friday night, and Caris guessed he had not had time to speak to Griselda and tell her he knew the baby was Thurstan's. Caris and her father came down to the riverside to see the new sensation as the first traders arrived - women from the surrounding villages with baskets of eggs, peasants with cartloads of butter and cheese, and shepherds with flocks of lambs.

Caris admired Merthin's work. The raft was large enough to carry a horse and cart without taking the beast out of the shafts, and it had a firm wooden railing to keep sheep from falling overboard. New wooden platforms at water level on both banks made it easy for carts to roll on and off. Passengers paid a penny, collected by a monk - the ferry, like the bridge, belonged to the priory.

Most ingenious was