World Without End

Godwyn schemes to secure the position of prior. His rivals are Brother Carlus and Thomas. Philemon tells him about a charter from Queen Isabella that bought Thomas’s way into Kingsbridge. Godwyn doesn’t know exactly what the secret is behind the document, but he does know there is enough secrecy around it that he might be able to pressure Thomas by using it. He initially approaches Thomas by asking that Thomas appoint him as subprior if Thomas becomes the prior. He uses the Wooler family to reach Bishop Richard. Richard is to let it be known that he will only support a prior who is in favor of the new bridge.

Merthin finally confronts Griselda. Elfric discharges him on the spot, leaving him six months short of finishing his apprenticeship and without the expensive tools customarily given to those who finish their apprenticeships. No carpenter, especially those in the guild or who have young women in their household, will hire him. Caris advises him to buy used tools. With her help, Merthin convinces Joffroi, the priest at the poor church of St. Mark, to allow him to repair the church’s roof. No one else wants the job, so Joffroi agrees to the terms. Caris says Merthin can eat at her house and board with his parents. All of his problems appear to be solved. Gwenda heads back to Wigleigh with Wulfric, hoping to administer the love potion to him so she can seduce him.

Gwenda cannot seduce Wulfric. He makes a casual goodbye to her when they arrive home. Gwenda goes home and tells her mother what she suffered at the hands of Joby and the outlaws. Her mother is not sympathetic and tells her Joby has done the best he can. Joby later comes up with another scam: he will sell his daughter at every fair, then she can run away so they can do it again. His willingness to treat her as a commodity gives her the resolve to leave her family for good.

With Roland of Shiring on death’s door, there is no lord in Wigleigh. Nate Reeve, the corrupt bailiff of Wigleigh, is in charge. He tries to convince the village government—a jury of 12—to disinherit Wulfric because Wulfric is only 16 and unlikely to pay the estate tax or get the harvest in. His land, 90 acres, was to be farmed by three men, not just him. Gwenda shrewdly tells the townspeople that allowing the bailiff to take the land will undercut their own sons’ inheritance the next time one of them dies. She advises Wulfric to ask to wait for the new lord to decide his fate and to be allowed to get the harvest in for the time being. He makes and wins this argument, but he also rejects Gwenda’s offer to work for him because he is aware that she has feelings for him. She moves in with the Widow Hubert.

Gwenda starts splitting her work between Wulfric’s field and that of others, causing talk in the village and anger from both Annet and Wulfric. Wulfric is forced to accept her help after his horse, an expensive beast needed to plow his land, is stolen. Gwenda helps and moves into his cowshed because she can’t pay rent now. Joby tries to sell her again and brings a buyer one night while Wulfric is having dinner at Annet’s house. Gwenda defends herself, but Wulfric rescues her in the end. She finally gets a chance to dose Wulfric with the love potion, but he refuses to have sex with her despite his lust. She gives up her quest to be with him.

Godwyn continues to maneuver to become prior. He gets Mother Cecilia to be neutral, and during the birthday mass for St. Adolphus, the saint whose bones the cathedral houses, he engineers an accident that causes Brother Carlus to fall and drop the bones. Godwyn manages the service after, adding luster to his reputation. He is disappointed that most monks express sympathy instead of contempt for Carlus. Carlus takes the accident as a bad portent and withdraws his candidacy to be prior. Godwyn’s plans fall apart when Roland of Shiring recovers and demands that Saul Whitehead become the prior. Roland also tells Godwyn he expects Margery’s wedding to be held in three weeks at the church.

Merthin successfully completes the repairs to St. Mark. His work and innovative building techniques gains him goodwill from the town despite Elfric’s efforts to end Merthin’s career. Merthin and Caris celebrate and make out later, but they get into an argument when Merthin assumes they should marry now that he has a way to make a living. Caris explains that she likes the ways things are now and that his income is unstable. Meanwhile, Godwyn and Petronilla scheme to undercut Saul by getting Murdo, a corrupt Benedictine friar, to stand for prior. He is such a bad choice that if Godwyn dissuades Saul from running, no one will choose Murdo.

Godwyn convinces Roland of Shiring that Murdo will do Roland’s bidding, even if it will diminish the power of the church (a plus in Roland’s mind and a negative for the monks). Godwyn gets Saul to refuse the leadership of the priory by reminding him that he will be forced to bend to earl’s will. That leaves Thomas and Murdo as the only apparent choices for prior. Philemon then has Murdo leak Thomas’s charter from Isabella; Philemon gives the charter to Murdo, who insinuates in a full meeting of the monks that there is some unsavory secret about Thomas based on the terms of the charter. Thomas refuses to stand for prior, reasoning that people will always pry and assume the worst about him because of the charter. This will damage the priory. Godwyn intuits that there is something so damaging about this secret that Thomas is deeply frightened of having the secret exposed. He makes a mental note of this moment. Godwyn wins the race for prior by acclaim. 

Roland refuses at first to accept that Godwyn is the next prior. Godwyn threatens Bishop Richard that he will tell Roland or even Earl Monmouth’s son (Margery’s fiancé) about her affair. Richard is too scared to oppose his father. Godwyn threatens Roland by insisting that there will be no marriage in the church if Roland doesn’t accept Godwyn as prior. Phillipa tries to maneuver by offering subprior to Godwyn, who will step aside for another candidate. Godwyn refuses. He uses his most effective leverage—threatening to tell Monmouth that the marriage cannot go ahead because Margery is no virgin, a blow to Roland since the marriage will shore up his power. Roland accepts what Godwyn says, then strikes Richard.

Godwyn is almost undone when Brother Simeon discovers a ruby missing from a jeweled cross used at the St. Adolphus birthday celebration where Carlus fell. Philemon stole it, but Godwyn helps him plant it so Simeon can find it. Everyone knows that Philemon is Godwyn’s minion; the discovery of the theft would have discredited Godwyn.

Caris watches Margery and her new husband, unhappy newlyweds, come out of the ceremony. She is a little miserable as she watches Merthin flirt with Bessie Bell, a taverner’s daughter. She greets him warmly, so they make up. They overhear Thomas and Loreen, a woman Caris and Merthin presume to be Thomas’s wife, discuss Thomas’s abandonment of the family. Thomas left in part to be spared death but also because he is more interested in relationships with men than his wife. He felt trapped in his marriage. After, Merthin and Caris argue over what they saw. Caris feels like Loreen is trapped like all women because women have few options beyond marriage. The women she does know with any power—the queen and Petranilla—all exercise it through men.

Mother Cecilia shows up to recruit Caris to become a nun, but the thought of obedience repels Caris to the point that she blasphemes. Cecilia tells her that that mystic Marguerite Porete led the Beguines, an order of nuns who refused the authority of the church to intercede between worshippers and God. Marguerite was burned at the stake. Caris, warns Cecilia, would be wise to take this as a cautionary tale. Back home, Caris broods about her future as an ambitious woman but then saddens when she imagines Merthin flirting with the taverner’s daughter. Merthin shows up. They make love, and as she orgasms, Caris realizes that the joy she feels explains why women surrender to men.

There is a debate over who will build the bridge. Godwyn wants Elfric, but Edmund wants Merthin, whose modern design is more cost effective. Edmund manages to force the decision into the hands of the parish guild, where Merthin’s design wins. Godwyn, short of money, is forced to concede the priory’s future tolls from the bridge to pay for the new bridge. He agrees to a perpetual lease on Leper Island (a nearly defunct hospital) and land at both ends of the bridge after Caris suggests it. After making love with Merthin later, Caris suggests that Merthin ask for this land to build a shipping operation, a deal she can work out with Edmund. Merthin is impressed. She tells Merthin she is getting her family out of wool because the king’s taxes are driving the Woolers’s customers away.

Ralph decides to curry favor with Roland of Shiring, eager to build a more modern manor, by suggesting that Roland steal Merthin away from his bridge contract with the town and priory. Getting Merthin will help Roland keep all the trade that formerly went to Kingsbridge and spite Godwyn. Ralph’s plan comes to nothing when Merthin refuses to drop the bridge commission. Doing that will damage him early in his professional career. His parents want him to do it anyway because they always favor Ralph, even though Merthin is now supporting them financially. With Roland’s approval, Ralph uses armed men to stop the transport of stone from the quarry to the bridge site. Roland claims the townspeople must pay tax on the stone because they cross his land to move the stone. Ralph kills townsman Ben Turner after Turner kills one of the earl’s men. Ralph enjoys using violence to keep subordinates in their place, especially since there are no repercussions.

Ralph, still smarting from Wulfric’s fight with him over Annet, is the new lord of Wigleigh. He decides against Wulfric in the matter of the land Wulfric hopes to inherit from his father, who died in the bridge collapse. Annet dumps Wulfric and marries Billy Howard after the decision. Wulfric is devastated. On Annet’s wedding day, he has sex with Gwenda and calls out Annet’s name as he ejaculates.

Gwenda tries to intervene to get Wulfric’s land back. Ralph agrees to reconsider his decision in exchange for sex. Gwenda feels violated by his brutal way during the sex, but her body’s automatic response to the sexual act causes her to feel self-loathing as well. Ralph’s cruelty and pettiness win the day, however. When Perkin, Annet’s father, offers double the inheritance tax to get the land, Ralph reneges on the deal with Gwenda. Perkin offers to take Gwenda and Wulfric on as day laborers since they are hard workers, but Wulfric refuses.

Godwyn takes Earl Roland to court over taxing the stone for the bridge, and he wins. Using the help of all the townspeople, Merthin gets the stone to the building site and completes a key building stage, despite the lateness of the season. His technical and engineering skills—intuitive and learned—help him pull it off. Caris and Merthin quarrel. She is pregnant but doesn’t want to be a mother. She and Merthin drift apart, and Caris ends her pregnancy with Mattie’s help. Meanwhile, Wulfric is in a deep depression. He only pulls out of it when Gwenda tells him she is pregnant. Wulfric has no idea the child s Ralph’s. He decides it is time they marry and wonders about the sex of the child. Merthin builds a house and real estate for rent on Leper Island.