World Without End

Gilbert of Hereford dies of blood loss after Godwyn sentences him to being flayed alive for stealing from a church. Even Godwyn feels disgusted as he watches the punishment. With Petronilla urging him on and Philemon helping him, Godwyn steals a recent bequest to the nuns. He first builds a new treasury and takes the nuns contracts and funds without Cecilia’s permission. He steals the nuns’ bequest and gives the money to Elfric to begin work on the prior’s palace. Elizabeth Clerk, now Godwyn’s ally after he did a favor for her family and because she hates Caris, warns him the Caris has forced an audit. He manages to replace the stolen money temporarily in time for the audit.

During Fleece Week, Caris receives the unwelcome news from Buonaventura Caroli that Merthin married Silvia, the daughter of a prosperous Florentine, the year Caris took her full vows. He has a little girl, Lolla (Laura). Meanwhile, a mysterious illness that causes diarrhea and vomiting is rapidly spreading. In a small amount of time, every guest sleeping in the hospital has it. Caroli tells her it is the plague, there is no cure, and it is in Florence as well. Caroli tells her Muslim physicians believe it is spread by sight and that one should not be in the same room as a sick person. Caris thinks sight makes no sense as a source of transmission, but she does know that being around sick people spreads disease, especially during Fleece Week, when so many are together.

Caris suggests to Mother Cecilia that they build a separate hospital to separate the sick from guests and the injured. When Caris and Cecilia meet with Godwyn to consult about the expenditure, he forbids the building. Cecilia reminds him the conversation is a courtesy, not a requirement. Caris realizes he has stolen the nunnery’s money, and Godwyn confirms the theft by claiming he had the right to take the money because his palace brings glory to God. The hierarchy above them refuses to intervene even once the theft is confirmed with an audit. Bishop Richard of Shiring is in France with the king, so Caris decides to go to France to ask for justice.

Caris and Mair travel to France. Caen and the road to Paris are burned and empty of all but orphans, old women, and desperate, hungry men. The English army has looted and burned the entire countryside. Food cannot be bought for any price in some places. Even worse, there is no one to give them directions to the nunneries where they can lodge for free and be safe. They head for the Hôpital-des-Soeurs, a hospital and a nunnery, but it has been burned and the nuns raped and killed. The two nuns disguise themselves as young men since being a nun is no protection from violence. Caris finds that Mair is beautiful, and Mair sees the same in her.

The French and English armies battle near the Somme. The English army is eventually trapped by French maneuvering that places them between French forces and the river, near Crécy. Ralph, no valued by the king for his skill in using violence to get information, tortures a girl until her father tells him where the English can ford the river to escape the trap. The English army crosses the river, but the French army’s Genoese crossbowmen pick the English soldiers off one by one.

Despite their disadvantage, King Edward’s approach to battle helps the English forces. Where the French are undisciplined, if brave, the English move in disciplined formation. When the English finally manage to reach the other shore, France’s crossbowmen withdraw, and the English longbowmen, able to rapidly fire steel-tipped bows, turn the tide. The French lose the advantage by scattering. The seemingly hopeless English army manages to rout the French forces. Edward’s brutal acts leave the country in ashes. Ralph enjoys the violence, however, despite losing three fingers on his left hand and being left with a limp after a battle.

Meanwhile, Caris and Mair arrive at Abbeville just as King Philip of France’s grand army does. The two nuns, still passing as boys, stay at the large priory there. Martin Chirurgien, the physician there, puts Caris and Mair to work as assistants. They earn a good meal and a place to sleep. Caris gets the chance to spy on the kings, princes, and lords in Philip’s army. She realizes that there are so many rivalries that Philip cannot depend on these men to follow his lead to defeat the English. The next morning, the pair can’t get ahead of the French army to reach the English and their bishop. King Philip is in the rear of the French forces, but some of the lords and royals at the front want to engage with the English when they spot them instead of waiting for the French king to arrange his forces. Martin and the Genoese bowman Caris talks with know this is foolhardy. Martin asks Caris and Mair to help him treat soldiers on the battlefield. He suspects the losses and wounds will be substantial.

The next morning, Edward’s army is prepared for the fight. They use innovative tactics and weapons, including longbows. Ralph relishes this moment. War suits his taste for violence and action, and it has enriched him with loot. He is shocked when the French crossbowmen attack without having their shields in place. Most of their shots fail to land. The response from the English longbowmen is nearly 20,000 very accurate bows that slaughter the crossbowmen. Due to French lack of discipline and infighting, the English win the battle, taking few casualties. In the midst of battle, Ralph saves the Prince of Wales, who promises to knight Ralph for this service. Bishop Richard dies in the battle. Earl Roland dies as well, making William of the new lord of Shirling.

Caris and Mair slip back into their habits and cross the line until they reach King Edward and some of his barons. The king refuses to intervene to address Godwyn’s theft of the nuns’ funds. Caris also protests when the king recognizes Ralph for saving the prince and commands that William give Tilly (Matilda, a student at the nunnery school), his young ward, to Ralph as a wife. William takes Caris away before she can offend the king with her loud protests.

Back in Wigleigh and Kingsbridge, times are lean. Perkin tells Gwenda and Wulfric he has no money and can only pay them in food. Gwenda bargains. He will feed them, now a family of four with the birth of Davey, Gwenda’s second son, the same as his family and pay their wages in arrears as soon as he can. They agree, and Gwenda leaves. She is angry about their poverty and Wulfric’s continued infatuation with Annet. When Nate is deciding what to do the land of a man who died without heirs, Gwenda undercuts Perkin to get the lands for her and Wulfric. They will pay the tax in installments. Gwenda blows off the concern that this will cause problems with Ralph when he returns.

Ralph returns to England a hero and takes possession of his new estate at Tench. He quickly puts William, now his overlord, in his place by rejecting William’s choice for bailiff. Perkin visits and gets Ralph’s permission to undo Nate’s decision to give land to Wulfric and Gwenda. Caris, Mair, and Thomas arrive with Tilly, whom they’ve dressed to look even younger than she is. Ralph rebuffs their encouragement to wait to consummate their marriage (common among the nobility when the bride is young). He rejects every attempt to encourage moderation as he exercises his authority.

In Florence, Merthin gets and survives the plague. His wife and all his in-laws did not survive it. His daughter Lolla is all he has left. With all of his clients too cautious to spend in the midst of the pandemic, he decides to return to England and Caris.

In the intervening years, Caris has advanced from guest master and manages the hospital in her role as cellarer, while her rival, Elizabeth, becomes treasurer. Caris had hoped to be made sub-prioress, but Cecilia tells her frankly that either she or Elizabeth would have been a good lieutenant, but each has faults. Their actions now will determine who will succeed her. Henri of Mons, the new bishop, refuses to force Godwyn to return the nuns’ stolen funds, delaying the building of Caris’s new hospital. When Merthin comes to the nunnery to ask Caris to consider marrying him and becoming Lolla’s stepmother, she rejects his offer because she loves her work and heard no mention of love from him in his initial offer.

Merthin jumps back into the politics of the town by attending a parish guild meeting. Mark Webber, his old friend, puts him up for guild membership. Elfric still hates him, so he claims Merthin’s plan for the bridge was so shoddy that cracks are now showing. Using plans from the priory and direct observation by divers, Merthin shows the fault is due to Elfric’s failure to follow Merthin’s plans exactly. Elfric’s reputation is tarnished, and he comes to hate Merthin even more.

Merthin gets Mark Webber to run against Elfric as alderman of the parish guild. Merthin then gets the parish guild contract to correct Elfric’s shoddy work on the bridge. He arranges for Jeremiah to get the contract to determine the reason for the cracks in the priory. After much digging, they discover that the priory additions over the years weigh too much for the original foundation. To repair the tower where the shift away from the main structure is the worst, the entire tower will need to come down to be rebuilt from the ground up. Merthin wants this lucrative contract, but he and Thomas know Godwyn’s stinginess and vindictiveness make this outcome unlikely.

Caris and Merthin argue when she asks him to approach Ralph about Wulfric and Gwenda’s poverty; he believes she is using him. Merthin goes to see Ralph at Tench anyway. He is shocked to find Tilly pregnant, his parents living in the village, and Ralph adamant that he will pursue revenge against Wulfric for the sake of feeling feared and powerful.

Merthin returns from Tench sobered by his brother’s cruelty and refusal to see that being a lord means being responsible to his people instead of just exercising power. Rumors are flying around town about whether he and Caris will marry. All these worries fall to the wayside when Mark catches what Caris believes to be the plague and dies. Caris refuses to run away with Merthin when he tells her that only those who fled to remote places survive. She learns from Merthin that some measures Italian doctors took—wearing masks, washing one’s hands with vinegar between patients, and social distancing—helped, but the mortality rate was still close to 50%.

Merthin begins planning for a priory tower that will outshine the one from Mumford and even the Salisbury Cathedral. He approaches parish guild members about the contract but finds out that Philemon has told them the priory will never support him. The contract will go to Elfric. Meanwhile, the plague spreads. Caris puts the Italian physicians’ precautions into practice at the hospital. Madge Webber’s two youngest and Mair fall ill with the plague.

The plague spreads rapidly, killing all of Madge’s children, Old Julie the nun, and Mair. The monks, led by Godwyn, insist that the illness is God’s punishment on the sinful town. Brother Joseph, the most respected monk-physician, says only holiness can save them and continues prescribing bloodletting as a treatment. Caris is more practical. She suspects bloodletting is not only useless but also harmful. She openly questions Godwyn during a service by saying the market should be canceled, all the shops and gatherings shut up, and the precautions she uses be universally adopted. Godwyn puts her in her place, and Cecilia silences her. Cecilia catches the plague. She tells Caris that Caris is her choice for prioress. She also tells her that Edward II did not die of a fall at all, as rumored. She dies before she can tell Caris the rest of this big secret.

Godwyn attempts to get Elizabeth elected as the next prioress. He gets Elizabeth to smear Caris by claiming wearing masks is an unchristian practice that the nuns should discontinue because it comes from Muslim medicine. Philemon’s part of the plan is to begin a stealthy campaign to accuse Caris of witchcraft again. Petronilla visits Godwyn to ask him to flee the plague, but he refuses to listen at first. He uses a sermon to argue that the plague is punishment because the townspeople have tolerated witchcraft and heresy—a jab everyone understands is directed at Caris. Most nuns still wear masks, so he is eager to sway the nuns in particular.

Godwyn’s sermon proves effective: all but four of the nuns stop wearing their masks, a signal that Caris has lost the numbers she needs to win the election. Caris asks Merthin to intervene at a meeting of the parish guild, but Merthin’s request that the guild take the unprecedented step of saying they support Caris fails to pass. The members are too afraid of the plague, and Jeremiah Builder goes so far as to say he believes the charge of heresy leveled against Caris from the pulpit.

As the election nears, many people quit wearing masks as Caris advises, but many of them also fall ill. Being proved right helps Caris win the election. When Philemon invades the all-women precinct of the nunnery to tell them that Godwyn forbids the election of Caris, it only reinforces the nuns’ support for Caris. Caris’s position has to be ratified by Bishop Henri, Philemon reminds her. Godwyn and Caris write to the bishop to complain about each other, forcing him to plan a visit to resolve the conflict. Petranilla dies of the plague. At her funeral, Godwyn uses the story of Abraham offering up his beloved son Isaac because God asked it of him to encourage the monks to run away from the plague with him. This would be shameful act of abandonment of the town they are pledged to serve and lead. The monks are gone by the time Henri and Archdeacon Lloyd arrive to settle the dispute between Caris and Godwyn.