After a while, Caris calmed down. She was too drained to feel any more sorrow. She thought of Merthin holding a dark-haired little Italian baby, and saw how happy he would be. She was glad that he was happy, and she drifted into an exhausted sleep.
The illness that had started with Maldwyn Cook spread like a summer fire through the crowds at the Fleece Fair. On Monday it leaped from the hospital to the taverns, then on Tuesday from the visitors to the townspeople. Caris noted its characteristics in her book: it began with stomach pains, led quickly to vomiting and diarrhoea, and lasted between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. It left adults not much the worse, but killed old people and small babies.
On Wednesday, it struck the nuns and the children in the girls’ school. Both Mair and Tilly were affected. Caris sought out Buonaventura, at the Bell, and worriedly asked him whether Italian doctors had any treatment for such diseases. “There’s no cure,” he said. “None that works, anyway, though doctors nearly always prescribe something just to get more money out of people. But some Arab physicians believe you can retard the spread of such illnesses.”
“Oh, really?” Caris was interested. Traders said that Muslim doctors were superior to their Christian counterparts, although the priest-physicians denied this hotly. “How?”
“They believe the disease is acquired when a sick person looks at you. Sight functions by beams that issue from the eyes and touch the things we see – rather like extending a finger to feel whether something is warm, or dry, or hard. But the beams may also project sickness. Therefore you can avoid the disease by never being in the same room as a sufferer.”
Caris did not think illness could be transmitted by looks. If that were true then, after an important service in the cathedral, everyone in the congregation would acquire any illness the bishop had. Whenever the king was ill, he would infect all the hundreds of people who saw him. And surely someone would have noticed that.
However, the notion that you should not share a room with someone who was ill did seem convincing. Here in the hospital, Maldwyn’s illness seemed to spread from a sufferer to those nearby: the sick man’s wife and family were the first to catch it, followed by people in neighbouring beds.
She had also observed that certain kinds of illness – stomach upsets, coughs and colds, and poxes of all sorts – seemed to flare up during fairs and markets; so it seemed obvious that they were passed from one person to another by some means.
On Wednesday night at supper, half the guests in the hospital were suffering from the illness; then by Thursday morning every one of them had it. Several priory servants also succumbed, so Caris was short of people to clean up.
Surveying the chaos at breakfast time, Mother Cecilia suggested closing the hospital.
Caris was ready to consider anything. She felt dismayed at her own powerlessness to combat the disease, and devastated by the filth of her hospital. “But where would the people sleep?” she said.
“Send them to the taverns.”
“The taverns have the same problem. We could put them in the cathedral.”
Cecilia shook her head. “Godwyn won’t have peasants puking in the nave while services go on in the choir.”
“Wherever they sleep, we ought to separate the sick from the well. That’s the way to retard the spread of the illness, according to Buonaventura.”
“It makes sense.”
Caris was struck by a new idea, something that suddenly seemed very obvious, though she had not thought of it before. “Perhaps we shouldn’t just improve the hospital,” she said. “Maybe we should build a new one, just for sick people, and keep the old one for pilgrims and other healthy visitors.”
Cecilia looked thoughtful. “It would be costly.”
“We’ve got a hundred and fifty pounds.” Caris’s imagination began to work. “It could incorporate a new pharmacy. We could have private rooms for people who are chronically ill.”
“Find out what it would cost. You could ask Elfric.”
Caris hated Elfric. She had disliked him even before he had given evidence against her. She did not want him to build her new hospital. “Elfric is busy building Godwyn’s new palace,” she said. “I’d rather consult Jeremiah.”
“By all means.”
Caris felt a rush of affection for Cecilia. Although she was a martinet, tough on discipline, she gave her deputies room to make their own decisions. She had always understood the conflicting passions that drove Caris. Instead of trying to suppress those passions, Cecilia had found ways to make use of them. She had given Caris work that engaged her, and provided outlets for her rebellious energy. Here I am, Caris thought, plainly incapable of dealing with the crisis in front of me, and my superior is calmly telling me to forge ahead with a new long-term Project. “Thank you, Mother Cecilia,” she said.
Later that day she walked around the priory grounds with Jeremiah and explained her aspirations. He was as superstitious as ever, seeing the work of saints and devils in the most trivial of everyday incidents. Nevertheless, he was an imaginative builder, open to new ideas: he had learned from Merthin. They quickly settled on the best location for the new hospital, immediately to the south of the existing kitchen block. It would be apart from the rest of the buildings, so that sick people would have less contact with the healthy, but food would not have to be carried far, and the new building could still be accessed conveniently from the nuns’ cloisters. With the pharmacy, the new latrines and an upper floor with private rooms, Jeremiah thought it would cost about a hundred pounds – most of the legacy.
Caris discussed the site with Mother Cecilia. It was land that belonged neither to the monks nor the nuns, so they went to see Godwyn about it.
They found him on the site of his own building project, the new palace. The shell was up and the roof was on. Caris had not visited the site for some weeks, and she was surprised at its size – it was going to be as big as her new hospital. She saw why Buonaventura had called it impressive: the dining hall was larger than the nuns’ refectory. The site was swarming with workmen, as if Godwyn was in a hurry to get it finished. Masons were laying a floor of coloured tiles in a geometric pattern, several carpenters were making doors, and a master glazier had set up a furnace to make the windows. Godwyn was spending a lot of money.
He and Philemon were showing the new building to Archdeacon Lloyd, the bishop’s deputy. Godwyn broke off as the nuns approached. Cecilia said: “Don’t let us interrupt you – but, when you’re finished, will you meet me outside the hospital? There’s something I need to show you.”
“By all means,” said Godwyn.
Caris and Cecilia walked back through the market place in front of the cathedral. Friday was bargain day at the Fleece Fair, when traders sold their remaining stocks at reduced prices so that they would not have to carry the goods home. Caris saw Mark Webber, round-faced and round-bellied now, wearing a coat of his own bright scarlet. His four children were helping at his stall. Caris was especially fond of Dora, now fifteen, who had her mother’s bustling confidence in a slimmer body.
“You’re looking prosperous,” Caris said to Mark with a smile.
“The wealth should have come to you,” he replied. “You invented the dye. I just did what you said. I almost feel as if I cheated you.”
“You’ve been rewarded for hard work,” she said. She did not mind that Mark and Madge had done so well out of her invention. Although she had always enjoyed the challenge of doing business, she had never lusted for money – perhaps because she had always taken it for granted, growing up in her father’s wealthy household. Whatever the reason, she felt no pang of regret that the Webbers were making a fortune that might have been hers. The cashless life of the priory seemed to suit her well. And she was thrilled to see the Webber children healthy and well dressed. She remembered when all six of them had to find sleeping space on the floor of a single room, most of which was taken up by a loom.