It was obviously a miracle that no one died.

The worst of the damage was en the south aisle of the chancel, which had been empty of people during the service. The congregation was not admitted to the chancel, and the clergy had all been in the central part, called the choir. Several monks had had narrow escapes, which only heightened the talk of miracles, and others had had cuts and bruises from flying chips of stone. The congregation suffered no more than a few scratches. Evidently, they all had been supernaturally protected by St Adolphus, whose bones were preserved by the high altar, and whose deeds included many instances of curing the sick and saving people from death. However it was generally agreed that God had sent the people of Kingsbridge a warming. What he was warming them about it was not clear.
An hour later four men were inspecting the damage. Brother Gowdyn, the cousin of Caris, was the sacristy, responsible for the church and all his treasures. Under him as a matricularius, in charge of building operations and repairs was Brother Thomas, who had been Sir Thomas Langley ten years ago. The contract for cathedral maintenance was held by Elfric, a carpenter by training and a general builder by trade. And Merthin tagged along as Elfric’s apprentice.
The east end of the church was divide by pillars into four sections called bays. The collapse had affected the two bays nearest the crossing. The stone vaulting over the south aisle was destroyed completely in the first bay and partially in the second. There were cracks in the tribune gallery, and stone mullions had fallen from the windows of the clerestory.
Elfric said. ‘Some weakness in the mortar allowed the vault to crumble, and that in turn caused the cracks at higher levels’. That did not sound right to Merthin, but he lacked an alternative explanation.
Merthin hated his maser. He had first been apprenticed to Elfric’s father, Joachim, a builder of high experience who had worked on churches and bridges in London and Paris. The old man had delighted in explaining to Merthin the lore of the masons – what they called their ‘mysteries’, which were mostly arithmetical formulas for building, such as the ratio between the height of a building and the depth of its foundations. Merthin liked numbers and lapped up everything Joachim could teach him.
The Joachin died, and Elfric took over. Elfric believed the main thing an apprentice had to learn was obedience. Merhin found this difficult to accept, and Elfric punished him with short rations, thin clothing and outdoor work in frosty weather. To make matters worse, Elfric’s chubby daughter Griselda, the same age as Merthin, was always well fed and warmly dressed.
From the book ‘World without end’ by Ken Follet

On Whit Sunday, a river of rain fell on Kingsbridge Cathedral

On Whit Sunday, a river of rain fell on Kingsbridge Cathedral. Great globules of water bounced off the slate roof; streams flooded the gutters, fountains gushed from the mouths of gargoyles; sheets of water unfolded down the buttresses, and torrents ran over the arches and down the columns, soaking the statues of the saints. The sky, the great church and the town round about all the shades of wet grey paint.
On the broad green to the west of the church hundreds of traders had set out theirs stalls – then hastily covered them with sheets of oiled sacking or felted cloth to keep the rain off. Wool traders were the key figures in the fair, from the small operators who collected the produce of a few scattered villagers, to the big dealers such as Edmund who had a warehouse full of wool sacks to sell. Around clustered subsidiary stalls selling about everything money could buy, sweet wine from Rhineland, silver brocade threaded with gold from Lucca, glass bowls from Venice, ginger and pepper from places in the East that few people could even name. And finally there were the workday trades people, who supplied visitors and stallholders with their commonplace needs. Bakers, brewers, confectioners, fortune tellers and prostitutes.
The stall holders responded bravely to the rain, joking with one another, trying to create the carnival atmosphere, but the weather would be bad for their profits. Some people had to do business, rain or shine: Italian and Flemish buyers needed soft English wool for thousands of busy looms in Florence and Bruges. But more casual costumers would stay at home: a knight’s wife would decided she could manage without nutmeg and cinnamon, a prosperous peasant would make his old coat last another winter, a lawyer would judge that his mistress did not really need a gold bangle.
From the book ‘World without end’ by Ken Follet

Caris flushed not knowing what was so funny.

Caris flushed not knowing what was so funny.
Papa took pity and said ’Only men can be doctors. Didn’t you know that buttercup ?’
Caris was bewildered. She turned to Cecilia. ‘But what about you ?’
‘I’m not a physician,’ Cecilia said. ‘We nuns care for the sick, of course, but we follow the instructions of trained men. The monks who had studied under the masters understand the humours of the body, the way they go out of the balance in sickness, and how to bring them back to their correct proportions for good health. They know which vein to bleed for migraine, leprosy, or breathlessness: where to cup or cauterise, whether to poultice or bathe.’
‘Couldn’t a woman learn those things ?’
‘Perhaps, but God has ordained it otherwise.’
Caris felt frustrated with the way adults trotted out this truism every time they were stuck for an answer. Before she could say anything. Brother Saul came downstairs with a bowl of blood, and went through the kitchen to the back yard to get rid of it. The sight made Caris feel weepy. All doctors used bloodletting as a cure, so it must be effective, she supposed, but all the same she hated to see mother’s life force in a bowl to be thrown away.
Saul returned to the sick room, and a few moments later he and Joseph came down. ‘I’ve done what I can for her,’ Joseph said solemnly to Papa. ‘And she has confessed her sins.’
Confessed her sins! Caris knew what that meant. She began to cry.
Papa took six silver pennies from his purse and gave them to the monk. ‘Thank you, brother,’ he said, His voice was hoarse.
As the monks left, the two nuns went back upstairs. Alice sat on Papa’s lap and buried her face in his neck, Caris cried and hugged Scrap. Petronilla ordered Tutty to clear the table. Gwenda watched everything with wide eyes. They sat around the table in silence, waiting.
From the book ‘World without end’ by Ken Follet

The crowd inched through the vestibule

The crowd inched through the vestibule. The restless light of the torches fell on the sculpted figures around the walls, making them dance madly. At he lowest level were demons and monsters: Gwenda stared uneasily at dragons and griffins, a bear with a man’s head, a dog with two bodies and one with muzzle. Some of the demons straggled with humans: a devil put a nooses around a man’s neck, a fox-like monster dragged a woman by her hair, an eagle with hands speared a naked man. Above these scenes the saints stood in a row under sheltering canopies; over them the apostles sat on thrones, then, in the arch over the main door, St Peter with his key and St Paul with a scroll looked adoringly upwards a Jesus Christ .
Gwenda knew that Jesus was telling her not to sin, or she would be tortured by demons, but humans frightened her more than demons. If she failed to steal sir Gerald’s purse, she would be whipped by her father. Worse there would be nothing for the family to eat but soup made with acorns. She and Philemon would be hungry for weeks on end. Ma’s breasts would dry up, and the new baby, would die, as the last two had. Pa would disappear for days, and come back with nothing for the pot but a scrawny heron or a couple of squirrels. Being hungry was worse than being whipped – it hurt longer.
She had been taught to pilfer at a young age: an apple from a stall, a new laid egg from under a neighbour’s hen, a knife dropped carelessly on a tavern table by a drunk. But stealing money was different. If she were caught robbing Sir Gerald it would be no use bursting into tears and hoping to be treated as a naughty child, as she had once after thieving a pair of dainty leather shoes from a soft hearted nun. Cutting the strings of a knight’s purse was not childish peccadillo. It was a real grown-up crime and she would be treated accordingly.
From the book ‘World without end’ by Ken Follet

For two days a warm wind

For two days a warm wind had been blowing from the south.
The last snow had melted off the fields. The foaming spring runnels had ceased their roaring, the gullies and rivulets of the steppe had finished gurgling. At dawn of the third day the wind died away and heavy mists descended over the steppe; the clumps of last year feather grass were silvered with moisture; the mounds, ravines and villages, the spires of the belfries, the arrowing crowns of the pyramidal poplars, were all drowned in an impenetrable milky haze.
That misty morning, for the first time after her recovery Aksinia went out on to the porch and stood long, intoxicated with the heady sweetness of the fresh spring air. Mastering her nausea and dizziness she walked as far as the well in the orchard, put down the bucket, and seated herself on the parapet.
Altogether different, marvellously fresh and enchanting seemed the world to Aksinia. With glittering eyes she agitatedly gazed about her, fingering the folds of her dress as would a child. The enmisted distance, the apple-trees in the orchard swimming with thaw-water, the wet palings and the road beyond them with its deep, water-filled ruts – all seemed incredibly beautiful to her; everything was blossoming with heavy yet delicate tints as though irradiated with sunlight.
A scrap of clean sky peering through the haze dazzled her with its chilly azure; the scent of rotting straw and thawed black earth was so familiar and pleasant that she sighed deeply and smiled at the corners of her lips; the artless snatch of song of a skylark reaching her ears from somewhere in the misty steppe awakened an unconscious sadness within her. And it was that snatch of skylark’s song heard in a strange land which sent Aksinia’s heart beating more quickly, and wrung two meagre little tears from her eyes.
Unthinkingly rejoicing in the life which had returned to her she experienced a tremendous desire to touch everything with her hands, to look at everything. She wanted to touch the currant bush which stood blackened with moisture, to press her cheek against the branch of an apple-tree covered with a velvety pale pink bloom, she desired to stride across the falling fencing and to walk trough the mire, away from all the tracks. To where beyond a broad hollow the fields of winter corn were showing wondrously green, merging with the misty distance.
For several days Aksinia lived in the expectation that at any moment Gregor would turn up. But at last she learned from neighbours who called on her host that the war was still going on, and that many Cossacks had sailed from Novorossisk to the Crimea, while those who had stayed behind had joined the Red Army or had been sent to the mines.
From the book ‘ The Don Flows Home to the Sea’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

After his first battle

After his first battle Gregor Melekhov was tormented by a dreary inward pain. He grew noticeably thin, lost weight, and frequently, whether attacking or resting, sleeping or waking, he saw the features and form of the Austrian whom he had killed by the railings, In his sleep he lived again and again through that first battle, and even felt the shuddering convulsion of his right hand clutching the lance. He would awake and drive the dream off violently, shading his painfully screwed up eyes with his hands.
The cavalry trampled down the ripened corn and left their hoof prints on the fields as though hail had rattled over all Galicia. The heavy soldiers’ boot tramped the roads, scratched the macadam, churned up the August mud. The gloomy face of the earth was pock-marked with shells; fragments of iron and steel tore into it, yearning for human blood. At night ruddy flickerings lit up the horizon: trees, villages, towns were flaming. In August –when fruits ripen and corn is ready for harvest – the wind swept sky was unsmilingly grey, the rare fine days were oppressive and sultrily steaming.
August declined to its close. The leaves turned an oily yellow in the orchard , and a mournful purple flooded the stalks. From a distance it seemed as though the trees were rent with wounds and streaming with blood.
Gregor studied with interest the changes that occurred in his comrades. Prokhor Zilov returned from hospital with the marks of a horse shoe on his cheek, and pain and bewilderment lurking in the corners of his lips. His calfish eyes blinked more than ever. Yegor Aharkov lost no opportunity of cursing and swearing, was more bawdy than ever and imprecated everything under the sun. Yemelian Groshev, a serious and efficient Cossack from Gregor’s own village, seemed to char; his faces turned dark, an he laughed awkwardly and morosely. Changes were to be observed in every face; each was inwardly nursing and rearing the iron seeds implanted by the war, and the young Cossacks were wilting and drooping like the stalks of mown grass.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

He third Don Cossack regiment

He third Don Cossack regiment was stationed at Vilno together with certain sections of the third cavalry division. One day in June the various companies rode out from the city to take up country quarters. The day was dull but warm. The flowing clouds coursed in droves across the sky and concealed the sun. The regimental band blared at the head of the column, and the officers in their light summer caps and drill uniforms rode in a bunch at the back of a cloud of cigarette smoke rising above them.
On each side of the road the peasants and their womenfolk were cutting the hay, stopping to gaze at the columns of Cossacks as they passed. The horses sweated with the heat, a yellowish foam appeared between their legs and the light breeze blowing from the south east did not cool, but rather intensified the steaming swelter
Arrived at his destination, the regiment was broken up by companies among the states in the district. During the day the Cossacks cut the clover and meadow grass for the landowners, at night they grazed their hobbled horses in the fields assigned to them, and played cards or told stories by the smoke of the camp fires. The sixth company was billeted on the large estate of a Polish landowner. The officers lived in the house, played cards, got drunk, and paid attentions to the steward’s daughter; the Cossacks pitched their tents a couple of miles away from the house. Each morning the steward drove out in a drozhi to their camp. The corpulent, estimable gentleman would get out of the drozhi and invariably welcome the Cossacks with a wave of his white, glossy peaked cap.
‘Come and cut hay with us, sir; it’ll shake your fat down a bit,’ the Cossacks called to him. The steward smiled phlegmatically , wiped his bald head with his handkerchief, and went with the sergeant major to point out the next section of hay to be cut.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry