AFTER ELLEN HAD GONE, Sundays were very quiet at the guesthouse. Alfred played football with the village boys in the meadow on the other side of the river. Martha, who missed Jack, played pretend games, gathering vegetables and making pottage and dressing a doll. Tom worked on his cathedral design.
He had hinted to Philip, once or twice, that he should think about what kind of church he wanted to build, but Philip had not noticed, or had chosen to ignore the implication. He had a lot on his mind. But Tom thought about little else, especially on Sundays.
He liked to sit just inside the door of the guesthouse and look across the green at the cathedral ruins. He made sketches on a piece of slate sometimes, but most of the work was in his head. He knew that it was hard for most people to visualize solid objects and complex spaces, but he had always found it easy.
He had won Philip’s trust and gratitude for the way he had dealt with the ruins; but Philip still saw him as a jobbing mason. He had to convince Philip that he was capable of designing and building a cathedral.
One Sunday about two months after Ellen left, he felt ready to begin drawing.
He made a mat of woven reeds and pliable twigs, about three feet by two. He made neat wooden sides to the mat so that it had raised edges, like a tray. Then he burned some chalk for lime, mixed up a small quantity of strong plaster, and filled the tray with the mixture. As the mortar began to harden, he drew lines in it with a needle. He used his iron foot rule for straight lines, his set square for right angles and his compasses for curves.
He would do three drawings: a section, to explain how the church was constructed; an elevation, to illustrate its beautiful proportions; and a floor plan to show the accommodation. He began with the section.
He imagined that the cathedral was like a long loaf of bread, then he cut off the crust at the west end, to see inside, and he began to draw.
It was very simple. He drew a tall flat-topped archway. That was the nave, seen from the end. It would have a flat wooden ceiling, like the old church. Tom would have greatly preferred to build a curved stone vault, but he knew Philip could not afford it.
On top of the nave he drew a triangular roof. The width of the building was determined by the width of the roof, and that in turn was limited by the timber available. It was difficult to get hold of beams longer than about thirty-five feet-and they were fiercely expensive. (Good timber was so valuable that a fine tree was liable to be chopped down and sold by its owner long before it was that high.) The nave of Tom’s cathedral would probably be thirty-two feet wide, or twice the length of Tom’s iron pole.
The nave he had drawn was high, impossibly high. But a cathedral had to be a dramatic building, awe-inspiring in its size, pulling the eye heavenward with its loftiness. One reason people came to them was that cathedrals were the largest buildings in the world: a man who never went to a cathedral could go through life without seeing a building much bigger than the hovel he lived in.
Unfortunately, the building Tom had drawn would fall down. The weight of lead and timber in the roof would be too much for the walls, which would buckle outward and collapse. They had to be propped up.
For that purpose Tom drew two roundtopped archways, half the height of the nave, one on either side. These were the aisles. They would have curved stone ceilings: since the aisles were lower and narrower, the expense of stone vaults was not so great. Each aisle would have a sloping lean-to roof.
The side aisles, joined to the nave by their stone vaults, provided some support, but they did not reach quite high enough. Tom would build extra supports, at intervals, in the roof space of the side aisles, above the vaulted ceiling and below the lean-to roof. He drew one of them, a stone arch rising from the top of the aisle wall across to the nave wall. Where the support rested on the aisle wall, Tom braced it further with a massive buttress jutting out from the side of the church. He put a turret on top of the buttress, to add weight and make it look nicer.
You could not have an awesomely tall church without the strengthening elements of aisles, supports and buttresses; but this might be difficult to explain to a monk, and Tom had drawn the sketch to help make it clear.
He also drew the foundations, going far underground beneath the walls. Laymen were always surprised at how deep foundations were.
It was a simple drawing, too simple to be of much use to builders; but it should be right for showing to Prior Philip. Tom wanted him to understand what was being proposed, visualize the building, and get excited about it. It was hard to imagine a big, solid church when what was in front of you was a few lines scratched in plaster. Philip would need all the help Tom could give him.
The walls he had drawn looked solid, seen end on, but they would not be. Tom now began to draw the side view of the nave wall, as seen from inside the church. It was pierced at three levels. The bottom half was hardly a wall at all: it was just a row of columns, their tops joined by semicircular arches. It was called the arcade. Through the archways of the arcade could be seen the round-headed windows of the aisles. The windows would be neatly lined up with the archways, so that light from outside could fall, unobstructed, into the nave. The columns in between would be lined up with the buttresses on the outside walls.
Above each arch of the arcade was a row of three small arches, forming the tribune gallery. No light would come through these, for behind them was the lean-to roof of the side aisle.
Above the gallery was the clerestory, so called because it was pierced with windows which lit the upper half of the nave.
In the days when the old Kingsbridge Cathedral had been built, masons had relied on thick walls for strength, and had nervously inserted mean little windows that let in hardly any light. Modern builders understood that a building would be strong enough if its walls were straight and true. Tom designed the three levels of the nave wall-arcade, gallery and clerestory-strictly in the proportions 3:1:2. The arcade was half the height of the wall, and the gallery was one third of the rest. Proportion was everything in a church: it gave a subliminal feeling of lightness to the whole building. Studying the finished drawing, Tom thought it looked perfectly graceful. But would Philip think so? Tom could see the tiers of arches marching down the length of the church, with their moldings and carvings picked out by an afternoon sun… but would Philip see the same?
He began his third drawing. This was a floor plan of the church. In his imagination he saw twelve arches in the arcade. The church was therefore divided into twelve sections, called bays. The nave would be six bays long, the chancel four. In between, taking up the space of the seventh and eighth bays, would be the crossing, with the transepts sticking out either side and the tower rising above.
All cathedrals and nearly all churches were cross-shaped. The cross was the single most important symbol of Christianity, of course, but there was a practical reason too: the transepts provided useful space for extra chapels and offices such as the sacristry and the vestry.
When he had drawn a simple floor plan Tom returned to the central drawing, which showed the interior of the church viewed from the west end. Now he drew the tower rising above and behind the nave.
The tower should be either one and a half times the height of the nave, or double it. The lower alternative gave the building an attractively regular profile, with the aisles, the nave and the tower rising in equal steps, 1:2:3. The higher tower would be more dramatic, for then the nave would be double the size of the aisles, and the tower double the nave, the proportions being 1:2:4. Tom had chosen the dramatic: this was the only cathedral he would ever build, and he wanted it to reach for the sky. He hoped Philip would feel the same.
If Philip accepted the design, Tom would have to draw it again, of course, more carefully and exactly to scale. And there would be many more drawings, hundreds of them: plinths, columns, capitals, corbels, doorcases, turrets, stairs, gargoyles, and countless other details-Tom would be drawing for years. But what he had in front of him was the essence of the building, and it was good: simple, inexpensive, graceful and perfectly proportioned.
He could not wait to show it to someone.
He had planned to find a suitable moment to take it to Prior Philip; but now that it was done he wanted Philip to see it right away.
Would Philip think him presumptuous? The prior had not asked him to prepare a design. He might have another master builder in mind, someone he had heard of who had worked for another monastery and had done a good job. He might scorn Tom’s aspirations.
On the other hand, if Tom did not show him something, Philip might assume Tom was not capable of designing, and might hire someone else without even considering Tom. Tom was not prepared to risk that: he would rather be thought presumptuous.
The afternoon was still light. It would be study time in the cloisters. Philip would be at the prior’s house, reading his Bible, Tom decided to go and knock at his door.
Carrying his board carefully, he left the house.
As he walked past the ruins, the prospect of building a new cathedral suddenly seemed daunting: all that stone, all that timber, all those craftsmen, all those years. He would have to control it all, make sure there was a steady supply of materials, monitor the quality of timber and stone, hire and fire men, tirelessly check their work with his plumb line and level, make templates for the moldings, design and build lifting machines… He wondered if he really was capable of it.
Then he thought what a thrill it would be to create something from nothing; to see, one day in the future, a new church here where now there was nothing but rubble, and to say: I made this.
There was another thought in his mind, hidden away in a dusty corner; something he was hardly willing to admit to himself. Agnes had died without a priest, and she was buried in unconsecrated ground. He would have liked to go back to her grave, and get a priest to say prayers over it, and perhaps put up a small headstone; but he was afraid that if he called attention to her burying place in any way, somehow the whole story of abandoning the baby would come out. Leaving a baby to die still counted as murder. As the weeks went by he had worried more and more about Agnes’s soul, and whether it was in a good place or not. He was afraid to ask a priest about it because he did not want to give details. But he had consoled himself with the thought that if he built a cathedral, God would surely favor him; and he wondered whether he could ask that Agnes receive the benefit of that favor instead of himself. If he could dedicate his work on the cathedral to Agnes, he would feel that her soul was safe, and he could rest easy.
He reached the prior’s house. It was a small stone building on one level. The door stood open, although it was a cold day. He hesitated for a moment. Calm, competent, knowledgeable, expert, he said to himself. A master of every aspect of modern building. Just the man you’d cheerfully trust.
He stepped inside. There was only one room. At one end was a big bed with luxurious hangings; at the other a small altar with a crucifix and a candlestick. Prior Philip stood by a window, reading from a vellum sheet with a worried frown. He looked up and smiled at Tom. “What’s that you’ve got?”
“Drawings, Father,” Tom said, making his voice deep and reassuring. “For a new cathedral. May I show you?”
Philip looked surprised but intrigued. “By all means.”
There was a large lectern in a corner. Tom brought it into the light by the window and put his plaster frame on its angled rest. Philip looked at the drawing. Tom watched Philip’s face. He could tell that Philip had never seen an elevation drawing, a floor plan or a section through a building. The prior’s face wore a puzzled frown.
Tom began to explain. He pointed to the elevation. “You’re standing in the center of the nave, looking at the wall,” he said. “Here are the pillars of the arcade. They’re joined by arches. Through the archways you can see the windows in the aisle. Above the arcade is the tribune gallery, and above that, the clerestory windows.”
Philip’s expression cleared as he understood. He was a quick learner. He looked at the floor plan, and Tom could see he was equally puzzled by that.
Tom said: “When we walk around the site, and mark where the walls will be built, and where the pillars meet the ground, and the positions of the doors and buttresses, we will have a plan like this, and it will tell us where to place our pegs and strings.”
Enlightenment dawned on Philip’s face again. It was no bad thing, Tom thought, that Philip had trouble understanding the drawings: it gave Tom a chance to be confident and expert. Finally Philip looked at the section. Tom explained: “Here is the nave, in the middle, with a timber ceiling. Behind the nave is the tower. Here are the aisles, on either side of the nave. At the outer edges of the aisles are the buttresses.”
“It looks splendid,” Philip said. Tom could tell that the section drawing particularly impressed him, with the inside of the church open to view, as if the west end had been swung aside like a cupboard door to reveal the interior.
Philip looked at the floor plan again. “Are there only six bays to the nave?”
“Yes, and four to the chancel.”
“Isn’t that rather small?”
“Can you afford to build it bigger?”
“I can’t afford to build it at all,” Philip said. “I don’t suppose you have any idea how much this would cost.”
“I know exactly how much it would cost,” Tom said. He saw surprise on Philip’s face: Philip had not realized Tom could do figure work. He had spent many hours calculating the cost of his design to the last penny. However, he gave Philip a round figure. “It would be no more than three thousand pounds.”
Philip laughed hollowly. “I’ve spent the last few weeks working out the annual income of the priory.” He waved the sheet of vellum that he had been reading so anxiously when Tom walked in. “Here’s the answer. Three hundred pounds a year. And we spend every penny.”
Tom was not surprised. It was obvious that the priory had been badly managed in the past. He had faith that Philip would reform its finances. “You’ll find the money, Father,” he said. “With God’s help,” he added piously.
Philip returned his attention to the drawings, looking unconvinced. “How long would this take to build?”
“That depends on how many people you employ,” Tom said. “If you hire thirty masons, with enough laborers, apprentices, carpenters and smiths to service them, it might take fifteen years: one year for the foundations, four years for the chancel, four years for the transepts, and six years for the nave.”
Once again Philip looked impressed. “I wish my monastic officials had your ability to think ahead and calculate,” he said. He studied the drawings wistfully. “So I need to find two hundred pounds a year. It doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way.” He looked thoughtful. Tom felt excited: Philip was beginning to think of this as a workable project, not just an abstract design. “Suppose I could afford more-could we build faster?”
“Up to a point,” Tom replied guardedly. He did not want Philip to become overoptimistic: that might lead to disillusionment. “You could employ sixty masons, and build the whole church at once, instead of working from east to west; and that might take eight or ten years. Any more than sixty, on a building this size, and they would start getting in one another’s way, and slow the work down.”
Philip nodded: he appeared to understand that without difficulty. “Still, even with just thirty masons, I could have the east end completed after five years.”
“Yes, and you could use it for services, and set up a new shrine for the bones of Saint Adolphus.”
“Indeed.” Philip was really excited now. “I had been thinking it would be decades before we could have a new church.” He looked shrewdly at Tom. “Have you ever built a cathedral before?”
“No, though I’ve designed and built smaller churches. But I worked on Exeter Cathedral, for several years, finishing up as deputy master builder.”
“You want to build this cathedral yourself, don’t you?”
Tom hesitated. It was as well to be candid with Philip: the man had no patience for prevarication. “Yes, Father. I want you to appoint me master builder,” he said as calmly as he could.
“Why?”
Tom had not expected that question. There were so many reasons. Because I’ve seen it done badly, and I know I could do it well, he thought. Because there is nothing more satisfying, to a master craftsman, than to exercise his skill, except perhaps to make love to a beautiful woman. Because something like this gives meaning to a man’s life. Which answer did Philip want? The prior would probably like him to say something pious. Recklessly, he decided to tell the real truth. “Because it will be beautiful,” he said.
Philip looked at him strangely. Tom could not tell whether he was angry, or something else. “Because it will be beautiful,” Philip repeated. Tom began to feel that was a silly reason, and decided to say something more, but he could not decide what. Then he realized that Philip was not skeptical at all-he was moved. Tom’s words had touched his heart. Finally Philip nodded, as if agreeing after some reflection. “Yes. And what could be better than to make something beautiful for God?” he said.
Tom remained silent. Philip had not said Yes, you shall be master builder. Tom waited.
Philip seemed to reach a decision. “I’m going with Bishop Waleran to see the king in Winchester in three days’ time,” he said. “I don’t know exactly what the bishop plans, but I’m sure we will be asking King Stephen to help us pay for a new cathedral church for Kingsbridge.”
“Let’s hope he grants your wish,” Tom said.
“He owes us a favor,” Philip said with an enigmatic smile. “He ought to help us.”
“And if he does?” Tom said.
“I think God sent you to me with a purpose, Tom Builder,” said Philip. “If King Stephen gives us the money, you can build the church.”
It was Tom’s turn to be moved. He hardly knew what to say. He had been granted his life’s wish-but conditionally. Everything depended on Philip’s getting help from the king. He nodded, accepting the promise and the risk. “Thank you, Father,” he said.
The bell rang for vespers. Tom picked up his board.
“Do you need that?” Philip said.
Tom realized it would be a good idea to leave it here. It would be a constant reminder to Philip. “No, I don’t need it,” he said. “I have it all in my head.”
“Good. I’d like to keep it here.”
Tom nodded and went to the door.
It occurred to him that if he did not ask about Agnes now he probably never would. He turned back. “Father?”
“Yes?”
“My first wife… Agnes, her name was… she died without a priest, and she’s buried in unconsecrated ground. She hadn’t sinned, it was just… the circumstances. I wondered… Sometimes a man builds a chapel, or founds a monastery, in the hope that in the afterlife, God will remember his piety. Do you think my design might serve to protect Agnes’s soul?”
Philip frowned. “Abraham was asked to sacrifice his only son. God no longer asks for blood sacrifices, for the ultimate sacrifice has been made. But the lesson of Abraham’s story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us. Is this design the best thing you could offer God?”
“Except for my children, yes.”
“Then rest easy, Tom Builder. God will accept it.”
Philip had no idea why Waleran Bigod wanted to meet him in the ruins of Earl Bartholomew’s castle.
He had been obliged to travel to the town of Shiring and spend the night there, then set off this morning for Earlscastle. Now, as the horse jogged toward the castle looming up out of the morning mist ahead of him, he decided it was probably a matter of convenience: Waleran was on his way from one place to another, passing no nearer to Kingsbridge than here, and the castle was a handy landmark.
Philip wished he knew more about what Waleran was planning. He had not seen the bishop-elect since the day he had inspected the cathedral ruins. Waleran did not know how much money Philip needed to build the church, and Philip did not know what Waleran was planning to ask from the king. Waleran liked to keep his plans to himself. It made Philip highly nervous.
He was glad to have learned, from Tom Builder, exactly what it would take to build the new cathedral, depressing though the news was. Once again he was glad Tom was around. Tom was a man of surprising depths. He could hardly read or write, but he could design a cathedral, draw plans, calculate the numbers of men and the time it would take to build, and figure out how much all that would cost. He was a quiet man, but despite that he was a formidable presence: he was very tall, with a bearded, weather-beaten face, keen eyes and a high forehead. Philip sometimes felt slightly intimidated by him, and tried to conceal it by adopting a hearty tone. But Tom was very earnest, and anyway he had no idea that Philip found him daunting. The conversation about his wife had been touching, and had revealed a piety that had not previously been apparent. Tom was one of those people who kept his religion deep in his heart. Sometimes they were the best kind.
As Philip approached Earlscastle he felt increasingly uncomfortable. This had once been a thriving castle, defending the countryside all around, employing and feeding large numbers of people. Now it was ruined, and the hovels clustered about it were deserted, like empty nests in the bare branches of a tree in winter. And Philip was responsible for this. He had revealed the conspiracy being hatched here, and had brought down the wrath of God, in the shape of Percy Hamleigh, upon the castle and its inhabitants.
The walls and the gatehouse had not been badly damaged in the fighting, he noted. That meant the attackers had probably got inside before the gates could be shut. He walked his horse across the wooden bridge and entered the first of two compounds. Here the evidence of battle was clearer: apart from the stone chapel, all that remained of the castle buildings was a few charred stumps of wood sticking up out of the ground, and a small whirlwind of ashes blowing along the base of the castle wall.
There was no sign of the bishop. Philip rode through the compound, crossed the bridge at the far side, and entered the upper compound. Here there was a massive stone keep, with an unsteady-looking wooden staircase leading up to its second-floor entrance. Philip gazed up at the forbidding stonework with its mean arrow-slit windows: mighty though it was, it had not protected Earl Bartholomew.
From those windows he would be able to look over the castle walls and watch for the bishop. He tied his horse to the handrail of the staircase and went up.
The door opened to his touch. He stepped inside. The great hall was dark and dusty, and the rushes on the floor were dry as bones. There was a cold fireplace and a spiral stair leading up. Philip went to a window. The dust made him sneeze. He could not see much from the window so he decided to go up to the next floor.
At the top of the spiral stairs he faced two doors. He guessed that the smaller one led to the latrine, the larger one to the earl’s bedroom. He went through the larger door.
The room was not empty.
Philip stopped dead, shocked rigid. There in the middle of the room, facing him, was a young woman of extraordinary beauty. For a moment he thought he was seeing a vision, and his heart raced. She had a cloud of dark curls around a bewitching face. She stared back at him out of large dark eyes, and he realized she was as startled as he. He relaxed, and was about to take another step into the room, when he was seized from behind and felt the cold blade of a long knife at his throat; and a male voice said: “And who the devil are you?”
The girl moved toward him. “Say your name, or Matthew will kill you,” she said regally.
Her manner showed her to be of noble birth, but even nobles were not allowed to threaten monks. “Tell Matthew to take his hands off the prior of Kingsbridge, or it may be the worse for him,” Philip said calmly.
He was released. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw a slight man of about his own age. This Matthew had presumably come out of the latrine.
He turned back to the girl. She appeared to be about seventeen years old. Despite her haughty manner she was shabbily dressed. As he studied her, a chest against the wall behind her opened up, and a teenaged boy got out, looking sheepish. He held a sword. He had been lying in wait, or hiding, Philip could not tell which.
“And who are you?” Philip said.
“I am the daughter of the earl of Shiring, and my name is Aliena.”
The daughter! thought Philip. I didn’t know she was still living here. He looked at the boy. He was about fifteen, and resembled the girl except for a snub nose and short hair. Philip raised an inquiring eyebrow at him.
“I am Richard, the heir to the earldom,” the boy said in a cracked adolescent voice.
Behind Philip, the man said: “And I am Matthew, the steward of the castle.”
The three of them had been hiding here since Earl Bartholomew was captured, Philip realized. The steward was taking care of the children: he must have a store of food or money hidden away. Philip addressed the girl. “I know where your father is, but what about your mother?”
“She died many years ago.”
Philip felt a stab of guilt. The children were virtually orphans, and it was partly his doing. “But haven’t you got relatives to look after you?”
“I’m looking after the castle until my father returns,” she said.
They were living in a dream world, Philip realized. She was trying to live as if she still belonged to a rich and powerful family. With her father imprisoned and in disgrace, she was just another girl. The boy was heir to nothing at all. Earl Bartholomew was never coming back to this castle, unless the king decided to hang him here. He pitied the girl, but in a way he also admired the strength of will that sustained the fantasy and made two other people share it. She might have been a queen, he thought.
From outside came a clatter of hooves on wood: several horses were crossing the bridge. Aliena said to Philip: “Why have you come here?”
“It’s just a rendezvous,” Philip said. He turned around and took a step toward the door. Matthew was in his way. For a moment they stood still, facing one another. The four people in the room made a frozen tableau. Philip wondered if they were going to try to stop him from leaving. Then the steward stood aside.
Philip went out. He held up the skirt of his robe and hurried down the spiral stairs. When he reached the bottom he heard footsteps behind him. Matthew caught him up.
“Don’t tell anyone we’re here,” he said.
Philip saw that Matthew understood the unreality of their position. “How long will you stay here?” he asked.
“As long as we can,” the steward replied.
“And when you have to leave? What will you do then?”
“I don’t know.”
Philip nodded. “I’ll keep your secret,” he said.
“Thank you, Father.”
Philip crossed the dusty hall and stepped outside. Looking down, he saw Bishop Waleran and two others reining in their horses near his own. Waleran wore a heavy cloak trimmed with black fur, and a black fur cap. He looked up, and Philip met his pale eyes. “My lord bishop,” said Philip respectfully. He went down the wooden steps. The image of the virginal girl upstairs was still vivid in his mind, and he felt like shaking his head to get rid of her.
Waleran dismounted. He had the same two companions, Philip saw: Dean Baldwin and the man-at-arms. He nodded to them, then knelt and kissed Waleran’s hand.
Waleran accepted his homage but did not wallow in it: he withdrew his hand after a moment. It was power itself, not its trappings, that Waleran loved.
“On your own, Philip?” Waleran said.
“Yes. The priory is poor, and an escort for me is an unnecessary expense. When I was prior of St-John-in-the-Forest I never had an escort, and I’m still alive.”
Waleran shrugged. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.” He marched off across the courtyard to the nearest tower. Philip followed. Waleran entered the low doorway at the foot of the tower and climbed the staircase inside. There were bats clustered under the low ceiling, and Philip ducked his head to avoid brushing against them.
They emerged at the top of the tower and stood at the battlements, looking out over the land all around. “This is one of the smaller earldoms in the land,” Waleran said.
“Indeed.” Philip shivered. There was a cold, damp wind up here, and his cloak was not as thick as Waleran’s. He wondered what the bishop was leading up to.
“Some of this land is good, but much is forest and stony hillsides.”
“Yes.” On a clear day they might have seen many acres of forest and farmland, but now, although the early mist had gone, they could barely make out the near edge of the forest to the south, and the flat fields around the castle.
“This earldom also has a huge quarry which produces first-class limestone,” Waleran went on. “Its forests contain many acres of good timber. And its farms generate considerable wealth. If we had this earldom, Philip, we could build our cathedral.”
“If pigs had wings they could fly,” Philip said.
“Oh, thou of little faith!”
Philip stared at Waleran. “Are you serious?”
“Very.”
Philip was skeptical, but despite himself he felt a tiny spurt of hope. If only this could come true! But he said: “The king needs military support. He’ll give the earldom to someone who can lead knights into battle.”
“The king owes his crown to the Church, and his victory over Bartholomew to you and me. Knights aren’t all he needs.”
Waleran was serious, Philip saw. Was it possible? Would the king hand over the earldom of Shiring to the Church, to finance the rebuilding of Kingsbridge Cathedral? It was hardly believable, despite Waleran’s arguments. But Philip could not help thinking how marvelous it would be to have the stone, the timber and the money to pay the craftsmen, all handed to him on a plate; and he remembered that Tom Builder had said he could hire sixty masons, and finish the church in eight to ten years. The mere thought was enthralling.
“But what about the former earl?” he said.
“Bartholomew has confessed his treason. He has never denied the plot, but for some time he maintained that what he did was not treason, on the grounds that Stephen was a usurper. However, the king’s torturer has finally broken him.”
Philip shuddered and tried not to think about what they had done to Bartholomew to make that rigid man yield.
He put the thought out of his mind. “The earldom of Shiring,” he murmured to himself. It was an incredibly ambitious demand. But the idea was thrilling. He felt full of irrational optimism.
Waleran glanced up at the sky. “Let’s get moving,” he said. “The king expects us the day after tomorrow.”
William Hamleigh studied the two men of God from his hiding place behind the battlements of the next tower. He knew them both. The tall one, who looked like a blackbird with his pointed nose and his black cloak, was the new bishop of Kingsbridge. The small, energetic one with the shaved head and the bright blue eyes was Prior Philip. William wondered what they were doing here.
He had watched the monk arrive, look around as though he expected to see people here, and then go into the keep. William could not guess whether Philip had met the three people who lived in the keep-he had been inside only a few moments, and they might have hidden from him. As soon as the bishop arrived, Prior Philip had come out of the keep and the two of them had climbed the tower. Now the bishop was gesturing at the land all around the castle with a somewhat proprietorial air. William Could tell by the way they were standing and their gestures that the bishop was being ebullient and the prior skeptical. They were hatching a plot, he felt sure.
However, he had not come here to spy on them. He had come to spy on Aliena.
He did this more and more often. She preyed on his mind all the time, and he suffered involuntary daydreams in which he came across her tied up and naked in a wheat field, or cowering like a frightened puppy in a corner of his bedroom, or lost in the forest late in the evening. It got so that he had to see her in the flesh. He would ride to Earlscastle early in the morning. He left Walter, his groom, looking after the horses in the forest, and he walked across the fields to the castle. He sneaked inside and found a hiding place from which he could observe the keep and the upper compound. Sometimes he had to wait a long time to see her. His patience would be sorely tried, but the thought of going away again without even a glimpse of her was insupportable, so he always stayed. Then, when at last she did appear, his throat dried, and his heart beat faster, and the palms of his hands became damp. Often she was with her brother or the effeminate steward, but sometimes she was alone. One afternoon, in the summer, when he had waited for her since early morning, she had gone to the well, drawn some water, and taken off her clothes to wash. Just the memory of that sight inflamed him all over again. She had deep, proud breasts that moved in a teasing way when she lifted her arms to rub soap into her hair. Her nipples had puckered delightfully when she splashed cold water over herself. There was a surprisingly big bush of dark curly hair between her legs, and when she washed herself there, rubbing vigorously with a soapy hand, William had lost control and ejaculated in his clothes.
Nothing so nice had happened since, and she certainly would not wash herself in winter, but there had been lesser delights. When she was alone she would sing, or even talk to herself. William had seen her braid her hair, and dance, and chase pigeons off the ramparts like a small child. Clandestinely watching her do these little private things, William felt a sense of power over her that was quite delicious.
She would not come out while the bishop and the monk were here, of course. Fortunately they did not stay long. They left the battlements quite quickly, and a few moments later they and their attendants rode out of the castle. Had they come here just to see the view from the battlements? If so, they had been somewhat frustrated by the weather.
The steward had come out for firewood earlier, before the visitors arrived. He did the cooking in the keep. Soon he would come out again and fetch water from the well. William guessed they ate porridge, for they had no oven to bake bread. Later in the day the steward would leave the castle, sometimes taking the boy with him. Once they had gone it was only a matter of time before Aliena emerged.
When he got bored with waiting, William would conjure up the vision of her washing herself. The memory was almost as good as the real thing. But today he was unsettled. The visit of the bishop and the prior seemed to have tainted the atmosphere. Until today there had been an enchanted air about the castle and its three inhabitants, but the arrival of those thoroughly unmagical men on their muddy horses had broken the spell. It was like being disturbed by a noise when in the middle of a wonderful dream: try as he might, he could not stay asleep.
For a while he tried guessing what the visitors had been up to, but he could not fathom it. Nevertheless he felt sure they were scheming something. There was one person who probably could work it out: his mother. He decided to abandon Aliena for today, and ride home to report what he had seen.
They arrived in Winchester at nightfall on the second day. They entered by the King’s Gate, in the south wall of the city, and went directly into the cathedral close. There they parted company. Waleran went to the residence of the bishop of Winchester, a palace in its own grounds adjacent to the cathedral close. Philip went to pay his respects to the prior and beg for a mattress in the monks’ dormitory.
After three days on the road, Philip found the calm and quiet of the monastery as refreshing as a fountain on a hot day. The Winchester prior was a plump, easygoing man with pink skin and white hair. He invited Philip to have supper with him in his house. While they ate they talked about their respective bishops. The Winchester prior was clearly in awe of Bishop Henry and completely subservient to him. Philip surmised that when your bishop was as wealthy and powerful as Henry, there was nothing to be gained by quarreling with him. All the same, Philip did not intend to be so much under the thumb of his bishop.
He slept like a top and got up at midnight for matins.
When he went into Winchester Cathedral for the first time he began to feel intimidated.
The prior had told him that it was the biggest church in the world, and when he saw it he believed it was. It was an eighth of a mile long: Philip had seen villages that could fit inside it. It had two great towers, one over the crossing and the other at the west end. The central tower had collapsed, thirty years earlier, onto the tomb of William Rufus, an ungodly king who probably should not have been buried in a church in the first place; but it had since been rebuilt. Standing directly beneath the new tower, singing matins, Philip felt the whole building had an air of immense dignity and strength. The cathedral Tom had designed would be modest by comparison-if it got built at all. He now realized that he was moving in the very highest of circles, and he felt nervous. He was only a boy from a Welsh hill village who had had the good fortune to become a monk. Today he would speak to the king. What gave him the right?
He went back to bed with the other monks, but he lay awake worrying. He was afraid he might say or do something that would offend King Stephen or Bishop Henry and turn them against Kingsbridge. French-born people often mocked the way the English spoke their language: what would they think of a Welsh accent? In the monastic world, Philip had always been judged by his piety, obedience, and devotion to God’s work. Those things counted for nothing here, in the capital city of one of the greatest kingdoms in the world. Philip was out of his depth. He became oppressed by the feeling that he was some kind of impostor, a nobody pretending to be a somebody, and that he was sure to be found out in no time and sent home in disgrace.
He got up at dawn, went to prime, then took breakfast in the refectory. The monks had strong beer and white bread: this was a wealthy monastery. After breakfast, when the monks went in to chapter, Philip walked over to the bishop’s palace, a fine stone building with large windows, surrounded by several acres of walled garden.
Waleran was confident of getting Bishop Henry’s support in his outrageous scheme. Henry was so powerful that his help might even make the whole thing possible. He was Henry of Blois, the king’s younger brother. As well as being the most well-connected clergyman in England, he was the richest, for he was also abbot of the wealthy monastery of Glastonbury. He was expected to be the next archbishop of Canterbury. Kingsbridge could not have a more powerful ally. Perhaps it really will happen, Philip thought; perhaps the king will enable us to build a new cathedral. When he thought about that he felt as if his heart would burst with hope.
A household steward told Philip that Bishop Henry was not likely to appear before midmorning. Philip was much too wound up to return to the monastery. Feeling impatient, he set out to look at the biggest town he had ever seen.
The bishop’s palace was in the southeast corner of the city. Philip walked along the east wall, through the grounds of yet another monastery, St. Mary’s Abbey, and emerged in a neighborhood that appeared to be devoted to leather and wool. The area was crisscrossed with little streams. Looking closely, Philip realized they were not natural, but man-made channels, diverting part of the River Itchen to flow through the streets and supply the great quantities of water needed for tanning hides and washing fleeces. Such industries were normally established beside a river, and Philip marveled at the audacity of men who could bring the river to their workshops instead of the other way around.
Despite the industry, the town was quieter and less crowded than any other Philip had seen. A place such as Salisbury, or Hereford, seemed constricted by its walls, like a fat man in a tight tunic: the houses were too close together, the backyards too small, the marketplace too crowded, the streets too narrow; and as people and animals jostled for space, there was a feeling that fights could break out at any moment. But Winchester was so big that there seemed to be room for everyone. As he walked around, Philip gradually realized that part of the reason for the spacious feel was that the streets were laid out on a square grid pattern. They were mostly straight and intersected at right angles. He had never seen that before. The town must have been built according to a plan.
There were dozens of churches. They were all shapes and sizes, some of wood and others of stone, each serving its own small neighborhood. The city had to be very rich to support so many priests.
Walking along Fleshmonger Street made him feel faintly ill. He had never seen so much raw meat all in one place. Blood flowed out of the butchers’ shops into the street, and fat rats dodged between the feet of the people who came to buy.
The south end of Fleshmonger Street opened out on to the middle of the High Street, opposite the old royal palace. The palace had not been used by kings since the new keep had been built in the castle, Philip had been told, but the royal moneyers still minted silver pennies in the undercroft of the building, protected by thick walls and iron-barred gates. Philip stood at the bars for a while, watching the sparks fly as the hammers pounded the dies, awestruck by the sheer wealth in front of his eyes.
There was a handful of other people watching the same sight. No doubt it was something all visitors to Winchester looked at. A young woman standing nearby smiled at Philip, and he smiled back. She said: “You can do anything you like for a penny.”
He wondered what she meant, and smiled vaguely again. Then she opened her cloak, and he saw to his horror that underneath it she was completely naked. “Anything you like, for a silver penny,” she said.
He felt a faint stirring of desire, like the ghost of a memory long submerged; then he realized that she was a whore. He felt his face go bright red with embarrassment. He turned quickly and hurried away. “Don’t be afraid,” she called. “I like a nice round head.” Her mocking laughter followed him.
Feeling hot and bothered, he turned down an alley off the High Street and found himself in the marketplace. He could see the towers of the cathedral rising above the market stalls. He hurried through the crowds, oblivious to the blandishments of the vendors, and found his way back into the close.
He felt the ordered calm of the church precincts like a cool breeze. He paused in the graveyard to collect his thoughts. He felt ashamed and outraged. How dare she tempt a man in monk’s robes? She had obviously identified him as a visitor… Was it possible that monks who were away from their home monastery could be customers of hers? Of course it was, he realized. Monks committed all the same sins that ordinary people did. He had just been shocked by the woman’s shamelessness. The sight of her nakedness remained with him, the way the hot heart of a candle flame, stared at for a few moments, would burn on behind closed eyelids.
He sighed. It had been a morning of vivid images: the man-made streams, the rats in the butchers’ shops, the stacks of new-minted silver pennies, and then the woman’s private parts. For a while, he knew, those pictures would come back to him to unsettle his meditations.
He went into the cathedral. He felt too grubby to kneel and pray, but just walking down the nave and out through the south door purified him somewhat. He passed through the priory and went to the bishop’s palace.
The ground floor was a chapel. Philip went up the stairs to the hall and stepped inside. There was a small group of servants and young clergymen near the door, standing around or sitting on the bench up against the wall. At the far end of the room Waleran and Bishop Henry were sitting at a table. Philip was stopped by a steward who said: “The bishops are at breakfast,” as if that meant Philip could not see them.
“I’ll join them at table,” Philip said.
“You’d better wait,” the steward said.
Philip decided that the steward had taken him for an ordinary monk. “I’m the prior of Kingsbridge,” he said.
The steward shrugged and stood aside.
Philip approached the table. Bishop Henry was at the head, with Waleran on his right. Henry was a short, broad-shouldered man with a pugnacious face. He was about the same age as Waleran, a year or two older than Philip; no more than thirty. However, by contrast with Waleran’s dead-white skin and Philip’s own bony frame, Henry had the florid complexion and rounded limbs of a hearty eater. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and his face seemed set in a determined expression. As the youngest of four brothers, he had probably had to fight for everything all his life. Philip was surprised to see that Henry’s head was shaved, a sign that he had at one time taken monastic vows and still considered himself a monk. However, he was not wearing homespun; in fact, he was dressed in the most gorgeous tunic made of purple silk. Waleran was wearing a spotless white linen shirt under his usual black tunic, and Philip realized that both men were dressed up for their audience with the king. They were eating cold beef and drinking red wine. Philip was hungry after his walk, and his mouth watered.
Waleran looked up and saw him, and a look of faint irritation crossed his face.
“Good morning,” Philip said.
Waleran said to Henry: “This is my prior.”
Philip did not much like being described as Waleran’s prior. He said: “Philip of Gwynedd, prior of Kingsbridge, my lord bishop.”
He anticipated kissing the bishop’s beringed hand, but Henry merely said, “Splendid,” and ate another mouthful of beef. Philip stood there rather awkwardly. Were they not going to ask him to sit down?
Waleran said: “We’ll join you shortly, Philip.”
Philip realized he was being dismissed. He turned away, feeling humiliated. He returned to the group around the door. The steward who had tried to turn him back now smirked at him with a look that said I told you so. Philip stood apart from the others. He suddenly felt ashamed of the stained brown robe he had been wearing day and night for half a year. Benedictine monks often dyed their habits black, but Kingsbridge had given that up, years ago, to save money. Philip had always believed that dressing up in fine clothes was sheer vanity, entirely inappropriate for any man of God, no matter how high his rank; but now he saw the point of it. He might not have been treated so dismissively if he had come dressed in silk and furs.
Ah, well, he thought, a monk should be humble, so this must be good for my soul.
The two bishops rose from the table and came to the door. An attendant produced a scarlet robe edged with fine embroidery and silk fringes for Henry. As he was putting it on, Henry said: “You won’t have to say much today, Philip.”
Waleran added: “Leave the talking to us.”
Henry said: “Leave the talking to me,” with the faintest emphasis on the me. “If the king asks you a question or two, answer plainly, and don’t try to dress up the facts too much. He’ll understand your need for a new church without any weeping and wailing on your part.”
Philip did not need to be told that. Henry was being unpleasantly condescending. However, Philip nodded assent and concealed his resentment.
“We’d better go,” Henry said. “My brother is an early riser, and he’s liable to conclude the day’s business rapidly, then go hunting in the New Forest.”
They went out. A man-at-arms, wearing a sword and carrying a staff, went in front of Henry as they walked to the High Street and then up the hill toward the West Gate. People stood aside for the two bishops, but not for Philip, so he ended up walking behind. Now and again someone would call out for a blessing, and Henry would make the sign of the cross in the air without pausing in his stride. Just before the gatehouse they turned aside and walked over a wooden bridge that spanned the castle moat. Despite being assured that he would not have to say much, Philip had a fluttery fear in his belly: he was about to see the king.
The castle occupied the southwest corner of the city. Its western and southern walls were part of the city wall. But the walls that separated the back of the castle from the city were no less high and strong than its outer defenses, as if the king needed protection against the citizens just as much as against the outside world.
They entered by a low gateway in the wall and immediately came upon the massive keep which dominated this end of the Compound. It was a formidable square tower. Counting the arrow-slit windows, Philip reckoned it must have four floors. As usual, the ground floor consisted of storerooms, and an outside staircase led to an upstairs entrance. A pair of sentries at the foot of the stairs bowed as Henry passed.
They went into the hall. There were rushes on the floor, a few seats recessed into the stone walls, some wooden benches and a fireplace. In a corner two men-at-arms guarded a staircase, set into the wall, leading up. One of the men met Bishop Henry’s eye immediately. He nodded and went up the stairs, presumably to tell the king that his brother was waiting.
Philip felt nauseated with anxiety. In the next few minutes his whole future might be decided. He wished he felt better about his allies. He wished he had spent the early morning hours praying for success instead of wandering around Winchester. He wished he had worn a clean robe.
There were twenty or thirty other people in the room, nearly all of them men. They seemed to be a mixture of knights, priests and prosperous townspeople. Suddenly Philip started, surprised: over by the fire, talking to a woman and a young man, was Percy Hamleigh. What was he doing here? The two people with him were his ugly wife and his brutish son. They had been Waleran’s collaborators, as it were, in the downfall of Bartholomew: it could hardly be a coincidence that they were here today. Philip wondered whether Waleran had expected them.
Philip said to Waleran: “Do you see-”
“I see them,” Waleran snapped, visibly displeased.
Philip felt their presence here was ominous, though he could not have said just why. He studied them. The father and son were alike: big, beefy men with yellow hair and sullen faces. The wife looked like the kind of demon that tortured sinners in paintings of hell. She touched the sores on her face constantly, her skeletal hands moving restlessly. She wore a yellow gown that made her look even uglier. She shifted from one foot to another, darting glances around the room all the time. She met Philip’s eyes, and he looked away quickly.
Bishop Henry was moving around, greeting the people he knew and blessing those he did not, but he must have been keeping an eye on the stairs, for as soon as the sentry came down again, Henry looked across at him, saw the man nod, and abandoned his conversation in midsentence.
Waleran followed Henry up the stairs and Philip brought up the rear with his heart in his mouth.
The upstairs room was the same size and shape as the entrance hall, but it felt completely different. There were tapestries on the walls and sheepskin rugs on the scrubbed floorboards. The fire blazed strongly and the room was brightly lit by dozens of candles. Near the door was an oak table with pens, ink and a stack of vellum sheets for letters, and a cleric sat waiting to take the king’s dictation. Near the fireplace, in a big wooden chair covered with fur, sat the king.
The first thing Philip noticed was that he was not wearing a crown. He had on a purple tunic over leather leggings, as if he were about to go out on horseback. Two big hunting dogs lay at his feet like favored courtiers. He resembled his brother Bishop Henry, but Stephen’s features were a little finer, making him more handsome, and he had a lot of tawny hair. However, there was the same look of intelligence about the eyes. He sat back in his big chair-Philip supposed it was a throne-looking relaxed, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his elbows on the arms of the seat, but despite his posture there was an air of tension in the room. The king was the only one at ease.
As the bishops and Philip entered, a big man in expensive clothes was leaving. He nodded in a familiar way to Bishop Henry and ignored Waleran. He was probably a powerful baron, Philip thought.
Bishop Henry approached the king, bowed, and said: “Good morning, Stephen.”
“I still haven’t seen that bastard Ranulf,” said King Stephen. “If he doesn’t show up soon I’m going to cut his fingers off.”
Henry said: “He’ll be here any day, I promise you, but perhaps you should cut his fingers off anyway.”
Philip had no idea who Ranulf was or why the king wanted to see him, but he got the impression that although Stephen was displeased, he was not serious about mutilating the man.
Before Philip could give it any further thought, Waleran stepped forward and bowed, and Henry said: “You remember Waleran Bigod, the new bishop of Kingsbridge.”
“Yes,” Stephen said, “but who’s this?” He looked at Philip.
Waleran said: “This is my prior.”
Waleran did not say his name, so Philip supplied it. “Philip of Gwynedd, prior of Kingsbridge.” His voice sounded louder than he had intended. He bowed.
“Come forward, father prior,” Stephen said. “You seem afraid. What are you worried about?”
Philip could not think how to answer that. He was worried about so many things. In desperation he said: “I’m worried because I don’t have a clean robe to wear.”
Stephen laughed, but not unkindly. “Then stop worrying,” he said. With a glance at his well-dressed brother he added: “I like a monk to look like a monk, not like a king.”
Philip felt a little better.
Stephen said: “I heard about the fire. How are you managing?”
Philip said: “On the day of the fire, God sent us a builder. He repaired the cloisters very quickly, and we use the crypt for services. With his help, we’re clearing the ruins ready for rebuilding; and he has drawn plans for a new church.”
Waleran raised his eyebrows at that: he did not know about the plans. Philip would have told him, if he had asked; but he had not. The king said: “Commendably prompt. When will you begin to build?”
“As soon as I can find the money.”
Bishop Henry cut in: “That’s why I’ve brought Prior Philip and Bishop Waleran to see you. Neither the priory nor the diocese has the resources to finance a project this big.”
“Nor does the Crown, my dear brother,” said Stephen.
Philip was discouraged: that was not a promising beginning.
Henry said: “I know. That’s why I’ve looked for a way in which you could make it possible for them to rebuild Kingsbridge, but at no cost to yourself.”
Stephen looked skeptical. “And did you succeed in devising such an ingenious, not to say magical, scheme?”
“Yes. My suggestion is that you should give the earl of Storing’s lands to the diocese to finance the building program.”
Philip held his breath.
The king looked thoughtful.
Waleran opened his mouth to speak, but Henry silenced him with a gesture.
The king said: “It’s a clever idea. I’d like to do it.”
Philip’s heart leaped.
The king said: “Unfortunately, I’ve just virtually promised the earldom to Percy Hamleigh.”
A groan escaped Philip’s lips. He had thought the king was going to say yes. The disappointment was like a knife wound.
Henry and Waleran were dumbstruck. No one had anticipated this.
Henry was the first to speak. He said: “Virtually?”
The king shrugged. “I might wriggle out of it, although not without considerable embarrassment. But after all, it was Percy who brought the traitor Bartholomew to justice.”
Waleran burst out: “Not without help, my lord!”
“I knew you had played some part in it…”
“It was I who told Percy Hamleigh of the plot against you.”
“Yes. By the way, how did you learn of it?”
Philip shuffled his feet. They were on dangerous ground. No one must know that the information had come originally from his brother, Francis, for Francis was still working for Robert of Gloucester, who had been forgiven for his part in the plot.
Waleran said: “The information came from a deathbed confession.”
Philip was relieved. Waleran was repeating the lie Philip had told him, but speaking as if the “confession” had been made to him rather than to Philip. Philip was more than content to have attention drawn away from his own role in this.
The king said: “Still, it was Percy, not you, who attacked Bartholomew’s castle, risking life and limb, and arrested the traitor.”
“You could reward Percy some other way,” Henry put in.
“Shiring is what Percy wants,” the king said. “He knows the area. And he’ll rule effectively there. I could give him Cambridgeshire, but would the fenmen follow him?”
Henry said: “You ought to give thanks to God first, men second. It was God who made you king.”
“But it was Percy who arrested Bartholomew.”
Henry bridled at this irreverence. “God controls all things-”
“Don’t press me on this,” Stephen said, holding up his right hand.
“Of course,” Henry said submissively.
It was a vivid demonstration of royal power. For a moment there they had been arguing almost like equals, but Stephen had been able to regain the upper hand with a word.
Philip was bitterly disappointed. At the start he had thought this an impossible demand, but he had gradually come to hope it would be granted, even to fantasize about how he would use the wealth. Now he had been brought back to reality with a hard bump.
Waleran said: “My lord king, I thank you for being willing to reconsider the future of the Shiring earldom, and I will await your decision anxiously and prayerfully.”
That was neat, Philip thought. It sounded as if Waleran was giving in gracefully. In fact he was summing up by saying that the question was still open. The king had not said that. If anything, his response had been negative. But there was nothing offensive about insisting that the king could still decide one way or the other. I must remember that, Philip thought: when you’re about to be turned down, go for a postponement.
Stephen hesitated a moment, as if entertaining a faint suspicion that he was being manipulated; then he seemed to dismiss any doubts. “Thank you all for coming to see me,” he said.
Philip and Waleran turned to leave, but Henry stood his ground and said: “When shall we hear your decision?”
Stephen once again looked somewhat cornered. “The day after tomorrow,” he said.
Henry bowed, and the three of them went out.
The uncertainty was almost as bad as a negative decision. Philip found the waiting unbearable. He spent the afternoon with the Winchester priory’s marvelous collection of books, but they could not distract him from wondering what was going on in the king’s mind. Could the king renege on his promise to Percy Hamleigh? How important was Percy? He was a member of the gentry who aspired to an earldom-surely Stephen had no reason to fear offending him. But how badly did Stephen want to help Kingsbridge? Notoriously, kings became pious as they aged. Stephen was young.
Philip was turning the possibilities over and over in his mind, and looking at but not reading Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy, when a novice came tiptoeing along the cloister walk and approached him shyly. “There’s someone asking for you in the outer court, Father,” the lad whispered.
If the visitor had been made to wait outside, that meant he was not a monk. “Who is it?” Philip said.
“It’s a woman.”
Philip’s first, horrified thought was that it was the whore who had accosted him outside the mint; but something in the novice’s expression told him otherwise. There was another woman whose eyes had met his today. “What does she look like?”
The boy made a disgusted face.
Philip nodded, understanding. “Regan Hamleigh.” What mischief was she up to now? “I’ll come at once.”
He walked slowly and thoughtfully around the cloisters and out to the courtyard. He would need his wits about him to deal with this woman.
She was standing outside the cellarer’s parlor, wrapped in a heavy cloak, hiding her face in a hood. She gave Philip a look of such naked malevolence that he had half a mind to turn around and go back in immediately; but he was ashamed to run from a woman, so he stood his ground and said: “What do you want with me?”
“You foolish monk,” she spat. “How can you be so stupid?”
He felt his face redden. “I’m the prior of Kingsbridge, and you’d better call me Father,” he said; but to his chagrin he sounded petulant rather than authoritative.
“All right, Father-how can you just let yourself be used by those two greedy bishops?”
Philip took a deep breath. “Speak plainly,” he said angrily.
“It’s hard to find words plain enough for someone as witless as you, but I’ll try. Waleran is using the burned-down church as a pretext for getting the lands of the Shiring earldom for himself. Is that plain speaking? Have you grasped that concept?”
Her contemptuous tone continued to rile Philip, but he could not resist the temptation to defend himself. “There’s nothing underhand about it,” he said. “The income from the lands is to be used to rebuild the cathedral.”
“What makes you think so?”
“That’s the whole idea!” Philip protested; but at the back of his mind he already felt the first stirrings of doubt.
Regan’s scornful tone changed and she became sly. “Will the new lands belong to the priory?” she said. “Or to the diocese?”
Philip stared at her for a moment, then turned away: her face was too revolting to look at. He had been working on the assumption that the lands would belong to the priory, and be under his control, rather than to the diocese, where they would be under Waleran’s control. But he now recalled that when they had been with the king. Bishop Henry had specifically asked for the lands to be given to the diocese. Philip had assumed that was a slip of the tongue. But it had not been corrected, then or later.
He eyed Regan suspiciously. She could not possibly have known what Henry was going to say to the king. She might be right about this. On the other hand, she could simply be trying to make trouble. She had everything to gain from a quarrel between Philip and Waleran at this point, Philip said: “Waleran is the bishop-he has to have a cathedral.”
“He has to have a lot of things,” she rejoined. She became less malevolent and more human as she began to reason, but Philip still could not bear to look at her for long. “For some bishops, a fine cathedral would be the first priority. For Waleran there are other necessities. Anyway, as long as he controls the purse strings, he will be able to dole out as much or as little as he likes to you and your builders.”
Philip realized she was right about that, at least. If Waleran was collecting the rents, he would naturally retain a portion for his expenses. He alone would be able to say what that portion should be. There would be nothing to stop him from diverting the funds to purposes having nothing to do with the cathedral, if he so chose. And Philip would never know, from one month to the next, whether he was going to be able to pay the builders.
There was no doubt it would be better if the priory owned the land. But Philip was sure Waleran would resist that idea, and Bishop Henry would back Waleran. Then Philip’s only hope would be to appeal to the king. And King Stephen, seeing the churchmen divided, might solve the problem by giving the earldom to Percy Hamleigh.
Which was what Regan wanted, of course.
Philip shook his head. “If Waleran is trying to deceive me, why did he bring me here at all? He could have come on his own, and made the same plea.”
She nodded. “He could have. But the king might have asked himself how sincere Waleran was, saying that he only wanted the earldom in order to build a cathedral. You’ve lulled any suspicions Stephen might have had, by appearing here in support of Waleran’s claim.” Her tone became contemptuous again. “And you look so pathetic, in your dirty robe, that the king pities you. No, Waleran was clever to bring you.”
Philip had a horrible feeling she might be right, but he was not willing to admit it. “You just want the earldom for your husband,” he said.
“If I could show you proof, would you ride half a day to see it?”
The last thing Philip wanted was to be sucked into Regan Hamleigh’s scheming. But he had to find out whether her allegation was true. Reluctantly, he said: “Yes, I’ll ride half a day.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Be ready at dawn.”
It was William Hamleigh, the son of Percy and Regan, who was waiting for Philip in the outer courtyard the following morning as the monks began to sing prime. Philip and William left Winchester by the West Gate, then immediately turned north on Athelynge Street. Bishop Waleran’s palace was in this direction, Philip realized; and it was about half a day’s ride. So that was where they were going. But why? He was deeply suspicious. He decided to be alert for trickery. The Hamleighs might well be trying to use him. He speculated about how. There might be a document in Waleran’s possession that the Hamleighs wanted to see or even steal-some kind of deed or charter. Young Lord William could tell the bishop’s staff that the two of them had been sent to fetch the document: they might believe him because Philip was with him. William could easily have some such little scheme up his sleeve. Philip would have to be on his guard.
It was a gloomy, gray morning with drizzling rain. William set a brisk pace for the first few miles, then slowed to a walk to rest the horses. After a while he said: “So, monk, you want to take the earldom away from me.”
Philip was taken aback by his hostile tone: he had done nothing to deserve it, and he resented it. Consequently his reply was sharp. “From you?” he said. “You aren’t going to get it, boy. I might get it, or your father might, or Bishop Waleran might. But nobody has asked the king to give it to you. The very idea is a joke.”
“I shall inherit it.”
“We’ll see.” Philip decided there was no point in quarreling with William. “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I just want to build a new cathedral.”
“Then take someone else’s earldom,” William said. “Why do people always pick on us?”
There was a lot of bitterness in the boy’s voice, Philip noted. He said: “Do people always pick on you?”
“You’d think they’d learn a lesson from what happened to Bartholomew. He insulted our family, and look where he is now.”
“I thought it was his daughter who was responsible for the insult.”
“The bitch is as proud and arrogant as her father. But she’ll suffer, too. They’ll all kneel to us in the end, you’ll see.”
These were not the usual emotions of a twenty-year-old, Philip thought. William sounded more like an envious and venomous middle-aged woman. Philip was not enjoying the conversation. Most people would dress up their naked hatred in reasonable clothes, but William was too naive to do that. Philip said: “Revenge is best left until the Day of Judgment.”
“Why don’t you wait until the Day of Judgment to build your church?”
“Because by then it will be too late to save the souls of sinners from the torments of hell.”
“Don’t start on about that!” William said, and there was a note of hysteria in his voice. “Save it for your sermons.”
Philip was tempted to make another sharp retort, but he bit it back. There was something very odd about this boy. Philip had the feeling that William could fly into an uncontrollable rage at any moment, and that when enraged he would be lethally violent. Philip was not afraid of him. He had no fear of violent men, perhaps because as a child he had seen the worst they could do and survived it. But there was nothing to be gained by infuriating William with reprimands, so he said gently: “Heaven and hell is what I deal in. Virtue and sin, forgiveness and punishment, good and evil. I’m afraid I can’t shut up about them.”
“Then talk to yourself,” William said, and he spurred his horse into a trot and pulled ahead.
When he was forty or fifty yards in front he slowed down again. Philip wondered whether the boy would relent and return to ride side by side, but he did not, and for the rest of the morning they traveled apart.
Philip felt anxious and somewhat depressed. He had lost control of his destiny. He had let Waleran Bigod take charge in Winchester, and now he was letting William Hamleigh take him on a mystery journey. They’re all trying to manipulate me, he thought; why am I letting them? It’s time I started to take the initiative. But there was nothing he could do, right away, except turn around and go back to Winchester, and that seemed like a futile gesture, so he continued to follow William, staring gloomily at William’s horse’s rear end as they jogged along.
A little before noon they reached the valley where the bishop’s palace was. Philip recalled coming here at the beginning of the year, full of trepidation, bringing with him a deadly secret. An awful lot had changed since then.
To his surprise, William rode past the palace and on up the hill. The road narrowed to a simple path between fields: it led nowhere important, Philip knew. As they approached the top of the hill, Philip saw that some kind of building work was going on. A little below the summit they were stopped by a bank of earth that looked as if it had been dug up recently. Philip was struck by an awful suspicion.
They turned aside and rode alongside the bank until they found a gap. They went through. Inside the bank was a dry moat, filled in at this point to allow people to cross.
Philip said: “Is this what we came to see?”
William just nodded.
Philip’s suspicion was confirmed. Waleran was building a castle. He was devastated.
He kicked his horse forward and crossed the ditch, with William following. The ditch and the bank encircled the top of the hill. On the inside rim of the ditch a thick stone wall had been built to a height of two or three feet. The wall was clearly unfinished, and judging by its thickness it was intended to be very high.
Waleran was building a castle, but there were no workmen on the site, no tools to be seen, and no stacks of stone or timber. A great deal had been done in a short time; then work had stopped suddenly. Obviously Waleran had run out of money.
Philip said to William: “I suppose there’s no doubt that it is the bishop who is building this castle.”
William said: “Would Waleran Bigod allow anyone else to build a castle next to his palace?”
Philip felt hurt and humiliated. The picture was crystal clear: Bishop Waleran wanted the Shiring earldom, with its quarry and its timber, to build his own castle, not the cathedral. Philip was merely a tool, the burning of Kingsbridge Cathedral just a convenient excuse. Their role was to enliven the king’s piety so that he would grant Waleran the earldom.
Philip saw himself as Waleran and Henry must see him: naive, compliant, smiling and nodding as he was led to the slaughter. They had judged him so well! He had trusted them and deferred to them, he had even borne their slights with a brave smile, because he thought they were helping him, when all the time they were double-crossing him.
He was shocked by Waleran’s unscrupulousness. He recalled the look of sadness in Waleran’s eyes as he looked at the ruined cathedral. Philip had glimpsed the deep-rooted piety in Waleran at that moment. Waleran must think that pious ends justified dishonest means in the service of the Church. Philip had never believed that. I would never do to Waleran what Waleran is trying to do to me, he thought.
He had never before thought of himself as gullible. He wondered where he had gone wrong. It occurred to him that he had let himself be overawed-by Bishop Henry and his silk robes, by the magnificence of Winchester and its cathedral, by the piles of silver in the mint and the heaps of meat in the butchers’ shops, and by the thought of seeing the king. He had forgotten that God saw through the silk robes to the sinful heart, that the only wealth worth having was treasure in heaven, and that even the king had to kneel down in church. Feeling that everyone else was so much more powerful and sophisticated than he was, he had lost sight of his true values, suspended his critical faculties, and placed his trust in his superiors. His reward had been treachery.
He took one more look around the rainswept building site, then turned his horse and rode away, feeling wounded. William followed. “What about that, then, monk?” William jeered. Philip did not reply.
He recalled that he had helped Waleran become bishop. Waleran had said: “You want me to make you prior of Kingsbridge. I want you to make me bishop.” Of course, Waleran had not revealed that the bishop was already dead, so the promise had seemed somewhat insubstantial. And it had seemed that Philip was obliged to give the promise in order to secure his election as prior. But these were just excuses. The truth was that he should have left the choice of prior and bishop in the hands of God.
He had not made that pious decision, and his punishment was that he had to contend with Bishop Waleran.
When he thought about how he had been slighted, condescended to, manipulated and deceived, he became angry. Obedience was a monastic virtue, but outside the cloisters it had its drawbacks, he thought bitterly. The world of power and property required that a man be suspicious, demanding, and insistent.
“Those lying bishops made a fool of you, didn’t they?” William said.
Philip reined in his horse. Shaking with rage, he pointed a ringer at William. “Shut your mouth, boy. You’re speaking of God’s holy priests. If you say another word you’ll burn for it, I promise you.”
William went white with fear.
Philip kicked his horse on. William’s sneer reminded him that the Hamleighs had an ulterior motive in taking him to see Waleran’s castle. They wanted to cause a quarrel between Philip and Waleran to ensure that the disputed earldom would go to neither the prior nor the bishop, but to Percy. Well, Philip was not going to be manipulated by them, either. He had finished being manipulated. From now on he would do the manipulating.
That was all very well, but what could be done? If Philip quarreled with Waleran, Percy would get the lands; and if Philip did nothing, Waleran would get them.
What did the king want? He wanted to help build the new cathedral: that kind of thing was appropriately kingly, and would benefit his soul in the afterlife. But he needed to reward Percy’s loyalty, too. Oddly enough, there was no particular pressure on him to please the more powerful men, the two bishops. It occurred to Philip that there might be a solution to the dilemma that would solve the king’s problem by satisfying both himself and Percy Hamleigh.
Now there was a thought.
The idea pleased him. An alliance between himself and the Hamleighs was the last thing anyone expected-and for that reason it just might work. The bishops would be completely unprepared for it. They would be caught wrong-footed.
That would be a delightful reversal.
But could he negotiate a deal with the grasping Hamleighs? Percy wanted the rich farmland of Shiring, the title of earl, and the power and prestige of a force of knights under his command. Philip, too, wanted the rich farmland, but he did not want the title or the knights: he was more interested in the quarry and the forest.
The form of a compromise began to take shape in Philip’s mind. He began to think that all was not yet lost.
How sweet it would be to win now, after all that had happened.
With mounting excitement, he considered his approach to the Hamleighs. He was determined he would not play the role of supplicant. He would have to make his proposal seem irresistible.
By the time they reached Winchester, Philip’s cloak was soaked through, and his horse was bad-tempered, but he thought he had the answer.
As they passed under the arch of the West Gate he said to William: “Let’s go and see your mother.”
William was surprised. “I thought you would want to see Bishop Waleran right away.”
No doubt that was what Regan had told William to expect. “Don’t bother to tell me what you thought, lad,” Philip snapped. “Just take me to your mother.” He felt very ready for a confrontation with Lady Regan. He had been passive too long.
William turned south and led Philip to a house in Gold Street, between the castle and the cathedral. It was a large dwelling with stone walls to waist level and a timber frame above. Inside was an entrance hall with several apartments off it. The Hamleighs were probably lodging here: many Winchester citizens rented rooms to people who were attending the royal court. If Percy became earl he would have his own town house.
William showed Philip into a front room with a big bed in it and a fireplace. Regan was sitting by the fire and Percy was standing near her. Regan looked up at Philip with an expression of surprise, but she recovered quickly enough, and said: “Well, monk-was I right?”
“You were as wrong as you could be, you foolish woman,” Philip said harshly.
She was shocked into silence by his angry tone.
He was gratified by the effect of giving her a taste of her own medicine. He went on in the same tone. “You thought you could cause a quarrel between me and Waleran. Did you imagine I wouldn’t see what you were up to? You’re a sly vixen but you’re not the only person in the world who can think.”
He could see by her face that she realized her plan had not worked, and she was thinking furiously what to do next. He pressed on while she was disconcerted.
“You’ve failed, Regan. You’ve got two options now. One is to sit tight and hope for the best. Wait for the king’s decision. Take your chances on his mood tomorrow morning.” He paused.
She spoke reluctantly. “And the alternative?”
“The alternative is that we make a deal, you and I. We divide the earldom between us, leaving nothing for Waleran. We go to the king privately and tell him we’ve reached a compromise, and get his blessing for it before the bishops can object.” Philip sat down on a bench and pretended a casual air. “It’s your best chance. You’ve got no real choice.” He looked into the fire, not wanting her to see how tense he was. The idea had to appeal to them, he thought. It was the certainty of getting something weighed against the possibility of getting nothing. But they were greedy-they might prefer an all-or-nothing gamble.
It was Percy who spoke first. “Divide the earldom? How?”
They were interested, at least, Philip thought with relief. “I’m going to propose a division so generous that you would be mad to turn it down,” Philip said to him. He turned back to Regan. “I’m offering you the best half.”
They looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but he said no more. Regan said: “What do you mean, the best half?”
“What is more valuable-arable land or forest?”
“Arable land, certainly.”
“Then you shall have the arable and I’ll have the forest.”
Regan narrowed her eyes. “That will give you timber for your cathedral.”
“Correct.”
“What about pasture?”
“Which do you want-the cattle pastures or the sheep grazing?”
“The pasture.”
“Then I’ll have the hill farms with their sheep. Would you like the income from markets, or the quarry?”
Percy said: “The market inc-”
Regan interrupted him. “Suppose we said the quarry?”
Philip knew she had understood what was on his mind. He wanted the stone from the quarry for his cathedral. He knew she did not want the quarry. The markets made more money for less effort. He said confidently: “You won’t, though, will you?”
She shook her head. “No. We’ll take the markets.”
Percy tried to look as if he were being fleeced. “I need the forest to hunt,” he said. “An earl must have some hunting.”
“You can hunt there,” Philip said quickly. “I just want the timber.”
“That’s agreeable,” Regan said. Her agreement came a little too quickly for Philip’s comfort. He felt a pang of anxiety. Had he given something important away without knowing it? Or was she simply impatient to dispose of a trifling detail? Before he could give it much thought she went on: “Suppose we go through the deeds and charters in Earl Bartholomew’s old treasury and find there are some lands that we think should be ours and you think should be yours?”
The fact that she was getting down to such details encouraged Philip to think she was going to accept his proposal. He concealed his excitement and spoke coolly. “We’ll have to agree on an arbitrator. How about Bishop Henry?”
“A priest?” she said with a touch of her habitual scorn. “Would he be objective? No. How about the sheriff of Shiring?”
He would be no more objective than the bishop, Philip thought; but he could not think of anyone who would satisfy both sides, so he said: “Agreed-on condition that if we dispute his decision we have the right to appeal to the king.” That ought to be a sufficient safeguard.
“Agreed,” Regan said; then she glanced at Percy and added: “If my husband pleases.”
Percy said: “Yes, yes.”
Philip knew he was close to success. He took a deep breath and said: “If the overall proposal is agreed, then-”
“Wait a moment.” Regan stopped him. “It’s not agreed.”
“But I’ve given you everything you want.”
“We might yet get the whole earldom, no division.”
“And you might get nothing at all.”
Regan hesitated. “How do you propose to handle this, if we do agree?”
Philip had thought of that. He looked at Percy. “Could you get to see the king tonight?”
Percy looked anxious, but he said: “If I had a good reason-yes.”
“Go to him and tell him we’ve reached an agreement. Ask him to announce it as his decision tomorrow morning. Assure him that you and I will declare ourselves satisfied with it.”
“What if he asks whether the bishops have agreed to it?”
“Say there hasn’t been time to put it to them. Remind him that it is the prior, not the bishop, who has to build the cathedral. Imply that if I am satisfied the bishops must be too.”
“But what if the bishops complain when the deal is announced?”
“How can they?” Philip said. “They’re pretending to ask for the earldom solely in order to finance the cathedral. Waleran can hardly protest on the grounds that he will now be unable to divert funds to other purposes.”
Regan gave a short cackle. Philip’s cunning appealed to her. “It’s a good plan,” she said.
“There’s an important condition,” Philip said, and he looked her in the eye. “The king must announce that my share goes to the priory. If he doesn’t make that clear, I’ll ask him to. If he says anything else-the diocese, the sacrist, the archbishop, anything-I’ll repudiate the whole deal. I don’t want you to be in any doubt about that.”
“I understand,” said Regan, a little tetchily.
Her irritation made Philip suspect that she had been toying with the idea of presenting to the king a slightly different version of the agreement. He was glad he had made the point firmly.
He got up to leave, but he wanted to set the seal on their pact somehow. “We are agreed, then,” he said, with just the hint of a question in his voice. “We have a solemn pact.” He looked at them both.
Regan gave a slight nod, and Percy said: “We have a pact.”
Philip’s heart beat faster. “Good,” he said tightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the castle.” He kept his face expressionless as he left the room, but when he reached the dark street he relaxed his control and permitted himself a broad, triumphant grin.
Philip fell into a troubled, anxious sleep after supper. He got up at midnight for matins, then lay awake on his straw mattress, wondering what would happen tomorrow. He felt King Stephen ought to consent to the proposal. It solved the king’s problem: it gave him an earl and a cathedral. He was not so sure that Waleran would take it lying down, despite what he had said to Lady Regan. Waleran might find an excuse to object to the arrangement. He might, if he thought fast enough, protest that the deal did not provide the money to build the impressive, prestigious, richly decorated cathedral he wanted. The king might be persuaded to think again.
A different hazard occurred to Philip shortly before dawn: Regan might double-cross him. She could do a deal with Waleran. Suppose she offered the bishop the same compromise? Waleran would have the stone and timber he needed for his castle. This possibility agitated Philip and he turned restlessly in his bed. He wished he could have gone to the king himself, but the king probably would not have received him-and anyway, Waleran might have learned of it and become suspicious. No, there was no action he could have taken to guard against the risk of a double-cross. All he could do now was pray.
He did that until dawn.
He took breakfast with the monks. He found that their white bread did not keep the stomach full as long as horsebread; but even so he could not eat much of it today. He went early to the castle, although he knew the king would not be receiving people at that hour. He entered the hall and sat on one of the stone wall-seats to wait.
The room slowly filled up with petitioners and courtiers. Some of them were very brightly dressed, with yellow and blue and pink tunics and lush fur trimmings on their cloaks. The famous Domesday Book was kept somewhere in this castle, Philip recalled. It was probably in the hall above, where the king had received Philip and the two bishops: Philip had not noticed it, but he had been too tense to notice much. The royal treasury was here, too, but that was presumably on the top floor, in a vault off the king’s bedroom. Once again Philip found himself somewhat awestruck by his surroundings, but he had resolved not to be intimidated any longer. These people in their fine robes, knights and lords and merchants and bishops, were just men. Most of them could not write much more than their own names. Furthermore, they were all here to get something for themselves, but he, Philip, was here on behalf of God. His mission, and his dirty brown robe, put him above the other petitioners, not below them.
That thought gave him courage.
A ripple of tension ran through the room as a priest appeared on the stairs leading to the upper hall. Everyone hoped that meant the king was receiving. The priest exchanged a few murmured words with one of the armed guards, then disappeared back up the stairs. The guard picked out a knight from the crowd. The knight left his sword with the guards and went up the stairs.
Philip thought what an odd life the king’s clergymen must lead. The king had to have clergy, of course, not just to say mass, but to do the vast amount of reading and writing involved in governing the kingdom. There was nobody else to do it, other than clergy: those few laymen who were literate could not read or write fast enough. But there was nothing very holy about the life of the king’s clergy. Philip’s own brother, Francis, had chosen that life, and worked for Robert of Gloucester. I must ask him what it’s like, Philip thought, if I ever see him again.
Soon after the first petitioner went up the stairs, the Hamleighs came in.
Philip resisted the impulse to go to them straightaway: he did not want the world to know they were in collusion, not yet. He stared at them intently, studying their expressions, trying to read their thoughts. He decided that William looked hopeful, Percy seemed anxious, and Regan was as taut as a bowstring. After a few moments, Philip stood up and crossed the room, as casually as he could manage. He greeted them politely, then said to Percy: “Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He said he would think about it overnight.”
“But why?” Philip said. He was disappointed and cross. “What is there to think about?”
Percy shrugged. “Ask him.”
Philip was exasperated. “Well, how did he seem-pleased, or what?”
Regan answered. “My guess is that he liked the idea of being released from his dilemma but felt suspicious that it all sounded too easy.”
That made sense, but Philip was still annoyed that King Stephen had not seized the opportunity with both hands. “We’d better not talk any longer,” he said after a moment. “We don’t want the bishops to guess that we’re colluding against them-not before the king makes his announcement.” He nodded politely and moved away.
He returned to his stone seat. He tried to pass the time by thinking about what he would do if his plan worked. How soon could work start on the new cathedral? It depended on how quickly he could get some cash out of his new property. There would be quite a lot of sheep: he would have fleeces to sell in the summer. Some of the hill farms would be rented, and most rents fell due soon after harvesttime. By the autumn there might be enough money to hire a forester and a master quarryman and begin stockpiling timber and stone. At the same time, laborers could start to dig the foundations, under the supervision of Tom Builder. They might be ready to start stonework sometime next year.
It was a fine dream.
Courtiers went up and down the stairs with alarming rapidity: King Stephen was working fast today. Philip began to worry that the king might finish his day’s work and go hunting before the bishops arrived.
At last they came. Philip got to his feet slowly as they walked in. Waleran looked tense, but Henry just looked bored. To Henry this was a minor matter: he owed support to his fellow bishop, but the outcome would make little difference to him. For Waleran, however, the outcome was crucial to his plan to build a castle-and a castle was only a step in Waleran’s upward progress on the ladder of power.
Philip was not sure how to treat them. They had tried to trick him, and he wanted to rail at them, to tell them that he had discovered their treachery; but that would alert them that something was up, and he wanted them all unsuspecting, so that the compromise would be endorsed by the king before they could gather their wits. So he concealed his feelings and smiled politely. He need not have bothered: they ignored him completely.
It was not long before the guards called them. Henry and Waleran went up the stairs first, followed by Philip. The Hamleighs brought up the rear. Philip’s heart was in his mouth.
King Stephen was standing in front of the fire. Today he seemed to have a more brisk and businesslike air. That was good: he would be impatient of any quibbling by the bishops. Bishop Henry went and stood beside his brother at the fire, and the others all stood in a line in the middle of the room. Philip felt a pain in his hands, and realized he was pressing his fingernails into his palms. He forced his fingers to relax.
The king spoke to Bishop Henry in a low voice that no one else could hear. Henry frowned and said something equally inaudible. They talked for a few moments, then Stephen held up a hand to silence his brother. He looked at Philip.
Philip reminded himself that the king had spoken kindly to him last time, joshing him about being nervous and saying he liked a monk to dress like a monk.
There were no pleasantries today, however. The king coughed and began. “My loyal subject, Percy Hamleigh, today becomes the earl of Shiring.”
From the corner of his eye, Philip saw Waleran start forward, as if to protest; but Bishop Henry stopped him with a quick, forbidding gesture.
The king went on: “Of the former earl’s possessions, Percy shall have the castle, all the land that is tenanted to knights, plus all other arable land and low-lying pasture.”
Philip could hardly contain his excitement. It looked as if the king had accepted the deal! He stole another look at Waleran, whose face was a picture of frustration.
Percy knelt in front of the king and held his hands together in an attitude of prayer. The king placed his hands over Percy’s. “I make you, Percy, earl of Shiring, to have and enjoy the lands and revenues aforesaid.”
Percy said: “I swear by all that is holy to be your liege man and to fight for you against any other.”
Stephen released Percy’s hands, and Percy stood up.
Stephen turned to the rest of them. “All other farmlands belonging to the former earl, I give”-he paused for a moment, looking from Philip to Waleran and back again-“I give to the priory of Kingsbridge, for the building of the new cathedral.”
Philip suppressed a whoop of joy-he had won! He could not stop himself from beaming with pleasure at the king. He looked at Waleran. Waleran was shocked to the core. He was making no pretense of equanimity: his mouth was open, his eyes were wide, and he was staring at the king with frank incredulity. His gaze swiveled to Philip. Waleran knew he had failed, somehow, and that Philip was the beneficiary of his failure; but he could not imagine how it had happened.
King Stephen said: “Kingsbridge Priory shall also have the right to take stone from the earl’s quarry and timber from his forest, without limit, for the building of the new cathedral.”
Philip’s throat went dry. That was not the deal! The quarry and the forest were supposed to belong to the priory, and Percy was only to have hunting rights. Regan had altered the terms after all. Now Percy was to own the property and the priory merely had the right to take timber and stone. Philip had only a few seconds to decide whether to repudiate the whole deal. The king was saying: “In the event of a disagreement, the sheriff of Shiring shall adjudicate, but the parties have the right to appeal to me as a last resort.” Philip was thinking: Regan has behaved outrageously, but what difference does it make? The deal still gives me most of what I wanted. Then the king said: “I believe this arrangement had already been approved by both sides here.” And there was no time left.
Percy said: “Yes, lord king.”
Waleran opened his mouth to deny that he had approved the compromise, but Philip got in first. “Yes, lord king,” he said.
Bishop Henry and Bishop Waleran both turned their heads to Philip and stared at him. Their expressions showed utter astonishment as they realized that Philip, the youthful prior who did not even know enough to wear a clean habit to the king’s court, had negotiated a deal with the king behind their backs. After a moment, Henry’s face relaxed into amusement, like one who is beaten at nine-men’s morris by a nimble-wilted child; but Waleran’s gaze became malevolent. Philip felt he could read Waleran’s mind. Waleran was realizing that he had made the cardinal error of underestimating his opponent, and he was humiliated. For Philip, this moment made up for everything: the treachery, the humiliation, the slights. Philip lifted his chin, risking committing the sin of pride, and gave Waleran a look that said: You’ll have to try harder than that to outwit Philip of Gwynedd.
The king said: “Let the former earl, Bartholomew, be told of my decision.”
Bartholomew was in a dungeon somewhere nearby, Philip presumed. He remembered those children, living with their servant in the ruined castle, and he felt a pang of guilt as he wondered what would happen to them now.
The king dismissed everyone except Bishop Henry. Philip crossed the room floating on air. He reached the top of the staircase at the same time as Waleran, and stopped to let Waleran go first. Waleran shot him a look of poisonous fury. When he spoke his voice was like bile, and despite Philip’s elation, Waleran’s words chilled him to the bone. The mask of hatred opened its mouth, and Waleran hissed: “I swear by all that’s holy, you’ll never build your church.” Then he pulled his black robes around his shoulders and went down the stairs.
Philip realized he had made an enemy for life.
William Hamleigh could hardly contain his excitement when Earlscastle came into sight.
It was the afternoon of the day after the king had made his decision. William and Walter had ridden for most of two days but William did not feel tired. He felt as if his heart was swelling up in his chest and blocking his throat. He was about to see Aliena again.
He had once hoped to marry her because she was the daughter of an earl, and she had rejected him, three times. He winced as he remembered her scorn. She had made him feel like a nobody, a peasant; she had acted as if the Hamleighs were a family of no account. But the tables had turned. It was her family that was of no account, now. He was the son of an earl, and she was nothing. She had no title, no position, no land, no wealth. He was going to take possession of the castle, and he was going to throw her out, and then she would have no home either. It was almost too good to be true.
He slowed his horse as they approached the castle. He did not want Aliena to have any warning of his arrival: he wanted her to have a sudden, horrible, devastating shock.
Earl Percy and Countess Regan had returned to their old manor house at Hamleigh, to arrange for the treasure, the best horses, and the household servants to be moved to the castle. William’s job was to hire some local people to clean up the castle, light fires, and make the place habitable.
Low iron-gray clouds boiled across the sky, so close they seemed almost to touch the battlements. There would be rain tonight. That made it even better. He would be throwing Aliena out into a storm.
He and Walter dismounted and walked their horses over the wooden drawbridge. Last time I was here I captured the place, William thought proudly. The grass was already growing in the lower compound. They tied up their horses and left them to graze. William gave his war-horse a handful of grain. They stowed their saddles in the stone chapel, as there was no stable. The horses snorted and stamped, but a wind was blowing up, and the sounds were lost. William and Walter crossed the second bridge to the upper compound.
There was no sign of life. William suddenly thought that Aliena might have gone. What a disappointment that would be! He and Walter would have to spend a dreary, hungry night in a cold and dirty castle. They went up the outside steps to the hall door. “Quietly,” William said to Walter. “If they’re here, I want to give them a shock.”
He pushed open the door. The great hall was empty and dark, and smelled as if it had not been used for months: as he had expected, they had been living on the top floor. William trod softly as he walked across the hall to the stairs. Dry reeds rustled under his feet. Walter followed dose behind.
They climbed the stairs. They could hear nothing: the thick stone walls of the keep muffled all sound. Halfway up, William stopped, turned to Walter, put his finger to his lips, and pointed. There was a light shining under the door at the top of the stairs. Someone was here.
They went on up the stairs and paused outside the door. From inside came the sound of a girlish laugh. William smiled happily. He found the handle, turned it gently, then kicked the door open. The laugh turned into a scream of fright.
The scene in the room made a pretty picture. Aliena and her younger brother, Richard, were sitting at a small table, close to the fire, playing a board game of some kind, and Matthew the steward was standing behind her, looking over her shoulder. Aliena’s face was rose-colored in the glow of the fire, and her dark curls glinted with auburn lights. She wore a pale linen tunic. She was looking up at William with her red lips in a big O of surprise. William watched her, enjoying her fright, saying nothing. After a moment she recovered, stood up, and said: “What do you want?”
William had rehearsed this scene many times in his imagination. He walked slowly into the room and stood by the fire, warming his hands; then he said: “I live here. What do you want?”
Aliena looked from him to Walter. She was scared and confused, but nevertheless her tone was challenging. “This castle belongs to the earl of Shiring. State your business and then clear out.”
William smiled triumphantly. “The earl of Shiring is my father,” he said. The steward grunted, as if he had been afraid of this. Aliena looked bewildered. William went on: “The king made my father earl yesterday, at Winchester. The castle now belongs to us. I’m the master here until my father arrives.” He snapped his fingers at the steward. “And I’m hungry, so bring me bread and meat and wine.”
The steward hesitated. He threw a worried look at Aliena. He was afraid to leave her. But he had no choice. He went to the door.
Aliena took a step toward the door, as if to follow him.
“Stay here,” William ordered her.
Walter stood between her and the door, barring her way.
“You have no right to command me!” Aliena said, with a touch of her old imperiousness.
Matthew spoke in a scared tone. “Stay, my lady. Don’t anger them. I’ll be quick.”
Aliena frowned at him, but she stayed where she was. Matthew went out.
William sat in Aliena’s chair. She moved to her brother’s side. William studied them. There was a similarity between them, but all the strength was in the girl’s face. Richard was a tall, awkward adolescent, with no beard yet. William liked the sensation of having them in his power. He said: “How old are you, Richard?”
“Fourteen years,” the boy said sullenly.
“Ever killed a man?”
“No,” he answered, then with a little attempt at bravado he added: “Not yet.”
You’ll suffer too, you pompous little prick, William thought. He turned his attention to Aliena. “How old are you?”
At first she looked as if she would not speak to him, but then she appeared to change her mind, perhaps remembering that Matthew had said Don’t anger them. “Seventeen,” she said.
“My, my, the whole family can count,” William said. “Are you a virgin, Aliena?”
“Of course!” she blazed.
Suddenly William reached forward and grabbed her breast. It filled his big hand. He squeezed: it felt firm but yielding. She jerked back, and it slipped from his grasp.
Richard stepped forward, too late, and knocked William’s arm aside. Nothing could have pleased William more. He came out of his chair fast and hit Richard in the face with a swinging punch. As he had suspected, Richard was soft: he cried out and his hands flew to his face.
“Leave him alone!” Aliena cried.
William looked at her with surprise. She seemed more concerned about her brother than about herself. That might be worth remembering.
Matthew came back in carrying a wooden platter with a loaf of bread, a side of ham and a jug of wine on it. He paled when he saw Richard holding his hands to his face. He put the platter down on the table and went to the boy. Taking Richard’s hands away gently, he looked at the boy’s face. It was already red and puffy around the eye. “I told you not to anger them,” he muttered, but he seemed relieved that it was no worse. William was disappointed: he had hoped Matthew would fly into a rage. The steward threatened to be a killjoy.
The sight of the food made William’s mouth water. He pulled his chair up to the table, took out his eating knife, and cut a thick slice, of ham. Walter sat opposite him. Through a mouthful of bread and ham, William said to Aliena: “Bring some cups and pour the wine.” Matthew moved to do it. William said: “Not you-her.” Aliena hesitated. Matthew looked at her anxiously and nodded. She came across to the table and picked up the jug.
As she leaned over, William reached down, slipped his hand under the hem of her tunic, and rapidly ran his fingers up her leg. His fingertips felt slender calves with soft hair, then the muscles behind her knee, and then the soft skin of the inside of her thigh; then she jerked away, spun around, and swung the heavy wine jug at his head.
William warded off the blow with his left hand and slapped her face with his right. He put all his force into the slap. His hand stung in a very satisfying way. Aliena screamed. Out of the corner of his eye William saw Richard move. He had been hoping for that. He pushed Aliena aside forcefully, and she fell to the floor with a thud. Richard came at William like a deer charging the hunter. William dodged Richard’s first wild blow, then punched him in the stomach. As the boy doubled over, William hit him several times in rapid succession about the eyes and nose. It was not as exciting as hitting Aliena, but it was gratifying enough, and within moments Richard’s face was covered with blood.
Suddenly Walter gave a warning cry and sprang to his feet, looking past William’s shoulder. William spun round to see Matthew coming at him with a knife held high ready to stab. William was taken by surprise-he had not expected bravery from the effeminate steward. Walter could not reach him in time to prevent the stroke. All William could do was to hold up both arms to protect himself, and for a terrible moment he thought he was going to be killed in his moment of triumph. A stronger attacker would have knocked William’s arms aside, but Matthew was a slight figure softened by indoor living, and the knife did not quite reach William’s neck. He felt a sudden surge of relief, but he was not yet safe. Matthew lifted his arm for another blow. William took a step back and reached for his sword. Then Walter came around the table with a long pointed dagger in his hand and stabbed Matthew in the back.
An expression of terror came over Matthew’s face. William saw the point of Walter’s dagger emerge from Matthew’s chest, tearing a slit in his tunic. Matthew’s own knife fell from his hand and bounced on the floorboards. He tried to draw breath in a gasp, but a gurgling noise came from his throat and he seemed unable to breathe. He sagged; blood came from his mouth; his eyes closed; and he fell. Walter withdrew the long dagger as the body sank to the floor. For a moment blood spurted from the wound, but almost immediately the flow slowed to a trickle.
They all looked at the corpse on the floor: Walter, William, Aliena and Richard. William was light-headed after his close brush with death. He felt as if he could do anything. He reached out and grabbed the neck of Aliena’s tunic. The linen was soft and fine, very expensive. He gave a sharp jerk. The tunic ripped. He kept on pulling, so that it tore all the way down the front. A strip a foot wide came away in his hand. Aliena screamed, then tried to pull the remnants of the garment together over her front. The torn edges would not meet. William’s throat went dry. Her sudden vulnerability was thrilling. It was much more exciting than when he had watched her washing, for now she knew he was looking, and she felt ashamed, and her shame inflamed him all the more. She covered her breasts with one arm and her triangle with the other hand. William dropped the strip of linen and grabbed her by the hair. He jerked her toward him, spun her around, and ripped the rest of the tunic from her back.
She had delicate white shoulders, a small waist, and surprisingly full hips. He pulled her to him, pressing himself against her back, grinding his hips against her buttocks. He bent his head and bit her soft neck hard, until he tasted blood and she screamed again. He saw Richard move.
“Hold the boy,” he said to Walter.
Walter grabbed Richard and put him in an armlock.
Holding Aliena hard against him with one arm, William explored her body with the other hand. He felt her breasts, weighing and then squeezing them, and he pinched her small nipples; then he ran his hand over her stomach and into the triangle of hair between her legs, bushy and curly like the hair on her head: He prodded her roughly with his fingers. She began to cry. His prick was so stiff he felt it would burst.
He stepped away from her and jerked her backward over his outstretched leg. She fell on her back with a crash. The fall winded her and she gasped for breath.
William had not planned this, and he was not quite sure how it had happened, but nothing in the world could stop him now.
He lifted his tunic and showed her his prick. She looked horrified: she had probably never seen a stiff one. She was a real virgin. All the better.
“Bring the boy here,” William said to Walter.”! want him to see it all.” For some reason, the thought of doing it in front of Richard’s eyes was intensely piquant.
Walter pushed Richard forward and forced him to his knees.
William knelt on the floor and prised Aliena’s legs apart. She began to struggle. He fell on top of her, trying to crush her into submission, but still she resisted, and he could not get inside her. He was irritated: this was spoiling everything. He raised himself on one elbow and hit her across the face with his fist. She cried out and her cheek turned an angry red, but as soon as he tried to enter her, she began to resist him again.
Walter could have held her still, but he had the boy.
Suddenly William was inspired. “Cut the boy’s ear off, Walter,” he said.
Aliena went still. “No!” she said hoarsely. “Leave him alone-don’t hurt him anymore.”
“Open your legs, then,” William said.
She stared at him, wide-eyed with horror at the dreadful choice forced upon her. William enjoyed her anguish. Walter, playing the game perfectly, drew his knife and put it to Richard’s right ear. He hesitated, then with a movement that was almost tender, he sliced off the boy’s earlobe.
Richard screamed. Blood spurted from the small wound. The piece of flesh fell on Aliena’s heaving chest.
“Stop!” she screamed. “All right. I’ll do it.” She opened her legs.
William spat on his hand, then rubbed the moisture between her legs. He pushed his fingers inside her. She cried out with pain. That excited him more. He lowered himself on top of her. She lay still, tense. Her eyes were closed. Her body was slick with sweat from the struggle, but she shivered. William adjusted his position, then hesitated, enjoying the anticipation and her dread. He looked at the others. Richard was looking on with horror. Walter was watching greedily.
William said: “Your turn next, Walter.”
Aliena groaned in despair.
Suddenly he shoved inside her roughly, pushing as hard and far as he could. He felt the resistance of her maidenhead-a real virgin!-and he shoved again, brutally. It hurt him but it hurt her more. She screamed. He shoved once more, harder still, and he felt it break. Aliena’s face turned white, her head slumped to one side, and she fell into a faint; then at last William spurted his seed inside her, laughing and laughing with triumph and pleasure until he was drained dry.
The storm raged for most of the night, then toward dawn it stopped. The sudden quiet woke Tom Builder. As he lay in the dark, listening to the heavy breathing of Alfred beside him and the quieter sound of Martha on his other side, he calculated that it might be a clear morning, which would mean he could see the sun rise for the first time in two or three cloudy weeks. He had been waiting for this.
He got up and opened the door. It was still dark: there was plenty of time. He prodded his son with a foot. “Alfred! Wake up! There’s going to be a sunrise.”
Alfred groaned and sat upright. Martha turned over without waking. Tom went to the table and took the lid off a pottery crock. He removed a half-eaten loaf and cut off two thick slices, one for himself and one for Alfred. They sat down on the bench and ate breakfast.
There was ale in the jug. Tom took a long swallow and passed it to Alfred. Agnes would have made them use cups, and so would Ellen, but there was no woman in the house now. When Alfred had drunk his fill from the jug they left the house.
The sky was turning from black to gray as they crossed the priory close. Tom had intended to go to the prior’s house and wake Philip. However, Philip’s thoughts had followed the same lines as Tom’s, and he was already there in the ruins of the cathedral, wearing a heavy cloak, kneeling on the wet ground, saying prayers.
Their task was to establish an accurate east-west line, which would form the axis around which the new cathedral would be built.
Tom had prepared everything some time ago. In the ground at the east end he had planted an iron spike with a small loop in its top like the eye of a needle. The spike was almost as tall as Tom, so that its “eye” was at the level of Tom’s eyes. He had fixed it in place with a mixture of rubble and mortar, so that it could not be shifted accidentally. This morning he would plant another such spike, dead west of the first one, at the opposite end of the site.
“Mix up some mortar, Alfred,” he said.
Alfred went to fetch sand and lime. Tom went to his tool shed near the cloisters and got a small mallet and the second spike. Then he went to the west end of the site and stood waiting for the sun to rise. Philip finished his prayers and joined him, while Alfred mixed sand and lime with water on a mortarboard.
The sky grew brighter. The three men became tense. They were all watching the east wall of the priory close. At last the red disk of the sun showed over the top of the wall.
Tom shifted his position until he could see the edge of the sun through the small loop in the spike at the far end. Then, as Philip began to pray aloud in Latin, Tom held the second spike in front of him so that it blocked his view of the sun. Steadily, he lowered it to the ground and pressed its pointed end into the damp earth, always keeping it precisely between his eye and the sun. He drew the mallet from his belt and carefully tapped the spike into the ground until its “eye” was level with his eyes. Now, if he had done the job properly, and if his hands had not trembled, the sun should shine through the eyes of both spikes.
He closed one eye and looked through the near spike at the far one. The sun still shone into his eye through the two loops. The two spikes lay on a perfect east-west line. That line would provide the orientation of the new cathedral.
He had explained this to Philip, and he now stood aside and let the prior look through the loops himself, to check.
“Perfect,” Philip said.
Tom nodded. “It is.”
“Do you know what day it is?” Philip said.
“Friday.”
“It’s also the day of the martyrdom of Saint Adolphus. God sent us a sunrise so that we could orient the church on our patron’s day. Isn’t that a good sign?”
Tom smiled. In his experience good workmanship was more important than good omens in the building industry. But he was happy for Philip. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “It’s a very good sign.”
ALIENA WAS DETERMINED not to think about it.
She sat all night on the cold stone floor of the chapel, with her back to the wall, staring into the darkness. At first she could think of nothing but the hellish scene she had been through, but gradually the pain eased a little, and she was able to concentrate her mind on the sounds of the storm, the rain falling on the roof of the chapel and the wind howling around the ramparts of the deserted castle.
She had been naked at first. After the two men had… When they had finished, they had gone back to the table, leaving her lying on the floor, and Richard bleeding beside her. The men had begun eating and drinking as if they had forgotten about her, and then she and Richard had taken their chance and fled from the room. The storm had started by then, and they had run across the bridge in torrential rain and taken refuge in the chapel. But Richard had gone back to the keep almost immediately. He must have gone into the room where the men were, and snatched his cloak and Aliena’s from the hook by the door, and run away again before William and his groom had time to react.
But still he would not speak to her. He gave her her cloak, and wrapped his own around him; then he sat on the floor a yard away from her, with his back to the same wall. She longed for someone who loved her to put his arms around her and comfort her, but Richard acted as if she had done something terribly shameful; and the worst of it was that she felt the same way. She felt as guilty as if she had committed a sin. She quite understood his not comforting her, his not wanting to touch her.
She was glad it was cold. It helped her to feel withdrawn from the world, isolated; and it seemed to dull the pain. She did not sleep, but at some point in the night they both went into a kind of trance, and sat as still as death for a long time.
The sudden ending of the storm broke the spell. Aliena realized she could see the chapel windows, small gray patches in what had previously been unrelieved blankness. Richard stood up and went to the door. She watched him, feeling annoyed by the disturbance: she wanted to sit there against the wall until she froze to death or starved, for she could think of nothing more appealing than to slip peacefully into permanent unconsciousness. Then he opened the door, and the faint light of dawn illuminated his face.
Aliena was shocked out of her trance. Richard was barely recognizable. His face was swollen out of shape and covered with dried blood and bruises. It made Aliena want to cry. Richard had always been full of empty bravado. As a small boy he had dashed around the castle on an imaginary horse, pretending to stab people with an imaginary lance. Father’s knights would always encourage him by pretending to be frightened of his wooden sword. In reality Richard could be scared off by a hissing cat. But he had done his best, last night, and he had been badly beaten for it. Now she would have to take care of him.
Slowly she got to her feet. Her body ached, but the pain was not as bad as it had been last night. She considered what might be happening in the keep. William and his groom would have finished the jug of wine at some point during the night and then they would have fallen asleep. They would probably wake at sunrise.
By then she and Richard must be gone.
She went to the other end of the chapel, to the altar. It was a simple wooden box, painted white, bare of ornament. She leaned against it and then, with a sudden shove, pushed it over.
“What are you doing?” said Richard in a frightened voice.
“This was Father’s secret hiding place,” she said. “He told me about it before he went away.” On the floor where the altar had been was a cloth bundle. Aliena unwrapped it to reveal a full-size sword, complete with scabbard and belt, and a vicious-looking dagger a foot long.
Richard came over to look. He had little skill with a sword. He had been taking lessons for a year but he was still clumsy. However, Aliena certainly could not wield it, so she handed it to him. He buckled the belt around his waist.
Aliena looked at the dagger. She had never carried a weapon. All her life she had had someone to protect her. Realizing that she needed the deadly knife for her own protection, she felt utterly abandoned. She was not sure she could ever use it. I’ve stuck a wooden lance into a wild pig, she thought; why couldn’t I stick this into a man-someone like William Hamleigh? She recoiled from the thought.
The dagger had a leather sheath with a loop for attaching it to a belt. The loop was big enough to go around Aliena’s slim wrist like a bracelet. She eased it over her left hand and pushed the knife up her sleeve. It was long-it reached past her elbow. Even if she could not stab someone, perhaps she could use it to frighten people.
Richard said: “Let’s get away, quickly.”
Aliena nodded, but as she was making for the door, she stopped. The day was rapidly becoming lighter, and she could see on the chapel floor two shadowy objects she had not noticed before. Looking closely, she saw that they were saddles, one of average size and one truly enormous. She visualized William and his groom, arriving here last night, flushed with their triumph at Winchester and wearied by their journey, carelessly lifting the saddles from their horses and dumping them in here before hurrying to the keep. They would not imagine that anyone would dare steal from them. But desperate people find courage.
Aliena went to the door and looked out. The light was clear but weak, and there were no colors. The wind had dropped and the sky was cloudless. Several wooden shingles had fallen from the roof of the chapel in the night. The compound was empty except for the two horses grazing the wet grass. They both looked up at Aliena, then put their heads down again. One of them was a huge war-horse: that explained the oversized saddle. The other was a dappled stallion, not good-looking but compact and solid. Aliena stared at them, then at the saddles, then back at the horses.
“What are we waiting for?” Richard said anxiously.
Aliena made up her mind. “Let’s take their horses,” she said decisively.
Richard looked scared. “They’ll kill us.”
“They won’t be able to catch us. If we don’t take their horses they might come after us and kill us.”
“What if they catch us before we get away?”
“We’ll just have to be quick.” She was not as confident as she pretended, but she had to encourage Richard. “Let’s saddle the courser first-he looks more friendly. Bring the regular saddle.”
She hurried across the compound. Both horses were tied by long ropes to the stumps of burned buildings. Aliena picked up the courser’s rope and pulled gently. This would be the groom’s horse, of course. Aliena would have preferred something smaller and more timid, but she thought she could handle this one. Richard would have to take the war-horse.
The courser looked suspiciously at Aliena and laid back its ears. She was desperately impatient, but she forced herself to talk softly and pull gently on the rope, and the horse calmed down. She held its head and stroked its nose; then Richard slipped the bridle on and pushed the bit into its mouth. Aliena was relieved. Richard lifted the smaller of the two saddles onto its back and secured it with rapid, sure movements. Both of them had been used to horses from an early age.
There were bags attached to both sides of the groom’s saddle. Aliena hoped they might contain something useful-a flint, some food, or a little horse grain-but there was no time to investigate now. She glanced nervously across the compound toward the bridge that led to the keep. There was nobody there.
The war-horse had watched the courser being saddled, and knew what was coming, but it was not keen to cooperate with total strangers. It snorted and resisted the pull of the rope. “Hush!” Aliena said. She held the rope tightly, pulling steadily, and the horse came to her reluctantly. But it was very strong, and if it made a determined effort to resist, there would be trouble. Aliena wondered whether the courser could carry her and Richard. But then William would be able to come after them on the war-horse.
When she had the horse close, she looped the rope around the stump so that it could not move away. But when Richard tried to put the bridle on, the horse tossed its head and evaded it.
“Try putting the saddle on first,” Aliena said. She talked to the beast and patted its mighty neck while Richard hefted the massive saddle and tied it on. The horse began to look somewhat defeated. “Now, you be good,” Aliena said in a firm voice, but the horse was not fooled: it sensed the panic just beneath the surface. Richard approached with the bridle and the horse snorted and tried to move away. “I’ve got something for you,” Aliena said, and reached into the empty pocket of her cloak. The horse was deceived. She brought out a handful of nothing, but the horse dipped his head and nuzzled her hand, looking for food. She felt the rough skin of its tongue on her palm. While its head was down and its mouth was open, Richard slipped the bridle on.
Aliena shot another fearful glance toward the keep. All was quiet.
“Get on,” she said to Richard.
He put one foot in a high stirrup-not without difficulty-and swung himself up onto the huge horse. Aliena untied the rope from the stump.
The horse neighed loudly.
Aliena’s heart raced. That sound might have carried to the keep. A man such as William would know the voice of his own horse, especially a horse as expensive as this one. He might have woken up.
She hurried to untie the other horse. Her cold fingers fumbled with the knot. The thought of William waking up had made her lose her nerve. He would open his eyes, sit up, look around him, remember where he was, and wonder why his horse had called. He was sure to come. She felt she could not face him again. The shameful, brutal, agonizing thing he had done to her came back in all its horror.
Richard said urgently: “Come on, Allie!” His horse was jittery and impatient now. He was working hard to make it stay still. He needed to gallop it for a mile or two, to tire it; then it would be more tractable. It neighed again, and started moving sideways.
At last Aliena got the knot undone. She was tempted to drop the rope, but then she would have had no way to tie the horse up again, so she coiled it hastily and messily and tied it to a saddle strap. She needed to adjust the stirrups: they were the right length for William’s groom, who was several inches taller than she was, so they would be too low for her to reach when she was in the saddle. But she could picture William coming down the stairs, crossing the hall, coming out into the air-
“I can’t hold this horse much longer,” Richard said in a strained voice.
Aliena was as jittery as the war-horse. She swung herself up on the stallion. Sitting on the saddle hurt her, inside, and it was all she could do to stay on. Richard moved his horse toward the gate, and Aliena’s horse followed without any prompting from her. The stirrups were out of reach, as she had expected, and she had to grip with her knees. As they moved off she heard a shout from somewhere behind her, and she groaned aloud: “Oh, no.” She saw Richard kick his horse. The huge beast lumbered into a trot. Her own followed suit. She was grateful that it always did what the war-horse did, for she was in no state to control it herself. Richard kicked the war-horse again and it picked up speed as they passed under the arch of the gatehouse. Aliena heard another shout, much closer. She looked over her shoulder to see William and his groom pounding across the compound after her.
Richard’s horse was nervous, and as soon as it saw open fields in front of it, it put its head down and broke into a gallop. They thundered across the wooden drawbridge. Aliena felt something tug at her thigh, and saw, out of the corner of her eye, a man’s hand reaching for her saddle straps; but an instant later it was gone, and she knew they had escaped. Relief flooded her; but then she felt the pain again. As the horse galloped across the field she felt stabbed inside, as she had when the foul William had penetrated her; and there was a warm trickle on her thigh. She gave the horse its head and shut her eyes tight against the pain. But the horror of the night before came back to her, and she saw it all behind her closed eyelids. As they raced across the field she chanted in time with the horse’s hoofbeats: “I can’t remember I can’t remember I can’t I can’t I can’t.”
Her horse angled to the right and she sensed that it was going up a slight slope. She opened her eyes and saw that Richard had turned off the mud path and was taking a long route to the woods. She thought he probably wanted to make sure the war-horse was good and tired before letting it slow down. Both beasts would be easier to manage after being ridden hard. Soon she felt her own mount starting to flag. She sat back in the saddle. The horse slowed to a canter, then a trot, then a walk. Richard’s horse still had energy to burn, and it pulled away.
Aliena looked back across the fields. The castle was a mile away, and she was not sure whether or not she could see two figures standing on the drawbridge looking toward her. They would have to walk a long way to find replacement horses, she thought. She felt safe for a while.
Her hands and feet tingled as they warmed up. Heat rose from the horse as from a fire, and wrapped her in a hot-air cocoon. Richard let his horse slow down at last, and turned back toward her, his horse walking and blowing hard. They turned into the trees. They both knew these woods well, for they had lived here most of their lives.
“Where are we going?” asked Richard.
Aliena frowned. Where were they going? What were they going to do? They had no food, nothing to drink, and no money. She had no clothes except for the cloak she was wearing-no tunic, no undershirt, no hat, no shoes. She intended to take care of her brother-but how?
She could see now that for the past three months she had been living in a dream. She had known, in the back of her mind, that the old life was over, but she had refused to face it. William Hamleigh had woken her up. She had no doubt that his story was true, and King Stephen had made Percy Hamleigh the earl of Shiring; but perhaps there was more to it. Perhaps the king had made some provision for her and Richard. If not, he should have, and they could certainly petition him. Either way, they had to go to Winchester. There they could at least find out what had happened to their father.
She suddenly thought: Oh, Father, where did it all go wrong?
Ever since her mother had died, her father had taken special care of her. She knew he paid more attention to her than other fathers did to their daughters. He felt bad that he had not married again, to give her a new mother; and he had explained that he was happier with the memory of his wife than he ever could be with a substitute. Aliena had never wanted another mother anyway. Her father had looked after her, and she had looked after Richard, and that way no harm could ever come to any of them.
Those days were gone forever.
“Where are we going?” Richard said again.
“To Winchester,” she said. “We’ll go and see the king.”
Richard was enthusiastic. “Yes! And when we report what William and his groom did last night, the king will surely-”
In a flash, Aliena was possessed by uncontrollable rage. “Shut your mouth!” she screamed. The horses started nervously. She pulled viciously on her reins. “Don’t ever say that!” She was choking with fury and could hardly spit out the words. “We’re not going to tell anyone what they did-not anyone! Never! Never! Never!”
The groom’s saddlebags contained a large lump of hard cheese, some dregs of wine in a leather bottle, a flint and some kindling, and a pound or two of mixed grains which Aliena imagined were for the horses. She and Richard ate the cheese and drank the wine at noon, while the horses grazed the sparse grass and evergreen shrubs and drank from a clear stream. She had stopped bleeding and the lower half of her torso felt numb.
They had seen some other travelers, but Aliena had told Richard to speak to no one. To the casual observer they appeared a formidable couple, Richard in particular, on his huge horse, with his sword; but a few moments’ conversation would reveal them to be a pair of kids with no one to take care of them, and then they might be vulnerable. So they steered clear of other people.
As the day began to fade they looked for somewhere to spend the night. They found a clearing near a stream a hundred yards or so from the road. Aliena gave the horses some grain while Richard made a fire. If they had had a cooking pot they could have made porridge with the horse grain. As it was, they would just have to chew the grains raw, unless they could find some sweet chestnuts and roast them.
While she was pondering that, and Richard was out of sight gathering firewood, she was scared by a deep voice close to her. “And who would you be, my lass?”
She screamed. The horse backed away, frightened. Aliena turned and saw a dirty, bearded man all dressed in brown leather. He took a step toward her. “Keep away from me!” she shrieked.
“No need to be afraid,” he said.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Richard step into the clearing behind the stranger, his arms full of wood. He stood looking at the two of them. Draw your sword! thought Aliena, but he looked too scared and uncertain to do anything. She stepped back, trying to get the horse between herself and the stranger. “We’ve got no money,” she said. “We’ve got nothing.”
“I’m the king’s verderer,” he said.
Aliena almost collapsed with relief. A verderer was a royal servant paid to enforce the forest laws. “Why didn’t you say so, you foolish man?” she said, angry at having been scared. “I took you for an outlaw!”
He looked startled, and rather offended, as if she had said something impolite; but all he said was: “You’ll be a highborn lady, then.”
“I am the daughter of the earl of Shiring.”
“And the boy will be his son,” said the verderer, although he had not seemed to see Richard.
Richard now stepped forward and dropped his firewood. “That’s right,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Brian. Are you planning to spend the night here?”
“Yes.”
“All alone?”
“Yes.” Aliena knew he was wondering why they had no escort, but she was not going to tell him.
“And you’ve no money, you say.”
Aliena frowned at him. “Do you doubt me?”
“Oh, no. I can tell you’re nobility, by your manners.” Was there a hint of irony in his voice? “If you’re alone and penniless, perhaps you’d prefer to spend the night at my house. It’s not far.”
Aliena had no intention of putting herself at the mercy of this rough character. She was about to refuse when he spoke again.
“My wife would be glad to give you supper. And I’ve a warm outhouse where you could sleep, if you prefer to sleep alone.”
The wife made a difference. Accepting the hospitality of a respectable family should be safe enough. Still Aliena hesitated. Then she thought of a fireplace, a bowl of hot pottage, a cup of wine, and a bed of straw with a roof over it. “We’d be grateful,” she said. “We’ve nothing to give you-I told the truth about having no money-but we’ll come back and reward you one day.”
“Good enough,” said the verderer. He went over to the fire and kicked it out.
Aliena and Richard mounted-they had not yet unsaddled the horses. The verderer came over and said: “Give me the reins.” Not sure what he wanted to do, Aliena gave him the reins, and Richard did likewise. The man set off through the forest, leading the horses. Aliena would have preferred to hold the reins herself, but she decided to let him have his way.
It was farther than he had indicated. They had traveled three or four miles, and it was dark, by the time they reached a small wood house with a thatched roof on the edge of a field. But there was light shining through the shutters and a smell of cooking, and Aliena dismounted gratefully.
The verderer’s wife heard the horses and came to the door. The man said to her: “A young lord and lady, alone in the forest. Give them something to drink.” He turned to Aliena. “In you go. I’ll see to the horses.”
Aliena did not like his peremptory tone-she would have preferred it if she were the one giving instructions-but she had no wish to unsaddle her own horse, so she went inside. Richard followed. The house was smoky and smelly, but warm. There was a cow tethered in one corner. Aliena was glad the man had mentioned an outhouse: she had never slept with cattle. A pot bubbled on the fire. They sat on a bench, and the wife gave them each a bowl of soup from the pot. It tasted gamey. When she saw Richard’s face in the light she was shocked. “What happened to you?” she said.
Richard opened his mouth to reply but Aliena forestalled him. “We’ve had a series of misfortunes,” she said. “We’re on our way to see the king.”
“I see,” said the wife. She was a small, brown-skinned woman with a guarded look. She did not persist in her questioning.
Aliena ate her soup quickly and wanted more. She held out her bowl. The woman looked away. Aliena was puzzled. Did she not know what Aliena wanted? Or did she not have any more? Aliena was about to speak to her sharply when the verderer came in. “I’ll show you the barn, where you can sleep,” he said. He took a lamp from a hook by the door. “Come with me.”
Aliena and Richard stood up. Aliena said to the wife: “There is one thing more I need. Can you give me an old dress? I’ve got nothing on under this cloak.”
The woman looked annoyed for some reason. “I’ll see what I can find,” she muttered.
Aliena went to the door. The verderer was giving her a strange look, staring at her cloak as if he might be able to see through it if he looked hard enough. “Lead the way!” she said sharply. He turned and went through the door.
He led them around to the back of the house and through a vegetable patch. The shifting light of the lamp revealed a small wooden building, more of a shed than a barn. He opened the door. It banged against a water butt that collected the rain from the roof. “Take a look,” he said. “See if it suits you.”
Richard went in first. “Bring the light, Allie,” he said. Aliena turned to take the lamp from the verderer. As she did so, he gave her a powerful shove. She fell sideways, through the doorway and into the barn, cannoning off her brother. They both ended up in a tangle on the floor. It went dark and the door banged shut. There was a peculiar noise outside, as of something heavy being moved in front of the door.
Aliena could not believe this was happening.
“What’s going on, Allie?” Richard cried.
She sat up. Was the man really a verderer, or was he an outlaw? He could not be an outlaw-his house was too substantial. But if he really was a verderer, why had he locked them up? Had they broken a law? Did he guess that the horses were not theirs? Or did he have some dishonest motive?
“Allie, why did he do that?” Richard said.
“I don’t know,” she said wearily. She had no energy left to be upset or angry. She got up and pushed at the door. It would not move. She guessed that the verderer had put the water butt up against it. In the dark, she felt the walls of the barn. She could reach the lower slopes of the roof, too. The building was made of close-set timbers. It had been carefully constructed. It was the verderer’s jail, where he kept offenders before taking them to the sheriff. “We can’t get out,” she said.
She sat down. The floor was dry and covered with straw. “We’re stuck here until he lets us out,” she said resignedly. Richard sat beside her. After a while they lay down back to back. Aliena felt she was too battered and frightened and tense to go to sleep, but she was also exhausted, and within a few moments she fell into a healing slumber.
She woke up when the door opened and daylight fell on her face. She sat up immediately, feeling frightened, not knowing where she was or why she was sleeping on the hard ground. Then she remembered, and was still more frightened: what was the verderer going to do to them? However, it was not the verderer who came in but his small brown wife; and although her face was as set and closed as it had been last night, she was carrying a hunk of bread and two cups.
Richard sat up too. They both eyed the woman warily. She said nothing, but handed them each a cup, then broke the bread in two and gave half to each of them. Aliena suddenly realized she was starving. She dipped her bread in her beer and began to eat.
The woman stood in the doorway, watching them, while they finished off the bread and beer. Then she handed Aliena what looked like a length of worn, yellowing linen, folded up. Aliena unfolded it. It was an old dress.
The woman said: “Put that on and get out of here.”
Aliena was mystified by the combination of kindness and hard words, but she did not hesitate to take the dress. She turned her back, dropped her cloak, pulled the dress over her head quickly, and put the cloak back on.
She felt better.
The woman handed her a pair of worn wooden clogs, too big.
Aliena said: “I can’t ride with clogs on.”
The woman laughed harshly. “You won’t be riding.”
“Why not?”
“He’s taken your horses.”
Aliena’s heart sank. It was too unfair that they should suffer more bad luck. “Where’s he taken them?”
“He doesn’t tell me these things, but I’d guess he’s gone to Shiring. He’ll sell the beasts, then find out who you are, and whether there’s anything more to be made out of you than the price of your horseflesh.”
“So why are you letting us go?”
The woman looked Aliena up and down. “Because I didn’t like the way he looked at you when you told him you were naked under your cloak. You may not understand that now, but you will when you’re a wife.”
Aliena understood it already, but she did not say so.
Richard said: “Won’t he kill you when he finds you’ve let us go?”
She gave a cynical smile. “He doesn’t scare me as much as he scares others. Now be off.”
They went out. Aliena understood that this woman had learned how to live with a brutal and heartless man, and had even managed to preserve a minimum of decency and compassion. “Thank you for the dress,” she said awkwardly.
The woman did not want her thanks. She pointed down the path and said: “Winchester is that way.”
They walked away and did not look back.
Aliena had never worn clogs-people of her class always had leather boots or sandals-and she found them clumsy and uncomfortable. However, they were better than nothing when the ground was cold.
When they were out of sight of the verderer’s house, Richard said: “Allie, why are these things happening to us?”
The question demoralized Aliena. Everyone was cruel to them. People were allowed to beat them and rob them as if they were horses or dogs. There was nobody to protect them. We’ve been too trusting, she thought. They had lived for three months in the castle without ever barring the doors. She resolved to trust nobody in the future. Never again would she let someone else take the reins of her horse, even if she had to be rude to prevent it. Never again would she let someone get behind her the way the verderer had last night, when he pushed her into the shed. She would never accept the hospitality of a stranger, never leave her door unlocked at night, never take kindness at face value.
“Let’s walk faster,” she said to Richard. “Perhaps we can reach Winchester by nightfall.”
They followed the path to the clearing where they had met the verderer. The remains of their fire were still there. From there they easily found the road to Winchester. They had been to Winchester before, many times, and they knew the way. Once they were on the road they could move faster. Frost had hardened the mud since the storm two nights ago.
Richard’s face was returning to normal. He had washed it yesterday, in a cold brook in the woods, and most of the dried blood had gone. There was an ugly scab where his right earlobe had been. His lips were still swollen but the puffiness had gone from the rest of his face. However, he was still badly bruised, and the angry color of the bruises gave him a rather frightening appearance. Still, that would do no harm.
Aliena missed the heat of the horse beneath her. Her hands and feet were painfully cold, even though her body was warm from the exertion of walking. The weather remained cold all morning, then at midday the temperature rose a little. By then she was hungry. She remembered that only yesterday she had felt as if she did not care whether she ever got warm or ate food again. But she did not want to think about that.
Whenever they heard horses or saw people in the distance they darted into the woods and hid until the other travelers had passed by. They hurried through villages, speaking to no one. Richard wanted to beg for food but Aliena would not let him.
By the middle of the afternoon they were within a few miles of their destination and no one had bothered them. Aliena was thinking that it was not so difficult to avoid trouble, after all. Then, on a particularly desolate stretch of the road, a man suddenly stepped out of the bushes and stood in front of them.
They had no time to hide. “Keep walking,” Aliena said to Richard, but the man moved to block their way, and they had to stop. Aliena looked behind, thinking of running that way; but another fellow had materialized out of the forest and was standing ten or fifteen yards away, blocking their escape.
“What have we here?” said the man in front, in a loud voice. He was a fat, red-faced man with a big swollen belly and a filthy matted beard, and he carried a heavy club. He was almost certainly an outlaw. Aliena could tell from his face that he was the kind of man who would commit violence readily, and her heart filled with dread.
“Leave us alone,” she said in a pleading tone. “We’ve got nothing for you to steal.”
“I’m not so sure,” said the man. He took a step toward Richard. “This looks like a fine sword, worth several shillings.”
“It’s mine!” Richard protested, but he just sounded like a scared child.
It’s no use, Aliena thought. We’re powerless. I’m a woman and he’s a boy, and people can do anything they like with us.
With a surprisingly agile movement the fat man suddenly raised his club and struck at Richard. Richard tried to dodge. The blow was aimed at his head but it hit his shoulder. The fat man was strong, and the blow knocked Richard down.
Suddenly Aliena lost her temper. She had been treated unjustly, vilely abused, and robbed, and she was cold and hungry and hardly in control of herself. Her little brother had been beaten half to death less than two days ago and now the sight of someone clubbing him maddened her. She lost all sense of reason or caution. Without even thinking, she pulled the dagger from her sleeve, flew at the fat outlaw, and jabbed the knife at his great belly, screaming: “Leave him alone, you dog!”
She took him completely by surprise. His cloak had come open when he hit Richard, and his hands were still occupied with the club. He was completely off guard: no doubt he had thought himself safe from attack by a young girl who appeared unarmed. The point of the knife went through the wool of his tunic and the linen of his undershirt and was stopped by the taut skin of his belly. Aliena experienced a flash of revulsion, a moment of sheer horror at the thought of breaking human skin and penetrating the flesh of a real person; but fear stiffened her resolve, and she shoved the knife through his skin and into the soft organs of his abdomen; and then she became terrified that she might not kill him, that he might stay alive to take his revenge, and so she kept on pushing until the long knife was inside him up to the hilt and would not go in any farther.
Suddenly the fearsome, arrogant, cruel man was a frightened wounded animal. He cried out in pain, dropped his club, and stared down at the knife sticking into him. Aliena understood in a flash that he knew it was a mortal wound. She snatched her hand away in horror. The outlaw staggered back. Aliena remembered that there was another thief behind her, and panic seized her: he would surely take a terrible revenge for the death of his accomplice. She grabbed the hilt of the knife again and jerked. The wounded man had turned slightly away from her, and she had to pull the knife sideways. She felt it slice through his soft insides as it came out of his fat belly. Blood spurted on her hand and the man screamed like an animal and fell to the ground. She spun round, knife in bloody hand, and faced the other man. As she did so, Richard struggled to his feet and drew his sword.
The second thief looked from one of them to the other, then at his dying friend, and without further ado he turned and ran into the woods.
Aliena watched, incredulous. They had scared him off. It was hard to take in.
She looked at the man on the ground. He lay flat on his back with his guts falling out of the great tear in his belly. His eyes were wide open and his face was twisted with pain and fear.
Aliena felt no relief, no pride in having defended herself and her brother from ruthless men: she was too disgusted and repelled by the hideous sight.
Richard felt no such qualms. “You stabbed him, Allie!” he said in a voice between excitement and hysteria. “You did for them!”
Aliena looked at him. He had to be taught a lesson. “Kill this one,” she said.
Richard stared at her. “What?”
“Kill him,” she repeated. “Put him out of his misery. Finish him off!”
“Why me?”
She deliberately made her voice harsh. “Because you act like a boy and I need a man. Because you’ve never done anything with a sword except play at war, and you have to start somewhere. What’s the matter with you? What are you afraid of? He’s dying anyway. He can’t hurt you. Use your sword. Get some practice. Kill him!”
Richard held his sword in both hands and looked uncertain. “How?”
The man screamed again.
Aliena yelled at Richard: “I don’t know how! Cut off his head, or stab him in the heart! Anything! Just shut him up!”
Richard looked cornered. He lifted his sword and lowered it again.
Aliena said: “If you don’t do this I’ll leave you alone, I swear by all the saints. I’ll get up one night and go away and when you wake up in the morning I won’t be there and you’ll be all on your own. Now kill him!”
Richard raised his sword again. Then, incredibly, the dying man stopped screaming and tried to get up. He rolled to one side and raised himself on one elbow. Richard gave a shout that was half a yell of fear and half a battle cry, and brought his sword down hard on the man’s exposed neck. The weapon was heavy and the blade was sharp, and the blow sliced more than halfway through the fat neck. Blood spurted like a fountain and the head leaned grotesquely to one side. The body slumped to the earth.
Aliena and Richard stared at it. Steam rose from the hot blood in the winter air. They were both stunned by what they had done. Suddenly Aliena wanted to get away from there. She started to run. Richard followed.
She stopped when she could run no more, and that was when she realized she was sobbing. She walked on slowly, no longer caring if Richard saw her in tears. He seemed unaffected anyway.
Gradually she calmed down. The wooden clogs were hurting her. She stopped and took them off. She walked on in her bare feet, carrying the clogs. Soon they would reach Winchester.
After a while Richard said: “We’re fools.”
“Why?”
“That man. We just left him there. We should have taken his boots.”
Aliena stopped and stared, horrified, at her brother.
He looked back at her and gave a little laugh. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” he said.
Aliena began to feel hopeful again as she walked through the West Gate to Winchester High Street at nightfall. In the forest she had felt that she might be murdered and no one would ever know what had happened, but now she was back in civilization. Of course, the city was full of thieves and cutthroats, but they could not commit their crimes in broad daylight with impunity. In the city there were laws, and lawbreakers were banished, mutilated or hanged.
She remembered going down this street with her father only a year or so ago. They had been on horseback, naturally; he on a highly strung chestnut courser and she on a beautiful gray palfrey. People made way for them as they rode through the broad streets. They owned a house in the south of the city, and when they arrived they were welcomed by eight or ten servants. The house had been cleaned, there was fresh straw on the floor, and all the fires were lit. During their stay Aliena had worn beautiful clothes every day: fine linen, silk, and soft wool, all dyed gorgeous colors; boots and belts of calf leather; and jeweled brooches and bracelets. It had been her job to make sure there was always a welcome for anyone who came to see the earl: meat and wine for the wealthy, bread and ale for the poorer sort, a smile and a place by the fire for either. Her father was punctilious about hospitality, but he was not good at doing it personally-people found him cool, remote, and even highhanded. Aliena supplied the lack
Everyone respected her father, and the very highest had called on him: the bishop, the prior, the sheriff, the royal chancellor, and the barons at the court. She wondered how many of those people would recognize her now, walking barefoot through the mud and filth of that same High Street. The thought did not dampen her optimism. The important thing was that she no longer felt like a victim. She was back in a world where there were rules and laws, and she had a chance to regain control of her life.
They walked past their house. It was empty and locked up: the Hamleighs had not yet taken it over. For a moment Aliena was tempted to try to get in. It’s my house! she thought. But it was not, of course, and the idea of spending the night there reminded her of the way she had lived in the castle, closing her eyes to reality. She walked on determinedly.
The other good thing about being in the city was that there was a monastery here. The monks would always provide a bed for anyone who begged it. She and Richard would sleep under a roof tonight, safe and dry.
She found the cathedral and went into the priory courtyard. Two monks stood at a trestle table doling out horsebread and beer to a hundred or more people. It had not occurred to Aliena that there would be so many others begging the monks’ hospitality. She and Richard joined the queue. It was amazing, she thought, how people who would normally jostle and shove one another to get at free food could be made to stand quietly in an orderly line just because a monk told them to.
They got their supper and took it into the guesthouse. This was a big wooden building like a barn, bare of furniture, dimly lit by rushlights, smelling strongly of many people crowded closely together. They sat on the ground to eat. The floor was covered with rushes that were none too fresh. Aliena wondered whether she should tell the monks who she was. The prior might remember her. In such a large priory there would naturally be a superior guesthouse for high-born visitors. But she found herself reluctant to do that. Perhaps it was that she was afraid of being spurned; but she also felt she would be putting herself in someone else’s power again, and although she had nothing to fear from a prior, nevertheless she felt more comfortable remaining anonymous and unnoticed.
The other guests were mostly pilgrims, with a sprinkling of traveling craftsmen-identifiable by the tools they carried-and some hawkers, men who went from village to village selling things that peasants could not make for themselves, pins and knives and cooking pots and spices. Some of them had their wives and children with them. The children were noisy and excited, rushing around and fighting and falling over. Every now and again one would cannon into an adult, get a smack on the head, and burst into tears. Some of them were not perfectly house-trained, and Aliena saw several children urinating into the rushes on the floor. Such things were probably of no consequence in a house where the livestock slept in the same room as the people, but in a crowded hall it was rather disgusting, Aliena thought: they all had to sleep on those rushes later.
She began to get the feeling that people were looking at her as if they knew she had been deflowered. It was ridiculous, of course, but the feeling would not go away. She kept checking to see whether she was bleeding. She was not. But every time she turned around she caught someone giving her a hard, penetrating stare. As soon as she met their eyes they would look away, but a little while later she would catch someone else doing it. She kept telling herself that this was foolish, they weren’t staring at her, they were just looking curiously around a crowded room. There was nothing to look at, anyway: she was no different from them in appearance-she was as dirty, badly dressed and tired as they were. But the feeling persisted, and against her will she got angry. There was one man who kept catching her eye, a middle-aged pilgrim with a large family. Eventually she lost her temper and yelled at him: “What are you looking at? Stop staring at me!” He seemed embarrassed and averted his eyes without replying.
Richard said quietly: “Why did you do that, Allie?”
She told him to shut up and he did.
The monks came around and took away the lights soon after supper. They liked people to go to sleep early: it kept them out of the alehouses and brothels of the city at night, and in the morning it made it easier for the monks to get the visitors off the premises early. Several of the single men left the hall when the lights went out, headed no doubt for the fleshpots, but most people curled up in their cloaks on the floor.
It was many years since Aliena had slept in a hall like this. As a child she had always envied the people downstairs, lying side by side in front of the dying fire, in a room full of smoke and the smell of dinner, with the dogs to guard them: there had been a sense of togetherness in the hall which was absent from the spacious, empty chambers of the lord’s family. In those days she had sometimes left her own bed and tiptoed down the stairs to sleep alongside one of her favorite servants, Madge Laundry or Old Joan.
Drifting off to sleep with the smell of her childhood in her nostrils, she dreamed about her mother. Normally she had trouble remembering what her mother had looked like, but now, to her surprise, she could see Mama’s face clearly, in every detail: the small features, the timid smile, the slight frame, the look of anxiety in the eyes. She saw her mother’s walk, leaning slightly to one side as if she were always trying to get close to the wall, with the opposite arm extended a little for balance. She could hear her mother’s laugh, that unexpectedly rich contralto, always ready to break into song or laughter but usually afraid to do so. She knew, in the dream, something that had never been clear to her awake: that her father had so frightened her mother and suppressed her sense of the joy of life that she had shriveled up and died like a flower in a drought. All this came into Aliena’s mind like something very familiar, something she had always known. However, what was shocking was that Aliena was pregnant. Mother seemed pleased. They sat together in a bedroom, and Aliena’s belly was so distended that she had to sit with her legs slightly apart and her hands crossed over her bump, in the age-old pose of the mother-to-be. Then William Hamleigh burst into the room, carrying in his hand the dagger with the long blade, and Aliena knew he was going to stab her belly the way she had stabbed the fat outlaw in the forest, and she screamed so loud she woke up sitting upright; and then she realized that William was not here and she had not even screamed, the noise had only been in her head.
After that she lay awake wondering if she really was pregnant.
The thought had not occurred to her before, and now it terrified her. How disgusting it would be to have William Hamleigh’s baby. It might not be his-it might be the groom’s. She might never know. How could she love the baby? Every time she looked at it, it would remind her of that dreadful night. She would have the baby in secret, she vowed, and leave it out in the cold to die as soon as it was born, the way the peasants did when they had too many children. With that resolve she drifted off to sleep again.
It was barely light when the monks brought breakfast. The noise woke Aliena. Most of the other guests were awake already, because they had gone to sleep so early, but Aliena had slept on: she had been very tired.
Breakfast was hot gruel with salt. Aliena and Richard ate hungrily and wished there were bread to go with it. Aliena thought over what she would say to King Stephen. She felt sure that he had simply forgotten that the earl of Storing had two children. As soon as they appeared and reminded him, he would willingly make provision for them, she thought. However, in case he needed persuading she ought to have a few words ready. She would not insist that her father was innocent, she decided, for that would imply that the king’s judgment had been at fault, and he would be offended. Nor would she protest about Percy Hamleigh being made earl. Men of affairs hated to have past decisions disputed. “For better or worse, that’s been settled,” her father would say. No, she would simply point out that she and her brother were innocent, and ask the king to give them a knight’s estate, so that they could support themselves modestly, and Richard could prepare to become one of the king’s fighting men in a few years’ time. A small estate would enable her to take care of her father, when the king pleased to release him from jail. He was no longer a threat: he had no title, no followers and no money. She would remind the king that her father had faithfully served the old king, Henry, who had been Stephen’s uncle. She would not be forceful, just humbly firm, clear and simple.
After breakfast she asked a monk where she could wash her face. He looked startled: evidently it was an unusual request. However, monks were in favor of cleanliness, and he showed her an open conduit where clean cold water ran into the priory grounds, and warned her not to wash “indecently,” as he put it, in case one of the brothers should accidentally see her and thereby soil his soul. Monks did a lot of good but their attitudes could be irritating.
When she and Richard had washed the dirt of the road off their faces they left the priory and walked uphill along the High Street to the castle, which stood to one side of the West Gate. By coming early Aliena hoped to befriend or charm whoever was in charge of admitting petitioners, and ensure that she was not forgotten in the crowd of important people who would arrive later. However, the atmosphere within the castle walls was even quieter than she had hoped. Had King Stephen been here so long that few people needed to see him? She was not sure when he might have come. The king was normally at Winchester throughout Lent, she thought, but she was not sure when Lent had begun, for she had lost track of dates, living in the castle with Richard and Matthew and no priest.
There was a burly guard with a gray beard standing at the foot of the keep steps. Aliena made to walk past him, as she had when she came here with her father, but the guard lowered his spear across her path. She looked at him imperiously and said: “Yes?”
“And where do you think you’re going, my girl?” said the guard.
Aliena saw, with a sinking feeling, that he was the type of person who liked being a guard because it gave him the chance to stop people from going where they wanted to go. “We’re here to petition the king,” she said frostily. “Now let us pass.”
“You?” the guard said with a sneer. “Wearing a pair of clogs that my wife would be ashamed of? Clear off.”
“Get out of my way, guard,” said Aliena. “Every citizen has the right to petition the king.”
“But the poorer sort generally are not foolish enough to try to exercise that right-”
“We are not the poorer sort!” Aliena blazed. “I am the daughter of the earl of Shiring, and my brother is his son, so let us pass, or you’ll end up rotting in a dungeon.”
The guard looked a little less bumptious, but he said smugly: “You can’t petition the king, because he’s not here. He’s at Westminster, as you ought to know if you are who you say you are.”
Aliena was thunderstruck. “But why has he gone to Westminster? He should be here for Easter!”
The guard realized she was not a street urchin. “Easter court is at Westminster. It seems he’s not going to do everything exactly the same as the old king did, and why should he?”
He was right, of course, but the idea that a new king would follow a different timetable had never occurred to Aliena, who was too young to remember when Henry had been the new king. Despair washed over her. She had thought she knew what to do, and she had been so wrong. She felt like giving up.
She shook her head to dispel the sense of doom. This was a setback, not a defeat. Appealing to the king was not the only way to take care of her brother and herself. She had come to Winchester with two purposes, and the second was to find out what had happened to her father. He would know what she should do next.
“Who is here, then?” she said to the guard. “There must be some royal officials. I just want to see my father.”
“There’s a clerk and a steward up there,” the guard replied. “Did you say the earl of Shiring was your father?”
“Yes.” Her heart missed a beat. “Do you know anything about him?”
“I know where he is.”
“Where?”
“In the jail right here at the castle.”
So close! “Where’s the jail?”
The guard jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Down the hill, past the chapel, opposite the main gate.” Excluding them from the keep had gratified his mean streak and now he was willing to be informative. “You’d better see the jailer. His name is Odo, and he’s got deep pockets.”
Aliena did not understand the remark about deep pockets but she was too agitated to clarify it. Until this moment her father had been in a vague, distant place called “prison,” but now, suddenly, he was right here in this very castle. She forgot all about appealing to the king. All she wanted to do was see Father. The thought that he was close by, ready to help her, made her feel the danger and uncertainty of the last few months more acutely. She wanted to run into his arms and hear him say: “It’s all right, now. Everything’s going to be all right.”
The keep stood on a rise in one corner of the compound. Aliena turned and looked down at the rest of the castle. It was a motley collection of stone and wood buildings enclosed by high walls. Down the hill, the guard had said; past the chapel-she spotted a neat stone building that looked like a chapel-and opposite the main gate. The main entrance was a gate in the outer wall, permitting the king to come into his castle without first having to enter the city. Opposite that entrance, close to the back wall that separated the castle from the city, was a small stone building that could be the jail.
Aliena and Richard hurried down the slope. Aliena wondered how he would be. Did they give people proper food in jail? Her father’s own prisoners had always got horsebread and pottage at Earlscastle, but she had heard that prisoners were sometimes ill-treated elsewhere. She hoped Father was all right.
Her heart was in her mouth as she crossed the compound. It was a big castle but it was crowded with buildings: kitchens, stables, and barracks. There were two chapels. Now that she knew the king was away, Aliena could see the signs of his absence, and she noted them distractedly as she wove her way toward the jail: stray pigs and sheep had wandered in from the suburbs just outside the gate and were rooting around in the rubbish tips, men-at-arms were lolling about with nothing to do but call out insolent remarks to passing women, and there was some kind of betting game going on in the porch of one of the chapels. The atmosphere of laxity bothered Aliena. She was afraid it might mean her father was not looked after properly. She began to dread what she might find.
The jail was a semi-derelict stone building that looked as if it might once have been a house for a royal official, a chancellor or bailiff of some kind, before it fell into disrepair. The upper story, which had once been the hall, was completely ruined, having lost most of its roof. Only the undercroft remained whole. Here there were no windows, just a big wooden door with iron studs. The door stood slightly ajar. As Aliena hesitated outside, a handsome middle-aged woman in a good-quality cloak passed her, opened the door and went in. Aliena and Richard followed her.
The gloomy interior smelled of old dirt and corruption. The undercroft had once been an open storeroom, but it had later been divided into small compartments by hastily built rubble walls. Somewhere in the depths of the building a man was moaning monotonously, like a monk chanting services alone in a church. The area just inside the door formed a small lobby, with a chair, a table and a fire in the middle of the floor. A big, stupid-looking man with a sword at his belt was lackadaisically sweeping the floor. He looked up and greeted the handsome woman. “Good morning, Meg.” She gave him a penny and disappeared into the gloom. He looked at Aliena and Richard. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to see my father,” Aliena said. “He is the earl of Shiring.”
“No, he’s not,” said the jailer. “He’s just plain Bartholomew now.”
“To hell with your distinctions, jailer. Where is he?”
“How much have you got?”
“I’ve no money, so don’t bother asking for a bribe.”
“If you’ve no money, you can’t see your father.” He resumed sweeping.
Aliena wanted to scream. She was within a few yards of her father and she was being kept from him. The jailer was big and he was armed: there was no chance of defying him. But she did not have any money. She had been afraid of this when she saw the woman Meg give him a penny, but that might have been for some special privilege. Obviously not: a penny must be the price of admission.
She said: “I’ll get a penny, and bring it to you as soon as I can. But won’t you let us see him now, just for a few moments?”
“Get the penny first,” the jailer said. He turned his back and went on sweeping.
Aliena was fighting back tears. She was tempted to yell out a message in the hope that her father would hear her; but she realized that a garbled message might frighten and demoralize him: it would make him anxious without giving him any information. She went to the door, feeling maddeningly impotent.
She turned around on the threshold. “How is he? Just tell me that-please? Is he all right?”
“No, he’s not,” the jailer said. “He’s dying. Now get out of here.”
Aliena’s vision blurred with tears and she stumbled through the door. She walked away, not seeing where she was going, and bumped into something-a sheep or a pig-and almost fell. She began to sob. Richard took her arm, and she let him guide her. They went out of the castle by the main gate, into the scattered hovels and small fields of the suburbs, and eventually came to a meadow and sat on a tree stump.
“I hate it when you cry, Allie,” said Richard pathetically.
She tried to pull herself together. She had located her father-that was something. She had learned that he was sick: the jailer was a cruel man who was probably exaggerating the seriousness of the illness. All she had to do was find a penny, and she would be able to talk to him, and see for herself, and ask him what she should do-for Richard and for Father.
“How are we going to get a penny, Richard?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ve nothing to sell. No one would lend to us. You’re not tough enough to steal…”
“We could beg,” he said.
That was an idea. There was a prosperous-looking peasant coming down the hill toward the castle on a sturdy black cob. Aliena sprang to her feet and ran to the road. As he drew near she said: “Sir, will you give me a penny?”
“Piss off,” the man snarled, and kicked his horse into a trot.
She walked back to the tree stump. “Beggars usually ask for food or old clothes,” she said dejectedly. “I never heard of anyone giving them money.”
“Well, how do people get money?” Richard said. The question had obviously never occurred to him before.
Aliena said: “The king gets money from taxes. Lords have rents. Priests have tithes. Shopkeepers have something to sell. Craftsmen get wages. Peasants don’t need money because they have fields.”
“Apprentices get wages.”
“So do laborers. We could work.”
“Who for?”
“Winchester is full of little manufactories where they make leather and cloth,” Aliena said. She began to feel optimistic again. “A city is a good place to find work.” She sprang to her feet. “Come on, let’s get started!”
Richard still hesitated. “I can’t work like a common man,” he said. “I’m the son of an earl.”
“Not anymore,” Aliena said harshly. “You heard what the jailer said. You’d better realize that you’re no better than anyone else, now.”
He looked sulky and said nothing.
“Well, I’m going,” she said. “Stay here if you like.” She walked away from him, toward the West Gate. She knew his sulks: they never lasted.
Sure enough, he caught her up before she reached the city. “Don’t be cross, Allie,” he said. “I’ll work. I’m pretty strong, actually-I’ll make a very good laborer.”
She smiled at him. “I’m sure you will.” It was not true, but there was no point in discouraging him.
They walked down the High Street. Aliena recalled that Winchester was laid out and divided up in a very logical way. The southern half, on their right as they walked, was divided into three parts: first there was the castle, then a district of wealthy homes, then the cathedral close and the bishop’s palace in the southeast corner. The northern half, on their left, was also divided into three: the Jews’ neighborhood, the middle part where the shops were, and the manufactories in the northeast corner.
Aliena led the way down the High Street to the eastern end of the city, then they turned left, into a street that had a brook running along it. On one side were normal houses, mostly wooden, a few partly of stone. On the other side was a jumble of improvised buildings, many of them no more than a roof supported by poles, most of them looking as if they might fall down at any minute. In some cases a little bridge, or a few planks, led across the brook to the building, but some of the buildings actually straddled the brook. In every building or yard, men and women were doing something that required large quantities of water: washing wool, tanning leather, fulling and dyeing cloth, brewing ale, and other operations that Aliena did not recognize. A variety of unfamiliar smells pricked her nostrils, acrid and yeasty, sulfurous and smoky, woody and rotten. The people all looked terribly busy. Of course, peasants also had a great deal to do, and they worked very hard, but they went about their tasks at a measured pace, and they always had time to stop and examine some curiosity or talk to passersby. The people in the manufactories never looked up. Their work seemed to take all their concentration and energy. They moved quickly, whether they were carrying sacks or pouring great buckets of water or pounding leather or cloth. As they went about their mysterious tasks in the gloom of their ramshackle huts, they made Aliena think of the demons stirring their cauldrons in pictures of hell.
She stopped outside a place where they were doing something she understood: fulling cloth. A muscular-looking woman was drawing water from the brook and pouring it into a huge stone trough lined with lead, stopping every now and again to add a measure of fuller’s earth from a sack. Lying in the bottom of the trough, completely submerged, was a length of cloth. Two men with large wooden clubs-called fuller’s bats, Aliena recollected-were pounding the cloth in the trough. The process caused the cloth to shrink and thicken, making it more waterproof; and the fuller’s earth leached out the oils from the wool. At the back of the premises were stacked bales of untreated cloth, new and loosely woven, and sacks of fuller’s earth.
Aliena crossed the brook and approached the people working at the trough. They glanced at her and continued working. The ground was wet all around them, and they worked with their feet bare, she noticed. When she realized they were not going to stop and ask her what she wanted, she said loudly: “Is your master here?”
The woman replied by jerking her head toward the back of the premises.
Aliena beckoned Richard to follow and went through a gate to a yard where lengths of cloth were drying on wooden frames. She saw the figure of a man bent over one of the frames, arranging the cloth. “I’m looking for the master,” she said.
He straightened up and looked at her. He was an ugly man with one eye and a slightly hunched back, as if he had been bending over drying frames for so many years that he could no longer stand quite upright. “What is it?” he said.
“Are you the master fuller?”
“I’ve been working at it nigh on forty year, man and boy, so I hope I’m master,” he said. “What do you want?”
Aliena realized she was dealing with the type of man who always had to prove how smart he was. She adopted a humble tone and said: “My brother and I want to work. Will you employ us?”
There was a pause while he looked her up and down. “Christ Jesus and all the saints, what would I do with you?”
“We’ll do anything,” Aliena said resolutely. “We need some money.”
“You’re no good to me,” the man said contemptuously, and he turned away to resume his work.
Aliena was not going to content herself with that. “Why not?” she said angrily. “We’re not scrounging, we want to earn something.”
He turned to her again.
“Please?” she said, although she hated to beg.
He regarded her impatiently, as he might have looked at a dog, wondering whether to make the effort of kicking it; but she could tell that he was tempted to show her how stupid she was being and how clever he was by contrast. “All right,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll explain it to you. Come with me.”
He led them to the trough. The men and the woman were pulling the length of cloth out of the water, rolling it as it emerged. The master spoke to the woman. “Come here, Lizzie. Show us your hands.”
The woman obediently came over and held out her hands. They were rough and red, with open sores where they had got chapped and the skin had broken.
“Feel those,” the master said to Aliena.
Aliena touched the woman’s hands. They were as cold as snow, and very rough, but what was most striking was how hard they were. She looked at her own hands, holding the woman’s: they suddenly looked soft and white and very small.
The master said: “She’s had her hands in water since she was a little ’un, so she’s used to it. You’re different. You wouldn’t last the morning at this work.”
Aliena wanted to argue with him, and say that she would get used to it, but she was not sure it was true. Before she could say anything, Richard spoke up. “What about me?” he said. “I’m bigger than both those men-I could do that work.”
It was true that Richard was actually taller and broader than the men who had been wielding the fuller’s bats. And he could handle a war-horse, Aliena recalled, so he should be able to pound cloth.
The two men finished rolling up the wet cloth, and one of them hoisted the roll onto his shoulder, ready to take it to the yard for drying. The master stopped him. “Let the young lord feel the weight of the cloth, Harry.”
The man called Harry lifted the cloth off his shoulder and put it on Richard’s. Richard sagged under the weight, straightened up with a mighty effort, paled, and then sank to his knees so that the ends of the roll rested on the ground. “I can’t carry it,” he said breathlessly.
The men laughed, the master looked triumphant, and the one called Harry took the cloth back, hoisted it onto his own shoulder with a practiced movement, and carried it away. The master said: “It’s a different kind of strength, one that comes from having to work.”
Aliena was angry. They were mocking her when all she wanted was to find an honest way to earn a penny. The master was thoroughly enjoying making a fool of her, she knew. He would probably keep it up as long as she let him. But he would never employ her or Richard. “Thank you for your courtesy,” she said with heavy sarcasm, and she turned and walked away.
Richard was upset. “It was heavy because it was so wet!” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Aliena realized she had to stay cheerful, to keep Richard’s morale up. “That’s not the only kind of work there is,” she said as she strode along the muddy street. “What else could we do?”
Aliena did not answer immediately. They reached the north wall of the city and turned left, heading west. The poorest houses were here, built up against the wall, often no more than lean-to shacks; and because they had no backyards the street was filthy. Eventually Aliena said: “Remember how girls used to come to the castle, sometimes, when there was no room for them at home anymore and they had no husband yet? Father would always take them in. They worked in the kitchens or the laundry or the stables, and Father used to give them a penny on saint’s days.”
“Do you think we could live at Winchester Castle?” Richard said dubiously.
“No. They won’t take people in while the king’s away-they must have more people than they need. But there are lots of rich folk in the city. Some of them must want servants.”
“It’s not man’s work.”
Aliena wanted to say Why don’t you come up with some ideas yourself, instead of just finding fault with everything I say? But she bit her tongue and said: “It only wants one of us to work long enough to get a penny, then we can see Father and ask him what we should do next.”
“All right.” Richard was not averse to the idea of only one of them working, especially if the one was likely to be Aliena.
They turned left again and entered the section of the city called the Jewry. Aliena stopped outside a big house. “They must have servants in there,” she said.
Richard was shocked. “You wouldn’t work for Jews, would you.”
“Why not? You don’t catch people’s heresy the way you catch their fleas, you know.”
Richard shrugged and followed her inside.
It was a stone house. Like most city homes, it had a narrow frontage but reached back a long way. They were in an entrance hall that was the full width of the house. There was a fire and some benches. The smell from the kitchen made Aliena’s mouth water, although it was different from regular cooking, with a hint of alien spices. A young girl came from the back of the house and greeted them. She had dark skin and brown eyes, and she spoke respectfully. “Do you want to see the goldsmith?”
So that was what he was. “Yes, please,” said Aliena. The girl disappeared again and Aliena looked around. A goldsmith would need a stone house, of course, to protect his gold. The door between this room and the back of the house was made of heavy oak planks banded with iron. The windows were narrow, too small for anyone to climb through, even a child. Aliena thought how nerve-racking it must be to have all your wealth in gold or silver, which could be stolen in an instant, leaving you destitute. Then she reflected that Father had been rich with a more normal kind of wealth-land and a title-and yet he had lost everything in a day.
The goldsmith came out. He was a small, dark man, and he peered at them, frowning, as if he were examining a small piece of jewelry and assessing its worth. After a moment he seemed to sum them up, and he said: “You have something you would like to sell?”
“You’ve judged us well, goldsmith,” Aliena said. “You’ve guessed we’re high-born people who now find themselves destitute. But we have nothing to sell.”
The man looked worried. “If you’re looking for a loan, I fear-”
“We don’t expect anyone to lend us money,” Aliena broke in. “Just as we have nothing to sell, so we have nothing to pawn.”
He looked relieved. “Then how can I help you?”
“Would you take me on as a servant?”
He was shocked. “A Christian? Certainly not!” He actually shrank back at the thought.
Aliena was disappointed. “Why not?” she said plaintively.
“It would never do.”
She felt rather offended. The idea that someone should find her religion distasteful was demeaning. She remembered the clever phrase she had used to Richard. “You don’t catch people’s religions the way you catch their fleas,” she said.
“The people of the town would object.”
Aliena felt sure he was using public opinion as an excuse, but it was probably true all the same. “I suppose we’d better seek out a rich Christian, then,” she said.
“It’s worth a try,” the goldsmith said doubtfully. “Let me tell you something candidly. A wise man would not employ you as a servant. You’re used to giving orders, and you would find it very hard to be on the receiving end.” Aliena opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand to stop her. “Oh, I know you’re willing. But all your life others have served you, and even now you feel in your heart of hearts that things should be arranged to please you. Highborn people make poor servants. They are disobedient, resentful, thoughtless, touchy, and they think they’re working hard even though they do less than everyone else-so they cause trouble among the rest of the staff.” He shrugged. “This is my experience.”
Aliena forgot that she had been offended by his distaste for her religion. He was the first kindly person she had met since she left the castle. She said: “But what can we do?”
“I can only tell you what a Jew would do. He would find something to sell. When I came to this city I began by buying jewelry from people who needed cash, then melting the silver and selling it to the coiners.”
“But where did you get the money to buy the jewelry?”
“I borrowed from my uncle-and paid him interest, by the way.”
“But nobody will lend to us!”
He looked thoughtful. “What would I have done if I had no uncle? I think I would have gone into the forest and collected nuts, then brought them into the town and sold them to the housewives who do not have the time to go to the forest and cannot grow trees in their backyards because the yards are so full of refuse and filth.”
“It’s the wrong time of year,” Aliena said. “There’s nothing growing now.”
The goldsmith smiled. “The impatience of youth,” he said. “Wait a while.”
“All right.” There was no point in explaining about Father. The goldsmith had done his best to be helpful. “Thank you for your advice.”
“Farewell.” The goldsmith returned to the back of the house and closed the massive ironbound door.
Aliena and Richard went out. The goldsmith had been kind but nevertheless they had spent half a day being turned away from places, and Aliena could not help feeling dejected. Not knowing where to go next, they wandered through the Jewry and emerged in the High Street again. Aliena was beginning to feel hungry-it was dinnertime-and she knew that if she was hungry, Richard would be ravenous. They walked aimlessly along the High Street, envying the well-fed rats that swarmed in the refuse, until they came to the old royal palace. There they stopped, as all out-of-towners did, to look through the bars at the coiners manufacturing money. Aliena stared at the stacks of silver pennies, thinking that she wanted only one of those, and she could not get it.
After a while she noticed a girl of about her own age standing nearby, smiling at Richard. The girl looked friendly. Aliena hesitated, saw her smile again, and spoke to her. “Do you live here?”
“Yes,” the girl said. It was Richard she was interested in, not Aliena.
Aliena blurted out: “Our father’s in the jailhouse, and we’re trying to find some way to make a living and get some money to bribe the jailer. Do you know what we might do?”
The girl turned her attention from Richard back to Aliena. “You’re penniless, and you want to know how to make some money?”
“That’s right. We’re willing to work hard. We’ll do anything. Can you think of something?”
The girl gave Aliena a long, assessing look. “Yes, I can,” she said at last. “I know someone who might help you.”
Aliena was thrilled: this was the first person to say Yes to her all day. “When can we see him?” she said eagerly.
“Her.”
“What?”
“It’s a woman. And you can probably see her right away, if you come with me.”
Aliena and Richard exchanged a delighted look. Aliena could hardly believe the change in their luck.
The girl turned away, and they followed. She led them to a large wooden house on the south side of the High Street. Most of the house was at ground level but it had a small upper story. The girl went up an outside staircase and beckoned them to follow her.
The upstairs was a bedchamber. Aliena looked around her with wide eyes: it was more richly decorated and furnished than any of the rooms at the castle had been, even when Mother was alive. The walls were hung with tapestries, the floor was covered with fur rugs, and the bed was surrounded by embroidered curtains. On a chair like a throne sat a middle-aged woman in a gorgeous gown. She had been beautiful when she was young, Aliena guessed, although now her face was lined and her hair thin.
“This is Mistress Kate,” said the girl. “Kate, this girl is penniless and her father’s in the jailhouse.”
Kate smiled. Aliena smiled back, but she had to force herself: there was something about Kate that she disliked. Kate said: “Take the boy to the kitchen and give him a cup of beer while we talk.”
The girl took Richard out. Aliena was glad he would get some beer-perhaps they would give him something to eat as well.
Kate said: “What’s your name?”
“Aliena.”
“That’s unusual. But I like it.” She stood up and came close, a little too close. She took Aliena’s chin in her hand. “You’ve got a very pretty face.” Her breath smelled of wine. “Takeoff your cloak.”
Aliena was puzzled by this inspection, but she submitted to it: it seemed harmless, and after this morning’s rejections she did not want to throw away her first decent chance by seeming uncooperative. She shrugged off her cloak, dropped it on a bench, and stood there in the old linen dress the verderer’s wife had given her.
Kate walked around her. For some reason she seemed impressed. “My dear girl, you need never want for money, or anything else. If you work for me we’ll both be rich.”
Aliena frowned. This sounded crazy. All she wanted to do was help with laundry, or cooking, or sewing: she did not see how she could make anybody rich. “What sort of work are you talking about?” she said.
Kate was behind her. She ran her hands down Aliena’s sides, feeling her hips, and stood close so that Aliena could feel Kate’s breasts pressing against her back. “You’ve got a beautiful figure,” Kate said. “And your skin is lovely. You’re high-born, aren’t you?”
“My father was the earl of Shiring.”
“Bartholomew! Well, well. I remember him-not that he was ever a customer of mine. A very virtuous man, your father. Well, I understand why you’re destitute.”
So Kate had customers. “What do you sell?” Aliena asked.
Kate did not answer directly. She came around in front of Aliena again, looking at her face. “Are you a virgin, dear?”
Aliena flushed with shame.
“Don’t be shy,” said Kate. “I see you’re not. Well, no matter. Virgins are worth a lot but they don’t last, of course.” She put her hands on Aliena’s hips, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. “You’re so voluptuous, although you don’t know it. By the saints, you’re irresistible.” She slid her hand up from Aliena’s hip to her bosom, and gently took one breast in her hand, weighing it and squeezing it slightly, then she leaned forward and kissed Aliena’s lips.
Aliena understood everything in a flash: why the girl had smiled at Richard outside the mint, where Kate got her money, what Aliena would have to do if she worked for Kate, and what kind of woman Kate was. She felt foolish for not having understood earlier. For a moment she let Kate kiss her-it was so different from what William Hamleigh had done that she was not in the least repelled-but this was not it, this was not what she would have to do to earn money. She pulled away from Kate’s embrace. “You want me to become a whore,” she said.
“A lady of pleasure, my dear,” said Kate. “Get up late, wear beautiful clothes every day, make men happy, and become rich. You’d be one of the best. There’s a look about you… You could charge anything, anything. Believe me, I know.”
Aliena shuddered. There had always been a whore or two at the castle-it was necessary in a place where there were so many men without their wives-and they had been regarded as the lowest of the low, the humblest of the womenfolk, below even the sweepers. But it was not the low status that made Aliena tremble with disgust. It was the idea of men such as William Hamleigh walking in and fucking her for a penny. The thought brought back the memory of his big body poised over her, as she lay on the floor with her legs apart, shaking with terror and loathing, waiting for him to penetrate her. The scene came back to her with renewed horror and took away all her poise and confidence. She felt that if she stayed in this house a moment longer it would all happen to her again. She was overcome by a panicky urge to get outside. She backed toward the door. She was frightened of offending Kate, frightened that anyone should be angry with her. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “Please forgive me, but I couldn’t do that, really…”
“Think about it!” Kate said cheerfully. “Come back if you change your mind. I’ll still be here.”
“Thank you,” Aliena said unsteadily. She found the door at last. She opened it and scuttled out. Still upset, she ran down the stairs into the street and went to the front door of the house. She pushed it open but she was frightened to go in. “Richard!” she called. “Richard, come out!” There was no reply. The interior was dimly lit, and she could see nothing but a few vague female figures inside. “Richard, where are you?” she screamed hysterically.
She realized that passersby were staring at her, and that made her more anxious. Suddenly Richard appeared, with a cup of ale in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. “What’s the matter?” he said through a mouthful of meat. His tone indicated that he was annoyed at having been disturbed.
She grabbed his arm and pulled. “Come out of there,” she said. “It’s a whorehouse!”
Several bystanders laughed loudly at this, and one or two called out jeering remarks.
“They might give you some meat,” Richard said.
“They want me to be a whore!” she blazed.
“All right, all right,” Richard said. He downed his beer, put the cup on the floor inside the door, and stuffed the remains of the chicken leg inside his shirt.
“Come on,” Aliena said impatiently, though once again the need to deal with her younger brother had the effect of calming her. He did not seem angered by the idea that someone wanted his sister to become a whore, but he did look regretful at having to leave a place where there was chicken and beer to be had for the asking.
Most of the bystanders walked on, seeing that the fun was over, but one remained. It was the well-dressed woman they had seen in the jailhouse. She had given the jailer a penny, and he had called her Meg. She was looking at Aliena with an expression of curiosity mingled with compassion. Aliena had developed an aversion to being stared at, and she looked away angrily; then the woman spoke to her. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she said.
A note of kindness in Meg’s voice made Aliena turn back. “Yes,” she said after a pause. “We’re in trouble.”
“I saw you at the jailhouse. My husband is in prison-I visit him every day. Why were you there?”
“Our father is there.”
“But you didn’t go inside.”
“We haven’t any money to pay the jailer.”
Meg looked over Aliena’s shoulder at the whorehouse door. “Is that what you’re doing here-trying to get money?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know what it was until…”
“You poor thing,” Meg said. “My Annie would have been your age, if she’d lived… Why don’t, you come to the jailhouse with me tomorrow morning, and between us we’ll see if we can persuade Odo to act like a Christian and take pity on two destitute children.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” Aliena said. She was touched. There was no guarantee of success, but the fact that someone was willing to help brought tears to her eyes.
Meg was still looking hard at her. “Have you had any dinner?”
“No. Richard got something in… that place.”
“You’d better come to my house. I’ll give you some bread and meat.” She noticed Aliena’s wary look, and added: “And you don’t have to do anything for it.”
Aliena believed her. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind. Not many people have been kind to us. I don’t know how to thank you.
“No need,” she said. “Come with me.”
Meg’s husband was a wool merchant. At his house in the south of town, at his stall in the market on market days, and at the great annual fair held on St. Giles’s Hill, he bought fleeces brought to him by peasants from the surrounding countryside. He crammed them into great woolsacks, each holding the fleece of two hundred and forty sheep, and stored them in the barn at the back of his house. Once a year, when the Flemish weavers sent their agents to buy the soft, strong English wool, Meg’s husband would sell it all and arrange for the sacks to be shipped via Dover and Boulogne to Bruges and Ghent, where the fleece would be turned into top-quality cloth and sold all over the world at prices far too nigh for the peasants who kept the sheep. So Meg told Aliena and Richard over dinner, with that warm smile which said that whatever happens, there’s no need for people to be unkind to one another.
Her husband had been accused of selling short weight, a crime the city took very seriously, for its prosperity was based on a reputation for honest dealing. Judging by the way Meg spoke of it, Aliena thought he was probably guilty. His absence had made little different to the business, though. Meg had simply taken his place. In winter there was not much to do anyway: she had made a trip to Flanders; assured all her husband’s agents that the enterprise was functioning normally; and carried out repairs to the barn, enlarging it a little at the same time. When shearing began she would buy wool just as he had done. She knew how to judge its quality and set a price. She had already been admitted into the merchant’s guild of the city, despite the stain on her husband’s reputation, for there was a tradition of merchants helping each other’s families in times of trouble, and anyway he had not yet been proved guilty.
Richard and Aliena ate her food and drank her wine and sat by her fire talking until it began to get dark outside; then they went back to the priory to sleep. Aliena had nightmares again. This time she dreamed about her father. In the dream he was sitting on a throne in the prison, as tall and pale and authoritative as ever, and when she went to see him she had to bow as if he were the king. Then he spoke to her accusingly, saying she had abandoned him here in prison and gone to live in a whorehouse. She was outraged by the injustice of the charge, and said angrily that he had abandoned her. She was going to add that he had left her to the mercy of William Hamleigh, but she was reluctant to tell her father what William had done to her; then she saw that William was also in the room, sitting on a bed and eating cherries from a bowl. He spat a cherry pip at her and it hit her cheek, stinging her. Her father smiled and then William started throwing soft cherries at her. They splattered her face and dress, and she began to cry, because although the dress was old it was the only one she had, and now it was blotched all over with cherry juice like bloodstains.
She felt so unbearably sad in the dream that when she woke up and discovered it was not real she felt an enormous sense of relief, even though the reality-that she was homeless and penniless-was much worse than being pelted with soft cherries.
The light of dawn was seeping through the cracks in the walls of the guesthouse. All around her people were waking up and beginning to move around. Soon the monks came in, opened the doors and the shutters, and called everyone to breakfast.
Aliena and Richard ate hurriedly, then went to Meg’s house. She was ready to leave. She had made a spicy beef stew to warm up for her husband’s dinner, and Aliena told Richard to carry the heavy pot for her. Aliena wished they had something to give Father. She had not thought of it, but even if she had, she could not have bought anything. It was awful to think they could do nothing for him.
They walked up the High Street, entered the castle by the back gate, and then walked past the keep and down the hill to the jail. Aliena recalled what Odo had told her yesterday, when she had asked whether Father was all right. “No, he’s not,” the jailer had said. “He’s dying.” She had thought he was exaggerating to be cruel, but now she began to worry. She said to Meg: “Is there anything wrong with my father?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Meg said. “I’ve never seen him.”
“The jailer said he was dying.”
“That man is as mean as a cat. He probably said it just to make you miserable. Anyway, you’ll know in a moment.”
Aliena was not comforted, despite Meg’s good intentions, and she was full of dread as she walked through the doorway into the evil-smelling gloom of the jail.
Odo was warming his hands at the fire in the middle of the lobby. He nodded at Meg and looked at Aliena. “Have you got the money?” he said.
“I’ll pay for them,” Meg said. “Here’s two pennies, one for me and one for them.”
A crafty look came over Odo’s stupid face, and he said: “It’s twopence for them-a penny for each.”
“Don’t be such a dog,” Meg said. “You let them both in, or I’ll make trouble for you with the merchant guild, and you’ll lose the job.”
“All right, all right, no need for threats,” he said grumpily. He pointed to an archway in the stone wall to their right. “Bartholomew is that way.”
Meg said: “You’ll need a light.” She drew two candles from the pocket of her cloak and lit them at the fire, then gave one to Aliena. Her face looked troubled. “I hope all will be well,” she said, and she kissed Aliena. Then she went quickly through the opposite arch.
“Thank you for the penny,” Aliena called after her, but Meg had disappeared into the gloom.
Aliena peered apprehensively in the direction Odo had indicated. Holding the candle up high, she went through the archway, and found herself in a tiny square vestibule. The light of the candle showed three heavy doors, each barred on the outside. Odo called out: “Straight in front of you.”
Aliena said: “Lift the bar, Richard.”
Richard took the heavy wooden bar out of its brackets and stood it up against the wall. Aliena pushed the door open and sent up a quick silent prayer.
The cell was dark but for the light of her candle. She hesitated in the doorway, peering into the moving shadows. The place smelled like a privy. A voice said: “Who is it?”
Aliena said: “Father?” She made out a dark figure, sitting on the straw-covered floor.
“Aliena?” There was incredulity in the voice. “Is that Aliena?” It sounded like Father’s voice, but older.
Aliena went closer, holding the candle up. He looked up at her, the candlelight caught his face, and she gasped in horror.
He was hardly recognizable.
He had always been a thin man, but now he looked like a skeleton. He was filthy dirty and dressed in rags. “Aliena!” he said. “It is you!” His face twisted into a smile, and it was like the grin of a skull.
Aliena burst into tears. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing him so transformed. It was the most dreadful thing imaginable. She knew instantly that he was dying: the vile Odo had told the truth. But he was still alive, still suffering, and painfully pleased to see her. She had been determined to stay calm, but now she lost control completely, and fell to her knees in front of him, weeping with great racking sobs that came from deep inside her.
He leaned forward and put his arms around her, patting her back as if he were comforting a child over a grazed knee or a broken toy. “Don’t cry,” he said gently. “Not when you’ve made your father so happy.”
Aliena felt the candle taken from her hand. Father said: “And is that tall young man my Richard?”
“Yes, Father,” Richard said stiffly.
Aliena put her arms around Father, and felt his bones like sticks in a sack. He was wasting away: there was no flesh beneath his skin. She wanted to say something to him, some words of love or comfort, but she could not speak for sobbing.
“Richard,” he was saying, “you’ve grown! Have you got a beard yet?”
“It’s just started, Father, but it’s very fair.”
Aliena realized that Richard was on the edge of tears and struggling to maintain his composure. He would feel humiliated if he broke down in front of Father, and Father would probably tell him to snap out of it and be a man, which would make it worse. Worrying about Richard, she stopped crying. With an effort she pulled herself together. She hugged Father’s appallingly thin body once more; then she withdrew from his embrace, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose on her sleeve.
“Are you both all right?” Father said. His voice was slower than it used to be, and it quavered occasionally. “How have you managed? Where have you been living? They wouldn’t tell me anything about you-it was the worst torture they could have devised. But you seem fine-fit and healthy! This is wonderful!”
Mention of torture made Aliena wonder whether he had suffered physical torments, but she did not ask him: she was afraid of what he might tell her. Instead she answered his question with a lie. “We’re fine, Father.” She knew that the truth would be devastating to him. It would destroy this moment of happiness and fill the last days of his life with an agony of self-reproach. “We’ve been living at the castle and Matthew has been taking care of us.”
“But you can’t live there anymore,” he said. “The king has made that fat oaf Percy Hamleigh the earl now-he’ll have the castle.”
So he knew about that. “It’s all right,” she said. “We’ve moved out.”
He touched her dress, the old linen shift that the verderer’s wife had given her. “What’s this?” he said sharply. “Have you sold your clothes?”
He was still perceptive, Aliena noted. It would not be easy to deceive him. She decided to tell him part of the truth. “We left the castle in a hurry, and we haven’t any clothes.”
“Where’s Matthew now? Why isn’t he with you?”
She had been afraid of this question. She hesitated.
It was only a momentary pause, but he noticed it. “Come! Don’t try to hide anything from me!” he said with something of his old authority. “Where’s Matthew?”
“He was killed by the Hamleighs,” she said. “But they did us no harm.” She held her breath. Would he believe her?
“Poor Matthew,” he said sorrowfully. “He was never a fighting man. I hope he went straight to heaven.”
He had accepted her story. She was relieved. She moved the conversation off this dangerous ground. “We decided to come to Winchester to ask the king to make some provision for us, but he-”
“No use,” Father interrupted briskly, before she could explain why they had failed to see the king. “He wouldn’t do anything for you.”
Aliena was hurt by his dismissive tone. She had done her best, against the odds, and she wanted him to say Well done, not That was a waste of time. He had always been quick to correct and slow to praise. I ought to be used to it, she thought. Submissively she said: “What should we do now, Father?”
He shifted his sitting position, and there was a clanking noise. Aliena realized with a shock that he was in chains. He said: “I had one chance to hide some money away. It wasn’t much of a chance, but I had to take it. I had fifty bezants in a belt under my shirt. I gave the belt to a priest.”
“Fifty!” Aliena was surprised. A bezant was a gold coin. They were not minted in England, but came from Byzantium. She had never seen more than one at a time. A bezant was worth twenty-four silver pennies. Fifty were worth… she could not figure it out.
“Which priest?” said Richard practically.
“Father Ralph, of the church of St. Michael near the North Gate.”
“Is he a good man?” Aliena asked.
“I hope so. I really don’t know. On the day the Hamleighs brought me to Winchester, before they locked me up in here, I found myself alone with him, just for a few moments, and I knew it would be my only chance. I gave him the belt, and begged him to keep it for you. Fifty bezants is worth five pounds of silver.”
Five pounds. As this news sank in Aliena realized that the money would transform their existence. They would not be destitute; they would no longer have to live from hand to mouth. They could buy bread, and a pair of boots to replace those painful clogs, and even a couple of cheap ponies if they needed to travel. It did not solve all their problems, but it took away that frightening feeling of living constantly on the edge of a life-or-death crisis. She would not have to be thinking all the time of how they were going to survive. Instead she could turn her attention to something constructive-like getting Father out of this awful place. She said: “When we’ve got the money, what shall we do? We must get you freed.”
“I’m not coming out,” he said harshly. “Forget about that. If I weren’t dying already they’d have hanged me.”
Aliena gasped. How could he talk that way?
“Why are you shocked?” he said. “The king has to get rid of me, but this way I won’t be on his conscience.”
Richard said: “Father, this place is not well guarded while the king is away. With a few men I believe I could break you out.”
Aliena knew that was not going to happen. Richard did not have the ability or the experience to organize a rescue, and he was too young to persuade men to follow him. She was afraid Father would wound Richard by pouring scorn on the proposal, but all he said was: “Don’t even think about it. If you break in here I’ll refuse to go out with you.”
Aliena knew there was no point in arguing with him once he had made up his mind. But it broke her heart to think of him ending his days in this stinking jail. However, it occurred to her that there was a lot she could do to make him more comfortable here. She said: “Well, if you’re going to stay here, we can clean the place up and get fresh rushes. We’ll bring hot food in for you every day. We’ll get some candles, and perhaps we could borrow a Bible for you to read. You can have a fire-”
“Stop!” he said. “You’re not going to do any of that. I will not have my children wasting their lives hanging around a jailhouse waiting for an old man to die.”
Tears came to Aliena’s eyes again. “But we can’t leave you like this!”
He ignored her, which was his normal response to people who foolishly contradicted him. “Your dear mother had a sister, your Aunt Edith. She lives in the village of Huntleigh, on the road to Gloucester, with her husband, who is a knight. You are to go there.”
It occurred to Aliena that they could still see Father at intervals. And perhaps he would permit his in-laws to make him more comfortable. She tried to remember Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon. She had not seen them since Mama died. She had a vague recollection of a thin, nervous woman like her mother and a big, hearty man who ate and drank a lot. “Will they look after us?” she said uncertainly.
“Of course. They’re your kin.”
Aliena wondered whether that was sufficient reason for a modest knightly family to welcome two large and hungry youngsters into their home; but Father said it would be all right, and she trusted him. “What will we do?” she said.
“Richard will be a squire to his uncle and learn the arts of knighthood. You will be lady-in-waiting to Aunt Edith until you marry.”
As they talked, Aliena felt as if she had been carrying a heavy weight for miles, and had not noticed the pain in her back until she put the burden down. Now that Father was taking charge, it seemed to her that the responsibility of the last few days had been far too much for her to bear. And his authority and ability to control the situation, even when he was sick in jail, gave her comfort and took the edge off her sorrow, for it seemed unnecessary to worry about the person who was in charge.
Now he became even more magisterial. “Before you leave me, I want you both to swear an oath.”
Aliena was shocked. He had always counseled against oath-taking. To swear an oath is to put your soul at risk, he would say. Never take an oath unless you’re sure you would rather die than break it. And he was here because of an oath: the other barons had broken their word and accepted Stephen as king, but Papa had refused. He would rather die than break his oath, and here he was dying.
“Give me your sword,” he said to Richard.
Richard drew his sword and handed it over.
Father took it and reversed it, holding out the hilt. “Kneel down.”
Richard knelt in front of Father.
“Put your hand on the hilt.” Father paused, as if gathering his strength; then his voice rang out like a peal of bells. “Swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that you will not rest until you are earl of Shiring and lord of all the lands I ruled.”
Aliena was surprised and somewhat awestruck. She had expected Father to demand some general promise, such as to tell the truth always and fear God; but no, he was giving Richard a very specific task, one that might take a lifetime.
Richard took a deep breath and spoke with a shake in his voice. “I swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that I will not rest until I am earl of Shiring, and lord of all the lands you ruled.”
Papa sighed, as if he had completed an onerous task. Then he surprised Aliena again. He turned and proffered the hilt of the sword to her. “Swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that you will take care of your brother Richard until he has fulfilled his vow.”
A sense of doom swamped Aliena. This was to be their fate, then: Richard would avenge Father, and she would take care of Richard. For her it would be a mission of revenge, for if Richard became earl, William Hamleigh would lose his inheritance. It flashed across her mind that no one had asked her how she wanted to spend her life; but the foolish thought was gone as fast as it came. This was her destiny, and it was a fit and proper one. She was not unwilling, but she knew this was a fateful moment, and she had a sense of doors closing behind her and the path of her life being fixed irrevocably. She put her hand on the hilt of the sword and took the oath. Her voice surprised her by its strength and resolution. “I swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that I will take care of my brother Richard until he has fulfilled his vow.” She crossed herself. It was done. I’ve sworn an oath, she thought, and I must die rather than break my word. The thought gave her a kind of angry satisfaction.
“There,” Father said, and his voice sounded weak again. “Now you need never come to this place again.”
Aliena could not believe he meant it. “Uncle Simon can bring us to see you now and again, and we can make sure you’re warm and fed-”
“No,” he said sternly. “You have a task to fulfill. You’re not going to waste your energies visiting a jail.”
She heard that don’t-argue note in his voice again, but she could not help protesting against the harshness of his decision. “Then let us come again just once, to bring you a few comforts!”
“I want no comforts.”
“Please…”
“Never.”
She gave up. He was always at least as hard on himself as he was on everyone else. “Very well,” she said, and it came out in a sob.
“Now you’d better go,” he said.
“Already?”
“Yes. This is a place of despair and corruption and death. Now that I’ve seen you, and I know you’re well, and you’ve promised to rebuild what we have lost, I’m content. The only thing that could destroy my happiness would be to see you wasting your time visiting a jailhouse. Now go.”
“Papa, no!” she protested, although she knew it was no use.
“Listen,” he said, and his voice softened at last. “I’ve lived an honorable life, and now I’m going to die. I’ve confessed my sins. I’m ready for eternity. Pray for my soul. Go.”
Aliena leaned forward and kissed his brow. Her tears fell freely on his face. “Goodbye, Father dear,” she whispered. She got to her feet.
Richard bent down and kissed him. “Goodbye, Father,” he said unsteadily.
“May God bless you both, and help you keep your vows,” Father said.
Richard left him the candle. They went to the door. At the threshold Aliena turned and looked back at him in the unsteady light. His fleshless face was set in an expression of calm determination that was very familiar. She looked at him until tears obscured her vision. Then she turned away, went through the lobby of the jailhouse, and stumbled out into the open air.
Richard led the way. Aliena was stunned with grief. It was as if Father had already died; but it was worse, for he was still suffering. She heard Richard asking for directions but she paid no attention. She gave no thought to where they were going until he stopped outside a small wooden church with a lean-to hovel beside it. Looking around, Aliena saw that they were in a poor district of small tumbledown houses and filthy streets in which fierce dogs chased rats through the refuse and barefoot children played in the mud. “This must be St. Michael’s,” Richard said.
The lean-to at the side of the church had to be the priest’s house. It had one shuttered window. The door stood open. They went in.
There was a fire in the middle of the single room. The place was furnished with a roughhewn table, a few stools, and a beer barrel in the corner. The floor was strewn with rushes. Near the fire a man sat on a chair drinking from a large cup. He was a small, thin man of about fifty years, with a red nose and wispy gray hair. He wore ordinary everyday clothes, a dirty undershirt with a brown tunic, and clogs.
“Father Ralph?” said Richard dubiously.
“What if I am?” he replied.
Aliena sighed. Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world? But she had no energy left for dealing with bad temper, so she left it to Richard, who said: “Does that mean yes?”
The question was answered for them. A voice from outside called: “Ralph? Are you in?” A moment later a middle-aged woman came in and gave the priest a hunk of bread and a large bowl of something that smelled like meat stew. For once the smell of meat did not make Aliena’s mouth water: she was too numb even to be hungry. The woman was probably one of Ralph’s parishioners, for her clothes were of the same poor quality as his own. He took the food from her without a word and began to eat. She glanced incuriously at Aliena and Richard and went out again.
Richard said: “Well, Father Ralph, I am the son of Bartholomew, the former earl of Shiring.”
The man paused in his eating and looked up at them. There was hostility in his face, and something else Aliena could not read-fear? Guilt? He returned his attention to his dinner, but mumbled: “What do you want with me?”
Aliena felt a tug of fear.
“You know what I want,” Richard said. “My money. Fifty bezants.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ralph said.
Aliena stared at him incredulously. This could not be happening. Father had left money for them with this priest-he had said so! Father did not make mistakes about such things.
Richard had gone white. He said: “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now piss off.” He took another spoonful of stew.
The man was lying, of course; but what could they do about it? Richard pressed on stubbornly. “My father left money with you-fifty bezants. He told you to give it to me. Where is it?”
“Your father gave me nothing.”
“He said he did-”
“He lied, then.”
That was one thing you could be sure Father had not done. Aliena spoke for the first time. “You’re the liar, and we know it.”
Ralph shrugged. “Complain to the sheriff.”
“You’ll be in trouble if we do. They cut off the hands of thieves in this city.”
The shadow of fear briefly crossed the priest’s face, but it was gone in a moment, and his reply was defiant. “It will be my word against the word of a jailed traitor-if your father lives long enough to give evidence.”
Aliena realized he was right. There would be no independent witnesses to say that Father had given him the money, for the whole idea was that it was a secret, money that could not be taken away by the king or Percy Hamleigh or any of the other carrion crows who flocked around the possessions of a ruined man. Things were just as they had been in the forest, Aliena realized bitterly. People could rob her and Richard with impunity, because they were the children of a fallen noble. Why am I frightened of these men? she asked herself angrily. Why aren’t they frightened of me?
Richard looked at her and said in a low voice: “He’s right, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said venomously. “There’s no point in our complaining to the sheriff.” She was thinking of the one time men had been afraid of her: in the forest, when she had stabbed the fat outlaw, and the other one had run away in fear. This priest was no better than the outlaw. But he was old and quite feeble, and he had probably counted on never having to face his victims. Perhaps he could be frightened.
Richard said: “What shall we do, then?”
Aliena gave in to a sudden furious impulse. “Burn down his house,” she said. She stepped to the middle of the room and kicked the fire with her wooden clogs, scattering burning logs. The rushes around the fireplace caught immediately.
“Hey!” Ralph yelled. He half rose from his seat, dropping his bread and spilling the stew in his lap; but before he could get to his feet Aliena was on him. She felt completely out of control; she acted without thinking. She pushed him, and he slipped off the chair and tumbled to the floor. She was astonished at how easy it was to knock him down. She fell on him, landing with her knees on his chest and winding him. Mad with rage, she thrust her face close to his and screamed: “You lying thieving godless heathen, I’m going to burn you to death!”
His eyes flicked to one side and he looked even more terrified. Following his glance, Aliena saw that Richard had drawn his sword and was holding it ready to strike. The priest’s dirty face went pale, and he whispered: “You’re a devil…”
“You’re the one who steals money from poor children!” Out of the corner of her eye she saw a stick with one end burning brightly. She picked it up and held the hot end close to his face. “Now I’m going to burn out your eyes, one by one. First the left eye-”
“No, please,” he whispered. “Please don’t hurt me.”
Aliena was thrown by the rapidity with which he crumbled. She realized that the rushes were burning all around her. “Where’s the money, then?” she said in a voice which suddenly sounded normal.
The priest was still terrified. “In the church.”
“Where exactly?”
“Under the stone behind the altar.”
Aliena looked up at Richard. “Guard him while I go and look,” she said. “If he moves, kill him.”
Richard said: “Allie, the house will burn down.”
Aliena went to the corner and lifted the lid of the barrel. It was half full of beer. She grasped the rim and pulled it over. Beer flowed all over the floor, soaking the rushes and putting out the flames.
Aliena walked out of the house. She knew she really had been ready to put out the priest’s eyes, but instead of feeling ashamed she was overwhelmed by a sense of her own power. She had resolved not to let people make her a victim, and she had proved she could keep her resolution. She strode up to the front of the church and tried the door. It was fastened with a small lock. She could have gone back to the priest for the key, but instead she drew the dagger from her sleeve, inserted the blade in the crack of the door, and broke the lock. The door swung open and she marched inside.
It was the poorest kind of church. There was no furniture other than the altar and no decoration except for some crude paintings on the limewashed wood of the walls. In one corner, a single candle flickered beneath a small wooden effigy which presumably represented Saint Michael. Aliena’s triumph was disturbed for a moment by the realization that five pounds presented a terrible temptation to a man as poor as Father Ralph. Then she put sympathy out of her mind.
The floor was earth but there was a single large stone slab behind the altar. It made a rather obvious hiding place, but of course no one would bother to rob a church as visibly poor as this. Aliena went down on one knee and pushed the stone. It was very heavy and did not move. She began to feel anxious. Richard could not be relied upon to keep Ralph quiet indefinitely. The priest might get away and call for help, and then Aliena would have to prove that the money was hers. Indeed, that might be the least of her worries now that she had attacked a priest and broken into a church. She felt a chill of anxiety as she realized that she was on the wrong side of the law now.
That frisson of fear gave her extra strength. With a mighty heave she moved the stone an inch or two. It covered a hole about a foot deep. She managed to move the stone a little farther. Inside the hole was a wide leather belt. She put her hand in and drew the belt out.
“There!” she said aloud. “I’ve got it.” It gave her great satisfaction to think that she had defeated the dishonest priest and retrieved her father’s money. Then, as she stood up, she realized that her victory was qualified: the belt felt suspiciously light. She unfastened the end and tipped out the coins. There were only ten of them. Ten bezants were worth a pound of silver.
What had happened to the rest? Father Ralph had spent it! She became enraged again. Her father’s money was all she had in the world and a thieving priest had taken four fifths of it. She marched out of the church, swinging the belt. On the street, a passerby looked startled when he caught her eye, as if there was something odd about her expression. She took no notice and went into the priest’s house.
Richard was standing over Father Ralph, with his sword at the priest’s throat. As Aliena came through the door she screamed: “Where’s the rest of my father’s money?”
“Gone,” the priest whispered.
She knelt by his head and put her knife to his face. “Gone where?”
“I spent it,” he confessed in a voice hoarse with fear.
Aliena wanted to stab him, or beat him, or throw him into a river; but none of it would do any good. He was telling the truth. She looked at the overturned barrel: a drinking man could get through a great deal of beer. She felt as if she might explode with frustration. “I’d cut off your ear if I could sell it for a penny,” she hissed at him. He looked as if he thought she might cut it off anyway.
Richard said anxiously: “He’s spent the money. Let’s take what we’ve got and go.”
He was right, Aliena realized reluctantly. Her anger began to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of bitterness. There was nothing to be gained by frightening the priest any more, and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that someone would come in and cause trouble. She stood up. “All right,” she said. She put the gold coins back in the belt and buckled it around her waist beneath her cloak. She pointed a finger at the priest. “I may come back one day and kill you,” she spat.
She went out.
She strode away along the narrow street. Richard caught up with her hurrying. “You were wonderful, Allie!” he said excitedly. “You scared him half to death-and you got the money!”
She nodded. “Yes, I did,” she said sourly. She was still tense, but now that her fury had abated she felt deflated and unhappy.
“What shall we buy?” he said eagerly.
“Just a little food for our journey.”
“Shan’t we buy horses?”
“Not with a pound.”
“Still, we could get you some boots.”
She considered that. The clogs tortured her but the ground was too cold for bare feet. However, boots were expensive and she was reluctant to spend the money so quickly. “No,” she decided. “I’ll live a few more days without boots. We’ll keep the money for now.”
He was disappointed, but he did not dispute her authority. “What food shall we get?”
“Horsebread, hard cheese and wine.”
“Let’s get some pies.”
“They cost too much.”
“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then he said: “You’re awfully grumpy, Allie.”
Aliena sighed. “I know.” She thought: Why do I feel this way? I should be proud. I brought us here from the castle, I defended my brother, I found my father, I got our money.
Yes, and I stuck a knife into a fat man’s belly, and made my brother kill him, and I held a burning stick to a priest’s face, and I was ready to put his eyes out.
“Is it because of Father?” said Richard sympathetically.
“No, it’s not,” Aliena replied. “It’s because of me.”
Aliena regretted not buying the boots.
On the road to Gloucester she wore the clogs until they made her feet bleed, then she walked barefoot until she could no longer stand the cold, whereupon she put the clogs on again. She found it helped not to look at her feet: they hurt more when she could see the sores and the blood.
In the hill country there were a lot of poor smallholdings where peasants grew an acre or so of oats or rye and kept a few scrawny animals. Aliena stopped on the outskirts of a village, when she thought they must be near Huntleigh, to speak to a peasant who was shearing a sheep in a fenced yard next to a low, wattle-and-daub farmhouse. He had the sheep’s head trapped in a wooden fixture like a stocks, and was cutting its wool with a long-bladed knife. Two more sheep waited uneasily nearby, and one that was already shorn was grazing in the field, looking naked in the cold air.
“It’s early for shearing,” Aliena said.
The peasant looked up at her and grinned good-humoredly. He was a young man with red hair and freckles, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing hairy arms. “Ah, but I need the money. Better the sheep go cold than I go hungry.”
“How much do you get?”
“Penny a fleece. But I have to go to Gloucester to get it, so I lose a day in the field, just when it’s spring and there’s a lot to do.” He was cheerful enough, despite his grumbling.
“What’s this village?” Aliena asked him.
“Strangers call it Huntleigh,” he said. Peasants never used the name of their village-to them it was just the village. Names were for outsiders. “Who are you?” he asked with frank curiosity. “What brings you here?”
“I’m the niece of Simon of Huntleigh,” Aliena said.
“Indeed. Well, you’ll find him in the big house. Go back along this road a few yards, then take the path through the fields.”
“Thank you.”
The village sat in the middle of its plowed fields like a pig in a wallow. There were twenty or so small dwellings clustered around the manor house, which was not much bigger than the home of a prosperous peasant. Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon were not very wealthy, it seemed. A group of men stood outside the manor house with a couple of horses. One of them appeared to be the lord: he wore a scarlet coat. Aliena looked at him more closely. It was twelve or thirteen years since she had seen her Uncle Simon, but she thought this was he. She remembered him as a big man, and now he looked smaller, but no doubt that was because Aliena had grown. His hair was thinning and he had a double chin which she did not recall. Then she heard him say: “He’s very high in the wither, this beast,” and she recognized the rasping, slightly breathy voice.
She began to relax. From now on they would be fed and clothed and cared for and protected: no more horsebread and hard cheese, no more sleeping in barns, no more walking the roads with one hand on her knife. She would have a soft bed and a new dress and a dinner of roast beef.
Uncle Simon caught her eye. At first he did not know who she was. “Look at this,” he said to his men. “A handsome wench and a boy soldier to visit us.” Then something else came into his eyes, and Aliena knew he had realized they were not total strangers. “I know you, don’t I?” he said.
Aliena said: “Yes, Uncle Simon, you do.”
He jumped, as if scared by something. “By the saints! The voice of a ghost!”
Aliena did not understand that, but a moment later he explained. He came over to her, peering hard at her, as if he were about to look at her teeth like a horse; and he said: “Your mother had the same voice, like honey pouring out of a jar. You’re as beautiful as she was too, by Christ.” He put out his hand to touch her face, and she quickly stepped back out of reach. “But you’re as stiff-necked as your damned father, I can see that. I suppose he sent you here, did he?”
Aliena bristled. She did not like to hear Father referred to as “your damned father.” But if she protested, he would take it as further proof that she was stiff-necked; so she bit her tongue and answered him submissively. “Yes. He said Aunt Edith would take care of us.”
“Well, he was wrong,” Uncle Simon said. “Aunt Edith is dead. What’s more, since your father’s disgrace, I’ve lost half of my lands to that fat rogue Percy Hamleigh. It’s hard times here. So you can turn right around and go back to Winchester. I’m not taking you in.”
Aliena was shaken. He seemed so hard. “But we’re your kin!” she said.
He had the grace to look slightly ashamed, but his reply was harsh. “You’re not my kin. You used to be my first wife’s niece. Even when Edith was alive she never saw her sister, because of that pompous ass your mother married.”
“We’ll work,” Aliena pleaded. “We’re both willing-”
“Don’t waste your breath,” he said. “I’m not having you.”
Aliena was shocked. He was so definite. It was clear there was no point in arguing with him or begging. But she had suffered so many disappointments and reverses of this kind that she felt bitter rather than sad. A week ago something like this would have made her burst into tears. Now she felt like spitting at him. She said: “I’ll remember this when Richard is the earl and we take the castle back.”
He laughed. “Shall I live so long?”
Aliena decided not to stay and be humiliated any longer. “Let’s go,” she said to Richard. “We’ll look after ourselves.” Uncle Simon had already turned away and was looking at the horse with the high wither. The men with him were a little embarrassed. Aliena and Richard walked away.
When they were out of earshot, Richard said plaintively: “What are we going to do, Allie?”
“We’re going to show these heartless people that we’re better than they are,” she said grimly, but she did not feel brave, she was just full of hatred, for Uncle Simon, for Father Ralph, for Odo Jailer, for the outlaws, for the verderer, and most of all for William Hamleigh.
“It’s a good thing we’ve got some money,” Richard said.
It was. But the money would not last forever. “We can’t just spend it,” she said as they walked along the path that led back to the main road. “If we use it all up on food and things like that, we’ll just be destitute again when it’s all gone. We’ve got to do something with it.”
“I don’t see why,” Richard said. “I think we should buy a pony.”
She stared at him. Was he joking? There was no smile on his face. He simply did not understand. “We’ve got no position, no title, and no land,” she said patiently. “The king won’t help us. We can’t get ourselves hired as laborers-we tried, in Winchester, and no one would take us on. But somehow we have to make a living and turn you into a knight.”
“Oh,” he said. “I see.”
She could tell that he did not really see. “We need to establish ourselves in some occupation that will feed us and give us at least a chance of making enough money to buy you a good horse.”
“You mean I should become an apprentice to a craftsman?”
Aliena shook her head. “You have to become a knight, not a carpenter. Have we ever met anyone who had an independent livelihood but no skills?”
“Yes,” Richard said unexpectedly. “Meg in Winchester.”
He was right. Meg was a wool merchant although she had never been an apprentice. “But Meg has a market stall.” They passed the red-haired peasant who had given them directions. His four shorn sheep were grazing in the field, and he was tying their fleeces into bundles with cord made of reeds. He looked up from his work and waved. It was people such as he who took their wool into the towns and sold it to wool merchants. But the merchant had to have a place of business…
Or did he?
An idea was forming in Aliena’s mind.
She turned back abruptly.
Richard said: “Where are you going?”
She was too excited to answer him. She leaned on the peasant’s fence. “How much did you say you could get for your wool?”
“Penny a fleece,” he said.
“But you have to spend all day going to Gloucester and back.”
“That’s the trouble.”
“Suppose I buy your wool? That would save you the journey.”
Richard said: “Allie! We don’t need wool!”
“Shut up, Richard.” She did not want to explain her idea to him now-she was impatient to try it out on the peasant.
The peasant said: “That would be a kindness.” But he looked dubious, as if he suspected trickery.
“I couldn’t offer you a penny a fleece, though.”
“Aha! I thought there’d be a snag.”
“I could give you twopence for four fleeces.”
“But they’re worth a penny each!” he protested.
“In Gloucester. This is Huntleigh.”
He shook his head. “I’d rather have fourpence and lose a day in the field than have twopence and gain a day.”
“Suppose I offer you threepence for four fleeces.”
“I lose a penny.”
“And save a day’s journey.”
He looked bewildered. “I never heard of nothing like this before.”
“It’s as if I were a carter, and you paid me a penny to take your wool to market.” She found his slowness exasperating. “The question is, is an extra day in the fields worth a penny to you, or not?”
“It depends what I do with the day,” he said thoughtfully.
Richard said: “Allie, what are we going to do with four fleeces?”
“Sell them to Meg,” she said impatiently. “For a penny each. That way we’re a penny better off.”
“But we have to go all the way to Winchester for a penny!”
“No, stupid. We buy wool from fifty peasants and take the whole lot to Winchester. Don’t you see? We could make fifty pennies! We could feed ourselves and save up for a good horse for you!”
She turned back to the peasant. His cheerful grin had gone, and he was scratching his ginger-colored head. Aliena was sorry she had perplexed him, but she wanted him to accept her offer. If he did, she would know it was possible for her to fulfill her vow to her father. But peasants were stubborn. She felt like taking him by the collar and shaking him. Instead, she reached inside her cloak and fumbled in her purse. They had changed the gold bezants for silver pennies at the goldsmith’s house in Winchester, and now she took out three pennies and showed them to the peasant. “Here,” she said. “Take it or leave it.”
The sight of the silver helped the peasant make up his mind. “Done,” he said, and took the money.
Aliena smiled. It looked as if she might have found the answer.
That night she used a bundled fleece for a pillow. The smell of sheep reminded her of Meg’s house.
When she woke up in the morning she discovered that she was not pregnant.
Things were looking up.
Four weeks after Easter, Aliena and Richard entered Winchester with an old horse pulling a homemade cart bearing a huge sack which contained two hundred and forty fleeces-the precise number which made up a standard woolsack.
At that point they discovered taxes.
Previously they had always entered the city without attracting any attention, but now they learned why city gates were narrow and constantly manned by customs officers. There was a toll of one penny for every cartload of goods taken into Winchester. Fortunately, they still had a few pennies left, and they were able to pay; otherwise they would have been turned away.
Most of the fleeces had cost them between one half and three quarters of a penny each. They had paid seventy-two pence for the old horse, and the rickety cart had been thrown in. Most of the rest of the money had been spent on food. But tonight they would have a pound of silver and a horse and cart.
Aliena’s plan was then to go out again and buy another sackful of fleeces, and to do the same again and again until all the sheep were shorn. By the end of the summer she wanted to have the money to buy a strong horse and a new cart.
She felt very excited as she led their old nag through the streets toward Meg’s house. By the end of the day she would have proved that she could take care of herself and her brother without any help from anyone. It made her feel very mature and independent. She was in charge of her own destiny. She had had nothing from the king, she did not need relatives, and she had no use for a husband.
She was looking forward to seeing Meg, who had been her inspiration. Meg was one of the few people who had helped Aliena without trying to rob, rape or exploit her. Aliena had a lot of questions to ask her about business in general and the wool trade in particular.
It was market day, so it took them some time to drive their cart through the crowded city to Meg’s street. At last they arrived at her house. Aliena stepped into the hall. A woman she had never seen before was standing there. “Oh!” said Aliena, and she stopped short.
“What is it?” said the woman.
“I’m a friend of Meg’s.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore,” the woman said curtly.
“Oh, dear.” Aliena saw no need for her to be so brusque. “Where has she moved to?”
“She’s gone with her husband, who left this city in disgrace,” the woman said.
Aliena was disappointed and afraid. She had been counting on Meg to make the sale of the wool easy. “That’s terrible news!”
“He was a dishonest tradesman, and if I were you I wouldn’t boast about being a friend of hers. Now clear off.”
Aliena was outraged that someone should speak ill of Meg. “I don’t care what her husband may have done, Meg was a fine woman and greatly superior to the thieves and whores that inhabit this stinking city,” she said, and she went out before the woman could think of a rejoinder.
Her verbal victory gave her only momentary consolation. “Bad news,” she said to Richard. “Meg has left Winchester.”
“Is the person who lives there now a wool merchant?” he said.
“I didn’t ask. I was too busy telling her off.” Now she felt foolish.
“What shall we do, Allie?”
“We’ve got to sell these fleeces,” she said anxiously. “We’d better go to the marketplace.”
They turned the horse around and retraced their steps to the High Street, then threaded their way through the crowds to the market, which was between the High Street and the cathedral. Aliena led the horse and Richard walked behind the cart, pushing it when the horse needed help, which was most of the time. The marketplace was a seething mass of people squeezing along the narrow aisles between the stalls, their progress constantly delayed by carts such as Aliena’s. She stopped and stood on top of her sack of wool and looked for wool merchants. She could see only one. She got down and headed the horse in that direction.
The man was doing good business. He had a large space roped off with a shed behind it. The shed was made of hurdles, light timber frames filled in with woven twigs and reeds, and it was obviously a temporary structure erected each market day. The merchant was a swarthy man whose left arm ended at the elbow. Attached to his stump he had a wooden comb, and whenever a fleece was offered to him he would put his arm into the wool, tease out a portion with the comb, and feel it with his right hand before giving a price. Then he would use the comb and his right hand together to count out the number of pennies he had agreed to pay. For large purchases he weighed the pennies in a balance.
Aliena pushed her way through the crowd to the bench. A peasant offered the merchant three rather thin fleeces tied together with a leather belt. “A bit sparse,” said the merchant. “Three farthings each.” A farthing was a quarter of a penny. He counted out two pennies, then took a small hatchet and with a quick, practiced stroke cut a third penny into quarters. He gave the peasant the two pennies and one of the quarters. “Three times three farthings is twopence and a farthing.” The peasant took the belt off the fleeces and handed them over.
Next, two young men dragged a whole sack of wool up to the counter. The merchant examined it carefully. “It’s a full sack, but the quality’s poor,” he said. “I’ll give you a pound.”
Aliena wondered how he could be so sure the sack was full. Perhaps you could tell with practice. She watched him weigh out a pound of silver pennies.
Some monks were approaching with a huge cart piled high with sacks of wool. Aliena decided to get her business done before the monks. She beckoned to Richard, and he dragged their sack of wool off the cart and brought it up to the counter.
The merchant examined the wool. “Mixed quality,” he said. “Half a pound.”
“What?” Aliena said incredulously.
“A hundred and twenty pennies,” he said.
Aliena was horrified. “But you just paid a pound for a sack!”
“It’s because of the quality.”
“You paid a pound for poor quality!”
“Half a pound,” he repeated stubbornly.
The monks arrived and crowded the stall, but Aliena was not going to move: her livelihood was at stake, and she was more frightened of destitution than she was of the merchant. “Tell me why,” she insisted. “There’s nothing wrong with the wool, is there?”
“No.”
“Then give me what you paid those two men.”
“No.”
“Why not?” she almost screamed.
“Because nobody pays a girl what they would pay a man.”
She wanted to strangle him. He was offering her less than she had paid. It was outrageous. If she accepted his price, all her work would have been for nothing. Worse than that, her scheme for providing a livelihood for herself and her brother would have failed, and her brief period of independence and self-sufficiency would be over. And why? Because he would not pay a girl the same as he paid a man!
The leader of the monks was looking at her. She hated people to stare at her. “Stop staring!” she said rudely. “Just do your business with this godless peasant.”
“All right,” the monk said mildly. He beckoned to his colleagues and they dragged up a sack.
Richard said: “Take the ten shillings, Allie. Otherwise we’ll have nothing but a sack of wool!”
Aliena stared angrily at the merchant as he examined the monks’ wool. “Mixed quality,” he said. She wondered if he ever pronounced wool good quality. “A pound and twelvepence a sack.”
Why did it have to happen that Meg went away? thought Aliena bitterly. Everything would have been all right if she had stayed.
“How many sacks have you got?” said the merchant.
A young monk in novice’s robes said: “Ten,” but the leader said: “No, eleven.” The novice looked as if he was inclined to argue, but he said nothing.
“That’s eleven and a half pounds of silver, plus twelvepence.” The merchant began to weigh out the money.
“I won’t give in,” Aliena said to Richard. “We’ll take the wool somewhere else-Shiring, perhaps, or Gloucester.”
“All that way! And what if we can’t sell it there?”
He was right-they might have the same trouble elsewhere. The real difficulty was that they had no status, no support, no protection. The merchant would not dare to insult the monks, and even the poor peasants could probably cause trouble for him if he dealt unfairly with them, but there was no risk to a man who tried to cheat two children with nobody in the world to help them.
The monks were dragging their sacks into the merchant’s shed. As each one was stashed, the merchant handed to the chief monk a weighed pound of silver and twelve pennies. When all the sacks were in, there was a bag of silver still on the counter.
“That’s only ten sacks,” said the merchant.
“I told you there was only ten,” the novice said to the chief monk.
“This is the eleventh,” said the chief monk, and he put his hand on Aliena’s sack.
She stared at him in astonishment.
The merchant was equally surprised. “I’ve offered her half a pound,” he said.
“I’ve bought it from her,” the monk said. “And I’ve sold it to you.” He nodded to the other monks and they dragged Aliena’s sack into the shed.
The merchant looked disgruntled, but he handed over the last pound bag and twelve more pennies. The monk gave the money to Aliena.
She was dumbstruck. Everything had been going wrong and now this complete stranger had rescued her-after she had been rude to him, too!
Richard said: “Thank you for helping us, Father.”
“Give thanks to God,” said the monk.
Aliena did not know what to say. She was thrilled. She hugged the money to her chest. How could she thank him? She stared at her savior. He was a small, slight, intense-looking man. His movements were quick and he looked alert, like a small bird with dull plumage but bright eyes. His eyes were blue, in fact. The fringe of hair around his shaved pate was black streaked with gray, but his face was young. Aliena began to realize that he was vaguely familiar. Where had she seen him before?
The monk’s mind was going along the same path. “You don’t remember me, but I know you,” he said. “You’re the children of Bartholomew, the former earl of Shiring. I know you’ve suffered great misfortunes, and I’m glad to have a chance to help you. I’ll buy your wool anytime.”
Aliena wanted to kiss him. Not only had he saved her today, he was prepared to guarantee her future! She found her tongue at last. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “God knows, we need a protector.”
“Well, now you have two,” he said. “God, and me.”
Aliena was profoundly moved. “You’ve saved my life, and I don’t even know who you are,” she said.
“My name is Philip,” he said. “I’m the prior of Kingsbridge.”
IT WAS A GREAT DAY when Tom Builder took the stonecutters to the quarry.
They went a few days before Easter, fifteen months after the old cathedral burned down. It had taken this long for Prior Philip to amass enough cash to hire craftsmen.
Tom had found a forester and a master quarryman in Salisbury, where the Bishop Roger’s palace was almost complete. The forester and his men had now been at work for two weeks, finding and felling tall pine trees and mature oaks. They were concentrating their efforts on the woods near the river, upstream from Kingsbridge, for it was very costly to transport materials on the winding mud roads, and a lot of money could be saved by simply floating the wood downstream to the building site. The timber would be roughly lopped for scaffolding poles, carefully shaped into templates to guide the masons and stonecarvers, or-in the case of the tallest trees-set aside for future use as roof beams. Good wood was now arriving in Kingsbridge at a steady rate and all Tom had to do was pay the foresters every Saturday evening.
The quarrymen had arrived over the last few days. The master quarryman, Otto Blackface, had brought with him his two sons, both of whom were stonecutters; four grandsons, all apprentices; and two laborers, one his cousin and the other his brother-in-law. Such nepotism was normal, and Tom had no objection to it: a family group usually made a good team.
As yet there were no craftsmen working in Kingsbridge, on the site itself, other than Tom and the priory’s carpenter. It was a good idea to stockpile some materials. But soon Tom would hire the people who formed the backbone of the building team, the masons. They were the men who put one stone on another and made the walls rise. Then the great enterprise would begin. Tom walked with a spring in his step: this was what he had hoped for and worked toward for ten years.
The first mason to be hired, he had decided, would be his own son Alfred. Alfred was sixteen years old, approximately, and had acquired the basic skills of a mason: he could cut stones square and build a true wall. As soon as hiring began, Alfred would get full wages.
Tom’s other son, Jonathan, was fifteen months old and growing fast. A sturdy child, he was the pampered pet of the whole monastery. Tom had worried a little, at first, about the baby being looked after by the half-witted Johnny Eightpence, but Johnny was as attentive as any mother and had more time than most mothers to devote to his charge. The monks still did not suspect that Tom was Jonathan’s father, and now they probably never would.
Seven-year-old Martha had a gap in her front teeth and she missed Jack. She was the one who worried Tom most, for she needed a mother.
There was no shortage of women who would like to marry Tom and take care of his little daughter. He was not an unattractive man, he knew, and his livelihood looked secure now that Prior Philip was starting to build in earnest. Tom had moved out of the guesthouse and had built himself a fine two-room house, with a chimney, in the village. Eventually, as master builder in charge of the whole project, he could expect a salary and benefits that would be the envy of many minor gentry. But he could not conceive of marrying anyone but Ellen. He was like a man who has got used to drinking the finest wine, and now finds that everyday wine tastes like vinegar. There was a widow in the village, a plump, pretty woman with a smiling face and a generous bosom and two well-behaved children, who had baked several pies for him and kissed him longingly at the Christmas feast, and would marry him as quick as he liked. But he knew that he would be unhappy with her, for he would always hanker after the excitement of being married to the unpredictable, infuriating, bewitching, passionate Ellen.
Ellen had promised to come back, one day, to visit. Tom felt fiercely certain that she would keep that promise, and he clung to it stubbornly, even though it was more than a year since she had walked out. And when she did come back he was going to ask her to marry him.
He thought she might accept him now. He was no longer destitute: he could feed his own family and hers too. He felt that Alfred and Jack could be prevented from fighting, if they were handled right. If Jack were made to work, Alfred would not resent him so badly, Tom thought. He was going to offer to take Jack as an apprentice. The lad had shown an interest in building, he was as bright as a button, and in a year or so he would be big enough for the heavy work. Then Alfred would not be able to say that Jack was idle. The other problem was that Jack could read and Alfred could not. Tom was going to ask Ellen to teach Alfred to read and write. She could give him lessons every Sunday. Then Alfred would be able to feel every bit as good as Jack. The boys would be equal, both educated, both working, and before long much the same size.
He knew Ellen had really liked living with him, despite all their trials. She liked his body and she liked his mind. She would want to come back to him.
Whether he would be able to square things with Prior Philip was another matter. Ellen had insulted Philip’s religion rather decisively. It was hard to imagine anything more offensive to a prior than what she had done. Tom had not yet solved that problem.
Meanwhile, all his intellectual energy was employed in planning the cathedral. Otto and his team of stonecutters would build a rough lodge for themselves at the quarry, where they could sleep at night. When they were settled in, they would build real houses, and those who were married would bring their families to live with them.
Of all the building crafts, quarrying required the least skill and the most muscle. The master quarryman did the brainwork: he decided which zones would be mined and in what order; he arranged for ladders and lifting gear; if a sheer face was to be worked he would design scaffolding; he made sure there was a constant supply of tools coming from the smithy. Actually digging out the stones was relatively simple. The quarryman would use an iron-headed pickax to make an initial groove in the rock, then deepen it with a hammer and chisel. When the groove was big enough to weaken the rock, he would drive a wooden wedge into it. If he had judged his rock rightly, it would split exactly where he wanted.
Laborers removed the stones from the quarry, either carrying them on stretchers or lifting them with a rope attached to a huge winding wheel. In the lodge, stonecutters with axes would hack the stones roughly into the shape specified by the master builder. Accurate carving and shaping would be done at Kingsbridge, of course.
The biggest problem would be transport. The quarry was a day’s journey from the building site, and a carter would probably charge fourpence a trip-and he could not carry more than eight or nine of the big stones without breaking his cart or killing his horse. As soon as the quarrymen were settled in, Tom had to explore the area and see whether there were any waterways that could be used to shorten the journey.
They had set off from Kingsbridge at daybreak. As they walked through the forest, the trees arching over the road made Tom think of the piers of the cathedral he would build. The new leaves were just coming out. Tom had always been taught to decorate the cushion capitals on top of the piers with scrolls or zigzags, but now it occurred to him that decorations in the shape of leaves would look rather striking.
They made good time, so that by midafternoon they were in the vicinity of the quarry. To his surprise, Tom heard in the distance the sound of metal clanging on rock, as if someone was working there. Technically the quarry belonged to the earl of Storing, Percy Hamleigh, but the king had given Kingsbridge Priory the right to mine it for the cathedral. Perhaps, Tom speculated, Earl Percy intended to work the quarry for his own benefit at the same time as the priory worked it. The king probably had not specifically prohibited that, but it would cause a lot of inconvenience.
As they drew nearer, Otto, a dark-skinned man with a rough manner, frowned at the sound, but he said nothing. The other men muttered to one another uneasily. Tom ignored them but he walked faster, impatient to find out what was going on.
The road curved through a patch of woodland and ended at the base of a hill. The hill itself was the quarry, and a huge bite had been taken out of its side by past quarry men. Tom’s initial impression was that it would be easy to work: a hill was bound to be better than a pit, for it was always less trouble to lower stones from a height than to lift them out of a hole.
The quarry was being worked, no question of that. There was a lodge at the foot of the hill, a sturdy scaffold reaching twenty feet or more up the scarred hillside, and a stack of stones waiting to be collected. Tom could see at least ten quarrymen. Ominously, there were a couple of hard-faced men-at-arms lounging outside the lodge, throwing stones at a barrel.
“I don’t like the look of this,” said Otto.
Tom did not like it either, but he pretended to be unperturbed. He marched into the quarry as if he owned it, and walked swiftly toward the two men-at-arms. They scrambled to their feet with the startled, faintly guilty air of sentries who have been on guard for too many uneventful days. Tom quickly looked over their weapons: each had a sword and a dagger, and they wore heavy leather jerkins, but they had no armor. Tom himself had a mason’s hammer hanging from his belt. He was in no position to get into a fight. He walked straight at the two men without speaking, then at the last minute turned aside and walked around them, and continued on to the lodge. They looked at one another, unsure what to do: if Tom had been smaller, or had not had a hammer, they might have been quicker to stop him, but now it was too late.
Tom went into the lodge. It was a spacious wood building with a fireplace. Clean tools hung around the walls and there was a big stone in the corner for sharpening them. Two stonecutters stood at a massive wooden bench called a banker, trimming stones with axes. “Greetings, brothers,” Tom said, using the form of address of one craftsman to another. “Who’s the master here?”
“I’m the master quarryman,” said one of them. “I’m Harold of Shiring.”
“I’m the master builder at Kingsbridge Cathedral. My name is Tom.”
“Greetings, Tom Builder. What are you here for?”
Tom studied Harold for a moment before answering. He was a pale, dusty man with small dusty-green eyes, which he narrowed when he spoke, as if he were always blinking away stone dust. He leaned casually on the banker, but he was not as relaxed as he pretended. He was nervous, wary and apprehensive. He knows exactly why I’m here, Tom thought. “I’ve brought my master quarryman to work here, of course.”
The two men-at-arms had followed Tom in, and Otto and his team had come in behind them. Now one or two of Harold’s men also crowded in, curious to see what the fuss was about.
Harold said: “The quarry is owned by the earl. If you want to take stone you’ll have to see him.”
“No, I won’t,” Tom said. “When the king gave the quarry to Earl Percy, he also gave Kingsbridge Priory the right to take stone. We don’t need any further permission.”
“Well, we can’t all work it, can we?”
“Perhaps we can,” said Tom. “I wouldn’t want to deprive your men of employment. There’s a whole hill of rock-enough for two cathedrals and more. We should be able to find a way to manage the quarry so that we can all cut stone here.”
“I can’t agree to that,” said Harold. “I’m employed by the earl.”
“Well, I’m employed by the prior of Kingsbridge, and my men start work here tomorrow morning, whether you like it or not.”
One of the men-at-arms spoke up then. “You won’t be working here tomorrow or any other day.”
Until this moment Tom had been clinging to the idea that although Percy was violating the spirit of the royal edict by mining the quarry himself, if he was pushed he would adhere to the letter of the agreement, and permit the priory to take stone. But this man-at-arms had obviously been instructed to turn the priory’s quarrymen away. That was a different matter. Tom realized, with sinking spirits, that he was not going to get any stone without a fight.
The man-at-arms who had spoken was a short, stocky fellow of about twenty-five years, with a pugnacious expression. He looked stupid but stubborn-the hardest type to reason with. Tom gave him a challenging look and said: “Who are you?”
“I’m a bailiff for the earl of Shiring. He’s told me to guard this quarry, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“And how do you propose to do it?”
“With this sword.” He touched the hilt of the weapon at his belt.
“And what do you think the king will do to you when you’re brought before him for breaking his peace?”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“But there are only two of you,” Tom said in a reasonable tone of voice. “We’re seven men and four boys, and we have the king’s permission to work here. If we kill you, we won’t hang.”
Both men-at-arms looked thoughtful, but before Tom could press his advantage, Otto spoke. “Just a minute,” he said to Tom. “I brought my people here to cut stones, not fight.”
Tom’s heart sank. If the quarrymen were not prepared to make a stand, there was no hope. “Don’t be so timid!” he said. “Are you going to let yourselves be deprived of work by a couple of bully-boys?”
Otto looked surly. “I’m not going to fight armed men,” he replied. “I’ve been earning steadily for ten years and I’m not that desperate for work. Besides, I don’t know the rights and wrongs of this-as far as I’m concerned it’s your word against theirs.”
Tom looked at the rest of Otto’s team. Both the stonecutters wore the same obstinate look as Otto. Of course, they would follow his lead: he was their father as well as their master. And Tom could see Otto’s point. Indeed, if he were in Otto’s position he would probably take the same line. He would not get into a brawl with armed men unless he was desperate.
But knowing that Otto was being reasonable gave Tom no comfort; in fact it made him even more frustrated. He decided to give it one more try. “There won’t be any fighting,” he said. “They know the king will hang them if they hurt us. Let’s just make our fire, and settle down for the night, and start work in the morning.”
Mentioning the night was a mistake. One of Otto’s sons said: “How could we sleep, with these murdering villains nearby?”
The others murmured agreement.
“We’ll set watches,” Tom said desperately.
Otto shook his head decisively. “We’re leaving tonight. Now.”
Tom looked around at the men and saw that he was defeated. He had set out this morning with such high hopes, and he could hardly believe that his plans had been frustrated by these petty thugs. It was too galling for words. He could not resist a bitter parting shot. “You’re going against the king, and that’s a dangerous business,” he said to Harold. “You tell the earl of Shiring that. And tell him that I’m Tom Builder of Kingsbridge, and if I ever get my hands around his fat neck I might just squeeze it until he chokes.”
Johnny Eightpence made a miniature monk’s robe for little Jonathan, complete with wide sleeves and a hood. The tiny figure looked so fetching in it that he melted everyone’s heart, but it was not very practical: the hood kept falling forward, obscuring his vision, and when he crawled the robe got in the way of his knees.
In the middle of the afternoon, when Jonathan had had his nap (and the monks had had theirs), Prior Philip came across the baby, with Johnny Eightpence, in what had been the nave of the church, and was now the novices’ playground. This was the time of day when the novices were allowed to let off steam, and Johnny was watching them play tag while Jonathan investigated the network of pegs and cord with which Tom Builder had laid out the ground plan of the east end of the new cathedral.
Philip stood beside Johnny for a few moments in companionable silence, watching the youngsters race around. Philip was very fond of Johnny, who made up for his lack of brains by having an extraordinarily good heart.
Jonathan was on his feet now, leaning against a stake Tom had driven into the ground where the north porch would be. He held on to the cord attached to the stake, and with that unsteady support took a couple of awkward, deliberate steps. “He’ll be walking soon,” Philip said to Johnny.
“He keeps trying, Father, but he generally falls on his bottom.”
Philip crouched down and reached out his hands to Jonathan. “Walk to me,” he said. “Come on.”
Jonathan grinned, showing miscellaneous teeth. He took another step holding on to Tom’s cord. Then he pointed at Philip, as if that would help, and with a sudden access of boldness, he crossed the intervening space with three rapid, decisive steps.
Philip caught him in his arms and said: “Well done!” He hugged him, feeling as proud as if the achievement were his, not the baby’s.
Johnny was equally excited. “He walked! He walked!”
Jonathan struggled to be put down. Philip set him on his feet, to see if he would walk again; but he had had enough for one day, and he immediately dropped to his knees and crawled to Johnny.
Some of the monks had been scandalized, Philip recalled, when he had brought Johnny and baby Jonathan to Kingsbridge; but Johnny was easy to deal with so long as you did not forget that he was essentially a child in a man’s body; and Jonathan had overcome all opposition by sheer force of personal charm.
Jonathan had not been the only cause of unrest during that first year. Having voted for a good provider, the monks felt cheated when Philip introduced an austerity drive to reduce the priory’s day-to-day expenses. Philip had been a little hurt: he felt he had made it clear that his top priority would be the new cathedral. The monastic officers had also resisted his plan to take away their financial independence, even though they knew perfectly well that without reforms the priory was headed for ruin. And when he had spent money on enlarging the monastery’s flocks of sheep there had almost been a mutiny. But monks were essentially people who wanted to be told what to do; and Bishop Waleran, who might have encouraged the rebels, had spent most of the year going to Rome and coming back; so in the end muttering was as far as the monks had got.
Philip had suffered some lonely moments, but he was sure results would vindicate him. His policies were already bearing fruit in a very satisfying way. The price of wool had risen again, and Philip had already started shearing: that was why he could afford to hire foresters and quarrymen. As the financial position improved and cathedral building progressed, his position as prior would become unassailable.
He gave Johnny Eightpence an affectionate pat on the head and walked through the building site. With some help from priory servants and younger monks, Tom and Alfred had made a start on digging the foundations. However, they were only five or six feet deep as yet. Tom had told Philip that the foundation holes would have to be twenty-five feet deep in places. He would need a large force of laborers, plus some lifting gear, to dig so far down.
The new church would be bigger than the old one, but it would still be small for a cathedral. A part of Philip wanted it to be the longest, highest, richest and most beautiful cathedral in the kingdom, but he suppressed the wish, and told himself to be grateful for any kind of church.
He went into Tom’s shed and looked at the woodwork on the bench. The builder had spent most of the winter in here, working with an iron measuring stick and a set of fine chisels, making what he called templates-wooden models for the masons to use as guides when they were cutting stones into shape. Philip had watched with admiration while Tom, a big man with big hands, precisely and painstakingly carved the wood into perfect curves and square corners and exact angles. Now Philip picked up one of the templates and examined it. It was shaped like the edge of a daisy, a quarter-circle with several round projections like petals. What sort of stone needed to be that shape? He found that these things were hard to visualize, and he was constantly impressed by the power of Tom’s imagination. He looked at Tom’s drawings, engraved on plaster in wooden frames, and eventually he decided that he was holding a template for the piers of the arcade, which would look like clusters of shafts. Philip had thought they would actually be clusters of shafts, but now he realized that would be an illusion: the piers would be solid stone columns with shaft-like decorations.
Five years, Tom had said, and the east end would be finished. Five years, and Philip would be able to hold services in a cathedral again. All he had to do was find the money. This year it had been hard to scrape together enough cash to make a modest start, because his reforms were slow to take effect; but next year, after he had sold the new spring’s wool, he would be able to hire more craftsmen and begin to build in earnest.
The bell rang for vespers. Philip left the little shed and walked to the crypt entrance. Glancing over at the priory gate, he was astonished to see Tom Builder coming in with all the quarrymen. Why were they back? Tom had said he would be away for a week and the quarrymen were to have stayed there indefinitely. Philip hurried to meet them.
As he came close he saw that they looked tired and dispirited, as if something terribly discouraging had happened. “What is it?” he said. “Why are you here?”
“Bad news,” said Tom Builder.
Philip simmered with fury all through vespers. What Earl Percy had done was outrageous. There was no doubt about the rights and wrongs of the case, no ambiguity about the king’s instructions: the earl had been there himself when the announcement was made, and the priory’s right to mine the quarry was enshrined in a charter. Philip’s right foot tapped the stone floor of the crypt in an urgent, angry rhythm. He was being robbed. Percy might as well steal pennies from a church treasury. There was no shred of an excuse for it. Percy was flagrantly defying both God and the king. But the worst of it was that Philip could not build the new cathedral unless he got the stone for nothing from that quarry. He was already working with a bare-minimum budget, and if he had to pay the market price for his stone, and transport it from even farther away, he could not build at all. He would have to wait another year or more, and then it would be six or seven years before he could hold services in a cathedral again. The thought was too much to bear.
He held an emergency chapter immediately after vespers and told the monks the news.
He had developed a technique for handling chapter meetings. Remigius, the sub-prior, still bore a grudge against Philip for defeating him in the election, and he often let his resentment show when monastery business was discussed. He was a conservative, unimaginative, pedantic man, and his whole approach to the running of the priory conflicted with Philip’s. The brothers who had supported Remigius in the election tended to back him in chapter: Andrew, the apoplectic sacrist; Pierre, the circuitor, who was responsible for discipline and had the narrow-minded attitudes that seemed to go with the job; and John Small, the lazy treasurer. Similarly, Philip’s closest colleagues were the men who had campaigned for him: Cuthbert Whitehead, the old cellarer; and young Milius, to whom Philip had given the newly created post of bursar, controller of the priory’s finances. Philip always let Milius argue with Remigius. Philip had normally discussed anything important with Milius before the meeting, and when he had not, Milius could be relied on to present a point of view close to Philip’s own. Then Philip could sum up like an impartial arbiter, and although Remigius rarely got his way, Philip would often accept some of his arguments, or adopt part of his proposal, to maintain the feeling of consensus government.
The monks were enraged by what Earl Percy had done. They had all rejoiced when King Stephen had given the priory unlimited free timber and stone, and now they were scandalized that Percy should defy the king’s order.
When the protests died down, however, Remigius had another point to make. “I remember saying this a year ago,” he began. “The pact according to which the quarry is owned by the earl but we have quarrying rights was always unsatisfactory. We should have held out for total ownership.”
The fact that there was some justice in this remark did not make it any easier for Philip to swallow. Total ownership was what he had agreed with Lady Regan, but she had cheated him out of it at the last minute. He was tempted to say that he had got the best deal he could, and he would like to see Remigius do any better in the treacherous maze of the royal court; but he bit his tongue, for he was, after all, the prior, and he had to take responsibility when things went wrong.
Milius came to his rescue. “It’s all very well to wish the king had given us outright ownership of the quarry, but he didn’t, and the main question is, what do we do now?”
“I should think that’s fairly obvious,” Remigius said immediately. “We can’t expel the earl’s men ourselves, so we’ll have to get the king to do it. We must send a deputation to him and ask him to enforce his charter.”
There was a murmur of agreement. Andrew, the sacrist, said: “We should send our wisest and most fluent speakers.”
Philip realized that Remigius and Andrew saw themselves as leading the delegation.
Remigius said: “After the king hears what has happened, I don’t think Percy Hamleigh will be earl of Shiring much longer.”
Philip was not so sure of that.
“Where is the king?” Andrew said as an afterthought. “Does anybody know?”
Philip had recently been to Winchester, and had heard there of the king’s movements. “He’s gone to Normandy,” he said.
Milius quickly said: “It will take a long time to catch up with him.”
“The pursuit of justice always requires patience,” Remigius intoned pompously.
“But every day we spend pursuing justice, we’re not building our new cathedral,” Milius replied. His tone of voice showed that he was exasperated by Remigius’s ready acceptance of a delay to the building program. Philip shared that feeling. Milius went on: “And that’s not our only problem. Once we’ve found the king, we have to persuade him to hear us. That can take weeks. Then he may give Percy the chance to defend himself-more delay…”
“How could Percy possibly defend himself?” Remigius said testily.
Milius replied: “I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll think of something.”
“But in the end the king is bound to stand by his word.”
A new voice was heard, saying: “Don’t be so sure.” Everyone turned to look. The speaker was Brother Timothy, the oldest monk in the priory. A small, modest man, he spoke rarely, but when he did he was worth listening to. Philip occasionally thought Timothy should have been prior. He normally sat through chapter looking half asleep, but now he was leaning forward, his eyes bright with conviction. “A king is a creature of the moment,” he went on. “He’s constantly under threat, from rebels within his own kingdom and from neighboring monarchs. He needs allies. Earl Percy is a powerful man with a lot of knights. If the king needs Percy at the moment when we present our petition, we will be refused, quite regardless of the justice of our case. The king is not perfect. There is only one true judge, and that is God.” He sat back, leaning against the wall and half closing his eyes, as if he were not in the least interested in how his speech was received. Philip concealed a smile: Timothy had precisely formulated Philip’s own misgivings about going to the king for justice.
Remigius was reluctant to give up the prospect of a long, exciting trip to France and a sojourn at the royal court; but at the same time he could not contradict Timothy’s logic. “What else can we do, then?” he said.
Philip was not sure. The sheriff would not be able to intervene in this case: Percy was too powerful to be controlled by a mere sheriff. And the bishop could not be relied upon either. It was frustrating. But Philip was not willing to sit back and accept defeat. He would take over that quarry if he had to do it himself…
Now there was an idea.
“Just a minute,” he said.
It would involve all the able-bodied brothers in the monastery… it would have to be carefully organized, like a military operation without weapons… they would need food for two days…
“I don’t know if this will work, but it’s worth a try,” he said. “Listen.”
He told them his plan.
They set out almost immediately: thirty monks, ten novices, Otto Blackface and his team of quarrymen, Tom Builder and Alfred, two horses and a cart. When darkness fell they lit lanterns to show them the road. At midnight they stopped to rest and eat the picnic the kitchen had hastily prepared: chicken, white bread and red wine. Philip had always believed that hard work should be rewarded by good food. When they marched on, they sang the service they should have been performing back at the priory.
At some point during the darkest hour, Tom Builder, who was leading the way, held up a hand to stop them. He said to Philip: “Only a mile more to the quarry.”
“Good,” said Philip. He turned to the monks. “Take off your clogs and sandals, and put on the felt boots.” He took off his own sandals and pulled on a pair of the soft felt boots that peasants wore in winter.
He singled out two novices. “Edward and Philemon, stay here with the horses and the cart. Keep quiet, and wait until full daylight; then join us. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Father,” they said together.
“All right, the rest of you,” Philip said. “Follow Tom Builder, now, in complete silence, please.”
They all walked on.
There was a light west wind blowing, and the rustling of the trees covered the sound of fifty men breathing and fifty pairs of felt boots shuffling. Philip began to feel tense. His plan seemed a little crazy now that he was about to put it into operation. He said a silent prayer for success.
The road curved to the left, and then the flickering lanterns dimly showed a wooden lodge, a stack of part-finished stone blocks, some ladders and scaffolding, and in the background a dark hillside disfigured by the white scars of quarrying. Philip suddenly wondered whether the men asleep in the lodge had dogs. If they did, Philip would lose the element of surprise, and the whole scheme would be jeopardized. But it was too late to back out now.
The whole crowd shuffled past the lodge. Philip held his breath, expecting at any moment to hear a cacophony of barking. But there were no dogs.
He brought his people to a halt around the base of the scaffolding. He was proud of them for being so quiet. It was difficult for people to stay silent even in church. Perhaps they were too frightened to make a noise.
Tom Builder and Otto Blackface began silently to place the quarrymen around the site. They divided them into two groups. One group gathered near the rock face at ground level. The others mounted the scaffolding. When they were all in position, Philip directed the monks, with gestures, to stand or sit around the workmen. He himself stayed apart from the rest, at a point halfway between the lodge and the rock face.
Their timing was perfect. Dawn came a few moments after Philip made his final dispositions. He took a candle from inside his cloak and lit it from a lantern, then he faced the monks and lifted the candle. It was a prearranged signal. Each of the forty monks and novices took out a candle and lit it from one of the three lanterns. The effect was dramatic. Day broke over a quarry occupied by silent, ghostly figures each holding a small, flickering light.
Philip turned again to face the lodge. As yet there was no sign of life. He settled down to wait. Monks were good at that. Standing still for hours was part of their everyday life. The workmen were not so used to it, however, and they began to get impatient after a while, shuffling their feet and murmuring to one another in low voices; but it did not matter now.
Either the muttering or the strengthening daylight woke the inhabitants of the lodge. Philip heard someone cough and spit, then there was a scraping noise as of a bar being lifted from behind a door. He held up his hand for dead silence.
The door of the lodge swung open. Philip kept his hand in the air. A man came out rubbing his eyes. Philip knew him, from Tom’s description, to be Harold of Shiring, the master quarryman. Harold did not see anything unusual at first. He leaned against the doorpost and coughed again, the deep, bubbling cough of a man who has too much stone dust in his lungs. Philip dropped his hand. Somewhere behind him, the cantor hit a note, and immediately all the monks began to sing. The quarry was flooded with eerie harmonies.
The effect on Harold was devastating. His head jerked up as if it had been pulled by a string. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he saw the spectral choir that had appeared, as if by magic, in his quarry. A cry of fear escaped from his open mouth, He staggered back through the door of the lodge.
Philip permitted himself a satisfied smile. It was a good start.
However, the supernatural dread would not last very long. He lifted his hand again and waved it without turning around. In response to his signal the quarrymen started to work and the clang of iron on rock punctuated the music of the choir.
Two or three faces peeped fearfully from the doorway. The men soon realized they were looking at ordinary, corporeal monks and workmen, not visions or spirits, and they stepped out of the lodge for a better view. Two men-at-arms came out, buckling their sword belts, and stood staring. This was the crucial moment for Philip: what would the men-at-arms do?
The sight of them, big and bearded and dirty, with their chainlink belts, their swords and daggers, and their heavy leather jerkins, brought back to Philip a vivid, crystal-clear memory of the two soldiers who had burst into his home when he was six years old and killed his mother and father. He was stabbed, suddenly and unexpectedly, by grief for the parents he hardly remembered. He stared with loathing at Earl Percy’s men, not seeing them but seeing instead an ugly man with a bent nose and a dark man with blood in his beard; and he was filled with rage and disgust and a fierce determination that such mindless, godless ruffians should be defeated.
For a while they did nothing. Gradually all the earl’s quarrymen came out of the lodge. Philip counted them: there were twelve workmen plus the men-at-arms.
The sun peeped over the horizon.
The Kingsbridge quarrymen were already digging out stones. If the men-at-arms wanted to stop them, they would have to lay hands on the monks who surrounded and protected the workers. Philip had gambled that the men-at-arms would hesitate to do violence to praying monks.
So far he was right: they were hesitating.
The two novices who had been left behind now arrived, leading the horses and the cart. They looked around fearfully. Philip indicated with a gesture where they should pull up. Then he turned, met Tom Builder’s eye, and nodded.
Several stones had been cut by this time, and now Tom directed some of the younger monks to pick up the stones and carry them to the cart. The earl’s men watched this new development with interest. The stones were too heavy to be lifted by one man, so they had to be lowered from the scaffolding by ropes, then carried across the ground on stretchers. As the first stone was manhandled into the cart, the men-at-arms went into a huddle with Harold. Another stone was put into the cart. The two men-at-arms separated from the crowd around the lodge and walked over to the cart. One of the novices, Philemon, climbed into the cart and sat on the stones, looking defiant. Brave lad! thought Philip, but he was afraid.
The men approached the cart. The four monks who had carried the two stones stood in front of it, forming a barrier. Philip tensed. The men stopped and stood face to face with the monks. They both put their hands to the hilts of their swords. The singing stopped as everyone watched with bated breath.
Surely, Philip thought, they won’t be able to bring themselves to put defenseless monks to the sword. Then he thought how easy it would be for them, big strong men who were accustomed to the slaughter of the battlefield, to run their sharp swords through these people from whom they had nothing to fear, not even retaliation. Then again, they must consider the divine punishment they would risk by murdering men of God. Even thugs such as these must know that eventually they would stand at the Day of Judgment. Were they afraid of the eternal fire? Perhaps; but they were also afraid of their employer, Earl Percy. Philip guessed that the thought uppermost in their minds must be whether he would consider they had an adequate excuse for their failure to keep the Kingsbridge men out of the quarry. He watched them, hesitating in front of a handful of young monks, hands on their swords, and imagined them weighing the danger of failing Percy against the wrath of God.
The two men looked at one another. One shook his head. The other shrugged. Together, they walked out of the quarry.
The cantor hit a new note and the monks burst into a triumphant hymn. A shout of victory went up from the quarrymen. Philip sagged with relief. For a moment it had looked dreadfully dangerous. He could not help beaming with pleasure. The quarry was his.
He blew out his candle and went over to the cart. He embraced each of the four monks who had faced the men-at-arms, and the two novices who had brought the cart. “I’m proud of you,” he said warmly. “And I believe God is too.”
The monks and the quarrymen were all shaking hands and congratulating one another. Otto Blackface came over to Philip and said: “That was well done, Father Philip. You’re a brave man, if I may say so.”
“God protected us,” Philip said. His eye fell on the earl’s quarry men, standing in a disconsolate group around the door of their lodge. He did not want to make enemies of them, for while they were at a loose end there would always be a danger that Percy would use them to make further trouble. Philip decided to speak to them.
He took Otto’s arm and led him over to the lodge. “God’s will has been done here today,” he said to Harold. “I hope there are no hard feelings.”
“We’re out of work,” Harold said. “That’s a hard feeling.”
Philip suddenly saw a way to get Harold’s men on his side. Impulsively he said: “You can be back in work today, if you want. Work for me. I’ll hire your whole team. You won’t even have to move out of your lodge.”
Harold was surprised at this turn of events. He looked startled, then recovered his composure and said: “At what wages?”
“Standard rates,” Philip replied promptly. “Twopence a day for craftsmen, a penny a day for laborers, fourpence for yourself, and you pay your own apprentices.”
Harold turned away and looked at his colleagues. Philip drew Otto away to let them discuss the proposal in private. Philip could not really afford twelve more men, and if they accepted his offer he would have to postpone further the day when he could hire masons. That meant he would be cutting stone faster than he could use it. He would build up a stockpile, but it would be bad for his flow of cash. However, having all Percy’s quarrymen on the priory payroll would be a good defensive move. If Percy wanted to try again to work the quarry himself, he would first have to hire a team of quarrymen; which might be difficult, once the news of today’s events got around. And if at some future date Percy should try another stratagem to close the quarry, Philip would have a stockpile of stone.
Harold appeared to be arguing with his men. After a few moments he left them and approached Philip again. “Who’s to be in charge, if we work for you?” he said. “Me, or your own master quarry man?”
“Otto here is in charge,” Philip said without hesitation. Harold certainly could not be in charge, in case his loyalty should be won back by Percy. And there could not be two masters, for that would lead to disputes. “You can still run your own team,” Philip said to Harold. “But Otto will be over you.”
Harold looked disappointed and returned to his men. The discussion continued. Tom Builder joined Philip and Otto. “Your plan worked, Father,” he said with a broad grin. “We repossessed the quarry without shedding a drop of blood. You’re amazing.”
Philip was inclined to agree, and realized he was guilty of the sin of pride. “It was God who worked the miracle,” he said, reminding himself as well as Tom.
Otto said: “Father Philip has offered to hire Harold and his men to work with me.”
“Really!” Tom looked displeased. It was the master builder who was supposed to recruit craftsmen, not the prior. “I shouldn’t have thought he could afford it.”
“I can’t,” Philip admitted. “But I don’t want these men hanging around with nothing to do, waiting for Percy to think of another way to get the quarry back.”
Tom looked thoughtful, then he nodded. “And it will do no harm to have a reserve of stone in case Percy succeeds.”
Philip was glad Tom saw the sense of what he had done.
Harold seemed to be reaching agreement with his men. He came back to Philip and said: “Will you pay the wages to me, and leave me to distribute the money as I think fit?”
Philip was dubious. That meant the master could take more than his share. But he said: “It’s up to the master builder.”
“It’s common enough,” Tom said. “If that’s what your team wants, I’m willing.”
“In that case, we accept,” Harold said.
Harold and Tom shook hands. Philip said: “So everyone gets what they want. Good!”
“There’s one who hasn’t got what they want,” Harold said.
“Who’s that?” said Philip.
“Earl Percy’s wife, Regan,” Harold said lugubriously. “When she finds out what’s happened here there’s going to be blood all over the floor.”
There was no hunting today, so the young men at Earlscastle played one of William Hamleigh’s favorite games, stoning the cat.
There were always plenty of cats in the castle, and one more or less made no difference. The men closed the doors and shuttered the windows of the hall of the keep, and pushed the furniture up against the wall so that the cat could not hide behind anything; then they made a pile of stones in the middle of the room. The cat, an aging mouser with gray in its fur, sensed the bloodlust in the air and sat near the door, hoping to get out.
Each man had to put a penny into the pot for each stone he threw, and the man who threw the fatal stone took the pot.
As they drew lots to determine the order of throwing, the cat became agitated, pacing up and down in front of the door.
Walter threw first. This was lucky, for although the cat was wary it did not know the nature of the game, and might be taken by surprise. With his back to the animal, Walter picked a stone from the pile and concealed it in his hand; then he turned around slowly and threw suddenly.
He missed. The stone thudded into the door and the cat jumped and ran. The others jeered.
It was unlucky to throw second, for the cat was fresh and light on its feet, whereas later it would be tired and possibly injured. A young squire was next. He watched the cat run around the room, looking for a way out, and waited until it slowed down; then he threw. It was a good shot but the cat saw it coming and dodged it. The men groaned.
It ran around the room again, faster now, getting panicky, jumping up onto the trestles and boards that were stacked against the wall, jumping back down to the floor. An older knight threw next. He feinted a throw, to see which way the cat would jump, then threw for real when it was running, aiming a little ahead of it. The others applauded his cunning, but the cat saw the stone coming and stopped suddenly, avoiding it.
In desperation the cat tried to squeeze behind an oak chest in a corner. The next thrower saw an opportunity and seized it: he threw quickly, while the cat was stationary, and struck its rump. A great cheer went up. The cat gave up trying to squeeze behind the chest and ran on around the room, but now it was limping and it moved more slowly.
It was William’s turn next.
He thought he could probably kill the cat if he was careful. In order to tire it a little more he yelled at it, making it run faster for a moment; then he feinted a throw, with the same effect. If one of the others had delayed like this he would have been booed, but William was the earl’s son, so they waited patiently. The cat slowed down, obviously in pain. It approached the door hopefully. William drew back his arm. Unexpectedly the cat stopped against the wall beside the door. William began to throw. Before the stone left his hand the door was flung open, and a priest in black stood there. William threw, but the cat sprang like an arrow from a bow, howling triumphantly. The priest in the doorway gave a frightened, high-pitched shriek, and clutched at the skirts of his robes. The young men burst out laughing. The cat cannoned into the priest’s legs, then landed on its feet and shot out through the door. The priest stood frozen in an attitude of fright, like an old woman scared by a mouse, and the young men roared with laughter.
William recognized the priest. It was Bishop Waleran.
He laughed all the more. The fact that the womanish priest who had been frightened by a cat was also a rival of the family made it even better.
The bishop recovered his composure very quickly. He flushed red, pointed an accusing finger at William, and said in a grating voice: “You’ll suffer eternal torment in the lowest depths of hell.”
William’s laughter turned to terror in a flash. His mother had given him nightmares, when he was small, by telling him what the devils did to people in hell, burning them in the flames and poking their eyes out and cutting off their private parts with sharp knives, and ever since then he hated to hear talk of it, “Shut up!” he screamed at the bishop. The room fell silent. William drew his knife and walked toward Waleran. “Don’t you come here preaching, you snake!” Waleran did not look frightened at all, just intrigued, as if he was interested to have discovered William’s weakness; and that made William angrier still. “I’ll swing for you, so help me-”
He was mad enough to knife the bishop, but he was stopped by a voice from the staircase behind him. “William! Enough!”
It was his father.
William stopped and, after a moment, sheathed his knife.
Waleran came into the hall. Another priest followed him and shut the door behind him: Dean Baldwin.
Father said: “I’m surprised to see you, Bishop.”
“Because last time we met, you induced the prior of Kingsbridge to double-cross me? Yes, I suppose you would be surprised. I’m not normally a forgiving man.” He turned his icy gaze on William again for a moment, then looked back at Father. “But I don’t bear a grudge when it’s against my interest. We need to talk.”
Father nodded thoughtfully. “You’d better come upstairs. You too, William.”
Bishop Waleran and Dean Baldwin climbed the stairs to the earl’s quarters, and William followed. He felt let down because the cat had escaped. On the other hand, he realized that he too had had a lucky escape: if he had touched the bishop he probably would have been hanged for it. But there was something about Waleran’s delicacy, his preciousness, that William hated.
They went into Father’s chamber, the room where William had raped Aliena. He remembered that scene every time he was here: her lush white body, the fear on her face, the way she had screamed, the twisted expression on her little brother’s face as he had been forced to look on, and then-William’s masterstroke-the way he had let Walter enjoy her afterward. He wished he had kept her here, a prisoner, so that he could have her anytime he wanted.
He had thought about her obsessively ever since. He had even tried to track her down. A verderer had been caught trying to sell William’s war-horse in Shiring, and had confessed, under torture, that he had stolen it from a girl answering to the description of Aliena. William had learned from the Winchester jailer that she had visited her father before he died. And his friend Mistress Kate, the owner of a brothel he frequented, had told him she had offered Aliena a place in her house. But the trail had petered out. “Don’t let her prey on your mind, Willy-boy,” Kate had said sympathetically. “You want big tits and long hair? We’ve got it. Take Betty and Millie together, tonight, four big breasts all to yourself, why don’t you?” But Betty and Millie had not been innocent, and white-skinned, and frightened half to death; and they had not pleased him. In fact, he had not achieved real satisfaction with a woman since that night with Aliena here in the earl’s chamber.
He put the thought of her out of his mind. Bishop Waleran was speaking to Mother. “I suppose you know that the prior of Kingsbridge has taken possession of your quarry?”
They did not know. William was astonished, and Mother was furious. “What?” she said. “How?”
“Apparently your men-at-arms succeeded in turning away the quarry men, but the next day when they woke up they found the quarry overrun with monks singing hymns, and they were afraid to lay hands on men of God. Prior Philip then hired your quarrymen, and now they’re all working together in perfect harmony. I’m surprised the men-at-arms didn’t come back to you to report.”
“Where are they, the cowards?” Mother screeched. She was red in the face. “I’ll see to them-I’ll make them cut off their own balls-”
“I see why they didn’t come back,” Waleran said.
“Never mind the men-at-arms,” Father said. “They’re just soldiers. That sly prior is the one responsible. I never imagined he could pull a trick like this. He’s outwitted us, that’s all.”
“Exactly,” said Waleran. “For all his air of saintly innocence, he’s got the cunning of a house rat.”
William thought that Waleran, too, was like a rat, a black one with a pointed snout and sleek black hair, sitting in a corner with a crust in its paws, darting wary glances around the room as it nibbled its dinner. Why was he interested in who occupied the quarry? He was as cunning as Prior Philip: he, too, was plotting something.
Mother said: “We can’t let him get away with this. The Hamleighs must not be seen to be defeated. That prior must be humiliated.”
Father was not so sure. “It’s only a quarry,” he said. “And the king did-”
“It’s not just the quarry, it’s the family’s honor,” Mother interrupted. “Never mind what the king said.”
William agreed with Mother. Philip of Kingsbridge had defied the Hamleighs, and he had to be crushed. If people were not afraid of you, you had nothing. But he did not see what the problem was. “Why don’t we go in with some men and just throw the prior’s quarrymen out?”
Father shook his head. “It’s one thing to obstruct the king’s wishes passively, as we did by working the quarry ourselves; but quite another to send armed men to expel workmen who are there by express permission of the king. I could lose the earldom for that.”
William reluctantly saw his point of view. Father was always cautious, but he was usually justified.
Bishop Waleran said: “I have a suggestion.” William had felt sure he had something up his embroidered black sleeve. “I believe this cathedral should not be built at Kingsbridge.”
William was mystified by this remark. He did not see its relevance. Nor did Father. But Mother’s eyes widened, she stopped scratching her face for a moment, and she said thoughtfully: “That’s an interesting idea.”
“In the old days most cathedrals were in villages such as Kingsbridge,” Waleran went on. “Many of them were moved to towns sixty or seventy years ago, during the time of the first King William. Kingsbridge is a small village in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing there but a run-down monastery that isn’t rich enough to maintain a cathedral, let alone build one.”
Mother said: “And where would you wish it built?”
“Shiring,” said Waleran. “It’s a big town-the population must be a thousand or more-and it has a market and an annual fleece fair. And it’s on a main road. Shiring makes sense. And if we both campaign for it-the bishop and the earl united-we could push it through.”
Father said: “But if the cathedral were at Shiring, the Kingsbridge monks would not be able to look after it.”
“That’s the point,” Mother said impatiently. “Without the cathedral, Kingsbridge would be nothing, the priory would sink back into obscurity, and Philip would once again be a nonentity, which is what he deserves.”
“So who would look after the new cathedral?” Father persisted.
“A new chapter of canons,” Waleran said. “Appointed by me.”
William had been as puzzled as his father, but now he began to see Waleran’s thinking: in moving the cathedral to Shiring, Waleran would also take personal control of it.
“What about the money?” said Father. “Who would pay for the new cathedral, if not Kingsbridge Priory?”
“I think we’d find that most of the priory’s property is dedicated to the cathedral,” Waleran said. “If the cathedral moves, the property goes with it. For example, when King Stephen divided up the old earldom of Shiring, he gave the hill farms to Kingsbridge Priory, as we know only too well; but he did that in order to help finance the new cathedral. If we told him that someone else was building the new cathedral, he would expect the priory to release those lands to the new builders. The monks would put up a fight, of course; but examination of their charters would settle the matter.”
The picture was becoming clearer to William. Not only would Waleran get control of the cathedral by this stratagem; he would also get his hands on most of the priory’s wealth.
Father was thinking the same thing. “It’s a grand scheme for you, Bishop, but what’s in it for me?”
It was Mother who answered him. “Can’t you see?” she said tetchily. “You own Shiring. Think how much prosperity would come to the town along with the cathedral. There would be hundreds of craftsmen and laborers building the church for years: they all have to live somewhere and pay you rent, and buy food and clothing at your market. Then there will be the canons who run the cathedral; and the worshipers who will come to Shiring instead of Kingsbridge at Easter and Whitsun for the big services; and the pilgrims who come to visit the shrines… They all spend money.” Her eyes were bright with greed. William could not remember seeing her so enthusiastic for a long time. “If we handle this right, we could turn Shiring into one of the most important cities in the kingdom!”
And it will be mine, William thought. When Father dies I will be the earl.
“All right,” said Father. “It will ruin Philip, it will bring power to you, Bishop, and it will make me rich. How could it be done?”
“The decision to move the location of the cathedral must be made by the archbishop of Canterbury, theoretically.”
Mother looked at him sharply. “Why ‘theoretically’?”
“Because there is no archbishop just now. William of Corbeil died at Christmas and King Stephen has not yet nominated his successor. However, we know who is likely to get the job: our old friend Henry of Winchester. He wants the job; the pope has already given him interim control; and his brother is the king.”
“How much of a friend is he?” said Father. “He didn’t do much for you when you were trying to get this earldom.”
Waleran shrugged. “He’ll help me if he can. We’ll have to make a convincing case.”
Mother said: “He won’t want to make powerful enemies, just now, if he’s hoping to be made archbishop.”
“Correct. But Philip isn’t powerful enough to matter. He’s not likely to be consulted about the choice of archbishop.”
“So why shouldn’t Henry just give us what we want?” William asked.
“Because he’s not the archbishop, not yet; and he knows that people are watching him to see how he behaves during his caretakership. He wants to be seen making judicious decisions, not just handing out favors to his friends. Plenty of time for that after the election.”
Mother said reflectively: “So the best that can be said is that he will listen sympathetically to our case. What is our case?”
“That Philip can’t build a cathedral, and we can.”
“And how shall we persuade him of that?”
“Have you been to Kingsbridge lately?”
“No.”
“I was there at Easter.” Waleran smiled. “They haven’t started building yet. All they’ve got is a flat piece of ground with a few stakes banged into the soil and some ropes marking where they hope to build. They’ve started digging foundations, but they’ve only gone down a few feet. There’s a mason working there with his apprentice, and the priory carpenter, and occasionally a monk or two doing some laboring. It’s a very unimpressive sight, especially in the rain. I’d like Bishop Henry to see it.”
Mother nodded sagely. William could see that the plan was good, even though he hated the thought of collaborating with the loathsome Waleran Bigod.
Waleran went on: “We’ll brief Henry beforehand on what a small and insignificant place Kingsbridge is, and how poor the monastery is; then we’ll show him the site where it has taken them more than a year to dig a few shallow holes; then we’ll take him to Shiring and impress him with how fast we could build a cathedral there, with the bishop and the earl and the townspeople all putting their maximum energies into the project.”
“Will Henry come?” Mother said anxiously.
“All we can do is ask,” Waleran replied. “I’ll invite him to visit on Whitsunday in his archiepiscopal role. That will flatter him by implying that we already consider him to be the archbishop.”
Father said: “We must keep this secret from Prior Philip.”
“I don’t think that will be possible,” Waleran said. “The bishop can’t make a surprise visit to Kingsbridge-it would look very odd.”
“But if Philip knows in advance that Bishop Henry is coming, he might make a big effort to advance the building program.”
“What with? He hasn’t any money, especially now that he’s hired all your quarrymen. Quarrymen can’t build walls.” Waleran shook his head from side to side with a satisfied smile. “In fact, there isn’t a thing he can do except hope the sun shines on Whitsunday.”
At first Philip was pleased that the bishop of Winchester was to come to Kingsbridge. It would mean an open-air service, of course, but that was all right. They would hold it where the old cathedral used to be. In case of rain, the priory carpenter would build a temporary shelter over the altar and the area immediately around it, to keep the bishop dry; and the congregation could just get wet. The visit seemed like an act of faith on Bishop Henry’s part, as if he were saying that he still considered Kingsbridge to be a cathedral, and the lack of a real church was just a temporary problem.
However, it occurred to him to wonder what Henry’s motive was. The usual reason for a bishop to visit a monastery was to get free food, drink and lodging for himself and his entourage; but Kingsbridge was famous-not to say notorious-for the plainness of its food and the austerity of its accommodation, and Philip’s reforms had merely raised its standard from dreadful to barely adequate. Henry was also the richest clergyman in the kingdom, so he certainly was not coming to Kingsbridge for its food and drink. But he had struck Philip as a man who did nothing without a reason.
The more Philip thought about it, the more he suspected that Bishop Waleran had something to do with it. He had expected Waleran to arrive at Kingsbridge within a day or two of the letter, to discuss arrangements for the service and hospitality for Henry, and to make sure Henry would be pleased and impressed with Kingsbridge; and as the days went by and Waleran did not show up, Philip’s misgivings deepened.
However, even in his most mistrustful moments he had not dreamed of the treachery that was revealed, ten days before Whitsun, by a letter from the prior of Canterbury Cathedral. Like Kingsbridge, Canterbury was a cathedral run by Benedictine monks, and monks always helped one another if they could. The prior of Canterbury, who naturally worked closely with the acting archbishop, had learned that Waleran had invited Henry to Kingsbridge for the express purpose of persuading him to move the diocese, and the new cathedral, to Shiring.
Philip was shocked. His heart beat faster and the hand holding the letter trembled. It was a fiendishly clever move by Waleran, and Philip had not anticipated it, had not imagined anything like it.
It was his own lack of foresight that shook him. He knew how treacherous Waleran was. The bishop had tried to double-cross him, a year ago, over the Shiring earldom. And he would never forget how angry Waleran had been when Philip had outwitted him. He could picture Waleran’s face, suffused with rage, as he said I swear by all that’s holy, you’ll never build your church. But as time went by the menace of that oath had faded, and Philip’s guard had slipped. Now here was a brutal reminder that Waleran had a long memory.
“Bishop Waleran says you have no money, and in fifteen months you have built nothing,” the prior of Canterbury wrote. “He says that Bishop Henry will see for himself that the cathedral will never get built if it is left to Kingsbridge Priory to build it. He argues that the time to make the move is now, before any real progress is made.”
Waleran was too cunning to get caught in an outright lie, so he was purveying a gross exaggeration. Philip had in fact achieved a great deal. He had cleared the ruins, approved the plans, laid out the new east end, made a start on the foundations, and begun felling trees and quarrying stone. But he did not have much to show a visitor. And he had overcome terrific obstacles to achieve this much-reforming the priory’s finances, winning a major grant of lands from the king, and defeating Earl Percy over the quarry. It was not fair!
With the letter from Canterbury in his hand, he went to his window and looked out over the building site. Spring rains had turned it into a sea of mud. Two young monks with their hoods pulled over their heads were carrying timber up from the riverside. Tom Builder had made a contraption with a rope and a pulley for lifting barrels of earth out of the foundation hole, and he was operating the winding wheel while his son Alfred, down in the hole, filled the barrels with wet mud. They looked as though they could work at that pace forever and never make any difference. Anyone but a professional would see this scene and conclude that no cathedral would be built here this side of the Day of Judgment.
Philip left the window and returned to his writing desk. What could be done? For a moment he was tempted to do nothing. Let Bishop Henry come and look, and make his own decision, he thought. If the cathedral is to be built at Shiring, so be it. Let Bishop Waleran take control of it and use it for his own ends; let it bring prosperity to the town of Shiring and the evil Hamleigh dynasty. God’s will be done.
He knew that would not do, of course. Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing that you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically. Philip’s holy duty was to do all he could to prevent the cathedral from falling into the hands of cynical and immoral people who would exploit it for their own aggrandizement. That meant showing Bishop Henry that his building program was well under way and Kingsbridge had the energy and determination to finish it.
Was it true? The fact was that Philip was going to find it mortally difficult to build a cathedral here. Already he had almost been forced to abandon the project just because the earl refused him access to the quarry. But he knew he would succeed, in the end, because God would help him. However, his own conviction would not be enough to persuade Bishop Henry.
He decided he would do his best to make the site look more impressive, for what it was worth. He would set all the monks to work for the ten days remaining before Whitsun. Perhaps they could get part of the foundation hole dug to its full depth, so that Tom and Alfred could begin laying the foundation stones. Perhaps a part of the foundation could be completed up to ground level, so that Tom could start building a wall. That would be a little better than the present scene, but not much. What Philip really needed was a hundred laborers, but he did not have the money even for ten.
Bishop Henry would arrive on a Sunday, of course, so nobody would be working, unless Philip were to co-opt the congregation. That would provide a hundred laborers. He imagined himself standing up in front of them and announcing a new kind of Whitsun service: instead of singing hymns and saying prayers, we’re going to dig holes and carry stones. They would be astonished. They would…
What would they do, actually?
They would probably cooperate wholeheartedly.
He frowned. Either I’m crazy, he thought, or this idea could actually work.
He thought about it some more. I get up at the end of the service, and I say that today’s penance for forgiveness of all sins is half a day’s labor on the cathedral building site. Bread and ale will be provided at dinnertime.
They would do it. Of course they would.
He felt the need to try the idea out on someone else. He considered Milius, but rejected him: Milius’s thought processes were too similar to his own. He needed someone with a slightly different outlook. He decided to talk to Cuthbert Whitehead, the cellarer. He pulled on his cloak, drew the hood forward to keep the rain off his face, and went out.
He hurried across the muddy building site, passing Tom with a perfunctory wave, and made for the kitchen courtyard. This range of buildings now included a hen house, a cow shed and a dairy, for Philip did not like to spend scarce cash on simple commodities that the monks could provide for themselves, such as eggs and butter.
He entered the cellarer’s storeroom in the undercroft below the kitchen. He inhaled the dry, fragrant air, full of the herbs and spices Cuthbert had stored. Cuthbert was counting garlic, peering at the strings of bulbs and muttering numbers in an undertone. Philip saw with a small shock that Cuthbert was getting old: his flesh seemed to be wasting away beneath his skin.
“Thirty-seven,” Cuthbert said aloud. “Would you like a cup of wine?”
“No, thank you.” Philip found that wine in the daytime made him lazy and short-tempered. No doubt that was why Saint Benedict counseled monks to drink in moderation. “I want your advice, not your victuals. Come and sit down.”
Negotiating a path through the boxes and barrels, Cuthbert stumbled over a sack and almost fell before sitting on a three-legged stool in front of Philip. The storeroom was not as tidy as it had once been, Philip noted. He was struck by a thought. “Are you having trouble with your eyesight, Cuthbert?”
“It’s not what it was, but it will do,” Cuthbert said shortly.
His eyes had probably been poor for years-that might even be why he had never learned to read very well. However, he was obviously touchy about it, so Philip said no more, but made a mental note to begin grooming a replacement cellarer. “I’ve had a very disturbing letter from the prior of Canterbury,” he said, and he told Cuthbert about Bishop Waleran’s scheming. He concluded by saying: “The only way to make the site look like a hive of activity is to get the congregation to work on it. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t do that?”
Cuthbert did not even think about it. “On the contrary, it’s a good idea,” he said immediately.
“It’s a little unorthodox, isn’t it?” Philip said.
“It’s been done before.”
“Really?” Philip was surprised and pleased. “Where?”
“I’ve heard of it in several places.”
Philip was excited. “Does it work?”
“Sometimes. It probably depends on the weather.”
“How is it managed? Does the priest make an announcement at the end of the service, or what?”
“It’s more organized than that. The bishop, or prior, sends out messengers to the parish churches, announcing that forgiveness for sins may be had in return for work on the building site.”
“That’s a grand idea,” Philip said enthusiastically. “We might get a bigger congregation than usual, attracted by the novelty.”
“Or a smaller one,” Cuthbert said. “Some people would rather give money to the priest, or light a candle to a saint, than spend all day wading in mud and carrying heavy stones.”
“I never thought of that,” Philip said, suddenly deflated. “Perhaps this isn’t such a good idea after all.”
“What other ideas have you got?”
“Not one.”
“Then you’ll have to try this, and hope for the best, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Philip. “Hope for the best.”
Philip did not sleep at all during the night before Whitsunday.
There had been a week of sunshine, perfect for his plan-more people would volunteer in fine weather-but as darkness fell on the Saturday, it began to rain. He lay awake listening disconsolately to the raindrops on the roof and the wind in the trees. He felt he had prayed enough. God must be fully aware of the circumstances now.
On the previous Sunday, every monk in the priory had visited one or more churches to speak to the congregations and tell them they could obtain forgiveness for their sins by working on the cathedral building site on Sundays. On Whitsunday they would get forgiveness for the past year, and thereafter a day of labor was worth a week of routine sins, excluding murder and sacrilege. Philip himself had gone to the town of Shiring, and had spoken at each of its four parish churches. He had sent two monks to Winchester to visit as many as possible of the multitude of small churches in that city. Winchester was two days’ journey away, but Whitsun was a six-day holiday, and people would make such a trip for a big fair or a spectacular service. In total, many thousands of people had heard the message. There was no knowing how many might respond.
For the rest of the time they had all been working on the site. The good weather and the long days of early summer had helped, and they had achieved most of what Philip had hoped for. The foundation had been laid for the wall at the easternmost end of the chancel. Some of the foundation for the north wall had been dug to its full depth, ready for foundation stones to be laid; and Tom had built enough lifting mechanisms to keep scores of people busy digging the rest of the vast hole, if scores of people should turn up. In addition, the riverbank was crowded with timber sent downstream by the foresters and with stones from the quarry, all of which had to be carried up the slope to the cathedral site. There was work here for hundreds.
But would anyone come?
At midnight Philip got up and walked through the rain to the crypt for matins. When he returned after the service, the rain had stopped. He did not go back to bed, but sat up reading. Nowadays this period between midnight and dawn was the only time he had for study and meditation, for the whole of the day was always taken up with the administration of the monastery.
Tonight, however, he had trouble concentrating, and his mind kept returning to the prospect of the day ahead, and the chances of success or failure. Tomorrow he could lose everything he had worked for over the past year and more. It occurred to him, perhaps because he was feeling fatalistic, that he ought not to want success for its own sake. Was it his pride that was at stake here? Pride was the sin he was most vulnerable to. Then he thought of all the people who depended on him for support, protection and employment: the monks, the priory servants, the quarrymen, Tom and Alfred, the villagers of Kingsbridge and the worshipers of the whole county. Bishop Waleran would not care for them the way Philip did. Waleran seemed to think he was entitled to use people any way he chose in the service of God. Philip believed that caring for people was the service of God. That was what salvation was about. No, it could not be God’s will that Bishop Waleran should win this contest. Perhaps my pride is at stake, a little bit, Philip admitted to himself; but there are men’s souls in the balance too.
At last dawn cracked the night, and once again he walked to the crypt, this time for the service of prime. The monks were restless and excited: they knew that today was crucial to their future. The sacrist hurried through the service, and for once Philip forgave him.
When they left the crypt and headed toward the refectory for breakfast it was fully light, and there was a clear blue sky. God had sent the weather they had prayed for, at least. It was a good start.
Tom Builder knew that his future was at stake today.
Philip had shown him the letter from the prior of Canterbury. Tom was sure that if the cathedral was built at Shiring, Waleran would hire his own master builder. He would not want to use a design Philip had approved, nor would he risk employing someone who might be loyal to Philip. For Tom, it was Kingsbridge or nothing. This was the only opportunity he would ever get to build a cathedral, and it was in jeopardy today.
He was invited to attend chapter with the monks in the morning. This happened occasionally. Usually it was because they were going to discuss the building program and might need his expert opinion on questions of design, cost or timetabling. Today he was going to make arrangements for employing the volunteer workers, if any came. He wanted the site to be a hive of busy, efficient activity when Bishop Henry arrived.
He sat patiently through the readings and the prayers, not understanding the Latin words, thinking about his plans for the day; then Philip switched to English and called on him to outline the organization of the work.
“I shall be building the east wall of the cathedral and Alfred will be laying stone in the foundations,” Tom began. “The aim, in both cases, is to show Bishop Henry how far advanced the building is.”
“How many men will the two of you need to help you?” Philip asked.
“Alfred will need two laborers to bring the stones to him. He’ll be using material from the ruins of the old church. He’ll also need someone to make mortar. I’ll also need a mortar maker and two laborers. Alfred can use misshapen stones in the foundations, as long as they’re flat top and bottom; but my stones will have to be properly dressed, since they will be visible aboveground, so I’ve brought two stonecutters back from the quarry to help me.”
Philip said: “All that is very important for impressing Bishop Henry, but most of the volunteers will be digging the foundations.”
“That’s right. The foundations are marked out for the whole of the chancel of the cathedral, and most of them are still only a few feet deep. Monks must man the winding gear-I’ve instructed several of you how to do it-and the volunteers can fill the barrels.”
Remigius said: “What if we get more volunteers than we can use?”
“We can employ just about any number,” Tom said. “If we haven’t enough lifting devices, people can carry earth out of the holes in buckets and baskets. The carpenter will have to stand by to make extra ladders-we’ve got the timber.”
“But there’s a limit to the number of people who can get down in that foundation hole,” Remigius persisted.
Tom had the feeling that Remigius was just argumentative. “It will take several hundred,” he said testily. “It’s a big hole.”
Philip said: “And there’s other work to be done, besides digging.”
“Indeed,” Tom said. “The other main area of work is carrying timber and stone up to the site from the riverside. You monks must make sure the materials are stacked in the right places on the site. The stones should go beside the foundation holes, but on the outside of the church, where they won’t get in the way. The carpenter will tell you where to put the timber.”
Philip said: “Will all the volunteers be unskilled?”
“Not necessarily. If we get people from the towns, there may be some craftsmen among them-I hope so. We must find out who they are and use them. Carpenters can build lodges for winter work. Any masons can cut stones and lay foundations. If there’s a blacksmith, we’ll put him to work in the village forge, making tools. All that sort of thing will be tremendously useful.”
Milius the bursar said: “That’s all quite clear. I’d like to get started. Some of the villagers are here already, waiting to be told what to do.”
There was something else Tom needed to tell them, something important but subtle, and he was searching for the right words. Monks could be arrogant, and might alienate the volunteers. Tom wanted today’s operation to be easygoing and cheerful. “I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.”
He caught Philip’s eye and saw that the prior was suppressing a smile, as if he knew what misgivings underlay Tom’s honeyed words. “A good point,” Philip said. “If we handle them right, these people will feel happy and uplifted, and that will create a good atmosphere, which will make a positive impression on Bishop Henry.” He looked around at the assembled monks. “If there are no more questions, let’s begin.”
Aliena had enjoyed a year of security and prosperity under the wing of Prior Philip.
All her plans had worked. She and Richard had toured the countryside buying fleeces from peasants all last spring and summer, selling to Philip every time they had a standard woolsack. They had ended the season with five pounds of silver.
Father had died just a few days after they saw him, although Aliena did not find out until Christmas. She had located his grave, after spending much hard-earned silver on bribes, in a pauper’s cemetery in Winchester. She cried hard, not just for him but for the life they had lived together, secure and carefree, the life that would never come back. In a way she had said goodbye to him before he died: when she left the jail she knew she would never see him again. In another way he was still with her, for she was bound by the oath he had made her swear, and she was resigned to spending her life doing his will.
During the winter she and Richard lived in a small house up against the wall of Kingsbridge Priory. They had built a cart, buying the wheels from the Kingsbridge cartwright, and in the spring they had bought a young ox to pull it. The shearing season was now in full swing and already they had made more than the cost of the ox and the new cart. Next year, perhaps she would employ a man to help her, and find Richard a place as a page in the household of a minor noble, so that he could begin his knightly training.
But it was all dependent on Prior Philip.
As an eighteen-year-old girl on her own, she was still considered fair game by every thief and many legitimate traders. She had tried to sell a sack of wool to merchants in Shiring and Gloucester, just to see what would happen, and both times she had been offered half price. There was never more than one merchant in a town so they knew she had no alternative. Eventually she would have her own storehouse, and sell her entire stock to the Flemish buyers; but that time was a long way off. Meanwhile she was dependent on Philip.
And Philip’s position had suddenly become precarious.
She was constantly alert to danger from outlaws and thieves, but it had come as a great shock to her, when everything was going smoothly, to have her whole livelihood threatened in such an unexpected way.
Richard had not wanted to work on the cathedral building site on Whitsunday-he was nothing if not ungrateful-but Aliena had bullied him into agreeing, and the two of them walked the few yards to the priory close soon after sunrise. Almost the whole village had turned out: thirty or forty men, some of them with their wives and children. Aliena was surprised, until she reflected that Prior Philip was their lord, and when your lord asked for volunteers it was probably unwise to refuse. In the past year she had gained a startling new perspective on the lives of ordinary people.
Tom Builder was giving the villagers their assignments. Richard immediately went to speak to Tom’s son Alfred. They were almost the same age-Richard was fifteen and Alfred about a year older-and they played football with the other boys in the village every Sunday. The little girl, Martha, was here too, but the woman, Ellen, and the funny-looking boy with red hair had disappeared, no one knew where. Aliena remembered when Tom’s family had come to Earlscastle. They had been destitute then. Like Aliena, they had been saved by Prior Philip.
Aliena and Richard were given a shovel each and told to dig foundations. The ground was damp but the sun was out and it would soon dry the surface. Aliena began to dig energetically. Even with fifty people working, it took a long time to make the holes noticeably deeper. Richard rested on his shovel rather frequently. One time Aliena said: “If you ever want to be a knight, dig!” But it made no difference.
She was thinner and stronger than she had been a year ago, thanks to tramping the roads and lifting heavy loads of raw wool, but now she found that digging could still make her back ache. She was grateful when Prior Philip rang a bell and declared a break. Monks brought hot bread from the kitchen and served weak beer. The sun was growing stronger, and some of the men stripped to the waist.
While they were resting, a group of strangers came through the gate. Aliena looked at them hopefully. There were just a handful of them, but perhaps they were the forerunners of a large crowd. They came over to the table where the bread and beer was being handed out, and Prior Philip welcomed them.
“Where are you from?” he asked as they gulped gratefully at their pots of beer.
“From Horsted,” one of them replied, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. That was promising: Horsted was a village of two or three hundred people a few miles west of Kingsbridge. They might hope for another hundred volunteers from there, with luck.
“And how many of you are coming, in all?” Philip asked.
The man looked surprised at the question. “Just us four,” he replied.
During the next hour people trickled through the priory gate until, by midmorning, there were seventy or eighty volunteers at work, including the villagers. Then the flow stopped altogether.
It was not enough.
Philip stood at the east end, watching Tom build a wall. He had already constructed the bases of two buttresses up to the level of the third course of stones, and now he was building the wall between. It would probably never be finished, Philip thought despondently.
The first thing Tom did, when the laborers brought him a stone, was to take out an iron instrument shaped like the letter L and use it to check that the edges of the stone were square. Then he would shovel a layer of mortar on to the wall, furrow the mortar with the point of his trowel, put the new stone on, and scrape off the surplus mortar. In placing the stone he was guided by a taut string which was stretched between the two buttresses.
Philip noticed that the stone was almost as smooth on the top and bottom, where the mortar was, as on the side that would show. This surprised him, and he asked Tom the reason. “A stone must never touch the ones above or below,” Tom replied. “That’s what the mortar’s for.”
“Why must they not touch?”
“It causes cracks.” Tom stood upright to explain. “If you tread on a slate roof, your foot will go through it; but if you put a plank across the roof, you can walk on it without damaging the slates. The plank spreads the weight, and that’s what mortar does.”
Philip had never thought of that. Building was an intriguing business, especially with someone like Tom, who was able to explain what he was doing.
The roughest face of the stone was the back. Surely, Philip thought, that face would be visible from inside the church? Then he recalled that Tom was in fact building a double-skinned wall with a cavity between, so that the back of each stone would be hidden.
When Tom had laid the stone on the bed of mortar, he picked up his level. This was an iron triangle with a leather thong attached to its apex and some markings on its base. The thong had a lead weight attached to it so that it always hung straight down. He put the base of the instrument on the stone and watched how the leather thong fell. If it hung to one side or the other of the center line, he would tap the stone with his hammer until it was exactly level. Then he would move the instrument until it straddled the join between the two adjacent stones, to check that the tops of the stones were exactly in line. Finally he turned the instrument sideways on the stone to make sure it was not leaning one way or the other. Before picking up a new stone he would snap the taut string to satisfy himself that the faces of the stones were in a straight line. Philip had not realized it was so important that stone walls should be precisely straight and true.
He lifted his gaze to the rest of the building site. It was so big that eighty men and women and a few children were lost in it. They were working away cheerfully in the sunshine, but they were so few that it seemed to him there was an air of futility about their efforts. He had originally hoped for a hundred people, but now he saw that even that would not have been enough.
Another little group came through the gateway, and Philip forced himself to go to greet them with a smile. There was no need for them to know that their efforts would be wasted. They would gain forgiveness for their sins, anyway.
It was a large group, he saw as he approached them. He counted twelve, and then two more came in. Perhaps after all he would have a hundred people by midday, when the bishop was expected. “God bless you all,” he said to them. He was about to tell them where to start digging when he was interrupted by a loud shout. “Philip!”
He frowned disapprovingly. The voice belonged to Brother Milius. Even Milius was supposed to call Philip “Father” in public. Philip looked in the direction from which the voice came. Milius was balancing on the priory wall in a somewhat undignified stance. In a calm but carrying voice, Philip said: “Brother Milius, get off the wall.”
To his astonishment Milius stayed there and shouted: “Come and look at this!”
The new arrivals were getting a poor impression of monastic obedience, Philip thought, but he could not help wondering what it was that had got Milius so excited that he had forgotten all his manners. “Come here and tell me about it, Milius,” he said in a voice he normally reserved for noisy novices.
“You must look!” Milius yelled.
He’d better have a very good reason for this, Philip thought crossly; but since he did not want to give his closest colleague a telling-off in front of all these strangers, he was obliged to smile and do as Milius asked. Feeling irritated to the point of anger, he walked across the muddy ground in front of the stable and jumped up onto the low wall. “What is the meaning of this behavior?” he hissed.
“Just look!” Milius said, pointing.
Following his gesture, Philip looked out, over the roofs of the village, past the river, to the road that followed the rise and fall of the land to the west. At first he could not believe his eyes. Between the fields of green crops, the undulating road was a solid mass of people, hundreds of them, all walking toward Kingsbridge. “What is it?” he said uncomprehendingly. “An army?” And then he realized that, of course, they were his volunteers. His heart leaped for joy. “Look at them!” he shouted. “There must be five hundred-a thousand-more!”
“That’s right!” Milius said happily. “They came, after all!”
“We’re saved.” Philip was too thrilled to remember why he was supposed to be angry with Milius. The mass of people filled the road all the way to the bridge, and the line wound through the village all the way to the priory gate. The people he had greeted were the head of a phalanx. They were pouring through the gate now, and milling about at the western end of the building site, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. “Hallelujah!” he yelled recklessly.
It was not enough to rejoice-he had to use these people. He jumped down off the wall. “Come on!” he shouted to Milius. “Call all the monks off laboring-we’re going to need them as marshals. Tell the kitchener to bake all the bread he can and roll out some more barrels of beer. We’ll need more buckets and shovels. We must get all these people working before Bishop Henry arrives!”
For the next hour Philip was frantically busy. At first, just to get people out of the way, he assigned a hundred or more to the task of bringing materials up from the riverbank. As soon as Milius had assembled a supervisory group of monks, he began sending the volunteers down into the foundations. They soon ran out of shovels, barrels and buckets. Philip ordered all the cooking pots brought from the kitchen, and set some of the volunteers to making rough timber boxes and basketwork platters for carrying earth. There were not enough ladders or lifting devices, so they made a long slope at one end of the largest foundation hole so that people could walk into and out of it. He realized he had not given sufficient thought to the question of where he was going to put the vast quantity of earth that was coming out of the foundations. Now it was too late to mull it over: he made a snap decision, and ordered the earth dumped on a patch of rocky ground near the river. Perhaps it might become cultivable. While he was giving that order, Bernard Kitchener came to him in a panic, saying he had only catered for two hundred people at most, and there seemed to be at least a thousand here. “Build a fire in the kitchen courtyard and make soup in an iron bath,” Philip said. “Water the beer. Use all the stores. Get some of the villagers to prepare food on their own hearths. Improvise!” He turned away from the kitchener and resumed organizing laborers.
He was still giving orders when someone tapped him on the shoulder and said in French: “Prior Philip, may I have your attention for a moment?” It was Dean Baldwin, Waleran Bigod’s associate.
Philip turned around and saw the entire visiting party, all on horseback and gorgeously dressed, gazing in astonishment at the scene around them. There was Bishop Henry, a short, thickset man with a pugnacious look about him, his monkish haircut contrasting strangely with his embroidered scarlet coat. Beside him was Bishop Waleran, dressed in black as always, his dismay not quite concealed by his habitual look of frozen disdain. There was fat Percy Hamleigh, his strapping son, William, and his hideous wife, Regan: Percy and William were looking bemused, but Regan understood exactly what Philip had done and she was furious.
Philip returned his attention to Bishop Henry, and found to his surprise that the bishop was favoring him with a look of intense interest. Philip returned his gaze frankly. Bishop Henry’s expression showed surprise, curiosity and a kind of amused respect. After a moment Philip approached the bishop, held his horse’s head, and kissed the beringed hand that Henry proffered.
Henry dismounted with a smooth, agile movement, and the rest of his party followed suit. Philip called a couple of monks to stable the horses. Henry was the same age as Philip, approximately, but his florid complexion and well-covered frame made him look older. “Well, Father Philip,” he said. “I came to verify reports that you were not capable of getting a new cathedral built here at Kingsbridge.” He paused, looked around at the hundreds of workers, then returned his gaze to Philip. “It seems I was misinformed.”
Philip’s heart missed a beat. Henry could hardly make it plainer: Philip had won.
Philip turned to Bishop Waleran. Waleran’s face was a mask of suppressed fury. He knew he had been defeated again. Philip knelt, bowing his head to hide the look of triumphant delight on his face, and kissed Waleran’s hand.
Tom was enjoying building the wall. It was so long since he had done this that he had forgotten the deep tranquillity that came from laying one stone upon another in perfect straight lines and watching the structure grow.
When the volunteers started to arrive by the hundred, and he realized that Philip’s scheme was going to work, he enjoyed it all the more. These stones would be part of Tom’s cathedral; and this wall that was now only a foot high would eventually reach for the sky. Tom felt he was at the beginning of the rest of his life.
He knew when Bishop Henry arrived. Like a stone dropped into a pond, the bishop sent a ripple through the mass of laborers, as people stopped work for a moment to look up at the richly dressed figures picking their dainty way through the mud. Tom continued to lay stones. The bishop must be bowled over by the sight of a thousand volunteers cheerfully and enthusiastically laboring to build their new cathedral. Now Tom needed to make an equally good impression. He was never at ease with well-dressed people, but he needed to appear competent and wise, calm and self-assured, the kind of man to whom you would gratefully entrust the worrisome complexities of a vast and costly building project.
He kept a lookout for the visitors and put down his trowel as the party approached him. Prior Philip led Bishop Henry up to Tom, and Tom knelt and kissed the bishop’s hand. Philip said: “Tom is our builder, sent to us by God on the day the old church burned down.”
Tom knelt again to Bishop Waleran, then looked at the rest of the party. He reminded himself that he was the master builder, and should not be overly subservient. He recognized Percy Hamleigh, for whom he had once built half a house. “My Lord Percy,” he said with a small bow. He spotted Percy’s hideous wife. “My Lady Regan.” Then his eye fell on the son. He remembered how William had almost run Martha down on his great war-horse; and how William had tried to buy Ellen in the forest. That young man was a nasty piece of work. But Tom made his face a polite mask. “And young Lord William. Greetings.”
Bishop Henry was looking keenly at Tom. “Have you drawn your plans, Tom Builder?”
“Yes, my lord bishop. Would you like to see them?”
“Most certainly.”
“Perhaps you will step this way.”
Henry nodded, and Tom led the way to his shed, a few yards away. He stepped inside the little wooden building and brought out the ground plan, drawn in plaster on a large wooden frame four feet long. He leaned it against the wall of the shed and stepped back.
This was a delicate moment. Most people could not read a plan, but bishops and lords hated to admit it, so it was necessary to explain the concept to them in a way that did not reveal their ignorance to the rest of the world. Some bishops did understand it, of course, and then they were insulted when a mere builder presumed to instruct them.
Nervously, Tom pointed at the plan and said: “This is the wall I’m building.”
“Yes, the eastern facade, obviously,” said Henry. That answered the question: he could read a plan perfectly well. “Why aren’t the transepts aisled?”
“For economy,” Tom answered promptly. “However, we won’t start building them for another five years, and if the monastery continues to prosper as it has done in the first year under Prior Philip, it may well be that by then we will be able to afford aisled transepts.” He had praised Philip and answered the question at the same time, and he felt rather clever.
Henry nodded approval. “Sensible to plan modestly and leave room for expansion. Show me the elevation.”
Tom got out the elevation. He made no comment on it, now that he knew Henry was able to understand what he was looking at. This was confirmed when Henry said: “The proportions are pleasing.”
“Thank you,” Tom said. The bishop seemed pleased with everything. Tom added: “It’s a modest cathedral, but it will be lighter and more beautiful than the old one.”
“And how long will it take to complete?”
“Fifteen years, if the work is uninterrupted.”
“Which it never is. However. Can you show us what it will look like-I mean, to someone standing outside?”
Tom understood him. “You want to see a sketch.”
“Yes.”
“Certainly.” Tom returned to his wall, with the bishop’s party in tow. He knelt over his mortarboard and spread the mortar in a uniform layer, smoothing the surface. Then, with the point of his trowel, he drew a sketch of the west end of the church in the mortar. He knew he was good at this. The bishop, his party, and all the monks and volunteer workers nearby watched in fascination. Drawing always seemed a miracle to people who could not do it. In a few moments Tom had created a line drawing of the west facade, with its three arched doorways, its big window, and its flanking turrets. It was a simple trick, but it never failed to impress.
“Remarkable,” said Bishop Henry when the drawing was done. “May God’s blessing be added to your skill.”
Tom smiled. That amounted to a powerful endorsement of his appointment.
Prior Philip said: “My lord bishop, will you take some refreshment before you conduct the service?”
“Gladly.”
Tom was relieved. His test was over and he had passed it.
“Perhaps you would step into the prior’s house, just across here,” Philip said to the bishop. The party began to move off. Philip squeezed Tom’s arm and said in a murmur of restrained jubilation: “We’ve done it!”
Tom breathed a sigh of relief as the dignitaries left him. He felt pleased and proud. Yes, he thought, we’ve done it. Bishop Henry was more than impressed: he was flabbergasted, despite his composure. Obviously Waleran had primed him to expect a scene of lethargy and inactivity, so the reality had been even more striking. In the end Waleran’s malice had worked against him and heightened the triumph of Philip and Tom.
Just as he was basking in the glow of an honest victory, he heard a familiar voice. “Hello, Tom Builder.”
He turned around and saw Ellen.
It was Tom’s turn to be flabbergasted. The cathedral crisis had so filled his mind that he had not thought about her all day. He gazed at her happily. She looked just the same as the day she had walked away: slender, brown-skinned, with dark hair that moved like waves on a beach, and those deep-set luminous golden eyes. She smiled at him with that full-lipped mouth that always made him think of kissing.
He was seized by an urge to take her in his arms but he fought it down. With some difficulty he managed to say: “Hello, Ellen.”
A young man beside her said: “Hello, Tom.”
Tom looked at him curiously.
Ellen said: “Don’t you remember Jack?”
“Jack!” he said, startled. The lad had changed. He was a little taller than his mother now, and he had the bony physique that made grandmothers say that a boy had outgrown his strength. He still had bright red hair, white skin and blue eyes, but his features had resolved into more attractive proportions, and one day he might even be handsome.
Tom looked back at Ellen. For a moment he just enjoyed staring at her. He wanted to say I’ve missed you, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you, and he almost did, but then he lost his nerve, and instead he said: “Well, where have you been?”
“We’ve been living where we always lived, in the forest,” she said.
“And what made you come back today, of all days?”
“We heard about the appeal for volunteers, and we were curious to know how you were getting along. And I haven’t forgotten that I promised to come back one day.”
“I’m so glad you did,” Tom said. “I’ve been longing to see you.”
She looked guarded. “Oh?”
This was the moment for which he had been waiting and planning for a year, and now that it had come he was scared. Until now he had been able to live in hope, but if she turned him down today he would know he had lost her forever. He was frightened to begin. The silence dragged out. He took a deep breath. “Listen,” he said. “I want you to come back to me. Now, please don’t say anything until you’ve heard what I have to say-please?”
“All right,” she said neutrally.
“Philip is a very good prior. The monastery is getting wealthier all the time, thanks to his good management. My job here is secure. We won’t have to tramp the roads again, ever, I promise.”
“It wasn’t that-”
“I know, but I want to tell you everything.”
“All right.”
“I’ve built a house in the village, with two rooms and a chimney, and I can make it bigger. We wouldn’t have to live in the priory.”
“But Philip owns the village.”
“Philip is indebted to me right now.” Tom waved an arm to indicate the scene all around. “He knows he couldn’t have done this without me. If I ask him to forgive you for what you did, and to regard your year of exile as penance enough, he’ll agree. He couldn’t deny me that, today of all days.”
“What about the boys?” she said. “Am I supposed to watch Alfred spill Jack’s blood every time he feels irritable?”
“I think I’ve got the answer to that, really,” Tom said. “Alfred is a mason now. I’ll take Jack as my apprentice. That way, Alfred won’t be resentful of Jack’s idleness. And you can teach Alfred to read and write, so that the two boys will be equal-both workingmen, both literate.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?” she said.
“Yes.”
He waited for her reaction. He was no good at being persuasive. All he could do was set out the situation. If only he could have drawn her a sketch! He felt he had dealt with every possible objection. She must agree now! But still she hesitated. “I’m not sure,” she said.
His self-control broke. “Oh, Ellen, don’t say that.” He was afraid of crying in front of all these people, and he was so choked up that he could hardly speak. “I love you so much, please don’t go away again,” he begged. “The only thing that’s kept me going is the hope that you’d come back. I just can’t bear to live without you. Don’t close the gates of paradise. Can’t you see that I love you with all my heart?”
Her manner changed instantly. “Why didn’t you say so, then?” she whispered, and she came to him. He wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, too, you silly fool,” she said.
He felt weak with joy. She does love me, she does, he thought. He hugged her hard, then he looked at her face. “Will you marry me, Ellen?”
There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling too. “Yes, Tom, I’ll marry you,” she said. She lifted her face.
He pulled her to him and kissed her mouth. He had dreamed of this for a year. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the delightful touch of her full lips on his. Her mouth was slightly open and her lips were moist. The kiss was so delicious that for a moment he forgot himself. Then someone nearby said: “Don’t swallow her, man!”
He pulled away from her and said: “We’re in a church!”
“I don’t care,” she said merrily, and she kissed him again.
Prior Philip had outwitted them again, William thought bitterly as he sat in the prior’s house, drinking Philip’s watery wine and eating sweetmeats from the priory kitchen. It had taken William a while to appreciate the brilliance and completeness of Philip’s victory. There had been nothing wrong with Bishop Waleran’s original assessment of the situation: it was true that Philip was short of money and would have great difficulty building a cathedral at Kingsbridge. But despite that, the wily monk had made dogged progress, hired a master builder, started the building and then, out of nothing, conjured a vast work force to bamboozle Bishop Henry. And Henry had been duly impressed, all the more so because Waleran had painted such a bleak picture in advance.
That damned monk knew he had won, too. He could not keep the triumphant smile off his face. Now he was deep in conversation with Bishop Henry, talking animatedly about breeds of sheep and the price of wool, and Henry was listening carefully, almost respectfully, meanwhile rudely ignoring William’s mother and father, who were far more important than a mere prior.
Philip was going to regret this day. Nobody was allowed to best the Hamleighs and get away with it. They had not reached the position they enjoyed today by allowing monks to get the better of them. Bartholomew of Shiring had insulted them and had died in a traitor’s jail. Philip would fare no better.
Tom Builder was another man who was going to regret crossing the Hamleighs. William had not forgotten how Tom had defied him at Durstead, holding his horse’s head and forcing him to pay the workmen. Today Tom had disrespectfully called him “young Lord William.” He was obviously hand in glove with Philip now, building cathedrals, not manor houses. He would learn that it was better to take your chances with the Hamleighs than to join forces with their enemies.
William sat quietly fuming until Bishop Henry got to his feet and said he was ready to hold the service. Prior Philip gestured to a novice, who went running from the room, and a few moments later a bell began to ring.
They all left the house, Bishop Henry first, Bishop Waleran second, then Prior Philip, then the lay people. All the monks were waiting outside, and they fell into line behind Philip, forming a procession. The Hamleighs had to bring up the rear.
The volunteers filled the entire western half of the priory close, sitting on walls and roofs. Henry mounted a platform in the middle of the building site. The monks formed up in rows behind him, where the quire of the new cathedral would be. The Hamleighs and the other lay members of the bishop’s entourage made their way to what would become the nave.
As they took their places, William saw Aliena.
She looked very different. She wore rough, cheap clothing and wooden clogs, and the mass of curls that framed her head was damp with sweat. But it was definitely Aliena, and she was still so beautiful that his throat went dry and he stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away, while the service began and the priory close filled with the sound of a thousand voices saying the Our Father.
She seemed to feel his intense look, for she appeared troubled, shifting from foot to foot and then glancing around as if searching. Finally she met his eyes. An expression of horror and fear came over her face, and she shrank back, although she was already ten yards or more away and separated from him by dozens of people. Her fear made her all the more desirable to him, and he felt his body respond in a way it had not done for a year. His lust for her was mingled with resentment because of the spell she had cast over him. She flushed and dropped her gaze, as if she were ashamed. She spoke briefly to a boy next to her-that was the brother, of course, William thought, recalling the face in a flash of erotic memory-and then she turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
William felt let down. He was tempted to follow her, but of course he could not, not in the middle of a service, in front of his parents, two bishops, forty monks and a thousand worshipers. So he turned back to face the front, disappointed. He had lost his chance to find out where she lived.
Although she had gone, she still filled his mind. He wondered if it was a sin to have an erection in church.
He noticed that Father was looking agitated. “Look!” he was saying to Mother. “Look at that woman!”
At first William thought Father must be talking about Aliena. But she was nowhere in sight, and when he followed his father’s stare, he saw a woman nearer to thirty years of age, not as voluptuous as Aliena but with an agile, untamed look that made her interesting. She was standing some distance away with Tom, the master builder, and William thought it was probably the builder’s wife, the woman he had tried to buy in the forest one day a year or so ago. But why would his father know her?
“Is it her?” Father said.
The woman turned her head, almost as if she had heard them, and looked straight at them, and William saw again her pale, penetrating golden eyes.
“It is her, by God,” Mother hissed.
The woman’s stare shook Father. His red face paled and his hands trembled. “Jesus Christ preserve us,” he said. “I thought she was dead.”
And William thought: Now what the devil is that all about?
Jack had been dreading this.
For a whole year he had known that his mother missed Tom Builder. She was less even-tempered than she used to be; she often had a dreamy, faraway look; and in the night she sometimes made the panting noises, as if she were dreaming or imagining that she was making love to Tom. Jack had known, all along, that she would come back. And now she had agreed to stay.
He hated the idea.
The two of them had always been happy together. He loved his mother and his mother loved him, and there was no one else to interfere.
Life in the forest was somewhat uninteresting, it was true. He had missed the fascination of the crowds and the cities he had seen in his brief sojourn with Tom’s family. He missed Martha. Oddly enough, he had relieved the boredom of the forest by daydreaming about the girl he thought of as the Princess, although he knew her name was Aliena. And he would be interested to work with Tom, and find out how buildings were constructed. But he would no longer be free. People would tell him what to do. He would have to work whether he wanted to or not. And he would have to share his mother with the rest of the world.
As he sat on the wall near the priory gate, ruminating disconsolately, he was astonished to see the Princess.
He blinked. She was pushing her way through the crowd, heading for the gate, looking distressed. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. In those days she had had a rounded, voluptuous, girlish body dressed in costly clothes. Now she looked thinner and more like a woman than a girl. The sweat-soaked linen shift she wore clung to her body, showing her full breasts and the ribs beneath, a flat belly, narrow hips and long legs. Her face was smeared with mud and her massed curls were untidy. She was upset about something, frightened and distressed, but the emotion only made her face more radiant. Jack was captivated by the sight of her. He felt a peculiar stirring in his loins that he had never experienced before.
He followed her. There was no conscious decision. One moment he was sitting on the wall gaping at her and the next he was hurrying through the gate behind her. He caught up with her on the street outside. She had a musky scent, as though she had been working hard. He remembered that she used to smell of flowers. “Is anything wrong?” he said.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” she said curtly, and she quickened her step.
Jack kept pace with her. “You don’t remember me. Last time we met, you explained to me how babies were conceived.”
“Oh, shut up and go away!” she shouted.
He stopped and let her walk on. He felt disappointed. Obviously he had said the wrong thing.
She had treated him like an irritating child. He was thirteen years old, but that probably seemed like childhood to her, from the lofty height of eighteen or so years.
He saw her go up to a house, take out a key that hung from a thong around her neck, and unlock the door.
She lived right here!
That made everything different.
Suddenly the prospect of leaving the forest and living in Kingsbridge did not seem so bad. He would see the Princess every day. That would compensate for a lot.
He stayed where he was, watching the door, but she did not reemerge. It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him; but he did not want to move. He was seething inside with a new emotion. Nothing seemed very important anymore except the Princess. He was single-minded about her. He was enchanted. He was possessed.
He was in love.