THE WHORE WILLIAM PICKED was not very pretty but she had big breasts and her mass of curly hair appealed to him. She sauntered over to him, swaying her hips, and he saw that she was a little older than he had thought, maybe twenty-five or thirty, and while her mouth smiled innocently her eyes were hard and calculating. Walter chose next. He selected a small, vulnerable-looking girl with a boyish, flat-chested figure. When William and Walter had made their selection the other four knights moved in.
William had brought them to the whorehouse because they needed some kind of release. They had not had a battle for months and they were becoming discontented and quarrelsome.
The civil war that had broken out a year ago, between King Stephen and his rival, Maud, the so-called Empress, was now in a lull. William and his men had followed Stephen all over southwest England. His strategy was energetic but erratic. He would attack one of Maud’s strongholds with tremendous enthusiasm; but if he did not win an early victory, he swiftly tired of the siege, and would move on. The military leader of the rebels was not Maud herself, but her half brother Robert, earl of Gloucester; and so far Stephen had failed to force him into a confrontation. It was an indecisive war, with much movement and little actual fighting; and so the men were restless.
The whorehouse was divided by screens into small rooms, each with a straw mattress. William and his knights took their chosen women behind the screens. William’s whore adjusted the screen for privacy, then pulled down the top of her shift, exposing her breasts. They were big, as William had seen, but they had the large nipples and visible veins of a woman who has suckled children, and William was a little disappointed. Nevertheless, he pulled her to him and took her breasts in his hands, squeezing them and pinching the nipples. “Gently,” she said in a tone of mild protest. She put her arms around him and pulled his hips forward, rubbing herself against him. After a few moments she pushed her hand between their bodies and felt for his groin.
He muttered a curse. His body was not responding.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured. Her condescending tone angered him, but he said nothing as she disengaged herself from his embrace, knelt down, lifted the front of his tunic and went to work with her mouth.
At first the sensation pleased him, and he thought everything was going to be all right, but after the initial surge he lost interest again. He watched her face, as that sometimes inflamed him, but now he was only reminded of how unimpressive he appeared. He began to feel angry, and that made him shrivel even more.
She stopped and said: “Try to relax.” When she started again she sucked so hard that she hurt him. He pulled away, and her teeth scraped his sensitive skin, making him cry out. He struck her backhanded across the face. She gasped and fell sideways.
“Clumsy bitch,” he snarled. She lay on the mattress at his feet, looking up at him fearfully. He threw a random kick at her, more in irritation than malice. It caught her in the belly. It was harder than he had really intended, and she doubled up in pain.
He realized that his body was responding at last.
He knelt down, rolled her on to her back, and straddled her. She stared up at him with pain and fear in her eyes. He pulled up the skirt of her dress until it was around her waist. The hair between her legs was thick and curly. He liked that. He fondled himself as he looked at her body. He was not quite stiff enough. The fear was going from her eyes. It occurred to him that she could be deliberately putting him off, trying to deflate his desire so that she would not have to service him. The thought infuriated him. He made a fist and punched her face hard.
She screamed and tried to get out from under him. He rested his weight on her, pinning her down, but she continued to struggle and yell. Now he was fully erect. He tried to force her thighs apart, but she resisted him.
The screen was jerked aside and Walter came in, wearing only his boots and undershirt, with his prick sticking out in front of him like a flagpole. Two more knights came in behind him: Ugly Gervase and Hugh Axe.
“Hold her down for me, lads,” William said to them.
The three knights knelt down around the whore and held her still.
William positioned himself to enter her, then paused, enjoying the anticipation.
Walter said: “What happened, lord?”
“Changed her mind when she saw the size of it,” William said with a grin.
They all roared with laughter. William penetrated her. He liked it when there were people watching. He started to move in and out.
Walter said: “You interrupted me just as I was getting mine in.”
William could see that Walter had not yet been satisfied. “Stick it in this one’s mouth,” he said. “She likes that.”
“I’ll give it a try.” Walter changed his position and grabbed the woman by the hair, lifting her head. By now she was frightened enough to do anything, and she cooperated readily. Gervase and Hugh were no longer needed to hold her down, but they stayed and watched. They looked fascinated: they had probably never seen a woman done by two men at the same time. William had never seen it either. There was something curiously exciting about it. Walter seemed to feel the same, for after just a few moments he began to breathe heavily and move convulsively, and then he came. Watching him, William did the same a second or two later.
After a moment, they got to their feet. William still felt excited. “Why don’t you two do her?” he said to Gervase and Hugh. He liked the idea of watching a repeat performance.
However, they were not keen. “I’ve got a little darling waiting,” said Hugh, and Gervase said: “Me, too.”
The whore stood up and rearranged her dress. Her face was unreadable. William said to her: “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She stood in front of him and stared at him for a moment, then she pursed her lips and spat. He felt his face covered with a warm, sticky fluid: she had retained Walter’s semen in her mouth. The stuff blurred his vision. Angry, he raised a hand to strike her, but she ducked out between the screens. Walter and the other knights burst out laughing. William did not think it was funny, but he could not chase after the girl with semen all over his face, and he realized that the only way to retain his dignity was to pretend not to care, so he laughed too.
Ugly Gervase said: “Well, lord, I hope you don’t have Walter’s baby, now!” and they roared. Even William thought that was funny. They all walked out of the little booth together, leaning on one another and wiping their eyes. The other girls were staring at them, looking anxious: they had heard William’s whore scream and were afraid of trouble. One or two customers peeped out curiously from the other booths. Walter said: “First time I ever saw that stuff spurt out of a girl!” and they started laughing again.
One of William’s squires was standing by the door, looking anxious. He was only a lad and he had probably never been inside a brothel before. He smiled nervously, not sure whether he was entitled to join in the hilarity. William said to him: “What are you doing here, you po-faced idiot?”
“There’s a message come for you, lord,” the squire said.
“Well, don’t waste time, tell me what it is!”
“I’m very sorry, lord,” said the boy. He looked so frightened that William thought he was going to turn around and run out of the house.
“What are you sorry for, you turd?” William roared. “Give me the message!”
“Your father’s dead, lord,” the boy blurted out, and he burst into tears.
William stared, dumbstruck. Dead? he thought. Dead? “But he’s in perfectly good health!” he shouted stupidly. It was true that Father was not able to fight on the battlefield anymore, but that was not surprising in a man almost fifty years old. The squire continued to cry. William recalled the way Father had looked last time he saw him: stout, red-faced, hearty and choleric, as full of life as a man could be, and that was only… He realized, with a small shock, that it was nearly a year since he had seen his father. “What happened?” he said to the squire. “What happened to him?”
“He had a seizure, lord,” the squire sobbed.
A seizure. The news began to sink in. Father was dead. That big, strong, blustering, irascible man was lying helpless and cold on a stone slab somewhere-
“I’ll have to go home,” William said suddenly.
Walter said gently: “You must first ask the king to release you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” William said vaguely. “I must ask permission.” His mind was in a turmoil.
“Shall I tip the brothel keeper?” said Walter.
“Yes.” William handed Walter his purse. Someone put William’s cloak over his shoulders. Walter murmured something to the woman who ran the whorehouse and gave her some money. Hugh Axe opened the door for William. They all went out.
They walked through the streets of the small town in silence. William felt peculiarly detached, as if he were watching everything from above. He could not take in the fact that his father no longer existed. As they approached headquarters he tried to pull himself together.
King Stephen was holding court in the church, for there was no castle or guildhall here. It was a small, simple stone church with its inside walls painted bright red, blue and orange”. A fire had been lit in the middle of the floor, and the handsome, tawny-haired king sat near it on a wooden throne, with his legs stretched out before him in his usual relaxed position. He wore soldier’s clothes, high boots and a leather tunic, but he had a crown instead of a helmet. William and Walter pushed through the crowd of petitioners near the church door, nodded at the guards who were keeping the general public back, and strode into the inner circle. Stephen was talking to a newly arrived earl, but he noticed William and broke off immediately. “William, my friend. You’ve heard.”
William bowed. “My lord king.”
Stephen stood up. “I mourn with you,” he said. He put his arms around William and held him for a moment before releasing him.
His sympathy brought the first tears to William’s eyes. “I must ask you for leave to go home,” he said.
“Granted willingly, though not gladly,” said the king. “We’ll miss your strong right arm.”
“Thank you, lord.”
“I also grant you custody of the earldom of Shiring, and all the revenues from it, until the question of the succession is decided. Go home, and bury your father, and come back to us as soon as you can.”
William bowed again and withdrew. The king resumed his conversation. Courtiers gathered around William to commiserate. As he accepted their condolences, the significance of what the king had said hit him. He had given William custody of the earldom until the question of the succession is decided. What question? William was the only child of his father. How could there be a question? He looked at the faces around him and his eye lit upon a young priest who was one of the more knowledgeable of the king’s clerics. He drew the priest to him and said quietly: “What the devil did he mean about the ‘question’ of the succession, Joseph?”
“There’s another claimant to the earldom,” Joseph replied.
“Another claimant?” William repeated in astonishment. He had no half brothers, illegitimate brothers, cousins… “Who is it?”
Joseph pointed to a figure standing with his back to them. He was with the new arrivals. He was wearing the clothing of a squire.
“But he’s not even a knight!” William said loudly. “My father was the earl of Shiring!”
The squire heard him, and turned around. “My father was also the earl of Shiring.”
At first William did not recognize him. He saw a handsome, broad-shouldered young man of about eighteen years, well-dressed for a squire, and carrying a fine sword. There was confidence and even arrogance in the way he stood. Most striking of all, he gazed at William with a look of such pure hatred that William shrank back.
The face was very familiar, but changed. Still William could not place it. Then his saw that there was an angry scar on the squire’s right ear, where the earlobe had been cut off. In a vivid flash of memory he saw a small piece of white flesh fall onto the heaving chest of a terrified virgin, and heard a boy scream in pain. This was Richard, the son of the traitor Bartholomew, the brother of Aliena. The little boy who had been forced to watch while two men raped his sister had grown into a formidable man with the light of vengeance in his light blue eyes. William was suddenly terribly afraid.
“You remember, don’t you?” Richard said, in a light drawl that did not quite mask the cold fury underneath.
William nodded. “I remember.”
“So do I, William Hamleigh,” said Richard. “So do I.”
William sat in the big chair at the head of the table, where his father used to sit. He had always known he would occupy this seat one day. He had imagined he would feel immensely powerful when he did so, but in reality he was a little frightened. He was afraid that people would say he was not the man his father had been, and that they would disrespect him.
His mother sat on his right. He had often watched her, when his father was in this chair, and observed the way she played on Father’s fears and weaknesses to get her own way. He was determined not to let her do the same to him.
On his left sat Arthur, a mild-mannered, gray-headed man who had been Earl Bartholomew’s reeve. After becoming earl, Father had hired Arthur, because Arthur had a good knowledge of the estate. William had always been dubious about that reasoning. Other people’s servants sometimes clung to the ways of their former employer.
“King Stephen can’t possibly make Richard the earl,” Mother was saying angrily. “He’s just a squire!”
“I don’t understand how he even managed that,” William said irritably. “I thought they had been left penniless. But he had fine clothes and a good sword. Where did he get the money?”
“He set himself up as a wool merchant,” Mother said. “He’s got all the money he needs. Or rather, his sister has-I hear Aliena runs the business.”
Aliena. So she was behind this. William had never quite forgotten her, but she had not preyed on his mind so much, after the war broke out, until he had met Richard. Since then she had been in his thoughts continually, as fresh and beautiful, as vulnerable and desirable as ever. He hated her for the hold she had over him.
“So Aliena is rich now?” he said with an affectation of detachment.
“Yes. But you’ve been fighting for the king for a year. He cannot refuse you your inheritance.”
“Richard has fought bravely too, apparently,” William said. “I made some inquiries. Worse still, his courage has come to the notice of the king.”
Mother’s expression changed from angry scorn to thoughtfulness. “So he really has a chance.”
“I fear so.”
“Right. We must fight him off.”
Automatically, William said: “How?” He had resolved not to let his mother take charge but now he had done it.
“You must go back to the king with a bigger force of knights, new weapons and better horses, and plenty of squires and men-at-arms.”
William would have liked to disagree with her but he knew she was right. In the end the king would probably give the earldom to the man who promised to be the most effective supporter, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case.
“That’s not all,” Mother went on. “You must take care to look and act like an earl. That way the king will start to think of the appointment as a foregone conclusion.”
Despite himself William was intrigued. “How should an earl look and act?”
“Speak your mind more. Have an opinion about everything: how the king should prosecute the war, the best tactics for each battle, the political situation in the north, and-especially this-the abilities and loyalty of other earls. Talk to one man about another. Tell the earl of Huntingdon that the count of Warenne is a great fighter; tell the bishop of Ely that you don’t trust the sheriff of Lincoln. People will say to the king: ‘William of Shiring is in the count of Warenne’s faction,’ or ‘William of Shiring and his followers are against the sheriff of Lincoln.’ If you appear powerful, the king will feel comfortable about giving you more power.”
William had little faith in such subtlety. “I think the size of my army will count for more,” he said. He turned to the reeve. “How much is there in my treasury, Arthur?”
“Nothing, lord,” said Arthur.
“What the devil are you talking about?” said William harshly. “There must be something. How much is it?”
Arthur had a slightly superior air, as if he had nothing to fear from William. “Lord, there’s no money at all in the treasury.”
William wanted to strangle him. “This is the earldom of Shiring!” he said, loud enough to make the knights and castle officials farther down the table look up. “There must be money!”
“Money comes in all the time, lord, of course,” Arthur said smoothly. “But it goes out again, especially in wartime.”
William studied the pale, clean-shaven face. Arthur was far too complacent. Was he honest? There was no way of telling. William wished for eyes that could see into a man’s heart.
Mother knew what William was thinking. “Arthur is honest,” she said, not caring that the man was right there. “He’s old, and lazy and set in his ways, but he’s honest.”
William was stricken. He had only just sat in the chair and already his power was shriveling, as if by magic. He felt cursed. There seemed to be a law that William would always be a boy among men, no matter how old he grew. Weakly, he said: “How has this happened?”
Mother said: “Your father was ill for the best part of a year before he died. I could see he was letting things slip, but I couldn’t get him to do anything about it.”
It was news to William that his mother was not omnipotent. He had never before known her unable to get her way. He turned to Arthur. “We have some of the best farmland in the kingdom here. How can we be penniless?”
“Some of the farms are in trouble, and several tenants are in arrears with their rents.”
“But why?”
“One reason I hear frequently is that the young men won’t work on the land, but leave for the towns.”
“Then we must stop them!”
Arthur shrugged. “Once a serf has lived in a town for a year, he becomes a freeman. It’s the law.”
“And what about the tenants who haven’t paid? What have you done to them?”
“What can one do?” said Arthur. “If we take away their livelihood, they’ll never be able to pay. So we must be patient, and hope for a good harvest which will enable them to catch up.”
Arthur was altogether too cheerful about his inability to solve any of these problems, William thought angrily; but he reined in his temper for the moment. “Well, if all the young men are going to the towns, what about our rents from house property in Shiring? That should have brought in some cash.”
“Oddly enough, it hasn’t,” said Arthur. “There are a lot of empty houses in Shiring. The young men must be going elsewhere.”
“Or people are lying to you,” William said. “I suppose you’re going to say that the income from the Shiring market and the fleece fair is down too?”
“Yes-”
“Then why don’t you increase the rents and taxes?”
“We have, lord, on the orders of your late father, but the income has gone down nonetheless.”
“With such an unproductive estate, how did Bartholomew keep body and soul together?” William said in exasperation.
Arthur even had an answer for that. “He had the quarry, also. That brought in a great deal of money, in the old days.”
“And now it’s in the hands of that damned monk.” William was shaken. Just when he needed to make an ostentatious display he was being told that he was penniless. The situation was very dangerous for him. The king had just granted him custody of an earldom. It was a kind of probation. If he returned to court with a diminutive army it would seem ungrateful, even disloyal.
Besides, the picture Arthur had painted could not be entirely true. William felt sure people were cheating him-and they were probably laughing about it behind his back, too. The thought made him angry. He was not going to tolerate it. He would show them. There would be bloodshed before he accepted defeat.
“You’ve got an excuse for everything,” he said to Arthur. “The fact is, you’ve let this estate run to seed during my father’s illness, which is when you ought to have been most vigilant.”
“But, lord-”
William raised his voice. “Shut your mouth or I’ll have you flogged.”
Arthur paled and went silent.
William said: “Starting tomorrow, we’re going on a tour of the earldom. We’re going to visit every village I own, and shake them all up. You may not know how to deal with whining, lying peasants, but I do. We’ll soon find out how impoverished my earldom is. And if you’ve lied to me, I swear to God you’ll be the first of many hangings.”
As well as Arthur, he took his groom, Walter, and the other four knights who had fought beside him for the past year: Ugly Gervase, Hugh Axe, Gilbert de Rennes and Miles Dice. They were all big, violent men, quick to anger and always ready to fight. They rode their best horses and went armed to the teeth, to scare the peasantry. William believed that a man was helpless unless people were afraid of him.
It was a hot day in late summer, and the wheat stood in fat sheaves in the fields. The abundance of visible wealth made William all the more angry that he had no money. Someone must be robbing him. They ought to be too frightened to dare. His family had won the earldom when Bartholomew was disgraced, and yet he was penniless while Bartholomew’s son had plenty! The idea that people were stealing from him, and laughing at his unsuspecting ignorance, gnawed at him like a stomachache, and he got angrier as he rode along.
He had decided to begin at Northbrook, a small village somewhat remote from the castle. The villagers were a mixture of serfs and freemen. The serfs were William’s property, and could not do anything without his permission. They owed him so many days’ work at certain times of year, plus a share of their own crops. The freemen just paid him rent, in cash or in kind. Five of them were in arrears. William had a notion they thought they could get away with it because they were far from the castle. It might be a good place to begin the shake-up.
It was a long ride, and the sun was high when they approached the village. There were twenty or thirty houses surrounded by three big fields, all of them now stubble. Near the houses, at the edge of one of the fields, were three large oak trees in a group. As William and his men drew near, he saw that most of the villagers appeared to be sitting in the shade of the oaks, eating their dinner. He spurred his horse into a canter for the last few hundred yards, and the others followed suit. They halted in front of the villagers in a cloud of dust.
As the villagers were scrambling to their feet, swallowing their horsebread and trying to keep the dust out of their eyes, William’s mistrustful gaze observed a curious little drama. A middle-aged man with a black beard spoke quietly but urgently to a plump red-cheeked girl with a plump, red-cheeked baby. A young man joined them and was hastily shooed away by the older man. Then the girl walked off toward the houses, apparently under protest, and disappeared in the dust. William was intrigued. There was something furtive about the whole scene, and he wished Mother were here to interpret it.
He decided to do nothing about it for the moment. He addressed Arthur in a voice loud enough for them all to hear. “Five of my free tenants here are in arrears, is that right?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Who is the worst?”
“Athelstan hasn’t paid for two years, but he was very unlucky with his pigs-”
William spoke over Arthur, cutting him off. “Which one of you is Athelstan?”
A tall, stoop-shouldered man of about forty-five years stepped forward. He had thinning hair and watery eyes.
William said: “Why don’t you pay me rent?”
“Lord, it’s a small holding, and I’ve no one to help me, now that my boys have gone to work in the town, and then there was the swine fever-”
“Just a moment,” William said. “Where did your sons go?”
“To Kingsbridge, lord, to work on the new cathedral there, for they want to marry, as young men must, and my land won’t support three families.”
William tucked away in his memory, for future reflection, the information that the young men had gone to work on Kingsbridge Cathedral. “Your holding is big enough to support one family, at any rate, but still you don’t pay your rent.”
Athelstan began to talk about his pigs again. William stared malevolently at him without listening. I know why you haven’t paid, he thought; you knew your lord was ill and you decided to cheat him while he was incapable of enforcing his rights. The other four delinquents thought the same. You rob us when we’re weak!
For a moment he was full of self-pity. The five of them had been chuckling over their cleverness, he felt sure. Well, now they would learn their lesson. “Gilbert and Hugh, take this peasant and hold him still,” he said quietly.
Athelstan was still talking. The two knights dismounted and approached him. His tale of swine fever tailed off into nothing. The knights took him by the arms. He turned pale with fear.
William spoke to Walter in the same quiet voice. “Have you got your chain-mail gloves?”
“Yes, lord.”
“Put them on. Teach Athelstan a lesson. But make sure he lives to spread the word.”
“Yes, lord.” Walter took from his saddlebag a pair of leather gauntlets with fine chain mail sewn to the knuckles and the backs of the fingers. He pulled them on slowly. All the villagers watched in dread, and Athelstan began to moan with terror.
Walter got off his horse, walked over to Athelstan and punched him in the stomach with one mailed fist. The thud as the blow landed was sickeningly loud. Athelstan doubled over, too winded to cry out. Gilbert and Hugh pulled him upright, and Walter punched his face. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose. One of the onlookers, a woman who was presumably his wife, screamed out and jumped on Walter, yelling: “Stop! Leave him! Don’t kill him!”
Walter brushed her off, and two other women grabbed her and pulled her back. She continued to scream and struggle. The other peasants watched in mutinous silence as Walter beat Athelstan systematically until his body was limp, his face covered with blood and his eyes closed in unconsciousness.
“Let him go,” William said at last.
Gilbert and Hugh released Athelstan. He slumped to the ground and lay still. The women released the wife and she ran to him, sobbing, and knelt beside him. Walter took off the gauntlets and wiped the blood and pieces of flesh off the chain mail.
William had already lost interest in Athelstan. Looking around the village, he saw a new-looking two-story wooden structure built on the edge of the brook. He pointed to it and said to Arthur: “What’s that?”
“I haven’t seen it before, lord,” Arthur said nervously.
William thought he was lying. “It’s a water mill, isn’t it?”
Arthur shrugged, but his indifference was unconvincing. “I can’t imagine what else it would be, right there by the stream.”
How could he be so insolent, when he had just seen a peasant beaten half to death on William’s orders? Almost desperately, William said: “Are my serfs allowed to build mills without my permission?”
“No, lord.”
“Do you know why this is prohibited?”
“So that they will bring their grain to the lord’s mills and pay him to grind it for them.”
“And the lord will profit.”
“Yes, lord.” Arthur spoke in the condescending tone of one who explains something elementary to a child. “But if they pay a fine for building a mill, the lord will profit just the same.”
William found his tone maddening. “No, he won’t profit just the same. The fine is never as much as the peasants would otherwise have to pay. That’s why they love to build mills. And that’s why my father would never let them.” Without giving Arthur the chance to reply, he kicked his horse and rode over to the mill. His knights followed, and the villagers tailed along behind them in a ragged crowd.
William dismounted. There was no doubt about what the building was. A large waterwheel was turning under the pressure of the fast-flowing stream. The wheel turned a shaft which went through the side wall of the mill. It was a solid wooden construction, made to last. Whoever built it had clearly expected to be free to use it for years.
The miller stood outside the open door, wearing a prepared expression of injured innocence. In the room behind him were sacks of grain in neat stacks. William dismounted. The miller bowed to him politely, but was there not a hint of scorn in his look? Once again William had the painful sense that these people thought he was a nobody, and his inability to impose his will on them made him feel impotent. Indignation and frustration welled up in him, and he yelled at the miller furiously. “Whatever made you think you could get away with this? Do you imagine that I’m stupid? Is that it? Is that what you think?” Then he punched the man in the face.
The miller gave an exaggerated cry of pain and fell to the ground quite unnecessarily.
William stepped over him and went inside. The shaft of the waterwheel was connected, by a set of wooden gears, to the shaft of the grindstone on the upper floor. The milled grain fell through a chute to the threshing floor at ground level. The second floor, which had to bear the weight of the grindstone, was supported by four stout timbers (taken from William’s forest without permission, undoubtedly). If the timbers were cut the whole building would fall.
William went outside. Hugh Axe carried the weapon from which he got his name strapped to his saddle. William said: “Give me your battle-ax.” Hugh obliged. William went back inside and began to attack the timber supports of the upper floor.
It gave him great satisfaction to feel the blade of the ax thud into the building that the peasants had so carefully constructed in their attempt to cheat him of his milling fees. They aren’t laughing at me now, he thought savagely.
Walter came in and stood watching. William hacked a deep notch in one of the supports and then cut halfway through a second. The platform above, which carried the enormous weight of the millstone, began to tremble. William said: “Get a rope.” Walter went out.
William cut into the other two timbers as deeply as he dared. The building was ready to collapse. Walter came back with some rope. William tied the rope to one of the timbers, then carried the other end outside and tied it around the neck of his war-horse.
The peasants watched in sullen silence.
When the rope was fixed, William said: “Where’s the miller?”
The miller approached, still trying to look like one who is being unjustly dealt with.
William said: “Gervase, tie him up and put him inside.”
The miller made a break for it, but Gilbert tripped him and sat on him, and Gervase tied his hands and feet with leather thongs. The two knights picked him up. He began to struggle and plead for mercy.
One of the villagers stepped out of the crowd and said: “You can’t do this. It’s murder. Even a lord can’t murder people.”
William pointed a trembling finger at him. “If you open your mouth again I’ll put you inside with him.”
For a moment the man looked defiant; then he thought better of it and turned away.
The knights came out of the mill. William walked his horse forward until it had taken up the slack in the rope. He slapped its rump, and it took the strain.
Inside the building, the miller began to scream. The noise was bloodcurdling. It was the sound of a man in mortal terror, a man who knew that within the next few moments he was going to be crushed to death.
The horse tossed its head, trying to slacken the rope around its neck. William yelled at it and kicked its rump to make it pull, then shouted at his knights: “Heave on the rope, you men!” The four knights grabbed the taut rope and pulled with the horse. The villagers’ voices were raised in protest, but they were all too frightened to interfere. Arthur was standing to one side, looking sick.
The miller’s screams became more shrill. William imagined the blind terror that must be possessing the man as he waited for his dreadful death. None of these peasants will ever forget the revenge of the Hamleighs, he thought.
The timber creaked loudly; then there was a loud crack as it broke. The horse bounded forward and the knights let go of the rope. A corner of the roof sagged. The women began to wail. The wooden walls of the mill seemed to shudder; the miller’s screams rose higher; there was a mighty crash as the upper floor gave way; the screaming was cut off abruptly; and the ground shook as the grindstone landed on the threshing floor. The walls splintered, the roof caved in, and in a moment the mill was nothing but a pile of firewood with a dead man inside it.
William began to feel better.
Some of the villagers ran forward and began to dig into the debris frantically. If they were hoping to find the miller alive they would be disappointed. His body would be a grisly sight. That was all to the good.
Looking around, William spotted the red-cheeked girl with the red-cheeked baby, standing at the back of the crowd, as if she were trying to be inconspicuous. He remembered how the man with the black beard-presumably her father-had been keen to keep her out of sight. He decided to solve that mystery before leaving the village. He caught her eye and beckoned her. She looked behind her, hoping he was pointing at someone else. “You,” William said. “Come here.”
The man with the black beard saw her and gave a grunt of exasperation.
William said: “Who’s your husband, wench?”
The father said: “She has no-”
He was too late, however, for the girl said: “Edmund.”
“So you are married. But who’s your father?”
“I am,” said the man with the black beard. “Theobald.”
William turned to Arthur. “Is Theobald a freeman?”
“He’s a serf, lord.”
“And when a serfs daughter marries, is it not the lord’s right, as her owner, to enjoy her on the wedding night?”
Arthur was shocked. “Lord! That primitive custom has not been enforced in this part of the world in living memory!”
“True,” said William. “The father pays a fine, instead. How much did Theobald pay?”
“He hasn’t paid yet, lord, but-”
“Not paid! And she with a fat red-cheeked child!”
Theobald said: “We never had the money, lord, and she was with child by Edmund, and wanted to be wed, but we can pay now, for we’ve got the crop in.”
William smiled at the girl. “Let me see the baby.”
She stared at him fearfully.
“Come. Give it to me.
She was afraid but she could not bring herself to hand over her baby. William stepped closer and gently took the child from her. Her eyes filled with terror but she did not resist him.
The baby began to squall. William held it for a moment, then grasped both its ankles in one hand and with a swift motion threw it into the air as high as he could.
The girl screamed like a banshee and gazed into the air as the baby flew upward.
The father ran forward with his arms outstretched to catch it as it fell.
While the girl was looking up and screaming, William took a handful of her dress and ripped it. She had a pink, rounded young body.
The father caught the baby safely.
The girl turned to run, but William caught her and threw her to the ground.
The father handed the baby to a woman and turned to look at William.
William said: “As I wasn’t given my due on the wedding night, and the fine hasn’t been paid, I’ll take what’s owed me now.”
The father rushed at him.
William drew his sword.
The father stopped.
William looked at the girl, lying on the ground, trying to cover her nakedness with her hands. Her fear aroused him. “And when I’ve done, my knights will have her too,” he said with a contented smile.
In three years Kingsbridge had changed beyond recognition.
William had not been here since the Whitsunday when Philip and his army of volunteers had frustrated Waleran Bigod’s scheme. Then it had been forty or fifty wooden houses clustered around the priory gate and scattered along the muddy footpath that led to the bridge. Now, he saw as he approached the village across the undulating fields, there were three times as many houses, at least. They formed a brown fringe all around the gray stone wall of the priory and completely filled the space between the priory and the river. Several of the houses looked large. Within the priory close there were new stone buildings, and the walls of the church seemed to be going up fast. There were two new quays beside the river. Kingsbridge had become a town.
The appearance of the place confirmed a suspicion that had been growing in his mind since he had come home from the war. As he had toured around, collecting arrears of rent and terrorizing disobedient serfs, he had continually heard talk of Kingsbridge. Landless young men were going there to work; prosperous families were sending their sons to school at the priory; smallholders would sell their eggs and cheese to the men working on the building site; and everyone who could went there on holy days, even though there was no cathedral. Today was a holy day-Michaelmas Day, which fell on a Sunday this year. It was a mild early-autumn morning, nice weather for traveling, so there should be a good crowd. William expected to find out what drew them to Kingsbridge.
His five henchmen rode with him. They had done sterling work in the villages. The news of William’s tour had spread with uncanny speed, and after the first few days people knew what to expect. At William’s approach they would send the children and young women to hide in the woods. It pleased William to strike fear into people’s hearts: it kept them in their place. They certainly knew he was in command now!
As his group came closer to Kingsbridge, he kicked his horse into a trot, and the others followed suit. Arriving at speed was always more impressive. Other people shrank back to the sides of the road, or jumped into the fields, to get out of the way of the big horses.
They clattered over the wooden bridge, making a loud noise and ignoring the tollhouse keeper, but the narrow street ahead of them was blocked by a cart loaded with barrels of lime and pulled by two huge, slow-moving oxen; and the knights’ horses were forced to slow abruptly.
William looked around as they followed the cart up the hill. New houses, hastily built, filled the spaces between the old ones. He noticed a cookshop, an alehouse, a smithy and a shoemaker’s. The air of prosperity was unmistakable. William was envious.
There were not many people in the streets, however. Perhaps they were all up at the priory.
With his knights behind him he followed the ox cart through the priory gates. It was not the kind of entrance he liked to make, and he had a pang of anxiety that people would notice and laugh at him, but happily nobody even looked.
By contrast with the deserted town outside the walls, the priory close was humming with activity.
William reined in and looked around, trying to take it all in. There were so many people, and there was so much going on, that at first he found it somewhat bewildering. Then the scene resolved into three sections.
Nearest him, at the western end of the priory close, there was a market. The stalls were set up in neat north-south rows, and several hundred people were milling about in the aisles, buying food and drink, hats and shoes, knives, belts, ducklings, puppies, pots, earrings, wool, thread, rope, and dozens of other necessities and luxuries. The market was clearly thriving, and all the pennies, half-pennies and farthings that were changing hands must add up to a great deal of money.
It was no wonder, William thought bitterly, that the market at Shiring was in decline, when there was a flourishing alternative here at Kingsbridge. The rents from stall holders, tolls on suppliers, and taxes on sales that should have been going into the earl of Shiring’s treasury were instead filling the coffers of Kingsbridge Priory.
But a market needed a license from the king, and William was sure Prior Philip did not have one. He was probably planning to apply as soon as he was caught, like the Northbrook miller. Unfortunately it would not be so easy for William to teach Philip a lesson.
Beyond the market was a zone of tranquility. Adjacent to the cloisters, where the crossing of the old church used to be, there was an altar under a canopy, with a white-haired monk standing in front of it reading from a book. On the far side of the altar, monks in neat rows were singing hymns, although at this distance their music was drowned by the noise of the marketplace. There was a small congregation. This was probably nones, a service conducted for the benefit of the monks, William thought: all work and marketing would stop for the main Michaelmas service, of course.
At the far side of the priory close, the east end of the cathedral was being built. This was where Prior Philip was spending his rake-off from the market, William thought sourly. The walls were thirty or forty feet high, and it was already possible to see the outlines of the windows and the arches of the arcade. Workers swarmed all over the site. William thought there was something odd about the way they looked, and realized after a moment that it was their colorful dress. They were not regular laborers, of course-the paid work force would be on holiday today. These people were volunteers.
He had not expected that there would be so many of them. Hundreds of men and women were carrying stones and splitting timber and rolling barrels and heaving cartloads of sand up from the river, all working for nothing but forgiveness of their sins.
The sly prior had a crafty setup, William observed enviously. The people who came to work on the cathedral would spend money at the market. People who came to the market would give a few hours to the cathedral, for their sins. Each hand washed the other.
He kicked his horse forward and rode across the graveyard to the building site, curious to see it more closely.
The eight massive piers of the arcade marched down either side of the site in four opposed pairs. From a distance, William had thought he could see the round arches joining one pier with the next, but now he realized the arches were not built yet-what he had seen was the wooden falsework, made in the same shape, upon which the stones would rest while the arches were being constructed and the mortar was drying. The falsework did not rest on the ground, but was supported on the out-jutting moldings of the capitals on top of the piers.
Parallel with the arcade, the outer walls of the aisles were going up, with regular spaces for the windows. Midway between each window opening, a buttress jutted out from the line of the wall. Looking at the open ends of the unfinished walls, William could see that they were not solid stone: they were in fact double walls with a space in between. The cavity appeared to be filled with rubble and mortar.
The scaffolding was made of stout poles roped together, with trestles of flexible saplings and woven reeds laid across the poles.
A lot of money had been spent here, William noted.
He rode on around the outside of the chancel, followed by his knights. Against the walls were wooden lean-to huts, workshops and lodges for the craftsmen. Most of them were locked shut now, for there were no masons laying stones or carpenters making falsework today. However, the supervising craftsmen-the master masons and the master carpenter-were directing the volunteer laborers, telling them where to stack the stones, timber, sand and lime they were carrying up from the riverside.
William rode around the east end of the church to the south side, where his way was blocked by the monastic buildings. Then he turned back, marveling at the cunning of Prior Philip, who had his master craftsmen busy on a Sunday and his laborers working for no pay.
As he reflected on what he was seeing, it seemed devastatingly clear that Prior Philip was largely responsible for the decline in the fortunes of the Shiring earldom. The farms were losing their young men to the building site, and Shiring-jewel of the earldom-was being eclipsed by the growing new town of Kingsbridge. Residents here paid rent to Philip, not William, and people who bought and sold goods at this market generated income for the priory, not the earldom. And Philip had the timber, the sheep farms and the quarry that had once enriched the earl.
William and his men rode back across the close to the market. He decided to take a closer look. He urged his horse into the crowd. It inched forward. The people did not scatter fearfully out of his path. When the horse nudged them, they looked up at William with irritation or annoyance rather than dread, and moved out of the way in their own good time, with a somewhat condescending air. Nobody here was frightened of him. It made him nervous. If people were not scared there was no telling what they might do.
He went down one row and back up the next, with his knights trailing behind him. He became frustrated with the slow movement of the crowd. It would have been quicker to walk; but then, he felt sure, these insubordinate Kingsbridge people would probably have been cocky enough to jostle him.
He was halfway along the return aisle when he saw Aliena.
He reined in abruptly and stared at her, transfixed.
She was no longer the thin, strained, frightened girl in clogs that he had seen here on Whitsunday three years ago. Her face, then drawn with tension, had filled out again, and she had a happy, healthy look. Her dark eyes flashed with humor and her curls tumbled about her face when she shook her head.
She was so beautiful that she made William’s head swim with desire.
She was wearing a scarlet robe, richly embroidered, and her expressive hands glinted with rings. There was an older woman with her, standing a little to one side, like a servant. Plenty of money, Mother had said; that was how Richard had been able to become a squire and join King Stephen’s army equipped with fine weapons. Damn her. She had been destitute, a penniless, powerless girl-how had she done it?
She was at a stall that carried bone needles, silk thread, wooden thimbles and other sewing necessities, discussing the goods animatedly with the short, dark-haired Jew who was selling them. Her stance was assertive, and she was relaxed and self-confident. She had recovered the poise she had possessed as daughter of the earl.
She looked much older. She was older, of course: William was twenty-four, so she must be twenty-one now. But she looked more than that. There was nothing of the child in her now. She was mature.
She looked up and met his eye.
Last time he had locked glances with her, she had blushed for shame, and run away. This time she stood her ground and stared back at him.
He tried a knowing smile.
An expression of scathing contempt came over her face.
William felt himself flush red. She was as haughty as ever, and she scorned him now as she had five years ago. He had humiliated and ravished her, but she was no longer terrified of him. He wanted to speak to her, and tell her that he could do again what he had done to her before; but he was not willing to shout it over the heads of the crowd. Her unflinching gaze made him feel small. He tried to sneer at her, but he could not, and he knew he was making a foolish grimace. In an agony of embarrassment he turned away and kicked his horse on; but even then the crowd slowed him down, and her withering look burned into the back of his neck as he moved away from her by painful inches.
When at last he emerged from the marketplace he was confronted by Prior Philip.
The short Welshman stood with his hands on his hips and his chin thrust aggressively forward. He was not quite as thin as he used to be, and what little hair he had was turning prematurely from black to gray, William saw. He no longer looked too young for his job. Now his blue eyes were bright with anger. “Lord William!” he called in a challenging tone.
William tore his mind away from the thought of Aliena and remembered that he had a charge to make against Philip. “I’m glad to come across you, Prior.”
“And I you,” Philip said angrily, but the shadow of a doubtful frown crossed his brow.
“You’re holding a market here,” William said accusingly.
“So what?”
“I don’t believe King Stephen ever licensed a market in Kingsbridge. Nor did any other king, to my knowledge.”
“How dare you?” said Philip.
“I or anybody-”
“You!” Philip shouted, overriding him. “How dare you come in here and talk about a license-you, who in the past month have gone through this county committing arson, theft, rape, and at least one murder!”
“That’s nothing to do-”
“How dare you come into a monastery and talk about a license!” Philip yelled. He stepped forward, wagging his finger at William, and William’s horse sidestepped nervously. Somehow Philip’s voice was more penetrating than William’s and William could not get a word in. A crowd of monks, volunteer workers and market customers was gathering around, watching the row. Philip was unstoppable. “After what you’ve done, there is only one thing you should say: ‘Father, I have sinned!’ You should get down on your knees in this priory! You should beg for forgiveness, if you want to escape the fires of hell.”
William blanched. Talk of hell filled him with uncontrollable terror. He tried desperately to interrupt Philip’s flow, saying: “What about your market? What about your market?”
Philip hardly heard. He was in a fury of indignation. “Beg forgiveness for the awful things you have done!” he shouted. “On your knees! On your knees, or you’ll burn in hell!”
William was almost frightened enough to believe that he would suffer hellfire unless he knelt and prayed in front of Philip right now. He knew he was overdue for confession, for he had killed many men in the war, on top of the sins he had committed during his tour of the earldom. What if he were to die before he confessed? He began to feel shaky at the thought of the eternal flames and the devils with their sharp knives.
Philip advanced on him, pointing his finger and shouting: “On your knees!”
William backed his horse. He looked around desperately. The crowd hemmed him in. His knights were behind him, looking bemused: they could not decide how to cope with a spiritual threat from an unarmed monk. William could not take any more humiliation. After Aliena, this was too much. He pulled on the reins, making his massive war-horse rear dangerously. The crowd parted in front of its mighty hooves. When its forefeet hit the ground again he kicked it hard, and it lunged forward. The onlookers scattered. He kicked it again, and it broke into a canter. Burning with shame, he fled out through the priory gate, with his knights following, like a pack of snarling dogs chased off by an old woman with a broom.
William confessed his sins, in fear and trembling, on the cold stone floor of the little chapel at the bishop’s palace. Bishop Waleran listened in silence, his face a mask of distaste, as William catalogued the killings, the beatings and the rapes he was guilty of. Even while he confessed, William was filled with loathing for the supercilious bishop, with his clean white hands folded over his heart, and his translucent white nostrils slightly flared, as if there were a bad smell in the dusty air. It tormented William to beg Waleran for absolution, but his sins were so heavy that no ordinary priest could forgive them. So he knelt, possessed by fear, while Waleran commanded him to light a candle in perpetuity in the chapel at Earlscastle, and then told him his sins were absolved.
The fear lifted slowly, like a fog.
They came out of the chapel into the smoky atmosphere of the great hall and sat by the fire. Autumn was turning to winter and it was cold in the big stone house. A kitchen hand brought hot spiced bread made with honey and ginger. William began to feel all right at last.
Then he remembered his other problems. Bartholomew’s son Richard was making a bid for the earldom, and William was too poor to raise an army big enough to impress the king. He had raked in considerable cash in the past month, but it was still not sufficient. He sighed, and said: “That damned monk is drinking the blood of the Shiring earldom.”
Waleran took some bread with a pale, long-fingered hand like a claw. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to reach that conclusion.”
Of course, Waleran would have worked it all out long before William. He was so superior. William would rather not talk to him. But he wanted the bishop’s opinion on a legal point. “The king has never licensed a market in Kingsbridge, has he?”
“To my certain knowledge, no.”
“Then Philip is breaking the law.”
Waleran shrugged his bony, black-draped shoulders. “For what it’s worth, yes.”
Waleran seemed uninterested but William plowed on. “He ought to be stopped.”
Waleran gave a fastidious smile. “You can’t deal with him the way you deal with a serf who’s married off his daughter without permission.”
William reddened: Waleran was referring to one of the sins he had just confessed. “How can you deal with him, then?”
Waleran considered. “Markets are the king’s prerogative. In more peaceful times he would probably handle this himself.”
William gave a scornful laugh. For all his cleverness, Waleran did not know the king as well as William did. “Even in peacetime he wouldn’t thank me for complaining to him about an unlicensed market.”
“Well, then, his deputy, to deal with local matters, is the sheriff of Storing.”
“What can he do?”
“He could bring a writ against the priory in the county court.”
William shook his head. “That’s the last thing I want. The court would impose a fine, the priory would pay it, and the market would continue. It’s almost like giving a license.”
“The trouble is, there are really no grounds for refusing to let Kingsbridge have a market.”
“Yes, there are!” said William indignantly. “It takes trade away from the market at Shiring.”
“Shiring is a full day’s journey from Kingsbridge.”
“People will walk a long way.”
Waleran shrugged again. William realized he shrugged when he disagreed. Waleran said: “Tradition says a man will spend a third of a day walking to the market, a third of a day at the market, and a third of a day walking home. Therefore, a market serves the people within a third of a day’s journey, which is reckoned to be seven miles. If two markets are more than fourteen miles apart, their catchment areas do not overlap. Shiring is twenty miles from Kingsbridge. According to the rule, Kingsbridge is entitled to a market, and the king should grant it.”
“The king does what he likes,” William blustered, but he was bothered. He had not known about this rule. It put Prior Philip in a stronger position.
Waleran said: “Anyway, we won’t be dealing with the king, we’ll be dealing with the sheriff.” He frowned. “The sheriff could just order the priory to desist from holding an unlicensed market.”
“That’s a waste of time,” William said contemptuously. “Who takes any notice of an order that isn’t backed up by a threat?”
“Philip might.”
William did not believe that. “Why would he?”
A mocking smile played around Waleran’s bloodless lips. “I’m not sure I can explain it to you,” he said. “Philip believes that the law should be king.”
“Stupid idea,” said William impatiently. “The king is king.”
“I said you wouldn’t understand.”
Waleran’s knowing air infuriated William. He got up and went to the window. Looking out, he could see, at the top of the nearby hill, the earthworks where Waleran had started to build a castle four years ago. Waleran had hoped to pay for it out of the income from the Shiring earldom. Philip had frustrated his plans, and now the grass had grown back over the mounds of earth, and brambles filled the dry ditch. William recalled that Waleran had hoped to build with stone from the earl of Shiring’s quarry. Now Philip had the quarry. William mused: “If I had my quarry back, I could use it as a surety, and borrow money to raise an army.”
“Then why don’t you take it back?” said Waleran.
William shook his head. “I tried, once.”
“And Philip outmaneuvered you. But there are no monks there now. You could send a squad of men to evict the stonecutters.”
“And how would I stop Philip from moving back in, the way he did last time?”
“Build a high fence around the quarry and leave a permanent guard.”
It was possible, William thought eagerly. And it would solve his problem at a stroke. But what was Waleran’s motive in suggesting it? Mother had warned him to beware of the unscrupulous bishop. “The only thing you need to know about Waleran Bigod,” she had said, “is that everything he does is carefully calculated. Nothing spontaneous, nothing careless, nothing casual, nothing superfluous. Above all, nothing generous.” But Waleran hated Philip, and had sworn to prevent him from building his cathedral. That was motive enough.
William looked thoughtfully at Waleran. His career was in a stall. He had become bishop very young, but Kingsbridge was an insignificant and impoverished diocese and Waleran had surely intended it to be a stepping-stone to higher things. However, it was the prior, not the bishop, who was winning wealth and fame. Waleran was withering in Philip’s shadow much as William was. They both had reason to want to destroy him.
William decided, yet again, to overcome his loathing of Waleran for the sake of his own long-term interests.
“All right,” he said. “This could work. But suppose Philip then complains to the king?”
Waleran said: “You’ll say you did it as a reprisal for Philip’s unlicensed market.”
William nodded. “Any excuse will do, so long as I go back to the war with a big enough army.”
Waleran’s eyes glinted with malice. “I have a feeling Philip can’t build that cathedral if he has to buy stone at a market price. And if he stops building, Kingsbridge could go into decline. This could solve all your problems, William.”
William was not going to show gratitude. “You really hate Philip, don’t you?”
“He’s in my way,” Waleran said, but for a moment William had glimpsed the naked savagery beneath the bishop’s cool, calculating manner.
William returned to practical matters. “There must be thirty quarrymen there, some with their wives and children,” he said.
“So what?”
“There may be bloodshed.”
Waleran raised his black eyebrows. “Indeed?” he said. “Then I shall give you absolution.”
They set out while it was still dark, in order to arrive at dawn. They carried flaming torches, which made the horses jumpy. As well as Walter and the other four knights, William took six men-at-arms. Trailing behind them were a dozen peasants who would dig the ditch and put up the fence,
William believed firmly in careful military planning-which was why he and his men were so useful to King Stephen-but on this occasion he had no battle plan. It was such an easy operation that it would have been demeaning to make preparations as if it were a real fight. A few stonecutters and their families could not put up much opposition; and anyway, William remembered being told how the stonecutters’ leader-was his name Otto? Yes, Otto Blackface-had refused to fight, on the first day Tom Builder had taken his men to the quarry.
A chill December morning dawned, with rags and tatters of mist hanging on the trees like poor people’s washing. William disliked this time of year. It was cold in the morning and dark in the evening, and the castle was always damp. Too much salt meat and salt fish was served. His mother was bad-tempered and the servants were surly. His knights became quarrelsome. This little fight would be good for them. It would also be good for him: he had already arranged to borrow two hundred pounds from the Jews of London against the surety of the quarry. By the end of today his future would be secure.
When they were about a mile from the quarry William stopped, picked out two men, and sent them ahead, on foot. “There may be a sentry, or some dogs,” he warned. “Have a bow out ready with an arrow at the string.”
A little later the road curved to the left, then ended suddenly at the sheer side of a mutilated hill. This was the quarry. All was quiet. Beside the road, William’s men were holding a scared boy-presumably an apprentice who had been on sentry duty-and at his feet was a dog bleeding to death with an arrow through its neck.
The raiding party drew up, making no particular effort to be silent. William reined in and studied the scene. Much of the hill had disappeared since last he saw it. The scaffolding ran up the hillside to inaccessible areas and down into a deep pit which had been opened up at the foot of the hill. Stone blocks of different shapes and sizes were stacked near the road, and two massive wooden carts with huge wheels were loaded with stone ready to go. Everything was covered with gray dust, even the bushes and trees. A large area of woodland had been cleared-my woodland, William thought angrily-and there were ten or twelve wooden buildings, some with small vegetable gardens, one with a pigsty. It was a little village.
The sentry had probably been asleep-and his dog, too. William spoke to him. “How many men are here, lad?”
The boy looked scared but brave. “You’re Lord William, aren’t you?”
“Answer the question, boy, or I’ll take off your head with this sword.”
He went white with fear, but replied in a voice of quavering defiance. “Are you trying to steal this quarry away from Prior Philip?”
What’s the matter with me, William thought? I can’t even frighten a skinny child with no beard! Why do people think they can defy me? “This quarry is mine!” he hissed. “Forget about Prior Philip-he can’t do anything for you now. How many men?”
Instead of replying the boy threw back his head and began to yell. “Help! Look out! Attack! Attack!”
William’s hand went to his sword. He hesitated, looking across at the houses. A scared face peered out from a doorway. He decided to forget about the apprentice. He snatched a blazing torch from one of his men and kicked his horse.
He rode at the houses, carrying the torch high, and heard his men behind him. The door of the nearest hut opened and a bleary-eyed man in an undershirt looked out. William threw the burning torch over the man’s head. It landed on the floor behind him in the straw, which caught fire immediately. William gave a whoop of triumph and rode past.
He went on through the little cluster of houses. Behind him, his men charged, yelling and throwing their torches at the thatched roofs. All the doors opened, and terrified men, women and children began to pour out, screaming and trying to dodge the hammering hooves. They milled about in a panic while the flames took hold. William reined in at the edge of the melee and watched for a moment. The domestic animals got loose, and a frantic pig charged around blindly while a cow stood still in the middle of it all, its stupid head weaving from side to side in bewilderment. Even the young men, normally the most belligerent group, were confused and scared. Dawn was definitely the best time for this sort of thing: there was something about being half naked that took away people’s aggression.
A dark-skinned man with a thatch of black hair came out of one of the huts with his boots on and started giving orders. This must be Otto Blackface. William could not hear what he was saying. He could guess from the gestures that Otto was telling the women to pick up the children and hide in the woods, but what was he saying to the men? A moment later William found out. Two young men ran to a hut set apart from the others and opened its door, which was locked from the outside. They stepped in and re-emerged with heavy stonecutters’ hammers. Otto directed other men to the same hut, which was obviously a tool shed. They were going to make a fight of it.
Three years ago Otto had refused to fight for Philip. What had changed his mind?
Whatever it was, it was going to kill him. William smiled grimly and drew his sword.
There were now six or eight men armed with sledgehammers and long-handled axes. William spurred his horse and charged at the group around the door of the tool shed. They scattered out of his way, but he swung his sword and managed to catch one of them with a deep cut to the upper arm. The man dropped his ax.
William galloped away, then turned his horse. He was breathing hard and feeling good: in the heat of a battle there was no fear, only excitement. Some of his men had seen what was happening and looked to William for guidance. He beckoned them to follow him, then charged the stonecutters again. They could not dodge six knights as easily as they could dodge one. William struck down two of them, and several more fell to the swords of his men, although he was moving too fast to count how many or see whether they were dead or just wounded.
When he turned again, Otto was rallying his forces. As the knights charged, the stonecutters dispersed into the cluster of burning houses. It was a clever tactic, William realized regretfully. The knights followed, but it was easier for the stonecutters to dodge when they were split up, and the horses shied away from the blazing buildings. William chased a gray-haired man with a hammer, and just missed him several times before the man evaded him by running through a house with a burning hoof.
William realized that Otto was the problem. He was giving the stonecutters courage as well as organizing them. As soon as he fell, the others would give up. William reined in his horse and looked for the dark-skinned man. Most of the women and children had disappeared, except for two five-year-olds standing in the middle of the battlefield, holding hands and crying. William’s knights were charging between the houses, chasing the stonecutters. To his surprise, William saw that one of his men-at-arms had fallen to a hammer, and lay on the ground, groaning and bleeding. William was dismayed: he had not anticipated any casualties on his own side.
A distraught woman was running in and out of burning houses, calling out something William could not hear. She was searching for someone. Finally she saw the two five-year-olds, and picked them up one in each arm. As she ran away she almost collided with one of William’s knights, Gilbert de Rennes. Gilbert raised his sword to strike her. Suddenly Otto sprang out from behind a hut and swung a long-handled ax. His handling of the weapon was skillful and its blade sliced right through Gilbert’s thigh and bit into the wood of the saddle. The severed leg dropped to the ground, and Gilbert screamed and fell off his horse.
He would never fight again.
Gilbert was a valuable knight. Angry, William spurred his horse forward. The woman with the children vanished. Otto was struggling to pull the blade of his ax from Gilbert’s saddle. He looked up and saw William coming. If he had run at that moment he might have escaped, but he stayed and tugged at his ax. It came free when William was almost on him. William raised his sword. Otto stood his ground and lifted the ax. At the last moment William realized the ax was going to be used on the horse, and the stonecutter could cripple the animal before William was close enough to strike him down. William hauled on the reins desperately, and the horse skidded to a halt and reared up, turning its head away from Otto. The blow fell on the horse’s neck, and the edge of the ax bit deeply into the powerful muscles. Blood spurted like a fountain, and the horse fell. William was off its back before the huge body hit the ground.
He was enraged. The war-horse had cost a fortune and had survived with him through a year of civil war, and it was maddening to lose it to a quarryman’s ax. He jumped over its body and lunged furiously at Otto with the sword.
Otto was no easy victim. He held his ax in both hands and used its heart-of-oak handle to parry William’s sword. William struck harder and harder, driving him back. Despite his age Otto was powerfully muscled, and William’s blows hardly jarred him. William took his sword in both hands and struck harder. Once again the handle of the ax intervened, but this time William’s blade stuck in the wood. Then Otto was advancing and William was retreating. William tugged hard at his sword and his blade came unstuck, but now Otto was almost on him.
Suddenly William was afraid for his life.
Otto raised the ax. William dodged back. His heel connected with something and he stumbled and fell backward over the body of his horse. He landed in a puddle of warm blood but managed to keep hold of his sword. Otto stood over him with his ax raised. As the weapon came down, William rolled frantically sideways. He felt the wind as the blade sliced the air next to his face; then he sprang to his feet and thrust at the stonecutter with his sword.
A soldier would have moved sideways before pulling his weapon out of the ground, knowing that a man is at his most vulnerable when he has just struck a blow and missed; but Otto was no soldier, just a brave fool, and he was standing with one hand on the haft of the ax and the other arm stretched out for balance, leaving the whole of his body an easy target. William’s hasty thrust was almost blind, but nevertheless it connected. The point of the sword pierced Otto’s chest. William pushed harder and the blade slid between the man’s ribs. Otto released his hold on the ax, and over his face came an expression William knew well. His eyes showed surprise, his mouth opened as if to scream, although no sound came, and his skin suddenly looked gray. It was the look of a man who has received a mortal wound. William thrust the blade home harder, just to make sure, then pulled it out. Otto’s eyes rolled up in his head, a bright red stain appeared on his shirt front and instantly grew large, and he fell.
William spun round, scanning the whole scene. He saw two stonecutters running away, presumably having seen their leader killed. As they ran they shouted to the others. The fight turned into a retreat. The knights chased the runaways.
William stood still, breathing hard. The damned quarrymen had fought back! He looked at Gilbert. He lay still, in a pool of blood, with his eyes closed. William put a hand on his chest: there was no heartbeat. Gilbert was dead.
William walked around the still-burning houses, counting bodies. Three stonecutters lay dead, plus a woman and a child who both looked as if they had been trampled by horses. Three of William’s men-at-arms were wounded, and four horses were dead or crippled.
When he had completed his count he stood by the corpse of his war-horse. He had liked that horse better than he liked most people. After a battle he usually felt exhilarated, but now he was depressed. It was a shambles. This should have been a simple operation to chase off a group of helpless workmen, and it had turned into a pitched battle with high casualties.
The knights chased the stonecutters as far as the woods, but there the horses could not catch the men, so they turned back. Walter rode up to where William stood and saw Gilbert dead on the ground. He crossed himself and said: “Gilbert has killed more men than I have.”
“There aren’t so many like him, that I can afford to lose one in a squabble with a damned monk,” William said bitterly. “To say nothing of the horses.”
“What a turnup,” Walter said. “These people put up more of a fight than Robert of Gloucester’s rebels!”
William shook his head in disgust. “I don’t know,” he said, looking around at the bodies. “What the devil did they think they were fighting for?”
JUST AFTER DAWN, when most of the brothers were in the crypt for the service of prime, there were only two people in the dormitory: Johnny Eightpence, sweeping the floor at one end of the long room, and Jonathan, playing school at the other.
Prior Philip paused in the doorway and watched Jonathan. He was. almost five years old, an alert, confident boy with a childish gravity that charmed everyone. Johnny still dressed him in a miniature monk’s habit. Today Jonathan was pretending to be the novice-master, giving lessons to an imaginary row of pupils. “That’s wrong, Godfrey!” he said sternly to the empty bench. “No dinner for you if you don’t learn your berves!” He meant verbs. Philip smiled fondly. He could not have loved a son more deeply. Jonathan was the one thing in life that gave him sheer unadulterated joy.
The child ran around the priory like a puppy, petted and spoiled by all the monks. To most of them he was just like a pet, an amusing plaything; but to Philip and Johnny he was something more. Johnny loved him like a mother; and Philip, though he tried to conceal it, felt like the boy’s father. Philip himself had been raised, from a young age, by a kindly abbot, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to play the same role with Jonathan. He did not tickle or chase him the way the monks did, but he told him Bible stories, and played counting games with him, and kept an eye on Johnny.
He went into the room, smiled at Johnny, and sat on the bench with the imaginary schoolboys.
“Good morning, Father,” Jonathan said solemnly. Johnny had taught him to be scrupulously polite.
Philip said: “How would you like to go to school?”
“I know Latin already,” Jonathan boasted.
“Really?”
“Yes. Listen. Omnius pluvius buvius tuvius nomine patri amen.”
Philip tried not to laugh. “That sounds like Latin, but it’s not quite right. Brother Osmund, the novice-master, will teach you to speak it properly.”
Jonathan was a little cast down to discover that he did not know Latin after all. He said: “Anyway, I can run fast and fast, look!” He ran at top speed from one side of the room to the other.
“Wonderful!” said Philip. “That really is fast.”
“Yes-and I can go even faster-”
“Not just now,” Philip said. “Listen to me for a moment. I’m going away for a while.”
“Will you be back tomorrow?”
“No, not that soon.”
“Next week?”
“Not even then.”
Jonathan looked blank. He could not conceive of a time farther ahead than next week. Another mystery occurred to him. “But why?”
“I have to see the king.”
“Oh.” That did not mean much to Jonathan either.
“And I’d like you to go to school while I’m away. Would you like that?”
“Yes!”
“You’re almost five years old. Your birthday is next week. You came to us on the first day of the year.”
“Where did I come from?”
“From God. All things come from God.”
Jonathan knew that was no answer. “But where was I before?” he persisted.
“I don’t know.”
Jonathan frowned. A frown looked funny on such a carefree young face. “I must have been somewhere.”
One day, Philip realized, someone would have to tell Jonathan how babies were born. He grimaced at the thought. Well, this was not the time, happily. He changed the subject. “While I’m away, I want you to learn to count up to a hundred.”
“I can count,” Jonathan said. “One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen porteen scorteen horteen-”
“Not bad,” said Philip, “but Brother Osmund will teach you more. You must sit still in the schoolroom and do everything he tells you to.”
“I’m going to be the best in the school!” said Jonathan.
“We’ll see.” Philip studied him for a moment longer. Philip was fascinated by the child’s development, the way he learned things and the phases through which he passed. This current insistence on being able to speak Latin, or count, or run fast, was curious: was it a necessary prelude to real learning? It must serve some purpose in God’s plan. And one day Jonathan would be a man. What would he be like then? The thought made Philip impatient for Jonathan to grow up. But that would take as long as the building of the cathedral.
“Give me a kiss, then, and say goodbye,” Philip said.
Jonathan lifted his face and Philip kissed the soft cheek. “Goodbye, Father,” said Jonathan.
“Goodbye, my son,” Philip said.
He gave Johnny Eightpence’s arm an affectionate squeeze and went out.
The monks were coming out of the crypt and heading for the refectory. Philip went the opposite way, and entered the crypt to pray for success on his mission.
He had been heartbroken when they told him what had happened at the quarry. Five people killed, one of them a little girl! He had hidden himself in his house and cried like a child. Five of his flock, struck down by William Hamleigh and his pack of brutes. Philip had known them all: Harry of Shiring, who had once been Lord Percy’s quarryman; Otto Blackface, the dark-skinned man who had been in charge of the quarry since the very beginning; Otto’s handsome son Mark; Mark’s wife, Alwen, who played tunes on sheep bells in the evenings; and little Norma, Otto’s seven-year-old granddaughter, his favorite. Good-hearted, God-fearing, hardworking people, who had a right to expect peace and justice from their lords. William had slaughtered them like a fox killing chickens. It was enough to make the angels weep.
Philip had grieved for them, and then he had gone to Shiring to demand justice. The sheriff had refused point-blank to take any action. “Lord William has a small army-how should I arrest him?” Sheriff Eustace had said. “The king needs knights to fight against Maud-what will he say if I incarcerate one of his best men? If I brought a charge of murder against William, I’d either be killed immediately by his knights or hanged for a traitor later by King Stephen.”
The first casualty of a civil war was justice, Philip had realized.
Then the sheriff had told him that William had made a formal complaint about the Kingsbridge market.
It was ludicrous, of course, that William could get away with murder and at the same time charge Philip on a technicality; but Philip felt helpless. It was true that he did not have permission to hold a market, and he was in the wrong, strictly speaking. But he could not remain in the wrong. He was the prior of Kingsbridge. All he had was his moral authority. William could call up an army of knights; Bishop Waleran could use his contacts in high places; the sheriff could claim royal authority; but all Philip could do was to say this is right and that is wrong; and if he were to forfeit that position he really would be helpless. So he had ordered the market to cease.
That left him in a truly desperate position.
The priory’s finances had improved dramatically, thanks to stricter controls on the one hand, and on the other, ever-rising earnings from the market and from sheep farming; but Philip always spent every penny on the building, and he had borrowed heavily from the Jews of Winchester, a loan he had yet to repay. Now, at a stroke, he had lost his supply of cost-free stone, his income from the market had dried up, and his volunteer laborers-many of whom came mainly for the market-were likely to dwindle. He would have to lay off half the builders, and abandon hope of finishing the cathedral in his own lifetime. He was not prepared to do that.
He wondered if the crisis was his own fault. Had he been too confident, too ambitious? Sheriff Eustace had said as much. “You’re too big for your boots, Philip,” he had said angrily. “You run a little monastery, and you’re a little prior, but you want to rule the bishop and the earl and the sheriff. Well, you can’t. We’re too powerful for you. All you do is cause trouble.” Eustace was an ugly man with uneven teeth and a cast in one eye, and he was wearing a dirty yellow robe; but unimpressive though he was, his words had stabbed Philip’s heart. He was painfully aware that the quarrymen would not have died if he had not made an enemy of William Hamleigh. But he could not do other than be William’s enemy. If he gave up, even more people would suffer, people such as the miller William had killed and the serfs daughter he and his knights had raped. Philip had to fight on.
And that meant he had to go to see the king.
He hated the idea. He had approached the king once before, at Winchester four years ago, and although he had got what he wanted, he had been dreadfully ill-at-ease at the royal court. The king was surrounded by wily and unscrupulous people jostling for his attention and squabbling over his favors, and Philip found such people contemptible. They were trying to acquire wealth and position they did not merit. He did not really understand the game they were playing: in his world, the best way to get something was to deserve it, not to toady to the giver. But now he had no alternative but to enter their world and play their game. Only the king could grant Philip permission to hold a market. Only the king could now save the cathedral.
He finished his prayers and left the crypt. The sun was coming up, and there was a pink flush on the gray stone walls of the rising cathedral. The builders, who worked from sunrise to sunset, were just beginning, opening their lodges and sharpening their tools and mixing up the first batch of mortar. The loss of the quarry had not yet affected the building: they had always quarried stone faster than they could use it, from the beginning, and now they had a stockpile that would last many months.
It was time for Philip to leave. All the arrangements were made. The king was at Lincoln. Philip would have a traveling companion: Richard, the brother of Aliena. After fighting for a year as a squire, Richard had been knighted by the king. He had come home to re-equip himself and was now going to rejoin the royal army.
Aliena had done astonishingly well as a wool merchant. She no longer sold her wool to Philip, but dealt directly with the Flemish buyers herself. Indeed, this year she had wanted to buy the entire fleece production of the priory. She would have paid less than the Flemish, but Philip would have got the money earlier. He had turned her down. However, it was a measure of her success that she could even make the offer.
She was at the stable with her brother now, Philip saw as he walked across. A crowd had gathered to say goodbye to the travelers. Richard was sitting on a chestnut war-horse that must have cost Aliena twenty pounds. He had grown into a handsome, broad-shouldered young man, his regular features marred only by an angry scar on his right ear: the earlobe had been cut off, no doubt in some fencing accident. He was splendidly dressed in red and green and outfitted with a new sword, lance, battle-ax and dagger. His baggage was carried by a second horse which he had on a leading-rein. With him were two men-at-arms on coursers and a squire on a cob.
Aliena was in tears, although Philip could not tell whether she was sorry to see her brother go, proud that he looked so fine, or frightened that he might never come back. All three, perhaps. Some of the villagers had come to say goodbye, including most of the young men and boys. No doubt Richard was their hero. All the monks were here, too, to wish their prior a safe journey.
The stable hands brought out two horses, a palfrey saddled ready for Philip and a cob loaded with his modest baggage-mainly food for the journey. The builders put down their tools and came over, led by bearded Tom and his redheaded stepson, Jack.
Philip formally embraced Remigius, his sub-prior, and took a warmer farewell of Milius and Cuthbert, then mounted the palfrey. He would be sitting in this hard saddle a long time, he realized grimly. From his raised position he blessed them all. The monks, builders and villagers waved and called out their goodbyes as he and Richard rode side by side through the priory gates.
They went down the narrow street through the village, waving to people who looked out of their doorways, then clattered across the wooden bridge and onto the road through the fields. A little later, Philip glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the rising sun shining through the window space in the half-built east end of the new cathedral. If he failed in his mission, it might never be finished. After all he had been through to get this far, he could not bear to contemplate the idea of defeat now. He turned back and concentrated on the road ahead.
Lincoln was a city on a hill. Philip and Richard approached it from the south, on an ancient and busy road called Ermine Street. Even from a distance they could see, at the top of the hill, the towers of the cathedral and the battlements of the castle. But they were still three or four miles away when, to Philip’s astonishment, they came to a city gate. The suburbs must be vast, he thought; the population must run to thousands.
At Christmas the city had been seized by Ranulf of Chester, the most powerful man in the north of England and a relative of the Empress Maud. King Stephen had since retaken the city, but Ranulf’s forces still held the castle. Now, Philip and Richard had learned as they drew nearer, Lincoln was in the peculiar position of having two rival armies camped within its walls.
Philip had not warmed to Richard in their four weeks together. Aliena’s brother was an angry youth, who hated the Hamleighs and was set on revenge; and he talked as if Philip felt the same. But there was a difference. Philip hated the Hamleighs for what they did to their subjects: getting rid of them would make the world a better place. Richard could not feel good about himself until he had defeated the Hamleighs: his motive was entirely selfish.
Richard was physically brave, always ready for a fight; but in other ways he was weak. He confused his men-at-arms by sometimes treating them as equals and sometimes ordering them around like servants. In taverns he would try to make an impression by buying beer for strangers. He pretended to know the way when he was not really sure, and sometimes led the party far astray because he could not admit that he had made a mistake. By the time they reached Lincoln, Philip knew that Aliena was worth ten of Richard.
They passed a large lake teeming with ships; then at the foot of the hill they crossed the river that formed the southern boundary of the city proper. Lincoln obviously lived by shipping. Beside the bridge there was a fish market. They went through another guarded gate. Now they left behind the sprawl of the suburbs and entered the teeming city. A narrow, impossibly crowded street ran steeply up the hill directly in front of them. The houses that jostled shoulder to shoulder on either side were made partly or wholly of stone, a sign of considerable wealth. The hill was so steep that most houses had their main floor several feet above ground level at one end and below the surface at the other. The area underneath the downhill end was invariably a craftsman’s workplace or a shop. The only open spaces were the graveyards next to the churches, and on each of these there was a market: grain, poultry, wool, leather and others. Philip and Richard, with Richard’s small entourage, fought their way through the dense crowd of townspeople, men-at-arms, animals and carts. Philip realized with astonishment that there were stones beneath his feet. The whole street was paved! What wealth there must be here, he thought, for stones to be laid in the street as if it were a palace or a cathedral. The way was still slippery with refuse and animal dung, but it was much better than the river of mud that constituted most city streets in winter.
They reached the crest of the hill and passed through yet another gate. Now they entered the inner city, and the atmosphere was suddenly different: quieter, but very tense. Immediately to their left was the entrance to the castle. The great ironbound door in the archway was shut tight. Dim figures moved behind the arrow-slit windows in the gatehouse, and sentries in armor patrolled the castellated ramparts, the feeble sunshine glinting off their burnished helmets. Philip watched them pacing to and fro. There was no conversation between them, no joshing and laughter, no leaning on the balustrade to whistle at passing girls: they were upright, eagle-eyed, and fearful.
To Philip’s right, no more than a quarter of a mile from the castle gate, was the west front of the cathedral, and Philip saw instantly that despite its proximity to the castle it had been taken over as the king’s military headquarters. A line of sentries barred the narrow road that led between the canons’ houses to the church. Beyond the sentries, knights and men-at-arms were passing in and out through the three doorways to the cathedral. The graveyard was an army camp, with tents and cooking fires and horses grazing the turf. There were no monastic buildings: Lincoln Cathedral was not run by monks, but by priests called canons, who lived in ordinary town houses near the church.
The space between the cathedral and the castle was empty except for Philip and his companions. Philip suddenly realized that they had the full attention of the guards on the king’s side and the sentries on the opposing ramparts. He was in the no-man’s-land between the two armed camps, probably the most dangerous spot in Lincoln. Looking around, he saw that Richard and the others had already moved on, and he followed them hastily.
The king’s sentries let them through immediately: Richard was well known. Philip admired the west facade of the cathedral. It had an enormously tall entrance arch, and subsidiary arches on either side, half the size of the central one but still awesome. It looked like the gateway to heaven-which it was, of course, in a way. Philip immediately decided he wanted tall arches in the west front of Kingsbridge Cathedral.
Leaving the horses with the squire, Philip and Richard made their way through the encampment and entered the cathedral. It was even more crowded inside than out. The aisles had been turned into stables, and hundreds of horses were tied to the columns of the arcade. Armed men thronged the nave, and here too there were cooking fires and bedding. Some spoke English, some French, and a few spoke Flemish, the guttural tongue of the wool merchants of Flanders. By and large the knights were in here and the men-at-arms were outside. Philip was sorry to see several men playing at ninemen’s morris for money, and he was even more disturbed by the appearance of some of the women, who were dressed very skimpily for winter and appeared to be flirting with the men-almost, he thought, as if they were sinful women, or even, God forbid, whores.
To avoid looking at them he raised his eyes to the ceiling. It was of wood, and beautifully painted in glowing colors, but it was a terrible fire risk with all those people cooking in the nave. He followed Richard through the crowd. Richard seemed at ease here, assured and confident, calling out greetings to barons and lords, and slapping knights on the back.
The crossing and the east end of the cathedral had been roped off. The east end appeared to have been reserved for the priests-I should think so, too, Philip thought-and the crossing had become the king’s quarters.
There was another line of guards behind the rope, then a crowd of courtiers, then an inner circle of earls, with King Stephen at the center on a wooden throne. The king had aged since the last time Philip saw, him, five years ago in Winchester. There were lines of anxiety on his handsome face and a little gray in his tawny hair, and a year of fighting had made him thinner. He seemed to be having an amiable argument with his earls, disagreeing without anger. Richard went to the edge of the inner circle and made a deep ceremonial bow. The king glanced over, recognized him, and said in a booming voice: “Richard of Kingsbridge! Glad to have you back!”
“Thank you, my lord king,” said Richard.
Philip stepped up beside him and bowed in the same way.
Stephen said: “Have you brought a monk as your squire?” All the courtiers laughed.
“This is the prior of Kingsbridge, lord,” said Richard.
Stephen looked again, and Philip saw the light of recognition in his eye. “Of course, I know Prior… Philip,” he said, but his tone was not as warm as when he greeted Richard. “Have you come to fight for me?” The courtiers laughed again.
Philip was pleased the King had remembered his name. “I’m here because God’s work of rebuilding Kingsbridge Cathedral needs urgent help from my lord king.”
“I must hear all about it,” Stephen interrupted hastily. “Come and see me tomorrow, when I’ll have more time.” He turned back to the earls, and resumed his conversation in a lower voice.
Richard bowed and withdrew, and Philip did the same.
Philip did not speak to King Stephen on the following day, nor the day after, nor the day after that.
On the first night he stayed at an alehouse, but he felt oppressed by the constant smell of roasting meat and the laughter of loose women. Unfortunately, there was no monastery in the town. Normally the bishop would have offered him accommodation, but the king was living in the bishop’s palace and all the houses around the cathedral were crammed full with members of Stephen’s entourage. On the second night Philip went right outside the town, beyond the suburb of Wigford, where there was a monastery that ran a home for lepers. There he got horsebread and weak beer for supper, a hard mattress on the floor, silence from sundown to midnight, services in the small hours of the morning, and a breakfast of thin porridge without salt; and he was happy.
He went to the cathedral early every morning, carrying the precious charter that gave the priory the right to take stone from the quarry. Day after day the king failed to notice him. When the other petitioners talked among themselves, discussing who was in favor and who was out, Philip remained aloof.
He knew why he was being kept waiting. The entire Church was at odds with the king. Stephen had not kept the generous promises that had been extracted from him at the start of his reign. He had made an enemy of his brother, the wily Bishop Henry of Winchester, by supporting someone else for the job of archbishop of Canterbury; a move which had also disappointed Waleran Bigod, who wanted to rise on Henry’s coattails. But Stephen’s greatest sin, in the eyes of the Church, had been to arrest Bishop Roger of Salisbury and Roger’s two nephews, who were bishops of Lincoln and Ely, all on one day, on charges of unlicensed castle building. A chorus of outrage had gone up from cathedrals and monasteries all over the country at this act of sacrilege. Stephen was hurt. As men of God the bishops had no need of castles, he said; and if they built castles they could not expect to be treated purely as men of God. He was sincere, but naive.
The split had been patched up, but King Stephen was no longer eager to hear the petitions of holy men, so Philip had to wait. He used the opportunity to meditate. It was something he had little time for as prior, and he missed it. Now, suddenly, he had nothing to do for hours on end, and he spent the time lost in thought.
Eventually the other courtiers left a space around him, making him quite conspicuous, and it must have been increasingly difficult for Stephen to ignore him. He was deep in contemplation of the sublime mystery of the Trinity on the morning of his seventh day in Lincoln when he realized that someone was standing right in front of him, looking at him and speaking to him, and that person was the king.
“Are you asleep with your eyes open, man?” Stephen was saying in a tone halfway between amusement and irritation.
“I’m sorry, lord, I was thinking,” Philip said, and bowed belatedly.
“Never mind. I want to borrow your clothes.”
“What?” Philip was too surprised to mind his manners.
“I want to take a look around the castle, and if I’m dressed as a monk they won’t shoot arrows at me. Come on-go into one of the chapels and take off your robe.”
Philip had only an undershirt on beneath his robe. “But, lord, what shall I wear?”
“I forget how modest you monks are.” Stephen clicked his fingers at a young knight. “Robert-lend me your tunic, quick.”
The knight, who was talking to a girl, took off his tunic with a swift motion, gave it to the king with a bow, then made a vulgar gesture to the girl. His friends laughed and cheered.
King Stephen gave the tunic to Philip.
Philip slipped into the tiny chapel of St. Dunstan, asked the saint’s pardon with a hasty prayer, then took off his habit and put on the knight’s short-skirted scarlet tunic. It seemed very strange indeed: he had been wearing monastic clothing since the age of six, and he could not have felt more odd if he had been dressed as a woman. He emerged and handed his monkish robe to Stephen, who pulled it over his head swiftly.
Then the king astonished him by saying: “Come with me, if you like. You can tell me about Kingsbridge Cathedral.”
Philip was taken aback. His first instinct was to refuse. A sentry on the castle ramparts might be tempted to take a shot at him, and he would not be protected by religious garments. But he was being offered an opportunity to be totally alone with the king, with plenty of time to explain about the quarry and the market. He might never get another chance like this.
Stephen picked up his own cloak, which was purple with white fur at the collar and hem. “Wear this,” he said to Philip. “You’ll draw their fire away from me.”
The other courtiers had gone quiet, watching, wondering what would happen.
The king was making a point, Philip realized. He was saying that Philip had no business here in an armed camp, and could not expect to be granted privileges at the expense of men who risked their lives for the king. This was not unfair. But Philip knew that if he accepted this point of view he might as well go home and give up all hope of repossessing the quarry or reopening the market. He had to accept the challenge. He drew a deep breath and said: “Perhaps it is God’s will that I should die to save the king.” Then he took the purple cloak and put it on.
There was a murmur of surprise from the crowd; and King Stephen himself looked quite startled. Everyone had expected Philip to back down. Almost immediately he wished he had. But he had committed himself now.
Stephen turned and walked toward the north door. Philip followed him. Several courtiers made to go with them, but Stephen waved them back, saying: “Even a monk might attract suspicion if he is attended by the entire royal court.” He pulled the cowl of Philip’s robe over his head and they passed out into the graveyard.
Philip’s costly cloak drew curious glances as they picked their way across the campsite: men assumed he was a baron and were puzzled not to recognize him. The glances made him feel guilty, as if he were some kind of impostor. Nobody looked at Stephen.
They did not go directly to the main gate of the castle, but made their way through a maze of narrow lanes and came out by the church of St.-Paul-in-the-Bail, across from the northeast corner of the castle. The castle walls were built on top of massive earth ramparts and surrounded by a dry moat. There was a swath of open space fifty yards wide between the edge of the moat and the nearest buildings. Stephen stepped onto the grass and began to walk west, studying the north wall of the castle, staying close to the backs of the houses on the outer rim of the cleared area. Philip went with him. Stephen made Philip walk on his left, between him and the castle. The open space was there to give bowmen a clear shot at anyone who approached the walls, of course. Philip was not afraid to die but he was afraid of pain, and the thought uppermost in his mind was how much an arrow would hurt.
“Scared, Philip?” said Stephen.
“Terrified,” Philip replied candidly; and then, made reckless by fear, he added cheekily: “How about you?”
The king laughed at his nerve. “A little,” he admitted.
Philip remembered that this was his chance to talk about the cathedral. But he could not concentrate while his life was in such peril. His eyes went constantly to the castle, and he raked the ramparts, watching for a man drawing a bow.
The castle occupied the entire southwest corner of the inner city, its west wall being part of the city wall, so to walk all the way around it one had to go out of the city. Stephen led Philip through the west gate, and they passed out into the suburb called Newland. Here the houses were like peasant hovels, made of wattle-and-daub, with large gardens such as village houses had. A bitter cold wind whipped across the open fields beyond the houses. Stephen turned south, still skirting the castle. He pointed to a little door in the castle wall. “That’s where Ranulf of Chester sneaked out to make his escape when I took the city, I suspect,” he said.
Philip was less frightened here. There were other people on the pathway, and the ramparts on this side were less heavily guarded, for the occupants of the castle were afraid of an attack from the city, not from the countryside. Philip took a deep breath and then blurted out: “If I am killed, will you give Kingsbridge a market and make William Hamleigh give back the quarry?”
Stephen did not answer immediately. They walked downhill to the southwest corner of the castle and looked up at the keep. From their position it appeared loftily impregnable. Just below that corner they turned into another gateway and entered the lower city to walk along the castle’s south side. Philip felt in danger again. It would not be too difficult for someone inside the castle to deduce that the two men who were making a circuit of the walls must be on a scouting expedition, and therefore they were fair game, especially the one in the purple cloak. To distract himself from his fear he studied the keep. There were small holes in the wall which served as outlets for the latrines, and the refuse and filth which was washed out simply fell on the walls and the mound below and stayed there until it rotted away. No wonder there was a stink. Philip tried not to breathe too deeply, and they hurried past.
There was another, smaller tower at the southeast corner. Now Philip and Stephen had walked around three sides of the square. Philip wondered if Stephen had forgotten his question. He was apprehensive about asking it again. The king might feel he was being pushed, and take offense.
They reached the main street that went through the middle of the town and turned again, but before Philip had time to feel relieved they passed through another gate into the inner city, and a few moments later they were in the no-man’s-land between cathedral and castle. To Philip’s horror the king stopped there.
He turned to talk to Philip, positioning himself in such a way that he could scrutinize the castle over Philip’s shoulder. Philip’s vulnerable back, clad in ermine and purple, was exposed to the gatehouse which was bristling with sentries and archers. He went as stiff as a statue, expecting an arrow or a spear in his back at any moment. He began to perspire despite the freezing cold wind.
“I gave you that quarry years ago, didn’t I?” said King Stephen.
“Not exactly,” Philip replied through gritted teeth. “You gave us the right to take stone for the cathedral. But you gave the quarry to Percy Hamleigh. Now Percy’s son, William, has thrown out my stonecutters, killing five people-including a woman and a child-and he refuses us access.”
“He shouldn’t do things like that, especially if he wants me to make him earl of Shiring,” Stephen said thoughtfully. Philip was encouraged. But a moment later the king said: “I’m damned if I can see a way to get into this castle.”
“Please make William reopen the quarry,” Philip said. “He is defying you and stealing from God.”
Stephen seemed not to hear. “I don’t think they’ve got many men in there,” he said in the same musing tone. “I suspect nearly all of them are on the ramparts, to make a show of strength. What was that about a market?”
This was all part of the test, Philip decided; making him stand out in the open with his back to a host of archers. He wiped his brow with the fur cuff of the king’s cloak. “My lord king, every Sunday people come from all over the county to worship at Kingsbridge and labor, for no wages, on the cathedral building site. When we first began, a few enterprising men and women would come to the site and sell meat pies, and wine, and hats, and knives, to the volunteer workers. So, gradually, a market grew up. And now I am asking you to license it.”
“Will you pay for your license?”
A payment was normal, Philip knew, but he also knew that it might be waived for a religious body. “Yes, lord, I will pay-unless you would wish to give us the license without payment, for the greater glory of God.”
Stephen looked directly into Philip’s eyes for the first time. “You’re a brave man, to stand there, with the enemy behind you, and bargain with me.”
Philip gave back an equally frank stare. “If God decides my life is over, nothing can save me,” he said, sounding braver than he felt. “But if God wants me to live on and build Kingsbridge Cathedral, ten thousand archers cannot strike me down.”
“Well said!” Stephen remarked, and, clapping a hand on Philip’s shoulder, he turned toward the cathedral. Weak with relief, Philip walked beside him, feeling better for every step away from the castle. He seemed to have passed the test. But it was important to get an unambiguous commitment from the king. Any moment now he would be engulfed by courtiers again. As they passed through the line of sentries, Philip took his courage in both hands and said: “My lord king, if you would write a letter to the sheriff of Shiring-”
He was interrupted. One of the earls rushed up, looking flustered, and said: “Robert of Gloucester is on his way here, my lord king.”
“What? How far away?”
“Close. A day at most-”
“Why haven’t I been warned? I posted men all around!”
“They came by the Fosse Way, then turned off the road to approach across open country.”
“Who is with him?”
“All the earls and knights on his side who have lost their lands in the last two years. Ranulf of Chester is also with him-”
“Of course. Treacherous dog.”
“He has brought all his knights from Chester, plus a horde of wild rapacious Welshmen.”
“How many men altogether?”
“About a thousand.”
“Damn-that’s a hundred more than we have.”
By this time several barons had gathered around, and now another one spoke. “Lord, if he’s coming across open country, he’ll have to cross the river at the ford-”
“Good thinking, Edward!” Stephen said. “Take your men down to that ford and see if you can hold it. You’ll need archers, too.”
“How far are they now, does anybody know?” asked Edward.
The first earl said: “Very close, the scout said. They could reach the ford before you.”
“I’ll go right away,” Edward said.
“Good man!” said King Stephen. He made a fist with his right hand and punched his left palm. “I shall meet Robert of Gloucester on the battlefield at last. I wish I had more men. Still-an advantage of a hundred men isn’t much.”
Philip listened to it all in grim silence. He was sure he had been on the point of getting Stephen’s agreement. Now the king’s mind was elsewhere. But Philip was not ready to give up. He was still wearing the king’s purple robe. He slipped it off his shoulders and held it out, saying: “Perhaps we should both revert to type, my lord king.”
Stephen nodded absently. A courtier stepped behind the king and helped him take off the monkish habit. Philip handed over the royal robe and said: “Lord, you seemed well disposed to my request.”
Stephen looked irritated to be reminded. He shrugged on his robe and was about to speak when a new voice was heard.
“My lord king!”
Philip recognized the voice. His heart sank. He turned and saw William Hamleigh.
“William, my boy!” said the king, in the hearty voice he used with fighting men. “You’ve arrived just in time!”
William bowed and said: “My lord, I’ve brought fifty knights and two hundred men from my earldom.”
Philip’s hopes turned to dust.
Stephen was visibly delighted. “What a good man you are!” he said warmly. “That gives us the advantage over the enemy!” He put his arm around William’s shoulders and walked with him into the cathedral.
Philip stood where he was and watched them go. He had been agonizingly close to success, but in the end William’s army had counted for more than justice, he thought bitterly. The courtier who had helped the king take off the monk’s habit now held the robe out to Philip. Philip took it. The courtier followed the king and his entourage into the cathedral. Philip put on his monastic robe. He was deeply disappointed. He looked at the three huge arched doorways of the cathedral. He had hoped to build archways like that at Kingsbridge. But King Stephen had taken the side of William Hamleigh. The king had been faced with a straight choice: the justice of Philip’s case against the advantage of William’s army. He had failed his test.
Philip was left with only one hope: that King Stephen would be defeated in the forthcoming battle.
The bishop said mass in the cathedral when the sky was beginning to change from black to gray. By then the horses were saddled, the knights were wearing their chain mail, the men-at-arms had been fed, and a measure of strong wine had been served to give them all heart.
William Hamleigh knelt in the nave with the other knights and earls, while the war-horses stamped and snorted in the aisles, and was forgiven in advance for the killing he would do that day.
Fear and excitement made William light-headed. If the king won a victory today, William’s name would forever be associated with it, for men would say that he had brought the reinforcements that tipped the balance. If the king should lose… anything could happen. He shivered on the cold stone floor.
The king was at the front, in a fresh white robe, with a candle in his hand. As the Host was elevated, the candle broke, and the flame went out. William trembled with dread: it was a bad omen. A priest brought a new candle and took away the broken one, and Stephen smiled nonchalantly, but the feeling of supernatural horror stayed with William, and when he looked around he could tell that others felt the same.
After the service the king put on his armor, helped by a valet. He had a knee-length mail coat made of leather with iron rings sewn to it. The coat was slit up to the waist in front and behind so that he could ride in it. The valet laced it tightly at the throat. He then put on a close-fitting cap with a long mail hood attached, covering his tawny hair and protecting his neck. Over the cap he wore an iron helmet with a nosepiece. His leather boots had mail trimmings and pointed spurs.
As he put on his armor, the earls gathered around him. William followed his mother’s advice and acted as if he were already one of them, pushing through the crowd to join the group around the king. After listening for a moment he realized they were trying to persuade Stephen to withdraw and leave Lincoln to the rebels.
“You hold more territory than Maud-you can raise a larger army,” said an older man whom William recognized as Lord Hugh. “Go south, get reinforcements, come back and outnumber them.”
After the portent of the broken candle, William almost wished for withdrawal himself; but the king had no time for such talk. “We’re strong enough to defeat them now,” he said cheerfully. “Where’s your spirit?” He strapped on a belt with a sword on one side and a dagger on the other, both of them in wood-and-leather scabbards.
“The armies are too evenly matched,” said a tall man with short, grizzled hair and a close-trimmed beard: the earl of Surrey. “It’s too risky.”
This was a poor argument to use with Stephen, William knew: the king was nothing if not chivalrous. “Too evenly matched?” he repeated scornfully. “I prefer a fair fight.” He pulled on the leather gauntlets with mail on the backs of the fingers. The valet handed him a long wooden shield covered with leather. He hooked its strap around his neck and held it in his left hand.
“We’ve little to lose by withdrawing at this point,” Hugh persisted. “We aren’t even in possession of the castle.”
“I would lose my chance of meeting Robert of Gloucester on the battlefield,” Stephen said. “For two years he’s been avoiding me. Now that I have an opportunity to deal with the traitor once and for all, I’m not going to pull out just because we’re evenly matched!”
A groom brought his horse, saddled ready. As Stephen was about to mount, there was a flurry of activity around the door at the west end of the cathedral, and a knight came running up the nave, muddy and bleeding. William had a doomy premonition that this would be bad news. As the man bowed to the king, William recognized him as one of Edward’s men who had been sent to guard the ford. “We were too late, lord,” the man said hoarsely, breathing hard. “The enemy has crossed the river.”
It was another bad sign. William suddenly felt colder. Now there was nothing but open fields between the enemy and Lincoln.
Stephen too looked struck down for an instant, but he recovered his composure swiftly. “No matter!” he said. “We will meet them, all the sooner!” He mounted his war-horse.
He had a battle-ax strapped to his saddle. The valet handed him a wooden lance with a bright iron point, completing his weaponry. Stephen clicked his tongue, and the horse obediently moved forward.
As he rode down the nave of the cathedral, the earls, barons and knights mounted and fell in behind him, and they left the cathedral in procession. In the grounds the men-at-arms joined them. This was when men began to feel scared and look for a chance to slip away; but their dignified pace, and the almost ceremonial atmosphere, with the townspeople looking on, meant it would be very difficult for the fainthearted to escape.
Their numbers were augmented by a hundred or more townsmen, fat bakers and shortsighted weavers and red-faced brewers, poorly armored and riding their cobs and palfreys. Their presence was a sign of the unpopularity of Ranulf.
The army could not pass the castle, for they would have been exposed to archery fire from its battlements, so they left the town by the north gate, which was called Newport Arch, and turned west. This was where the battle would be fought.
William studied the terrain with a keen eye. Although the hill on the south side of the town sloped steeply to the river, here on the west there was a long ridge which fell gently to the plain. William saw immediately that Stephen had chosen the right spot from which to defend the town, for no matter how the enemy approached they would always be downhill from the king’s army.
When Stephen was a quarter of a mile or so out of the city two scouts came up the slope, riding fast. They spotted the king and went straight to him. William crowded closer to hear their report.
“The enemy is approaching fast, lord,” said one of the scouts.
William looked across the plain. Sure enough, he could see a black mass in the distance, moving slowly toward him: the enemy. He felt a shiver of fear. He shook himself, but the fear persisted. It would go when the fighting started.
King Stephen said: “What are their dispositions?”
“Ranulf and the knights of Chester form the middle, lord,” the scout began. “They are on foot.”
William wondered how the scout knew this. He must have gone right into the enemy camp and listened while marching orders were given. That took a cool nerve.
“Ranulf in the center?” said Stephen. “As if he were the leader, rather than Robert!”
“Robert of Gloucester is on his left flank, with an army of men who call themselves The Disinherited,” the scout went on. William knew why they used that name-they had all lost lands since the civil war began.
“Robert has given Ranulf command of the operation, then,” Stephen said thoughtfully. “A pity. I know Robert well-I practically grew up with him-and I could guess his tactics. But Ranulf is a stranger to me. No matter. Who’s on their right?”
“The Welsh, lord.”
“Archers, I suppose.” The men of South Wales had a reputation for bowmanship.
“Not these,” the scout said. “They are a raving mob, with their faces painted, singing barbaric songs, and armed with hammers and clubs. Very few have horses.”
“They must be from North Wales,” Stephen mused. “Ranulf has promised them pillage, I expect. God help Lincoln if they get inside the walls. But they won’t! What’s your name, scout?”
“Roger, called Lackland,” the man said.
“Lackland? You shall have ten acres for this work.”
The man was thrilled. “Thank you, lord!”
“Now.” Stephen turned and looked at his earls. He was about to make his dispositions. William tensed, wondering what role the king would assign to him. “Where is my lord Alan of Brittany?”
Alan edged his horse forward. He was the leader of a force of Breton mercenaries, rootless men who fought for pay and whose only loyalty was to themselves.
Stephen said to Alan: “I’ll have you and your brave Bretons in the front line on my left.”
William saw the wisdom of that: Breton mercenaries against Welsh adventurers, the untrustworthy versus the undisciplined.
“William of Ypres!” Stephen called.
“My lord king.” A dark man on a black war-horse raised his lance. This William was the leader of another force of mercenaries, Flemish men, a shade more reliable than the Bretons, it was said.
Stephen said: “You on my left also, but behind Alan’s Bretons.”
The two mercenary leaders wheeled about and rode back into the army to organize their men. William wondered where he would be placed. He had no wish to be in the front line. He had already done enough to distinguish himself, by bringing his army. A safe, uneventful rearguard position would suit him today.
King Stephen said: “My lords of Worcester, Surrey, Northampton, York and Hertford, with your knights, form my right flank.”
Once again William saw the sense of Stephen’s dispositions. The earls and their knights, mostly mounted, would face Robert of Gloucester and the “disinherited” nobles who supported him, most of whom would also be on horseback. But William was disappointed not to have been included with the earls. Surely the king could not have forgotten about him?
“I will hold the middle ground, dismounted, with foot soldiers,” Stephen said.
For the first time William disapproved of a decision. It was always better to stay on horseback as long as you could. But Ranulf, at the head of the opposing army, was said to be on foot, and Stephen’s overwrought sense of fair play compelled him to meet his enemy on equal terms.
“With me in the center I will have William of Shiring and his men,” the king said.
William did not know whether to be thrilled or terrified. It was a great honor to be chosen to stand with the king-Mother would be gratified-but it put him in the most dangerous position. Worse still, he would be on foot. It also meant the king would be able to see him and judge his performance. He would have to appear fearless and take the fight to the enemy, as opposed to keeping out of trouble and fighting only when forced to, which was the tactic he preferred.
“The loyal citizens of Lincoln will bring up the rear,” Stephen said. This was a mixture of compassion and military good sense. The citizens would not be much use anywhere, but in the rear they could do little damage and would suffer fewer casualties.
William raised the banner of the earl of Shiring. This was another idea of Mother’s. He was not entitled to the banner, strictly speaking, because he was not the earl; but the men with him were used to following the Shiring banner-or so he would argue if challenged. And by the end of the day, if the battle went well, he might be earl.
His men gathered around him. Walter was by his side, as always, a solid, reassuring presence. So were Ugly Gervase, Hugh Axe and Miles Dice. Gilbert, who had died at the quarry, had been replaced by Guillaume de St. Clair, a fresh-faced young man with a vicious streak.
Looking around, William was infuriated to see Richard of Kingsbridge, wearing bright new armor and riding a splendid war-horse. He was with the earl of Surrey. He had not brought an army for the king, as William had, but he looked impressive-fresh-faced, vigorous, and brave-and if he did great things today he might win royal favor. Battles were unpredictable, and so were kings.
On the other hand, perhaps Richard would be killed today. What a stroke of luck that would be. William lusted for it more than he had ever lusted for a woman.
He looked to the west. The enemy was closer.
Philip was on the roof of the cathedral, and he could see Lincoln laid out like a map. The old city surrounded the cathedral on the hilltop. It had straight streets and neat gardens and the castle in the southwest corner. The newer part, noisy and overcrowded, occupied the steep hillside to the south, between the old city and the River Witham. This district was normally bustling with commercial activity, but today it was covered with a fearful silence like a pall, and the people were standing on their rooftops to watch the battle. The river came in from the east, ran along the foot of the hill, then widened into a big natural harbor called Brayfield Pool, which was surrounded by quays and full of ships and boats. A canal called the Fosdyke ran west from Brayfield Pool-all the way to the River Trent, Philip had been told. Seeing it from a height, Philip marveled at how it ran straight for miles. People said it had been built in ancient times.
The canal formed the edge of the battlefield. Philip watched King Stephen’s army march out of the city in a ragged crowd and slowly form up in three orderly columns on the ridge. Philip knew that Stephen had placed the earls on his right for they were the most colorful, with their tunics of red and yellow and their bright banners. They were also the most active, riding up and down, giving orders and holding consultations and making plans. The group to the king’s left, on the slope of the ridge that went down to the canal, were dressed in dull gray and brown, had fewer horses, and were less busy, conserving their energies: they would be the mercenaries.
Beyond Stephen’s army, where the line of the canal became indistinct and merged with the hedgerows, the rebel army covered the fields like a swarm of bees. At first they had appeared to be stationary; then, when he looked again after a while, they were closer; and now, if he concentrated, he could just discern their motion. He wondered how strong they were. All indications were that the two sides were evenly matched.
There was nothing Philip could do to influence the outcome-a situation he hated. He tried to quiet his spirit and be fatalistic. If God wanted a new cathedral at Kingsbridge, he would cause Robert of Gloucester to defeat King Stephen today, so that Philip could ask the victorious Empress Maud to let him repossess the quarry and reopen the market. And if Stephen should defeat Robert, Philip would have to accept God’s will, give up his ambitious plans, and let Kingsbridge once more decline into sleepy obscurity.
Try as he might, Philip could not think that way. He wanted Robert to win.
A strong wind buffeted the towers of the cathedral and threatened to blow the more frail spectators off the leads and hurl them to the graveyard below. The wind was bitterly cold. Philip shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around him.
The two armies were now about a mile apart.
The rebel army halted when it was about a mile from the king’s front line. It was tantalizing to be able to see their mass but not make out any details. William wanted to know how well armed they were, whether they were cheerful and aggressive or tired and reluctant, even how tall they were. They continued to advance at a slow creep, as those in the rear, motivated by the same anxiety that William was suffering, pressed forward to get a look at the enemy.
In Stephen’s army the earls and their knights lined up on their horses, with their lances at the ready, as if they were at a tournament and about to begin the jousting. William reluctantly sent all the horses in his contingent to the rear. He told the squires not to go back to the city but to hold the horses there in case they were needed-for flight, he meant, although he did not say so. If a battle was lost it was better to run than die.
There was a lull, when it seemed as if the fighting would never begin. The wind dropped and the horses calmed down, although the men did not. King Stephen took off his helmet and scratched his head. William became fretful. Fighting was all right but thinking about it made him feel nauseated.
Then, for no apparent reason, the atmosphere became tense again. A battle cry went up from somewhere. All the horses suddenly turned skittish. A cheer began, and was drowned, almost instantly, by the thunder of hooves. The battle was on. William smelled the sour, sweaty odor of fear.
He looked around, trying desperately to figure out what was happening, but all was confusion, and being on foot he could see only his immediate surroundings. The earls on the right seemed to have started the battle by charging the enemy. Presumably the forces opposite them, Earl Robert’s army of disinherited nobles, were responding in like manner, charging in formation. Almost immediately, a cry went up from the left, and William turned to see that the mounted men among the Breton mercenaries were spurring their horses forward. At that, a bloodcurdling cacophony arose from the corresponding section of the enemy army-the Welsh mob, presumably. He could not see who had the advantage.
He had lost sight of Richard.
Dozens of arrows rose like a flock of birds from behind the enemy lines and began to fall all around. William held his shield over his head. He loathed arrows-they killed at random.
King Stephen roared a war cry and charged. William drew his sword and ran forward, calling his men to follow. But the horsemen on his left and right had fanned out as they charged forward, and they came between him and the enemy.
On his right, there was a deafening clash of iron on iron, and the air filled with a metallic smell he knew well. The earls and the disinherited had joined battle. All he could see was men and horses colliding, wheeling, charging and falling. The neighing of the beasts was indistinguishable from the men’s battle cries, and somewhere in that noise William could already hear the bone-chilling, dreadful screams of wounded men in agony. He hoped Richard was one of those screaming.
William looked left and was horrified to see that the Bretons were falling back before the clubs and axes of the wild Welsh tribesmen. The Welsh were berserk, yelling and screaming and trampling one another in their eagerness to get at the enemy. Perhaps they were greedy to loot the rich city. The Bretons, with nothing more than the prospect of another week’s pay to spur them on, were fighting defensively and giving ground. William was disgusted.
He was frustrated that he had not yet struck a single blow. He was surrounded by his knights, and ahead of him were the horses of the earls and the Bretons. He pushed forward, slightly ahead and to one side of the king. There was combat all around: fallen horses, men fighting hand to hand with the ferocity of cats, the deafening ring of swords, and the sickly smell of blood; but William and King Stephen were, for the moment, stuck in a dead zone.
Philip could see everything, but he understood nothing. He had no idea what was going on. All was confusion: flashing blades, charging horses, banners flying and falling, and the sounds of battle, carried on the wind, muted by distance. It was maddeningly frustrating. Some men fell and died, others overcame and fought on, but he could not tell who was winning and who losing.
A cathedral priest standing nearby in a fur coat looked at Philip and said: “What’s going on?”
Philip shook his head and said: “I can’t tell.”
But even as he spoke he discerned a movement. To the left of the battlefield, some men were running away down the hill toward the canal. They were drab-dressed mercenaries, and as far as Philip could tell, it was the king’s men who were fleeing and the painted tribesmen of the attacking army who were in pursuit. The victorious whooping of the Welsh could be heard from here. Philip’s hopes lifted: the rebels were winning already!
Then there was a sea change on the other side. To the right, where the mounted men were engaged, the king’s army seemed to be falling back. The movement was at first slight, then steady, then rapid; and even as Philip watched, the retreat turned into a rout, and scores of the king’s men turned their horses and began to flee from the battlefield.
Philip was elated: this must be God’s will!
Could it really be over so quickly? The rebels were advancing on both flanks, but the center was still holding steady. The men around King Stephen were fighting more fiercely than those to either side. Would they be able to stem the flow? Perhaps Stephen and Robert of Gloucester would fight it out personally: single combat between two leaders could sometimes settle the issue regardless of what was happening elsewhere on the field. It was not yet over.
The tide turned with horrifying speed. At one moment the two armies were even, both sides fighting fiercely; and at the next, the king’s men were falling back fast. William was deeply disheartened. On his left, the Breton mercenaries were running away down the hill and being chased into the canal by the Welsh; and on his right, the earls with their war-horses and banners were turning from the fight and trying to escape back toward Lincoln. Only the middle was holding: King Stephen was in the thick of it, laying about him with his massive sword, and the Shiring men were fighting like pack-wolves all around him. But the situation was unstable. If the flanks continued to retreat the king would end up surrounded. William wanted Stephen to fall back. But the king was more brave than wise, and he fought on.
William felt the entire battle take a lurch to the left. Looking around, he saw the Flemish mercenaries coming from behind and falling on the Welsh, who were forced to stop chasing the Bretons down the hill and turn to defend themselves. For a moment there was a melee. Then Ranulf of Chester’s men, in the middle of the enemy front line, attacked the Flemish, who now found themselves squeezed between the men from Chester and the Welsh.
Seeing the rally, King Stephen urged his men to press forward. William thought Ranulf might have made a mistake. If the king’s forces could close with Ranulf’s men now, Ranulf would be the one who was squeezed on two sides.
One of William’s knights fell in front of him and suddenly he was in the midst of the fighting.
A beefy northerner with blood on his sword lunged at him. William parried the thrust easily: he was fresh and his antagonist was already tired. William thrust at the man’s face, missed, and parried another jab. He raised his sword high, deliberately opening himself to a stab; then, when the other man predictably stepped forward with another thrust, William dodged it and brought his sword down, two-handed, on the other man’s shoulder. The blow split the man’s armor and broke his collarbone, and he fell.
William enjoyed a moment of elation. His fear had gone. He roared: “Come on, you dogs!”
Two more men took the place of the fallen knight and attacked William simultaneously. He held them off but he was forced to give ground.
There was a surge on his right, and one of his opponents had to turn aside to defend himself against a red-faced man armed with a cleaver, who looked like a crazed butcher. That left only one for William to deal with. He grinned savagely and pressed forward. His opponent panicked and slashed wildly at William’s head. William ducked and stabbed the man in the thigh, just below the fringe of his short mail jacket. The leg buckled and the man fell.
Once again William had no one to fight. He stood still, breathing hard. For a moment he had thought the king’s army was going to be routed, but they had rallied, and now neither side appeared to have the advantage. He looked to his right, wondering what had caused the surge that had distracted one of his antagonists. To his astonishment he saw that the citizens of Lincoln were giving the enemy a hard fight. Perhaps it was because they were defending their own homes. But who had rallied them, after the earls on that flank had fled? His question was answered: to his dismay he saw Richard of Kingsbridge on his war-horse, urging the townsmen on. William’s heart sank. If the king saw Richard being brave it could undo all William’s work. William looked over at Stephen. At that moment the king caught Richard’s eye and waved encouragement. William let out a resentful curse.
The townsmen’s rally relieved the pressure on the king, but only for a moment. To the left, Ranulf’s men had routed the Flemish mercenaries, and now Ranulf turned toward the center of the defending forces. At the same time the so-called Disinherited rallied against Richard and the townsmen, and the fighting became furious.
William was attacked by a huge man with a battle-ax. He dodged desperately, suddenly afraid for his life. With each swing of the ax he leaped back, and he realized fearfully that the whole of the king’s army was falling back at much the same pace. To his left, the Welsh came back up the hill and, incredibly, started throwing stones. It was ridiculous but effective, for now William had to keep an eye out for flying rocks as well as defend himself against the giant with the battle-ax. There seemed to be a lot more of the enemy than before, and William felt, with a sense of despair, that the king’s men were outnumbered. Hysterical fear rose in his throat as he realized that the battle was very nearly lost and he was in mortal danger. The king should flee now. Why was he fighting on? It was insane-he would be killed-they would all be killed! William’s antagonist raised his ax high. William’s fighting instincts took over for an instant, and instead of falling back as he had before, he leaped forward and lunged at the big man’s face. His sword point went into the man’s neck just under the chin. William thrust it home hard. The man’s eyes closed. William felt a moment of grateful relief. He pulled the sword out and darted back to dodge the ax that now fell from the man’s dead hands.
He snatched a look at the king, just a few yards to his left. As he looked, the king brought his sword down hard on a man’s helmet, and the sword snapped in two like a twig. That was it, William thought with relief; the battle was over. The king would flee and save himself to fight another day. But the hope was premature. William had half turned, ready to run, when a townsman offered the king a long-handled woodsman’s ax. To William’s dismay, Stephen grabbed the weapon and fought on.
William was tempted to run anyway. Looking to his right, he saw Richard on foot, fighting like a madman, pressing forward, laying about him with his sword, striking men down left, right and center. William could not flee when his rival was still fighting.
William was attacked again, this time by a short man with light armor who moved very quickly, his sword flashing in the sunlight. As their weapons clashed William realized he was up against a formidable fighter. Once again he found himself on the defensive and afraid for his life, and his knowledge that the battle was lost sapped his will to fight. He parried the rapid thrusts and slashes that were aimed at him, wishing he could get in the one strong blow that would smash through the man’s armor. He saw a chance and swung his sword. The other man dodged and thrust, and William felt his left arm go numb. He was wounded. He felt sick with fear. He continued to fall back under the assault, feeling oddly unbalanced, as if the ground was shifting beneath him. His shield hung loose from his neck: he was unable to hold it steady with his useless left arm. The small man sensed victory and pressed his attack. William saw death and was filled with mortal dread.
Suddenly Walter appeared at his side.
William stepped back. Walter swung his sword two-handed. Catching the small man by surprise, he cut him down like a sapling. William suddenly felt dizzy with relief. He put a hand on Walter’s shoulder.
“We’ve lost it!” Walter shouted at him. “Let’s get out!”
William pulled himself together. The king was still fighting, even though the battle was lost. If only he would give up now, and try to get away, he could return to the south and muster another army. But the longer he fought on, the greater the probability that he could be captured or killed, and that could mean only one thing: Maud would be queen.
William and Walter edged back together. Why was the king so foolish? He had to prove his courage. Gallantry would be the death of him. Once again William was tempted to abandon the king. But Richard of Kingsbridge was still there, holding the right flank like a rock, swinging his sword and mowing men down like a reaper. “Not yet!” William said to Walter. “Watch the king!”
They retreated step by step. The fighting became less fierce as men realized that the issue had been decided and there was no point in taking risks. William and Walter crossed swords with two knights, but the knights were content to drive them back, and William and Walter fought defensively. Hard blows were struck but no one exposed himself to danger.
William stepped back two paces and chanced a look at the king. At that moment a huge rock came flying across the field and struck Stephen’s helmet. The king staggered and fell to his knees. William’s antagonist paused and turned his head to see what William was looking at. The battle-ax dropped from King Stephen’s hands. An enemy knight ran to him and pulled off the helmet. “The king!” he shouted triumphantly. “I have the king!”
William, Walter and the entire royal army turned and ran.
Philip was jubilant. The retreat started in the middle of the king’s army and spread like a ripple to the flanks. Within a few heartbeats the entire royal army was on the run. This was King Stephen’s reward for injustice.
The attackers gave chase. There were forty or fifty riderless horses in the rear of the king’s army, being held by squires, and some of the fleeing men leaped on them and made their escape, heading not for the city of Lincoln but for the open country.
Philip wondered what had happened to the king.
The citizens of Lincoln were hurriedly leaving their rooftops. Children and animals were rounded up. Some families disappeared into their houses, closing the shutters and barring the doors. There was a flurry of movement among the boats on the lake: some citizens were trying to get away by river. People began to arrive at the cathedral, to take refuge there.
At each entrance to the city, people rushed to close the huge ironbound doors. Suddenly Ranulf of Chester’s men burst out of the castle. They divided into groups, evidently following a prearranged plan, and one group went to each city gate. They waded in among the citizens, striking them down to left and right, and reopened the doors to admit the conquering rebels.
Philip decided to get off the cathedral roof. The others with him, mostly cathedral canons, had the same thought. They all ducked through the low doorway that led into the turret. There they met the bishop and the archdeacons, who had been higher up in the tower. Philip thought Bishop Alexander looked frightened. That was a pity: the bishop would need courage to share today.
They all went carefully down the long, narrow spiral staircase and emerged in the nave of the church at the west end. There were already a hundred or so citizens in the church, and more pouring through the three great doorways. As Philip looked out, two knights came into the cathedral courtyard, bloodstained and muddy, riding hard, obviously having come from the battle. They rode straight into the church without dismounting. When they saw the bishop one of them shouted: “The king is captured!”
Philip’s heart leaped. King Stephen was not just beaten, he was taken prisoner! The royalist forces throughout the kingdom would surely collapse now. The implications tumbled over one another in Philip’s imagination, but before he could sort them out he heard Bishop Alexander shout: “Close the doors!”
Philip could hardly believe his ears. “No!” he shouted. “You can’t do that!”
The bishop stared at him, white with fear and panic. He was not sure who Philip was. Philip had made a formal call on him, out of courtesy, but they had not spoken since. Now, with a visible effort, Alexander remembered him. “This is not your cathedral, Prior Philip, it’s mine. Close the doors!” Several priests went to do his bidding.
Philip was horrified at this display of naked self-interest by a clergyman. “You can’t lock people out,” he shouted angrily. “They might be killed!”
“If we don’t lock the doors we’ll all be killed!” Alexander screeched hysterically.
Philip grabbed him by the front of the robe. “Remember who you are,” he hissed. “We’re not supposed to be afraid-especially of death. Pull yourself together.”
“Get him off me!” Alexander screamed.
Several canons pulled Philip away.
Philip shouted at them: “Don’t you see what he’s doing?”
A canon said: “If you’re so brave, why don’t you go out there and protect them yourself?”
Philip tore himself free. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he said.
He turned around. The big central door was just closing. He dashed across the nave. Three priests were pushing it shut as more people fought to get through the narrowing gap. Philip squeezed out just before the door closed.
In the next few moments a small crowd gathered in the porch. Men and women banged on the door and screamed to be let in, but there was no response from inside the church.
Suddenly Philip was afraid. The panic on the faces of the people locked out scared him. He felt himself trembling. He had encountered a victorious army once before, at the age of six, and the horror he had felt then returned to him now. The moment when the men-at-arms had burst into his parents’ house came back as vividly as if it had happened yesterday. He stood rooted to the spot, and tried to stop shaking, while the crowd boiled around him. It was a long time since he had been tormented by this nightmare. He saw the bloodlust on the men’s faces, and the way the sword had transfixed his mother, and the awful sight of his father’s guts spilling out of his belly; and he felt again that uncomprehending, overwhelming, insane hysterical terror. Then he saw a monk come through the door with a cross in his hand, and the screaming stopped. The monk showed him and his brother how to close the eyes of his mother and father, so that they could sleep the long sleep. He remembered, as if he had just awakened from a dream, that he was not a frightened child anymore, he was a grown man and a monk; and just as Abbot Peter had rescued him and his brother on that dreadful day twenty-seven years ago, so today the grown-up Philip, strengthened by faith and protected by God, would come to the help of those in fear of their lives.
He forced himself to take a single step forward; and once he had done that the second was a little less difficult, and the third was almost easy.
When he reached the street that led to the west gate he was almost knocked over by a mob of fleeing townspeople: men and boys running with bundles of precious possessions, old people gasping for breath, screaming girls, women carrying squalling children in their arms. The rush carried him back several yards, then he fought against the flow. They were heading for the cathedral. He wanted to tell them it was closed, and they should stay quietly in their own homes and bar the doors; but everyone was shouting and no one was listening.
He progressed slowly along the street, moving against the flood of people. He had gained only a few yards when a group of four horsemen came charging along the street. They were the cause of the stampede. Some people flattened themselves against house walls, but others could not get out of the way in time, and many fell beneath the flailing hooves. Philip was horrified but there was nothing he could do, and he dodged into an alleyway to avoid becoming a victim himself. A moment later the horsemen had passed by and the street was deserted.
Several bodies were left lying on the ground. As Philip stepped out of his alley he saw one of them move: a middle-aged man in a scarlet cloak was trying to crawl along the ground despite an injured leg. Philip crossed the street, intending to try to carry the man; but before he got there, two men with iron helmets and wooden shields appeared. One of them said: “This one’s alive, Jake.”
Philip shuddered. It seemed to him that their demeanor, their voices, their clothes and even their faces were the same as those of the two men who had killed his parents.
The one called Jake said: “He’ll fetch a ransom-look at that red cloak.” He turned, put his fingers in his mouth, and whistled. A third man came running up. “Take Redcoat here into the castle and tie him up.”
The third man put his arms around the wounded citizen’s chest and dragged him off. The injured man screamed in pain as his legs bumped over the stones. Philip shouted: “Stop!” They all stopped for a moment, looked at him, and laughed; then they carried on with what they were doing.
Philip shouted again but they ignored him. He watched helplessly as the wounded man was dragged off. Another man-at-arms came out of a house, wearing a long fur coat and carrying six silver plates under his arm. Jake saw him and took note of the booty. “These are rich houses,” he said to his comrade. “We ought to get into one of them. See what we can find.” They went up to the locked door of a stone house and attacked it with a battle-ax.
Philip felt useless but he was not willing to give up. However, God had not put him in this position to defend rich men’s property, so he left Jake and his companions and hurried toward the west gate. More men-at-arms came running along the street. Mingled with them were several short, dark men with painted faces, dressed in sheepskin coats and armed with clubs. They were the Welsh tribesmen, Philip realized, and he felt ashamed that he came from the same country as these savages. He clung to the wall of a house and tried to look inconspicuous.
Two men emerged from a stone house dragging by the legs a white-bearded man in a skullcap. One of them held a knife to the man’s throat and said: “Where’s your money, Jew?”
“I have no money,” the man said plaintively.
Nobody would believe that, Philip thought. The wealth of the Jews of Lincoln was famous; and anyway, the man had been living in a stone house.
Another man-at-arms came out dragging a woman by the hair. The woman was middle-aged and presumably the Jew’s wife. The first man shouted: “Tell us where the money is, or she’ll have my sword up her cunt.” He lifted the woman’s skirt, exposing her graying pubic hair, and held a long dagger pointing at her groin.
Philip was about to intervene, but the old man gave in immediately. “Don’t hurt her, the money’s in the back,” he said urgently. “It’s buried in the garden, by the woodpile-please, let her go.”
The three men ran back into the house. The woman helped the man to his feet. Another group of horsemen thundered down the narrow street, and Philip flung himself out of the way. When he got up again, the two Jews had disappeared.
A young man in armor came down the street, running for his life, with three or four Welshmen in pursuit. They caught him just as he drew level with Philip. The foremost pursuer swung with his sword and touched the fugitive’s calf. It did not seem to Philip like a deep wound but it was enough to make the young man stumble and fall to the ground. Another pursuer reached the fallen man and hefted a battle-ax.
With his heart in his mouth, Philip stepped forward and shouted: “Stop!”
The man raised his ax.
Philip rushed at him.
The man swung the ax, but Philip pushed him at the last minute. The blade of the ax clanged on the stone pavement a foot from the victim’s head. The attacker recovered his balance and stared at Philip in amazement. Philip stared back at him, trying not to tremble, wishing he could remember a word or two of Welsh. Before either of them moved, the other two pursuers caught up, and one of them cannoned into Philip, sending him sprawling. That probably saved his life, he realized a moment later. When he recovered, everyone had forgotten him. They were butchering the poor young man on the ground with unbelievable savagery. Philip scrambled to his feet, but he was already too late: their hammers and axes were thudding into a corpse. He looked up at the sky and shouted angrily: “If I can’t save anyone, why did you send me here?”
As if in reply, he heard a scream from a nearby house. It was a one-story building of stone and wood, not as costly as those around it. The door stood open. Philip ran inside. There were two rooms with an arch between, and straw on the floor. A woman with two small children huddled in a corner, terrified. Three men-at-arms were in the middle of the house, confronting one small, bald man. A young woman of about eighteen years was on the floor. Her dress was ripped and one of the three men-at-arms was kneeling on her chest, holding her thighs apart. The bald man was clearly trying to stop them from raping his daughter. As Philip came in, the father flung himself at one of the men-at-arms. The soldier threw him off. The father staggered back. The soldier plunged his sword into the father’s abdomen. The woman in the corner screamed like a lost soul.
Philip yelled: “Stop!”
They all looked at him as if he were mad.
In his most authoritative voice he said: “You’ll all go to hell if you do this!”
The one who had killed the father raised his sword to strike Philip.
“Just a minute,” said the man on the ground, still holding the girl’s legs. “Who are you, monk?”
“I am Philip of Gwynedd, prior of Kingsbridge, and I command you in God’s name to leave that girl alone, if you care for your immortal souls.”
“A prior-I thought so,” said the man on the ground. “He’s worth a ransom.”
The first man sheathed his sword and said: “Get over in the corner with the woman, where you belong.”
Philip said: “Don’t lay hands on a monk’s robes.” He was trying to sound dangerous but he could hear the note of desperation in his voice.
“Take him to the castle, John,” said the man on the ground, who was still sitting on the girl. He seemed to be the leader.
“Go to hell,” said John. “I want to fuck her first.” He grabbed Philip’s arms and, before Philip could resist, flung him into the corner. Philip tumbled onto the floor beside the mother.
The man called John lifted the front of his tunic and fell on the girl.
The mother turned her head aside and began to sob.
Philip said: “I will not watch this!” He stood up and grabbed the rapist by the hair, pulling him off the girl. The rapist roared with pain.
The third man raised a club. Philip saw the blow coming, but he was too late. The club landed on his head. He felt a moment of agonizing pain, then everything went black and he lost consciousness before he hit the ground.
The prisoners were taken to the castle and locked in cages. These were stout wooden structures like miniature houses, six feet long and three feet wide, and only a little higher than a man’s head. Instead of solid walls they had close-spaced vertical posts, which enabled the jailer to see inside. In normal times, when they were used to confine thieves and murderers and heretics, there would be only one or two people to a cage. Today the rebels put eight or ten in each, and still there were more prisoners. The surplus captives were tied together with ropes and herded into a corner of the compound. They could have escaped fairly easily, but they did not, probably because they were safer here than outside in the town.
Philip sat in one corner of a cage, nursing a splitting headache, feeling a fool and a failure. In the end he had been as useless as the cowardly Bishop Alexander. He had not saved a single life; he had not even prevented one blow. The citizens of Lincoln would have been no worse off without him. Unlike Abbot Peter, he had been powerless to stop the violence. I’m just not the man Father Peter was, he thought.
Worse still, in his vain attempt to help the townspeople he had probably thrown away his chance of winning concessions from the Empress Maud when she became queen. He was now a prisoner of her army. It would be assumed, therefore, that he had been with King Stephen’s forces. Kingsbridge Priory would have to pay a ransom for Philip’s release. It was quite likely that the whole thing would come to Maud’s notice; and then she would be prejudiced against Philip. He felt sick, disappointed, and full of remorse.
More prisoners were brought in through the day. The influx ended around nightfall, but the sacking of the city went on outside the castle walls: Philip could hear the shouts and screams and sounds of destruction. Toward midnight the noise died down, presumably as the soldiers became so drunk on stolen wine and sated with rape and violence that they could do no more damage. A few of them staggered into the castle, boasting of their triumphs, quarreling among themselves and vomiting on the grass; and eventually fell down insensible and slept.
Philip slept, too, although he did not have enough room to lie down, and had to slump in the corner with his back against the wooden bars of his cage. He woke at dawn, shivering with cold, but the pain in his head had softened, mercifully, to a dull ache. He stood up to stretch his legs, and slapped his arms against his sides to warm himself. All the castle buildings were overflowing with people. The open-fronted stables revealed men sleeping in the stalls, while the horses were tied up outside. Pairs of legs stuck out of the bakehouse door and the kitchen undercroft. The small minority of sober soldiers had pitched tents. There were horses everywhere. In the southeast corner of the castle compound was the keep, a castle within a castle, built on a high mound, its mighty stone walls encircling half a dozen or more wooden buildings. The earls and knights of the winning side would be in there, sleeping off their own celebration.
Philip’s mind turned to the implications of yesterday’s battle. Did it mean the war was over? Probably. Stephen had a wife, Queen Matilda, who might fight on: she was countess of Boulogne, and with her French knights she had taken Dover Castle early in the war and now controlled much of Kent on her husband’s behalf. However, she would find it difficult to gather support from the barons while Stephen was in prison. She might hold on to Kent for a while but she was unlikely to make any gains.
Nevertheless, Maud’s problems were not yet over. She had to consolidate her military victory, gain the approval of the Church and be crowned at Westminster. However, given determination and a little wisdom she would probably succeed.
And that was good news for Kingsbridge; or it would be, if Philip could get out of here without being branded a supporter of Stephen.
There was no sun, but the air warmed a little as the day got brighter. Philip’s fellow-prisoners awoke gradually, groaning with aches and pains: most of them had been at least bruised, and they felt worse after a cold night, with only the minimal shelter of the roof and bars of the cage. Some were wealthy citizens and others were knights who had been captured in battle. When most of them were awake Philip asked: “Did anyone see what happened to Richard of Kingsbridge?” He was hoping Richard had survived, for Aliena’s sake.
A man with a bloodstained bandage around his head said: “He fought like a lion-he rallied the townsmen when things got bad.”
“Did he live or die?”
The man shook his wounded head slowly. “I didn’t see him at the end.”
“What about William Hamleigh?” It would be a blessed relief if William had fallen.
“He was with the king for most of the battle. But he got away at the end-I saw him on a horse, flying across the field, well ahead of the pack.”
“Ah.” The faint hope faded. Philip’s problems were not to be solved that easily.
The conversation lapsed and the cage fell silent. Outside, the soldiers were on the move, nursing their hangovers, checking their booty, making sure their hostages were still in captivity, and getting breakfast from the kitchen. Philip wondered whether prisoners got fed. They must, he thought, for otherwise they would die and there would be no ransoms; but who would take the responsibility for feeding all these people? That started him wondering how long he would be here. His captors would have to send a message to Kingsbridge, demanding a ransom. The brothers would send one of their number to negotiate his release. Who would it be? Milius would be the best, but Remigius, who as sub-prior was in charge in Philip’s absence, might send one of his cronies, or even come himself. Remigius would do everything slowly: he was incapable of prompt and decisive action even in his own interest. It could take months. Philip became gloomier.
Other prisoners were luckier. Soon after sunrise, wives and children and relatives of the captives began to trickle into the castle, fearfully and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, to negotiate the ransom of their loved ones. They would bargain with the captors for a while, protesting their lack of money, offering cheap jewelry or other valuables; then they would reach an agreement, depart, and return a little later with whatever ransom had been agreed, usually cash. The piles of booty grew higher and the cages emptied out.
By midday half the prisoners had gone. They were the local people, Philip assumed. Those remaining must be from distant towns, and were probably all knights who had been taken during the battle. This impression was confirmed when the constable of the castle came around the cages and asked the names of everyone remaining: most of them were knights from the south. Philip noticed that in one of the cages there was only one man, and he was confined in stocks, as if someone wanted to be doubly sure he could not escape. After staring at the special prisoner for a few minutes Philip realized who it was.
“Look!” he said to the three men in his own cage. “That man on his own. Is it who I think it is?”
The others looked. “By Christ, it’s the king,” said one, and the others agreed.
Philip stared at the muddy, tawny-haired man with his hands and feet confined uncomfortably in the wooden vise of the stocks. He looked just like all the rest of them. Yesterday he had been king of England. Yesterday he had refused Kingsbridge a market license. Today he could not stand up without someone else’s leave. The king had got his just deserts, but all the same Philip felt sorry for him.
Early in the afternoon the prisoners were given food. It was lukewarm leftovers from the dinner provided for the fighting men, but they fell on it ravenously. Philip hung back and let the others have most of it, for he regarded hunger as a base weakness that ought to be resisted from time to time, and considered any enforced fast to be an opportunity to mortify the flesh.
While they were scraping the bowl there was a flurry of activity over at the keep, and a group of earls came out. As they walked down the steps of the keep and across the castle compound, Philip observed that two of them went a little in front of the others, and were treated with deference. They had to be Ranulf of Chester and Robert of Gloucester, but Philip did not know which was which. They approached Stephen’s cage.
“Good day, Cousin Robert,” Stephen said, heavily emphasizing the word cousin.
The taller of the two men replied. “I didn’t intend for you to spend the night in the stocks. I ordered that you be moved, but the order wasn’t obeyed. However, you seem to have survived.”
A man in priest’s clothing detached himself from the group and came toward Philip’s cage. At first Philip paid him no attention, for Stephen was asking what was to be done with him, and Philip wanted to hear the answer; but the priest said: “Which one of you is the prior of Kingsbridge?”
“I am,” Philip said.
The priest spoke to one of the men-at-arms who had brought Philip here. “Release that man.”
Philip was mystified. He had never seen the priest in his life. Clearly his name had been picked out of the list compiled earlier by the castle constable. But why? He would be glad to get out of the cage, but he was not ready to rejoice-he did not know what was in store for him.
The man-at-arms protested: “He’s my prisoner!”
“Not anymore,” said the priest. “Let him go.”
“Why should I release him without a ransom?” the man said belligerently.
The priest replied equally forcefully. “First, because he’s neither a fighting man in the king’s army nor a citizen of this town, so you have committed a crime by imprisoning him. Second, because he’s a monk, and you are guilty of sacrilege by laying hands on a man of God. Third, because Queen Maud’s secretary says you have to release him, and if you refuse you’ll end up inside that cage yourself, faster than you can blink, so jump to it.”
“All right,” the man grumbled.
Philip was dismayed. He had been nursing a faint hope that Maud would never get to know of his imprisonment here. If Maud’s secretary had asked to see him, that hope was now dashed. Feeling as if he had hit rock bottom, he stepped out of the cage.
“Come with me,” said the priest.
Philip followed him. “Am I to be set free?” he said.
“I imagine so.” The priest looked surprised by the question. “Don’t you know whom you’re going to see?”
“I haven’t an inkling.”
The priest smiled. “I’ll let him surprise you.”
They crossed the compound to the keep and climbed the long flight of steps that led up the mound to the gate. Philip racked his brains but could not guess why a secretary of Maud’s should have an interest in him.
He followed the priest through the gate. The circular stone keep was lined with two-story houses built against the wall. In the middle was a tiny courtyard with a well. The priest led Philip into one of the houses.
Inside the house was another priest, standing in front of the fire with his back to the door. He had the same build as Philip, short and slight, and the same black hair, but his head was not shaved and his hair was not graying. It was a very familiar back. Philip could hardly believe his luck. A broad grin spread across his face.
The priest turned. He had bright blue eyes just like Philip’s and he, too, was grinning. He held out his arms. “Philip,” he said.
“Well, God be praised!” Philip said in astonishment. “Francis!”
The two brothers embraced, and Philip’s eyes filled with tears.
The royal reception hall at Winchester Castle looked very different. The dogs had gone, and so had King Stephen’s plain wooden throne, the benches, and the animal skins from the walls. Instead there were embroidered hangings, richly colored carpets, bowls of sweetmeats, and painted chairs. The room smelled of flowers.
Philip was never at ease at the royal court, and a feminine royal court was enough to put him in a state of quivering anxiety. The Empress Maud was his only hope of getting the quarry back and reopening the market, but he had no confidence that this haughty, willful woman would make a just decision.
The Empress sat on a delicately carved gilded throne, wearing a dress the color of bluebells. She was tall and thin, with proud dark eyes and straight, glossy black hair. Over her gown she wore a pelisse, a knee-length silk coat with a tight waist and flared skirt; a style that had not been seen in England until she arrived, but was now much imitated. She had been married to her first husband for eleven years and her second for fourteen, but she still looked less than forty years old. People raved about her beauty. To Philip she looked rather angular and unfriendly; but he was a poor judge of feminine attraction, being more or less immune to it.
Philip, Francis, William Hamleigh and Bishop Waleran bowed to her and stood waiting. She ignored them for a while and continued talking to a lady-in-waiting. The conversation seemed to be rather trifling, for they both laughed prettily; but Maud did not interrupt it to greet her visitors.
Francis worked closely with her, and saw her almost every day, but they were not great friends. Her brother Robert, Francis’s former employer, had given him to her when she arrived in England, because she needed a first-class secretary. However, this was not the only motive. Francis acted as link man between brother and sister, and kept an eye on the impetuous Maud. It was nothing for brothers and sisters to betray one another, in the treacherous life of the royal court, and Francis’s real role was to make it difficult for Maud to do anything underhand. Maud knew this and accepted it, but her relationship with Francis was nevertheless an uneasy one.
It was two months since the battle of Lincoln, and in that time all had gone well for Maud. Bishop Henry had welcomed her to Winchester (thereby betraying his brother King Stephen) and had convened a great council of bishops and abbots which had elected her queen; and she was now negotiating with the commune of London to arrange her coronation at Westminster. King David of Scotland,, who happened to be her uncle, was on his way to pay her a formal royal visit, one sovereign to another.
Bishop Henry was strongly supported by Bishop Waleran of Kingsbridge; and, according to Francis, Waleran had persuaded William Hamleigh to switch sides, and pledge allegiance to Maud. Now William had come for his reward.
The four men stood waiting: William with his backer, Bishop Waleran, and Prior Philip with his sponsor, Francis. This was the first time Philip had set eyes on Maud. Her appearance did not reassure him: despite her regal air he thought she looked flighty.
When Maud finished chatting she turned to them with a triumphant look, as if to say: See how unimportant you are, even my lady-in-waiting had priority over you. She looked at Philip steadily for a few moments, until he became embarrassed, then she said: “Well, Francis. Have you brought me your twin?”
Francis said: “My brother, Philip, lady, the prior of Kingsbridge.”
Philip bowed again and said: “Somewhat too old and gray to be a twin, lady.” It was the kind of trivial, self-deprecating remark that courtiers seemed to find amusing, but she gave him a frozen look and ignored it. He decided to abandon any attempt to be charming.
She turned to William. “And Sir William Hamleigh, who fought bravely against my army at the battle of Lincoln, but has now seen the error of his ways.”
William bowed and wisely kept his mouth shut.
She turned back to Philip. “You ask me to grant you a license to hold a market.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Francis said: “The income from the market will all be spent on building the cathedral, lady.”
“On what day of the week do you want to hold your market?” she asked.
“Sunday.”
She raised her plucked eyebrows. “You holy men are generally opposed to Sunday markets. Don’t they keep people from church?”
“Not in our case,” Philip said. “People come to labor on the building and attend a service, and they do their buying and selling as well.”
“So you’re already holding this market?” she said sharply.
Philip realized he had blundered. He felt like kicking himself.
Francis rescued him. “No, lady, they are not holding the market at present,” he said. “It began informally, but Prior Philip ordered it to cease until he was granted a license.”
That was the truth, but not the whole truth. However, Maud seemed to accept it. Philip silently prayed for forgiveness for Francis.
Maud said: “Is there no other market in the area?”
William spoke up. “Yes, there is, at Shiring; and the Kingsbridge market has been taking business away.”
Philip said: “But Shiring is twenty miles from Kingsbridge!”
Francis said: “My lady, the rule is that markets must be at least fourteen miles apart. By that criterion Kingsbridge and Shiring do not compete.”
She nodded, apparently willing to accept Francis’s ruling on a point of law. So far, thought Philip, it’s going our way.
Maud said: “You also ask for the right to take stone from the earl of Shiring’s quarry.”
“We have had that right for many years, but William lately threw out our quarrymen, killing five-”
“Who gave you the right to take stone?” she interrupted.
“King Stephen-”
“The usurper!”
Francis hastily said: “My lady, Prior Philip naturally accepts that all edicts of the pretender Stephen are invalid unless ratified by you.”
Philip accepted no such thing but he saw that it would be unwise to say so.
William blurted out: “I closed the quarry in retaliation for his illegal market!”
It was amazing, Philip thought, how a clear case of injustice could come to seem evenly balanced when argued at the court.
Maud said: “This entire squabble came about because Stephen’s original ruling was foolish.”
Bishop Waleran spoke for the first time. “There, lady, I heartily agree with you,” he said oilily.
“It was asking for trouble, to give the quarry to one person but let another mine it,” she said. “The quarry must belong to one or the other.”
That was true, Philip thought. And if she were to follow the spirit of Stephen’s original ruling, it would belong to Kingsbridge.
She went on: “My decision is that it shall belong to my noble ally, Sir William.”
Philip’s heart sank. The cathedral building could not have come on so well without free access to that quarry. It would have to slow right down while Philip tried to find the money to buy stone. And all because of the whim of this capricious woman! It made him fume.
William said: “Thank you, lady.”
Maud said: “However, Kingsbridge shall have market rights as at Shiring.”
Philip’s spirits rose again. The market would not quite pay for the stone but it was a big help. It meant he would be scraping around for money again, just as he had at the beginning, but he could carry on.
Maud had given each one a part of what he wanted. Perhaps she was not so empty-headed after all.
Francis said: “Market rights as at Shiring, lady?”
“That’s what I said.”
Philip was not sure why Francis had repeated it. It was common for licenses to refer to the rights enjoyed by another town: it was evenhanded and saved writing. Philip would have to check exactly what Shiring’s charter said. There might be restrictions, or extra privileges.
Maud said: “So you have both got something. William gets the quarry and Prior Philip gets the market. And in return, each of you will pay me one hundred pounds. That is all.” She turned away.
Philip was flabbergasted. A hundred pounds! The priory did not have a hundred pennies at the moment. How was he to raise this money? The market would take years to earn a hundred pounds. It was a devastating blow that would set the building program back permanently. He stood staring at Maud, but she was apparently deep in conversation with her lady-in-waiting again. Francis nudged him. Philip opened his mouth to speak. Francis held a finger to his lips. Philip said: “But…” Francis shook his head urgently.
Philip knew Francis was right. He let his shoulders slump in defeat. Helplessly, he turned away and walked out of the royal presence.
Francis was impressed when Philip showed him around Kingsbridge Priory. “I was here ten years ago, and it was a dump,” he said irreverently. “You’ve really brought it to life.”
He was very taken with the writing room, which Tom had finished while Philip was in Lincoln. A small building next to the chapter house, it had large windows, a fireplace with a chimney, a row of writing desks, and a big oak cupboard for the books. Four of the brothers were at work there already, standing at the high desks, writing on parchment sheets with quill pens. Three were copying: one the Psalms of David, one Saint Matthew’s Gospel, and one the Rule of Saint Benedict. In addition, Brother Timothy was writing a history of England, although as he had begun with the creation of the world Philip was afraid the old boy might never finish it. The writing room was small-Philip had not wanted to divert much stone from the cathedral-but it was a warm, dry, well-lit place, just what was needed. “The priory has disgracefully few books, and as they’re iniquitously expensive to buy, this is the only way to build our collection,” Philip explained.
In the undercroft was a workshop where an old monk was teaching two youngsters how to stretch the skin of a sheep for parchment, how to make ink, and how to bind the sheets into a book. Francis said: “You’ll be able to sell books, too.”
“Oh, yes-the writing room will pay for itself many times over.”
They left the building and walked through the cloisters. It was the study hour. Most of the monks were reading. A few were meditating, an activity that was suspiciously similar to dozing, as Francis remarked skeptically. In the northwest corner were twenty schoolboys reciting Latin verbs. Philip stopped and pointed. “See the little boy at the end of the bench?”
Francis said: “Writing on a slate, with his tongue sticking out?”
“That’s the baby you found in the forest.”
“But he’s so big!”
“Five and a half years old, and precocious.’
Francis shook his head in wonderment. “Time goes by so fast. How is he?”
“He’s spoiled by the monks, but he’ll survive. You and I did.”
“Who are the other pupils?”
“Either novice monks, or the sons of merchants and local gentry learning to write and figure.”
They left the cloisters and passed on to the building site. The eastern limb of the new cathedral was now more than half built. The great double row of mighty columns was forty feet high, and all the arches in between had been completed. Above the arcade, the tribune gallery was taking shape. Either side of the arcade, the lower walls of the aisle had been built, with their out-jutting buttresses. As they walked around, Philip saw that the masons were constructing the half-arches that would connect the tops of those buttresses with the top of the tribune gallery, allowing the buttresses to take the weight of the roof.
Francis was almost awestruck. “You’ve done all this, Philip,” he said. “The writing room, the school, the new church, even all these new houses in the town-it’s all come about because you made it happen.”
Philip was touched. No one had ever said that to him. If asked, he would say that God had blessed his efforts. But in his heart of hearts he knew that what Francis said was true: this thriving, busy town was his creation. Recognition gave him a warm glow, especially coming as it did from his sophisticated, cynical younger brother.
Tom Builder saw them and came over. “You’ve made marvelous progress,” Philip said to him.
“Yes, but look at that.” Tom pointed to the northeast corner of the priory close, where stone from the quarry was stockpiled. There were normally hundreds of stones stacked in rows, but now there were only about twenty-five scattered on the ground. “Unfortunately, our marvelous progress means we’ve used up our stock of stone.”
Philip’s elation evaporated. Everything he had achieved here was at risk, because of Maud’s harsh ruling.
They walked along the north side of the site, where the most skilled masons were working at their benches, carving the stones into shape with hammers and chisels. Philip stopped behind one craftsman and studied his work. It was a capital, the large, jutting-out stone that always stood on top of a column. Using a light hammer and a small chisel, the mason was carving a pattern of leaves on the capital. The leaves were deeply undercut and the work was delicate. To Philip’s surprise, he saw that the craftsman was young Jack, Tom’s stepson. “I thought Jack was still a learner,” he said.
“He is.” Tom moved on, and when they were out of earshot he said: “The boy is remarkable. There are men here who have been carving stone since before he was born, and none of them can match his work.” He gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. “And he isn’t even my own son!”
Tom’s real son, Alfred, was a master mason and had his own gang of apprentices and laborers, but Philip knew that Alfred and his gang did not do the delicate work. Philip wondered how Tom felt about that in his heart.
Tom’s mind had returned to the problem of paying for the market license. “Surely the market will bring in a lot of money,” he said.
“Yes, but not enough. It should raise about fifty pounds a year at the start.”
Tom nodded gloomily. “That will just about pay for the stone.”
“We could manage if I didn’t have to pay Maud a hundred pounds.”
“What about the wool?”
The wool that was piling up in Philip’s barns would be sold at the Shiring Fleece Fair in a few weeks’ time, and would fetch about a hundred pounds. “That’s what I’m going to use to pay Maud. But then I’ll have nothing left for the craftsmen’s wages for the next twelve months.”
“Can’t you borrow?”
“I already have. The Jews won’t lend me any more. I asked, while I was in Winchester. They won’t lend you money if they don’t think you can pay it back.”
“What about Aliena?”
Philip was startled. He had never thought of borrowing from her. She had even more wool in her barns. After the fleece fair she might have two hundred pounds. “But she needs the money to make her living. And Christians can’t charge interest. If she lent her money to me she would have nothing to trade with. Although…” Even as he spoke, he was turning over a new idea. He remembered that Aliena had wanted to buy his entire wool production for the year. Perhaps they could work something out… “I think I’ll talk to her anyway,” he said. “Is she at home at the moment?”
“I think so-I saw her this morning.”
“Come, Francis-you’re about to meet a remarkable young woman.” They left Tom and hurried out of the close into the town. Aliena had two houses side by side up against the west wall of the priory. She lived in one and used the other as a barn. She was very wealthy. There had to be a way she could help the priory pay Maud’s extortionate fee for the market license. A vague idea was taking shape in Philip’s mind.
Aliena was in the barn, supervising the unloading of an ox cart stacked high with sacks of wool. She wore a brocade pelisse, like the one the Empress Maud had worn, and her hair was done up in a white linen coif. She looked authoritative, as always, and the two men unloading the cart obeyed her instructions without question. Everyone respected her, although-strangely-she had no close friends. She greeted Philip warmly. “When we heard about the battle of Lincoln we were afraid you might have been killed!” she said. There was real concern in her eyes, and Philip was moved to think that people had been worried about him. He introduced her to Francis.
“Did you get justice at Winchester?” Aliena asked.
“Not exactly,” Philip replied. “The Empress Maud granted us a market but denied us the quarry. The one more or less compensates for the other. But she charged me a hundred pounds for the market license.”
Aliena was shocked. “That’s terrible! Did you tell her the income from the market goes to the cathedral building?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But where will you find a hundred pounds?”
“I thought you might be able to help.”
“Me?” Aliena was taken aback.
“In a few weeks’ time, after you’ve sold your wool to the Flemish, you’ll have two hundred pounds or more.”
Aliena looked troubled. “And I’d give it to you, gladly, but I need it to buy more wool next year.”
“Remember you wanted to buy my wool?”
“Yes, but it’s too late now. I wanted to buy it early in the season. Besides, you can sell it yourself soon.”
“I was thinking,” Philip said. “Could I sell you next year’s wool?”
She frowned. “But you haven’t got it.”
“Could I sell it to you before I’ve got it?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Simple. You give me the money now. I give you the wool next year.”
Aliena clearly did not know how to take this proposal: it was unlike any known way of doing business. It was new to Philip, too: he had just made it up.
Aliena spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “I would have to offer you a slightly lower price than you could get by waiting. Moreover, the price of wool might go up between now and next summer-it has every year I’ve been in the business.”
“So I lose a little and you gain a little,” Philip said. “But I’ll be able to carry on building for another year.”
“And what will you do next year?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll sell you the following year’s wool.”
Aliena nodded. “It makes sense.”
Philip took her hands and looked into her eyes. “If you do this, Aliena, you’ll save the cathedral,” he said fervently.
Aliena looked very solemn. “You saved me, once, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Then I’ll do the same for you.”
“God bless you!” In an excess of gratitude he hugged her; then he remembered she was a woman and detached himself hastily. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he said. “I was at my wits’ end.”
Aliena laughed. “I’m not sure I deserve this much gratitude. I’ll probably do very well out of the arrangement.”
“I hope so.”
“Let’s drink a cup of wine together to seal the bargain,” she said. “I’ll just pay the carter.”
The ox cart was empty and the wool stacked neatly. Philip and Francis stepped outside while Aliena settled up with the carter. The sun was going down and the building workers were walking back to their homes. Philip’s elation returned. He had found a way to carry on, despite all the setbacks. “Thank God for Aliena!” he said.
“You didn’t tell me she was so beautiful,” Francis said.
“Beautiful? I suppose she is.”
Francis laughed. “Philip, you’re blind! She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’s enough to make a man give up the priesthood.”
Philip looked sharply at Francis. “You ought not to talk like that.”
“Sorry.”
Aliena came out and locked the barn; then they went into her home. It was a large house with a main room and a separate bedroom. There was a beer barrel in the corner, a whole ham hanging from the ceiling, and a white linen cloth on the table. A middle-aged woman servant poured wine from a flask into silver goblets for the guests. Aliena lived comfortably. If she’s so beautiful, Philip wondered, why hasn’t she got a husband? There was no shortage of aspirants: she had been courted by every eligible young man in the county, but she had turned them all down. He felt so grateful to her that he wanted her to be happy.
Her mind was still on practicalities. “I won’t have the money until after the Shiring Fleece Fair,” she said when they had toasted their agreement.
Philip turned to Francis. “Will Maud wait?”
“How long?”
“The fair is three weeks from Thursday.”
Francis nodded. “I’ll tell her. She’ll wait.”
Aliena untied her headdress and shook out her curly dark hair. She gave a tired sigh. “The days are too short,” she said. “I can’t get everything done. I want to buy more wool but I’ve got to find enough carters to take it all to Shiring.”
Philip said: “And next year you’ll have even more.”
“I wish we could make the Flemish come here to buy. It would be so much easier for us than taking all our wool to Shiring.”
Francis interjected: “But you can.”
They both looked at him. Philip said: “How?”
“Hold your own fleece fair.”
Philip began to see what he was driving at. “Can we?”
“Maud gave you exactly the same rights as Shiring. I wrote your charter myself. If Shiring can hold a fleece fair, so can you.”
Aliena said: “Why, that would be wonderful-we wouldn’t have to cart all these sacks to Shiring. We could do the business here, and ship the wool directly to Flanders.”
“That’s the least of it,” Philip said excitedly. “A fleece fair makes as much in a week as a Sunday market makes in a whole year. We can’t do it this year, of course-nobody will know about it. But we can spread the news, at this year’s Shiring Fleece Fair, that we’re going to hold our own next year, and make sure all the buyers know the date…”
Aliena said: “It will make a big difference to Shiring. You and I are the biggest sellers of wool in the county, and if we both withdraw, the Shiring fair will be less than half its usual size.”
Francis said: “William Hamleigh will lose money. He’ll be as mad as a bull.”
Philip could not help a shudder of revulsion. A mad bull was just what William was like.
“So what?” said Aliena. “If Maud has given us permission, we can go ahead. There’s nothing William can do about it, is there?”
“I hope not,” Philip said fervently. “I certainly hope not.”
WORK STOPPED AT NOON on Saint Augustine’s Day. Most of the builders greeted the midday bell with a sigh of relief. They normally worked from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, so they needed the rest they got on holy days. However, Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell.
He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes out of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to carve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch, but Tom would not let him. Most of all he wanted to carve scenes from stories, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, and the Day of Judgment, with monsters and devils and naked people, but he did not dare to ask.
Eventually Tom made him stop work. “It’s a holiday, lad,” he said. “Besides, you’re still my apprentice, and I want you to help me clear up. All tools must be locked away before dinner.”
Jack put away his hammer and chisels, and carefully deposited the stone on which he had been working in Tom’s shed; then he went around the site with Tom. The other apprentices were tidying up and sweeping away the stone chips, sand, lumps of dried mortar and wood shavings that littered the site. Tom picked up his compasses and level while Jack collected his yardsticks and plumb lines, and they took everything to the shed.
In the shed Tom kept his poles. These were long iron rods, square in cross-section and dead straight, all exactly the same length. They were kept in a special wooden rack which was locked. They were measuring sticks.
As they continued around the site, picking up mortarboards and shovels, Jack was thinking about the poles. “How long is a pole?” he asked.
Some of the masons heard him and laughed. They often found his questions amusing. Edward Short, a diminutive old mason with leathery skin and a twisted nose, said: “A pole is a pole,” and they laughed again.
They enjoyed teasing the apprentices, especially if it gave them a chance to show off their superior knowledge. Jack hated to be laughed at for his ignorance but he put up with it because he was so curious. “I don’t understand,” he said patiently.
“An inch is an inch, a foot is a foot, and a pole is a pole,” said Edward.
A pole was a unit of measurement, then. “So how many feet are there in a pole?”
“Aha! That depends. Eighteen, in Lincoln. Sixteen in East Anglia.”
Tom interrupted to give a sensible answer. “On this site there are fifteen feet to a pole.”
A middle-aged woman mason said: “In Paris they don’t use the pole at all-just the yardstick.”
Tom said to Jack: “The whole plan of the church is based on poles. Fetch me one and I’ll show you. It’s time you understood these things.” He gave Jack a key.
Jack went to the shed and took a pole from the rack. It was quite heavy. Tom liked to explain things, and Jack loved to listen. The organization of the building site made an intriguing pattern, like the weaving on a brocade coat, and the more he understood, the more fascinated he became.
Tom was standing in the aisle at the open end of the half-built chancel, where the crossing would be. He took the pole and laid it on the ground so that it spanned the aisle. “From the outside wall to the middle of the pier of the arcade is a pole.” He turned the pole end over end. “From there to the middle of the nave is a pole.” He turned it over again, and it reached the middle of the opposite pier. “The nave is two poles wide.” He turned it over again, and it reached to the wall of the far aisle. “The whole church is four poles wide.”
“Yes,” said Jack. “And each bay must be a pole long.”
Tom looked faintly annoyed. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody. The bays of the aisles are square, so if they’re a pole wide they must be a pole long. And the bays of the nave are the same length as the bays of the aisles, obviously.”
“Obviously,” said Tom. “You should be a philosopher.” In his voice was a mixture of pride and irritation. He was pleased that Jack was quick to understand, irritated that the mysteries of masonry should be so easily grasped by a mere boy.
Jack was too caught up in the splendid logic of it all to pay attention to Tom’s sensitivities. “The chancel is four poles long, then,” he said. “And the whole church will be twelve poles when it’s finished.” He was struck by another thought. “How high will it be?”
“Six poles high. Three for the arcade, one for the gallery, and two for the clerestory.”
“But what’s the point of having everything measured by poles? Why not build it all higgledy-piggledy, like a house?”
“First, because it’s cheaper this way. All the arches of the arcade are identical, so we can reuse the falsework arches. The fewer different sizes and shapes of stone we need, the fewer templates I have to make. And so on. Second, it simplifies every aspect of what we’re doing, from the original laying-out-everything is based on a pole square-to painting the walls-it’s easier to estimate how much whitewash we’ll need. And when things are simple, fewer mistakes are made. The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes. Third, when everything is based on a pole measure, the church just looks right. Proportion is the heart of beauty.”
Jack nodded, enchanted. The struggle to control an operation as ambitious and intricate as building a cathedral was endlessly fascinating. The notion that the principles of regularity and repetition could both simplify the construction and result in a harmonious building was a seductive idea. But he was not sure whether proportion was the heart of beauty. He had a taste for wild, spreading, disorderly things: high mountains, aged oaks, and Aliena’s hair.
He ate his dinner ravenously but quickly, then he left the village, heading north. It was a warm early-summer day, and he was barefoot. Ever since he and his mother had come to live in Kingsbridge for good, and he had become a worker, he had enjoyed returning to the forest periodically. At first he had spent the time getting rid of surplus energy, running and jumping, climbing trees and shooting ducks with his sling. That was when he was getting used to the new, taller, stronger body he now had. The novelty of that had worn off. Now when he walked in the forest he thought about things: why proportion should be beautiful, how buildings stayed standing, and what it would be like to stroke Aliena’s breasts.
He had worshiped her from a distance for years. His abiding picture of her was from the first time he had seen her, as she came down the stairs to the hall at Earlscastle, and he had thought she must be a princess in a story. She had continued to be a remote figure. She talked to Prior Philip, and Tom Builder, and Malachi the Jew, and the other wealthy and powerful people of Kingsbridge; and Jack never had a reason to address her. He just looked at her, praying in church or riding her palfrey across the bridge, or sitting in the sun outside her house; wearing costly furs in winter and the finest linen in summer, her wild hair framing her beautiful face. Before he went to sleep he would think about what it would be like to take those clothes off her, and see her naked, and kiss her soft mouth gently.
In the last few weeks he had become dissatisfied and depressed with this hopeless daydreaming. Seeing her from a distance and overhearing her conversations with other people and imagining making love to her were no longer enough. He needed the real thing.
There were several girls his own age who might have given him the real thing. Among the apprentices there was much talk about which of the young women in Kingsbridge were randy and exactly what each of them would let a young man do. Most of them were determined to remain virgins until they were married, according to the teachings of the Church, but there were certain things you could do and still remain a virgin, or so the apprentices said. The girls all thought Jack was a little strange-they were probably right, he felt-but one or two of them found his strangeness appealing. One Sunday after church he had struck up a conversation with Edith, the sister of a fellow apprentice; but when he had talked about how he loved to carve stone, she had started to giggle. The following Sunday he had gone walking in the fields with Ann, the blond daughter of the tailor. He had not said much to her, but he had kissed her, and then suggested they lie down in a field of green barley. He had kissed her again and touched her breasts, and she had kissed him back, enthusiastically; but after a while she had pulled away from him and said: “Who is she?” Jack had been thinking about Aliena at that very moment and he was thunderstruck. He had tried to brush it aside, and kiss her again, but she turned her face away, and said: “Whoever she is, she’s a lucky girl.” They had walked back to Kingsbridge together, and when they separated Ann had said: “Don’t waste time trying to forget her. It’s a lost cause. She’s the one you want, so you’d better try and get her.” She had smiled at him fondly and added: “You’ve got a nice face. It might not be as difficult as you think.”
Her kindness made him feel bad, the more so because she was one of the girls the apprentices said were randy, and he had told everyone that he was going to try to feel her up. Now such talk seemed so juvenile that it made him squirm. But if he had told her the name of the woman who was on his mind, Ann might not have been so encouraging. Jack and Aliena were about the most unlikely match conceivable. Aliena was twenty-two years old and he was seventeen; she was the daughter of an earl and he was a bastard; she was a wealthy wool merchant and he was a penniless apprentice. Worse still, she was famous for the number of suitors she had rejected. Every presentable young lord in the county, and every prosperous merchant’s eldest son, had come to Kingsbridge to pay court to her, and all had gone away disappointed. What chance was there for Jack, who had nothing to offer, unless it was “a nice face”?
He and Aliena had one thing in common: they liked the forest. They were peculiar in this: most people preferred the safety of the fields and villages, and stayed away from the forest. But Aliena often walked in the woodlands near Kingsbridge, and there was a particular secluded spot where she liked to stop and sit down. He had seen her there once or twice. She had not seen him: he walked silently, as he had learned to in childhood, when he had had to find his dinner in the forest.
He was heading for her clearing without any idea of what he would do if he found her there. He knew what he would like to do: lie down beside her and stroke her body. He could talk to her, but what would he say? It was easy to talk to girls of his own age. He had teased Edith, saying: “I don’t believe any of the terrible things your brother says about you,” and of course she had wanted to know what the terrible things were. With Ann he had been direct: “Would you like to walk in the fields with me this afternoon?” But when he tried to come up with an opening line for Aliena his mind went blank. He could not help thinking of her as belonging to the older generation. She was so grave and responsible. She had not always been like that, he knew: at seventeen she had been quite playful. She had suffered terrible troubles since then, but the playful girl must still be there somewhere inside the solemn woman. For Jack that made her even more fascinating.
He was getting near her spot. The forest was quiet in the heat of the day. He moved silently through the undergrowth. He wanted to see her before she saw him. He was still not sure he had the nerve to approach her. Most of all he was afraid of putting her off. He had spoken to her on the very first day he returned to Kingsbridge, the Whitsunday that all the volunteers had come to work on the cathedral, and he had said the wrong thing then, with the result that he had hardly talked to her for four years. He did not want to make a similar blunder now.
A few moments later he peeped around the trunk of a beech tree and saw her.
She had picked an extraordinarily pretty place. There was a little waterfall trickling into a deep pool surrounded by mossy stones. The sun shone on the banks of the pool, but a yard or two back there was shade beneath the beech trees. Aliena sat in the dappled sunlight reading a book.
Jack was astonished. A woman? Reading a book? In the open air? The only people who read books were monks, and not many of them read anything except the services. It was an unusual book, too-much smaller than the tomes in the priory library, as if it had been made specially for a woman, or for someone who wanted to carry it around. He was so surprised that he forgot to be shy. He pushed his way through the bushes and came out into her clearing, saying: “What are you reading?”
She jumped, and looked up at him with terror in her eyes. He realized he had frightened her. He felt very clumsy, and was afraid he had once again started off on the wrong foot. Her right hand flew to her left sleeve. He recalled that she had once carried a knife in her sleeve-perhaps she did still. A moment later she recognized him, and her fear went as quickly as it had come. She looked relieved, and then-to his chagrin-faintly irritated. He felt unwelcome, and he would have liked to turn right around and disappear back into the forest. But that would have made it difficult to speak to her another time, so he stayed, and faced her rather unfriendly look, and said: “Sorry I frightened you.”
“You didn’t frighten me,” she said quickly.
He knew that was not true, but he was not going to argue with her. He repeated his initial question. “What are you reading?”
She glanced down at the bound volume on her knee, and her expression changed again: now she looked wistful. “My father got this book on his last trip to Normandy. He brought it home for me. A few days later he was put in jail.”
Jack edged closer and looked at the open page. “It’s in French!” he said.
“How do you know?” she said in astonishment. “Can you read?”
“Yes-but I thought all books were in Latin.”
“Nearly all. But this is different. It’s a poem called ‘The Romance of Alexander.’ ”
Jack was thinking: I’m really doing it-I’m talking to her! This is wonderful! But what am I going to say next? How can I keep this going? He said: “Um… well, what’s it about?”
“It’s the story of a king called Alexander the Great, and how he conquered wonderful lands in the east where precious stones grow on grapevines and plants can talk.”
Jack was sufficiently intrigued to forget his anxiety. “How do the plants talk? Do they have mouths?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“Do you think the story is true?”
She looked at him with interest, and he stared into her beautiful dark eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I always wonder whether stories are true. Most people don’t care-they just like the stories.”
“Except for the priests. They always think the sacred stories are true.”
“Well of course they are true.”
Jack was as skeptical of the sacred stories as he was of all the others; but his mother, who had taught him skepticism, had also taught him to be discreet, so he did not argue. He was trying not to look at Aliena’s bosom, which was just at the edge of his vision: he knew that if he dropped his eyes she would know what he was looking at. He tried to think of something else to say. “I know a lot of stories,” he said. “I know ‘The Song of Roland,’ and ‘The Pilgrimage of William of Orange’-”
“What do you mean, you know them?”
“I can recite them.”
“Like a jongleur?”
“What’s a jongleur?”
“A man who goes around telling stories.”
That was a new concept to Jack. “I never heard of such a man.”
“There are lots in France. I used to go overseas with my father when I was a child. I loved the jongleurs.”
“But what do they do? Just stand on the street and speak?”
“It depends. They come into the lord’s hall on feast days. They perform at markets and fairs. They entertain pilgrims outside churches. Great barons sometimes have their own jongleur.”
It occurred to Jack that not only was he talking to her, but he was having a conversation he could not have had with any other girl in Kingsbridge. He and Aliena were the only people in the town, apart from his mother, who knew about French romance poems, he was sure. They had an interest in common, and they were discussing it. The thought was so exciting that he lost track of what they were saying and he felt confused and stupid.
Fortunately she carried on. “Usually the jongleur plays the fiddle while he recites the story. He plays fast and high when there’s a battle, slow and sweet when two people are in love, jerky for a funny part.”
Jack liked that idea: background music to enhance the high points of the story. “I wish I could play the fiddle,” he said.
“Can you really recite stories?” she said.
He could hardly believe she was really interested in him, asking him questions about himself! And her face was even lovelier when it was animated by curiosity. “My mother taught me,” he said. “We used to live in the forest, just the two of us. She told me the stories again and again.”
“But how can you remember them? Some of them take days to tell.”
“I don’t know. It’s like knowing your way through the forest. You don’t keep the whole forest in your mind, but wherever you are, you know where to go next.” Glancing at the text of her book again, he was struck by something. He sat on the grass next to her to look more closely. “The rhymes are different,” he said.
She was not sure what he meant. “In what way?”
“They’re better. In ‘The Song of Roland,’ the word sword rhymes with horse, or lost, or with ball. In your book, sword rhymes with horde but not with horse; lord but not loss; board but not ball. It’s a completely different way of rhyming. But it’s better, much better. I like these rhymes.”
“Would you…” She looked diffident. “Would you tell me some of ‘The Song of Roland’?”
Jack shifted his position a little so that he could look at her. The intensity of her look, the sparkle of eagerness in her bewitching eyes, gave him a choking feeling. He swallowed hard, then began.
The lord and king of all France, Charles the Great
Has spent seven long years fighting in Spain.
He has conquered the highlands and the plain.
Before him not a single fort remains,
No town or city wall for him to break,
But Saragossa, on a high mountain
Ruled by King Marsilly the Saracen.
He serves Mahomed, to Apollo prays,
But even there he never will be safe.
Jack paused, and Aliena said: “You know it! You really do! Just like a jongleur!”
“You see what I mean about the rhymes, though.”
“Yes, but it’s the stories I like, anyway,” she said. Her eyes twinkled with delight. “Tell me some more.”
Jack felt as if he would faint with happiness. “If you like,” he said weakly. He looked into her eyes and began the second verse.
The first game of Midsummer Eve was eating the how-many bread. Like many of the games, it had a hint of superstition about it that made Philip uneasy. However, if he tried to ban every rite that smacked of the old religions, half the people’s traditions would be prohibited, and they would probably defy him anyway; so he exercised a discreet tolerance of most things, and took a firm line on one or two excesses.
The monks had set up tables on the grass at the western end of the priory close. Kitchen hands were already carrying steaming cauldrons across the courtyard. The prior was lord of the manor, so it was his responsibility to provide a feast for his tenants on important holidays. Philip’s policy was to be generous with food and mean with drink, so he served weak beer and no wine. Nevertheless there were five or six incorrigibles who managed to drink themselves insensible every feast day.
The leading citizens of Kingsbridge sat at Philip’s table: Tom Builder and his family; the senior master craftsmen, including Tom’s elder son, Alfred; and the merchants, including Aliena but not Malachi the Jew, who would join in the festivities later, after the service.
Philip called for silence and said grace; then he handed the how-many loaf to Tom. As the years went by, Philip valued Tom more and more. There were not many people who said what they meant and did what they said. Tom reacted to surprises, crises and disasters by calmly weighing up the consequences, assessing the damage and planning the best response. Philip looked at him fondly. Tom was very different today from the man who had walked into the priory five years ago begging for work. Then he had been exhausted, haggard, and so thin that his bones seemed to be on the point of poking through his weatherbeaten skin. In the intervening years he had filled out, especially since his woman came back. He was not fat, but there was flesh on his big frame, and the desperate look had long gone from his eyes. He was expensively dressed, in a tunic of Lincoln green, and soft leather shoes, and a belt with a silver buckle.
Philip had to ask the question that would be answered by the how-many bread. He said: “How many years will it take to finish the cathedral?”
Tom took a bite of the bread. It was baked with small, hard seeds, and as Tom spat the seeds into his hand, everyone counted aloud. Sometimes when this game was played, and someone got a big mouthful of seeds, it was found that nobody around the table could count high enough; but there was no danger of that today, with all the merchants and craftsmen present. The answer came to thirty. Philip pretended to be dismayed. Tom said: “I should live so long!” and everyone laughed.
Tom passed the bread to his wife, Ellen. Philip was very wary of this woman. Like the Empress Maud, she had power over men, a kind of power Philip could not compete with. The day Ellen was thrown out of the priory, she had done an appalling thing, a thing Philip could still hardly bring himself to think about. He had assumed she would never be seen again, but to his horror she had returned, and Tom had begged Philip to forgive her. Cleverly, Tom had argued that if God could forgive her sin, then Philip had no right to refuse. Philip suspected the woman was not very repentant. But Tom had asked on the day the volunteers had come and saved the cathedral, and Philip had found himself granting Tom’s wish against all his instincts. They had been married in the parish church, a small wooden building in the village that had been there longer than the priory. Since then Ellen had behaved herself, and had not given Philip reason to regret his decision. Nevertheless she made him uneasy.
Tom asked her: “How many men love you?”
She took a tiny bite of the bread, which made everyone laugh again. In this game the questions tended to be mildly suggestive. Philip knew that if he had not been present they would have been downright ribald.
Ellen counted three seeds. Tom pretended to be outraged. “I shall tell you who my three lovers are,” said Ellen. Philip hoped she was not going to say anything offensive. “The first is Tom. The second is Jack. And the third is Alfred.”
There was a round of applause for her wit, and the bread went on around the table. Next it was the turn of Tom’s daughter, Martha. She was about twelve years old, and shy. The bread predicted that she would have three husbands, which seemed most unlikely.
Martha passed the bread to Jack, and as she did so Philip saw a light of adoration in her eyes, and realized that she hero-worshiped her stepbrother.
Jack intrigued Philip. He had been an ugly child, with his carrot-colored hair and pale skin and bulging blue eyes, but now that he was a young man his features had composed themselves, as it were, and his face was so strikingly attractive that strangers would turn and stare. But in temperament he was as wild as his mother. He had very little discipline and he had no concept of obedience. As a stonemason’s laborer he had been almost useless, for instead of providing a steady stream of mortar and stones he would try to pile up a whole day’s supply, then go off and do something else. He was always disappearing. One day he had decided that none of the stones on the site suited the particular carving he had to do, so without telling anyone he had gone all the way to the quarry and picked out a stone he liked. He had brought it back on a borrowed pony two days later. But people forgave him his transgressions, partly because he was a truly exceptional stone carver, and partly because he was so likable-a trait he definitely had not inherited from his mother, in Philip’s opinion. Philip had given some thought to what Jack would do with his life. If he went into the Church he could easily end up a bishop.
Martha asked Jack: “How many years before you marry?”
Jack took a small bite: apparently he was keen to wed. Philip wondered if he had anyone in mind. To Jack’s evident dismay he got a mouthful of seeds, and as they were counted his face was a picture of indignation. The total came to thirty-one. “I’ll be forty-eight years old!” he protested. They all thought that was hilarious, except for Philip, who worked out the calculation, found it correct, and marveled that Jack had been able to figure it out so fast. Even Milius the bursar could not do that.
Jack was sitting next to Aliena. Philip realized he had seen those two together several times this summer. It was probably because they were both so bright. There were not many people in Kingsbridge who could talk to Aliena on her own level; and Jack, for all his ungovernable ways, was more mature than the other apprentices. Still Philip was intrigued by their friendship, for at their age five years was a big difference.
Jack passed the bread to Aliena and asked her the question he had been asked: “How many years until you marry?”
Everyone groaned, for it was too easy to ask the same question again. The game was supposed to be an exercise in wit and raillery. But Aliena, who was famous for the number of suitors she had turned down, made them laugh by taking a huge bite of bread, indicating that she did not want to marry. But her ploy was unsuccessful: she spat out only one seed.
If she was going to marry next year, Philip thought, the groom had not appeared on the scene yet. Of course he did not believe in the predictive power of the bread. The probability was that she would die an old maid-except that she was not a maiden, according to rumor, for she had been seduced, or raped, by William Hamleigh, people said.
Aliena passed the bread to her brother, Richard, but Philip did not hear what she asked him. He was still thinking about Aliena. Unexpectedly, both Aliena and Philip had failed to sell all their wool this year. The surplus was not great-less than a tenth of Philip’s stock, and an even smaller proportion for Aliena-but it was somewhat discouraging. After that, Philip had worried that Aliena would back out of the deal for next year’s wool, but she had stuck by her bargain, and paid him a hundred and seven pounds.
The big news of the Shiring Fleece Fair had been Philip’s announcement that next year Kingsbridge would be holding its own fair. Most people had welcomed the idea, for the rents and tolls charged by William Hamleigh at the Shiring fair were extortionate, and Philip was planning to set much lower rates. So far, Earl William had not made his reaction known.
By and large, Philip felt that the priory’s prospects were much brighter than they had seemed six months ago. He had overcome the problem caused by the closing of the quarry and defeated William’s attempt to shut down his market. Now his Sunday market was thriving again and paying for expensive stone from a quarry near Marlborough. Throughout the crisis, cathedral building had continued uninterrupted, although it had been a close thing. Philip’s only remaining anxiety was that Maud had not yet been crowned. Although she was indisputably in command, and she had been approved by the bishops, her authority rested only on her military might until there was a proper coronation. Stephen’s wife still held Kent, and the commune of London was ambivalent. A single stroke of misfortune, or one bad decision, could topple her, as the battle of Lincoln had destroyed Stephen, and then there would be anarchy again.
Philip told himself not to be pessimistic. He looked at the people around the table. The game had ended and they were tucking in to their dinner. They were honest, good-hearted men and women who worked hard and went to church. God would take care of them.
They ate vegetable pottage, baked fish flavored with pepper and ginger, a variety of ducks, and a custard cleverly colored with red and green stripes. After dinner they all carried their benches into the unfinished church for the play.
The carpenters had made two screens, which were placed in the side aisles, at the east end, closing the space between the aisle wall and the first pier of the arcade, so that they effectively hid the last bay of each aisle. The monks who would play the parts were already behind those screens, waiting to walk into the middle of the nave to act out the story. The one who would be Saint Adolphus, a beardless novice with an angelic face, was lying on a table at the far end of the nave, draped in a shroud, pretending to be dead and trying not to giggle.
Philip had mixed feelings about the play, as he did about the how-many bread. It could so easily slip into irreverence and vulgarity. But people loved it so much that if he had not permitted it they would have made their own play, outside the church, and free from his supervision it would have become thoroughly bawdy. Besides, the ones who loved it most were the monks who performed it. Dressing up and pretending to be someone else, and acting outrageously-even sacrilegiously-seemed to give them some kind of release, probably because they spent the rest of their lives being so solemn.
Before the play there was a regular service, which the sacrist kept brief. Philip then gave a short account of the spotless life and miraculous works of Saint Adolphus. Then he took his seat in the audience and settled down to watch the performance.
From behind the left-hand screen came a large figure dressed in what at first looked like shapeless, colorful garments, and on closer examination turned out to be pieces of brightly colored cloth wrapped around him and pinned. His face was painted and he carried a bulging moneybag. This was the rich barbarian. There was a murmur of admiration for his getup, followed by a ripple of laughter as people recognized the actor beneath the costume: it was fat Brother Bernard, the kitchener, whom they all knew and liked.
He paraded up and down several times, to let everyone admire him, and rushed at the little children in the front row, causing squeals of fright; then he crept up to the altar, looking around as if to make sure he was alone, and placed the moneybag behind it. He turned to the audience, leered, and said in a loud voice: “These foolish Christians will fear to steal my silver, for they imagine it is protected by Saint Adolphus. Ha!” He then retired behind the screen.
From the opposite side entered a group of outlaws, dressed in rags, carrying wooden swords and hatchets, their faces smeared with soot and chalk. They stalked around the nave, looking fearsome, until one of them saw the moneybag behind the altar. There followed an argument: should they steal it or not? The Good Outlaw argued that it would surely bring them bad luck; the Bad Outlaw said that a dead saint could do them no harm. In the end they took the money and retired into the corner to count it.
The barbarian reentered, looked everywhere for his money, and flew into a rage. He approached the tomb of Saint Adolphus and cursed the saint for failing to protect his treasure.
At that, the saint rose up from his grave.
The barbarian shuddered violently with terror. The saint ignored him and approached the outlaws. Dramatically, he struck them down one by one just by pointing at them. They simulated agonized death throes, rolling around on the ground, twisting their bodies into grotesque shapes and making hideous faces.
The saint spared only the Good Outlaw, who now put the money back behind the altar. With that the saint turned to the audience and said: “Beware, all you who may doubt the power of Saint Adolphus!”
The audience cheered and clapped. The actors stood in the nave grinning sheepishly for a while. The purpose of the drama was its moral, of course, but Philip knew that the parts people enjoyed most were the grotesqueries, the rage of the barbarian and the death throes of the outlaws.
When the applause died down Philip stood up, thanked the actors, and announced that the races would begin shortly in the pasture by the riverside.
This was the day that five-year-old Jonathan discovered he was not, after all, the fastest runner in Kingsbridge. He entered the children’s race, wearing his specially made monkish robe, and caused howls of laughter when he hitched it up around his waist and ran with his tiny bottom exposed to the world. However, he was competing with older children, and he finished among the last. His expression when he realized he had lost was so shocked and disappointed that Tom felt heartbroken for him, and picked him up to console him.
The special relationship between Tom and the priory orphan had grown gradually, and no one in the village had thought to wonder if there was a secret reason for it. Tom spent all day within the priory close, where Jonathan ran free, so it was inevitable that they saw a lot of one another; and Tom was at the age when a man’s children are too old to be cute but have not yet given him grandchildren, and he sometimes takes a fond interest in other people’s babies. As far as Tom knew, it had never crossed anyone’s mind to suspect that he was Jonathan’s father. If anything, people suspected that Philip was the boy’s real father. That was a much more natural supposition-though Philip would no doubt be horrified to hear it.
Jonathan spotted Aaron, the eldest son of Malachi, and wriggled out of Tom’s arms to go and play with his friend, the disappointment forgotten.
While the apprentices’ races were on, Philip came and sat on the grass beside Tom. It was a hot, sunny day, and there was perspiration on Philip’s shaved head. Tom’s admiration for Philip grew year by year. Looking all around, at the young men running their race, the old people dozing in the shade, and the children splashing in the river, he reflected that it was Philip who kept all this together. He ruled the village, administering justice, deciding where new houses should be built, and settling quarrels; he employed most of the men and many of the women too, either as building workers or priory servants; and he managed the priory, which was the beating heart of the organism. He fought off predatory barons, negotiated with the monarch, and kept the bishop at bay. All these well-fed people sporting in the sunshine owed their prosperity in some measure to Philip. Tom himself was the prime example.
Tom was very conscious of the depth of Philip’s clemency in pardoning Ellen. It was quite something for a monk to forgive what she had done. And it meant so much to Tom. When she went away, his joy at building the cathedral had been shadowed by loneliness. Now that she was back, he felt complete. She was still willful, maddening, quarrelsome and intolerant, but somehow these things were trifling: there was a passion inside her that burned like a candle in a lantern, and it lit up his life.
Tom and Philip watched a race in which the boys had to walk on their hands: Jack won it. “That boy is exceptional,” Philip said.
“Not many people can walk that fast on their hands,” Tom said.
Philip laughed. “Indeed-but I wasn’t thinking about his acrobatic skill.”
“I know.” Jack’s cleverness had long been a source of both pleasure and pain to Tom. Jack had a lively curiosity about building-something Alfred had always lacked-and Tom enjoyed teaching Jack the tricks of the trade. But Jack had no sense of tact, and would argue with his elders. It was often better to conceal one’s superiority, but Jack had not learned that yet, not even after years of persecution by Alfred.
“The boy should be educated,” Philip went on.
Tom frowned. Jack was being educated. He was an apprentice. “What do you mean?”
“He should learn to write a good hand, and study Latin grammar, and read the ancient philosophers.”
Tom was even more puzzled. “To what end? He’s going to be a mason.”
Philip looked him in the eye. “Are you sure?” he said. “He’s a boy who doesn’t do what he’s expected to.”
Tom had never considered this. There were youngsters who defied expectations: earls’ sons who refused to fight, royal children who entered monasteries, peasants’ bastards who became bishops. It was true, Jack was the type. “Well, what do you think he will do?” he said.
“It depends on what he learns,” Philip said. “But I want him for the Church.”
Torn was surprised: Jack seemed such an unlikely clergyman. Tom was also a little wounded, in a strange way. He was looking forward to Jack’s becoming a master mason, and he would be terribly disappointed if the boy chose another course in life.
Philip did not notice Tom’s unhappiness. He went on: “God needs the best and the brightest young men to work for him. Look at those apprentices, competing to see who can jump the highest. All of them are capable of being carpenters, or masons, or stone cutters. But how many of them could be a bishop? Only one-Jack.”
That was true, Tom thought. If Jack had the chance of a career in the Church, with a powerful patron in Philip, he should probably take it, for it would lead to much greater wealth and power than he could hope for as a mason. Reluctantly Tom said: “What have you got in mind, exactly?”
“I want Jack to become a novice monk.”
“A monk!” It seemed an even more unlikely calling than the priesthood for Jack. The boy chafed at the discipline of a building site-how would he cope with the monastic rule?
“He would spend most of his time studying,” Philip said. “He would learn everything our novice-master can teach him, and I would give him lessons myself as well.”
When a boy became a monk, it was normal for the parents to make a generous donation to the monastery. Tom wondered what this proposal would cost.
Philip guessed his thoughts. “I wouldn’t expect you to present a gift to the priory,” he said. “It will be enough that you give a son to God.”
What Philip did not know was that Tom had already given one son to the priory: little Jonathan, who was now paddling at the edge of the river with his robe once again hoisted up around his waist. However, Tom knew he should suppress his own feelings in this. Philip’s proposal was generous: he obviously wanted Jack badly. The offer was a tremendous opportunity for Jack. A father would give his right arm to be able to set a son on such a career. Tom suffered a twinge of resentment that it was his stepson, rather than Alfred, who was being given this marvelous chance. The feeling was unworthy and he suppressed it. He should be glad, and encourage Jack, and hope the lad would learn to reconcile himself to the monastic regime.
“It should be done soon,” Philip added. “Before he falls in love with some girl.”
Tom nodded. Across the meadow, the women’s race was reaching its climax. Tom watched, thinking. After a moment he realized that Ellen was in the lead. Aliena was hard on her heels, but when they got to the finish line Ellen was still a little ahead. She raised her hands in a victory gesture.
Tom pointed at her. “It’s not me who needs to be persuaded,” he said to Philip. “It’s her.”
Aliena was surprised to have been beaten by Ellen. Ellen was very young to be the mother of a seventeen-year-old, but still she had to be at least ten years older than Aliena. They smiled at one another now, as they stood panting and sweating at the finish line. Aliena observed that Ellen had lean, muscular brown legs and a compact figure. All those years of living in the forest had made her tough.
Jack came up to congratulate his mother on winning. They were very fond of one another, Aliena could tell. They looked completely different: Ellen was a tanned brunette, with deep-set golden-brown eyes, and Jack was a redhead with blue eyes. He must be like his father, Aliena thought. Nothing was ever said about Jack’s father, Ellen’s first husband. Perhaps they were ashamed of him.
As she looked at the two of them together, it occurred to Aliena that Jack must remind Ellen of the husband she had lost. That might be why she was so fond of him. Perhaps the son was, as it were, all she had left of a man she had adored. A physical resemblance could be inordinately powerful in that way. Aliena’s brother, Richard, sometimes reminded her of their father, with a look or a gesture, and that was when she felt a surge of affection; although it did not prevent her from wishing that Richard was more like his father in character.
She knew she ought not to be dissatisfied with Richard. He went to war and fought bravely, and that was all that was required of him. But she was dissatisfied a lot these days. She had wealth and security, a home and servants, fine clothes, pretty jewels, and a position of respect in the town. If anyone had asked her she would have said she was happy. But beneath the surface there was an undercurrent of restlessness. She never lost her enthusiasm for her work, but some mornings she wondered if it mattered what gown she put on and whether she wore jewelry. Nobody cared how she looked, so why should she? Paradoxically, she had become more conscious of her body. As she walked around, she could feel her breasts move. When she went down to the women’s beach at the riverside to bathe, she felt embarrassed about how hairy she was. Sitting on her horse she was aware of the parts of her body that were touching the saddle. It was quite peculiar. It was as if there were a snooper peeking at her all the time, trying to look through her clothes and see her naked, and the snooper was herself. She was invading her own privacy.
She lay down on the grass, puffed out. Perspiration ran between her breasts and down the insides of her thighs. Impatiently she turned her mind to a more immediate problem. She had not sold all her wool this year. It was not her fault: most of the merchants had been left with unsold fleece, and so had Prior Philip. Philip was very calm about the whole thing but Aliena was anxious. What was she to do with all this wool? She could keep it until next year, of course. But what if she failed to sell it again? She did not know how long it took raw wool to deteriorate. She had a feeling it might dry out, becoming brittle and difficult to work.
If things went badly wrong she would be unable to support Richard. Being a knight was a very expensive business. The war-horse, which had cost twenty pounds, had lost its nerve after the battle of Lincoln and was now next to useless; soon he would want another one. Aliena could afford it, but it made a big dent in her resources. He was embarrassed about being dependent upon her-it was not the usual situation for a knight-and he had hoped to make enough in plunder to support himself, but lately he had been on the losing side. If he was to regain the earldom, Aliena had to continue to prosper.
In her worst nightmare she lost all her money, and the two of them were destitute again, prey to dishonest priests, lecherous noblemen and bloodthirsty outlaws; and they ended up in the stinking dungeon where she had last seen her father, chained to the wall and dying.
To contrast with her nightmare, she had a dream of happiness. In it, she and Richard lived together in the castle, their old home. Richard ruled as wisely as their father had, and Aliena helped him as she had helped Father, welcoming important guests and dispensing hospitality and sitting on his left at the high table for dinner. But lately even that dream had left her discontented.
She shook her head, to dispel this melancholy mood, and thought about wool again. The simplest way to handle the problem was to do nothing. She could store the surplus wool until next year, and then, if she was unable to sell it, she would take the loss. She could bear it. However, that left the remote danger that the same thing would happen again next year, and this might be the beginning of a downward trend; so she cast about for some other solution. She had already tried to sell the wool to a weaver in Kingsbridge, but he had all he needed.
It occurred to her now, looking at the women of Kingsbridge as they recovered from their race, that most of them knew how to make cloth from raw wool. It was a tedious business, but simple: peasants had been doing it since Adam and Eve. The fleece had to be washed, then combed to take out the tangles, then spun into yarn. The yarn was woven into cloth; then the loosely woven fabric was felted, or fulled, to shrink and thicken it into something that could be used to make clothes. The townswomen would probably be willing to do that for a penny a day. But how long would it take? And what price would the finished cloth fetch?
She would have to try the scheme out with a small quantity. Then, if it worked, she could get several people doing the job during the long winter evenings.
She sat up, quite excited by her new idea. Ellen was lying right next to her. Jack was sitting on the other side of Ellen. He caught Aliena’s eye, smiled faintly, and looked away, as if he was a little embarrassed at having been caught looking at her. He was a funny boy, with a head full of ideas. Aliena could remember him as a small, peculiar-looking child who did not know how babies were conceived. But she had hardly noticed him when he came to live in Kingsbridge. And now he seemed so different, so completely a new person, that it was as if he had sprung up from nowhere, a flower that appears one morning where the previous day there was nothing but bare earth. For a start he was no longer peculiar-looking. In fact, she thought, regarding him with a faint smile of amusement, the girls probably thought he was terribly handsome. He certainly had a nice smile. She herself paid no attention to his looks, but she was a little intrigued by his astonishing imagination. She had discovered that not only did he know several verse narratives in full-some of them thousands and thousands of lines long-but he could also make them up as he went along, so that she was never sure whether he was remembering or extemporizing. And the stories were not the only surprising thing about him. He was curious about everything and puzzled by things that everyone else took for granted. One day he had asked where all the water in the river came from. “Every hour, thousands and thousands of gallons of water flow past Kingsbridge, night and day, all the year round. It’s been going on since before we were born, since before our parents were born, since before their parents were born. Where does it all come from? Is there a huge lake somewhere that feeds it? That lake must be as big as all England! What if one day it dries up?” He was always saying things like that, some of them less fanciful, and it made Aliena realize that she was starved of intelligent conversation. Most people in Kingsbridge could talk only about agriculture and adultery, neither of which interested her. Prior Philip was different, of course, but he did not often allow himself to indulge in idle talk: he was always busy, dealing with the building site, the monks, or the town. Aliena suspected that Tom Builder was also highly intelligent, but he was a thinker rather than a talker. Jack was the first real friend she had made. He was a marvelous discovery, despite his youth. Indeed, when she was away from Kingsbridge she had found herself looking forward to returning so that she could talk to him.
She wondered where he got his ideas from. That thought had made her notice Ellen. What a strange woman she must be, to raise a child in the forest! Aliena had talked to Ellen and found in her a kindred spirit, an independent and self-sufficient woman somewhat angry at the way life had treated her. Now, on impulse, Aliena said: “Ellen, where did you learn the stories?”
“From Jack’s father,” Ellen said without thinking, and then a guarded look came over her face, and Aliena knew she should not ask any more questions.
Another thought occurred to her. “Do you know how to weave?”
“Of course,” Ellen said. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Would you like to do some weaving for money?”
“Perhaps. What have you got in mind?”
Aliena explained. Ellen was not short of money, of course, but it was Tom who earned it, and Aliena had a suspicion that Ellen might like to make some for herself.
The suspicion turned out to be right. “Yes, I’ll give that a try,” Ellen said.
At that moment Ellen’s stepson, Alfred, came along. Like his father, Alfred was something of a giant. Most of his face was concealed behind a bushy beard, but the eyes above it were narrow-set, giving him a cunning look. He could read and write and add up, but despite that he was rather stupid. Nevertheless he had prospered, and he had his own gang of masons, apprentices and laborers. Aliena had observed that big men often gained positions of power regardless of their intelligence. As a ganger Alfred had another advantage, of course: he could always be sure of getting work for his men because his father was the master builder of Kingsbridge Cathedral.
He sat on the grass beside her. He had enormous feet shod in heavy leather boots that were gray with stone dust. She rarely spoke to him. They should have had a lot in common, for they were the only young people among the wealthier class of Kingsbridge, the class that lived in the houses nearest to the priory wall; but Alfred always seemed so dull. After a moment he spoke. “There ought to be a stone church,” he said abruptly.
Clearly the rest of them were supposed to figure out the context of this remark for themselves. Aliena thought for a moment then said: “Are you talking about the parish church?”
“Yes,” he said as if it was obvious.
The parish church was now used a good deal, for the cathedral crypt, which the monks were using, was cramped and airless, and the population of Kingsbridge had grown. Yet the parish church was an old wooden building with a thatched roof and a dirt floor.
“You’re right,” Aliena said. “We should have a stone church.”
Alfred was looking at her expectantly. She wondered what he wanted her to say.
Ellen, who was probably used to coaxing sense out of him, said: “What’s on your mind, Alfred?”
“How do churches get started, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, if we want a stone church, what do we do?”
Ellen shrugged. “No idea.”
Aliena frowned. “You could form a parish guild,” she suggested. A parish guild was an association of people who held a banquet every now and again and collected money among themselves, usually to buy candles for their local church, or to help widows and orphans in the neighborhood. Small villages never had guilds, but Kingsbridge was no longer a village.
“How would that do it?” Alfred said.
“The members of the guild would pay for the new church,” Aliena said.
“Then we should start a guild,” Alfred said.
Aliena wondered if she had misjudged him. He had never struck her as the pious type, but here he was trying to raise money to build a new church. Perhaps he had hidden depths. Then she realized that Alfred was the only building contractor in Kingsbridge, so he was sure to get the job of building the church. He might not be intelligent, but he was shrewd enough.
Nevertheless she still liked his idea. Kingsbridge was becoming a town, and towns always had more than one church. With an alternative to the cathedral, the town would not be so completely dominated by the monastery. At the moment Philip was the undisputed lord and master here. He was a benevolent tyrant, but she could foresee a time when it might suit the merchants of the town to have an alternative church.
Alfred said: “Would you explain about the guild to some of the others?”
Aliena had recovered her breath after the race. She was reluctant to exchange the company of Ellen and Jack for that of Alfred, but she was quite enthusiastic about his idea, and anyway it would have been a little churlish to refuse. “I’d be glad to,” she said, and she got up and went with him.
The sun was going down. The monks had lit the bonfire and were serving the traditional ale spiced with ginger. Jack wanted to ask his mother a question, now that they were alone, but he was nervous. Then someone started to sing, and he knew she would join in at any moment, so he blurted it out. “Was my father a jongleur?”
She looked at him. She was surprised but not cross. “Who taught you that word?” she said. “You’ve never seen a jongleur.”
“Aliena. She used to go to France with her father.”
Mother gazed across the darkling meadow toward the bonfire. “Yes, he was a jongleur. He told me all those poems, just the way I told them to you. And are you now telling them to Aliena?”
“Yes.” Jack felt a little bashful.
“You really love her, don’t you?”
“Is it so obvious?”
She smiled fondly. “Only to me, I think. She’s a lot older than you.”
“Five years.”
“You’ll get her, though. You’re like your father. He could have any woman he wanted.”
Jack was embarrassed to talk about Aliena but thrilled to hear about his father, and he was eager for more; but to his intense annoyance Tom came up at that moment and sat down with them. He began to speak immediately. “I’ve been talking to Prior Philip about Jack,” he said. His tone was light, but Jack sensed tension underneath, and saw trouble coming. “Philip says the boy should be educated.”
Mother’s response was predictably indignant. “He is educated,” she said. “He can read and write English and French, he knows his numbers, he can recite whole bookfuls of poetry-”
“Now, don’t misunderstand me willfully,” Tom said firmly. “Philip didn’t say that Jack is ignorant. Quite the opposite. He’s saying that Jack is so clever he should have more education.”
Jack was not pleased by these compliments. He shared his mother’s suspicion of churchmen. There was sure to be a catch in this somewhere.
“More?” Ellen said scornfully. “What more does that monk want him to learn? I’ll tell you. Theology. Latin. Rhetoric. Metaphysics. Cow shit.”
“Don’t dismiss it so quickly,” Tom said mildly. “If Jack takes up Philip’s offer, and goes to school, and learns to write at speed in a good secretary’s hand, and studies Latin and theology and all the other subjects you call cow shit, he could become a clerk to an earl or a bishop, and eventually he could be a wealthy and powerful man. Not all barons are the sons of barons, as the saying goes.”
Ellen’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “If he takes up Philip’s offer, you said. What is Philip’s offer, exactly?”
“That Jack becomes a novice monk-”
“Over my dead body!” Ellen shouted, leaping to her feet. “The damned Church is not having my son! Those treacherous lying priests took his father but they’re not taking him, I’ll put a knife in Philip’s belly first, so help me, I swear by all the gods.”
Tom had seen Mother in a tantrum before and he was not as impressed as he might have been. He said calmly: “What the devil is the matter with you, woman? The boy has been offered a magnificent opportunity.”
Jack was intrigued most of all by the words Those treacherous lying priests took his father. What did she mean by that? He wanted to ask her but he did not get the chance.
“He’s not going to be a monk!” she yelled.
“If he doesn’t want to be a monk, he doesn’t have to.”
Mother looked sulky. “That sly prior has a knack of getting his own way in the end,” she said.
Tom turned to Jack. “It’s about time you said something, lad. What do you want to do with your life?”
Jack had never thought about that particular question, but the answer came out with no hesitation, as if he had made up his mind long ago. “I’m going to be a master builder, like you,” he said. “I’m going to build the most beautiful cathedral the world has ever seen.”
The red edge of the sun dropped below the horizon and night fell. It was time for the last ritual of Midsummer Eve: floating wishes. Jack had a candle end and a piece of wood ready. He looked at Ellen and Tom. They were both gazing at him, somewhat nonplussed: his certainty about his future had surprised them. Well, no wonder: it had surprised him too.
Seeing that they had no more to say, he jumped to his feet and ran across the meadow to the bonfire. He lit a dry twig at the fire, melted the base of his candle a little, and stuck it to the piece of wood; then he lit the wick. Most of the villagers were doing the same. Those who could not afford a candle made a sort of boat with dried grass and rushes, and twisted the grasses together in the middle to make a wick.
Jack saw Aliena standing quite near him. Her face was outlined by the red glow of the bonfire, and she looked deep in thought. On impulse he said: “What will you wish for, Aliena?”
She answered him without pausing for thought. “Peace,” she said. Then, looking somewhat startled, she turned away.
Jack wondered if he were crazy to love her. She liked him well enough-they had become friends-but the idea of lying naked together and kissing one another’s hot skin was as far from her heart as it was close to his own.
When everyone was ready, they knelt down beside the river, or waded into the shallows. Holding their flickering lights, they all made a wish. Jack closed his eyes tight and visualized Aliena, lying in a bed with her breasts peeping over the coverlet, holding her arms out to him and saying: “Make love to me, husband.” Then they all carefully floated their lights on the water. If the float sank or the flame blew out, it meant you would never get your wish. As soon as Jack let go, and the little craft moved away, the wooden base became invisible, and only the flame could be seen. He watched it intently for a while, then he lost track of it among the hundreds of dancing lights, bobbing on the surface of the water, flickering wishes floating downstream until they disappeared around the bend of the river and were lost from view.
All that summer, Jack told Aliena stories.
They met on Sundays, occasionally at first and then regularly, in the glade by the little waterfall. He told her about Charlemagne and his knights, and William of Orange and the Saracens. He became completely absorbed in the stories while he was telling them. Aliena liked to watch the expressions change on his young face. He was indignant about injustice, appalled by treachery, thrilled by the bravery of a knight and moved to tears by a heroic death; and his emotions were catching, so that she too was moved. Some of the poems were too long to recite in one afternoon, and when he had to tell a story in installments he always broke off at a moment of tension, so that Aliena spent all week wondering what would happen next.
She never told anyone about these meetings. She was not sure why. Perhaps it was that they would not understand the fascination of stories. Whatever the reason, she just let people believe that she was going on her usual Sunday afternoon ramble; and without consulting her Jack did the same; then it got to the point where they could not tell anyone without appearing to confess to something they felt guilty about; and so, rather by accident, the meetings became secret.
One Sunday Aliena read “The Romance of Alexander” to him, just for a change. Unlike Jack’s poems of courtly intrigue, international politics and sudden death in battle, Aliena’s romance featured love affairs and magic. Jack was very taken with these new storytelling elements, and the following Sunday he embarked upon a new romance of his own invention.
It was a hot day in late August. Aliena was wearing sandals and a light linen dress. The forest was still and silent but for the tinkling of the waterfall and the rise and fall of Jack’s voice. The story began in a conventional way, with a description of a brave knight, big and strong, mighty in battle, and armed with a magic sword, who was assigned a difficult task: to travel to a far eastern land and bring back a grapevine that grew rubies. But it rapidly deviated from the usual pattern. The knight was killed and the story focused on his squire, a brave but penniless young man of seventeen who was hopelessly in love with the king’s daughter, a beautiful princess. The squire vowed to fulfill the task given to his master, even though he was young and inexperienced and had only a piebald pony and a bow.
Instead of vanquishing an enemy with one tremendous blow of a magic sword, as the hero generally did in these stories, the squire fought desperate losing battles and won only by luck or ingenuity, generally escaping death by a hair. He was often scared by the enemies that he faced-unlike Charlemagne’s fearless knights-but he never turned back from his mission. All the same, his task, like his love, seemed hopeless.
Aliena found herself more captivated by the pluck of the squire than she had been by the might of his master. She chewed her knuckles in anxiety when he rode into enemy territory, gasped when a giant’s sword barely missed him, and sighed when he lay down his lonely head to sleep and dream of the faraway princess. His love for her seemed of a piece with his general indomitability.
In the end, he brought home the grapevine that grew rubies, astonishing the entire court. “But the squire did not care that much,” Jack said with a contemptuous snap of his fingers, “for all those barons and earls. He was interested in one person only. That night, he stole into her room, evading the guards with a cunning ruse he had learned on his journey east. At last he stood beside her bed and gazed upon her face.” Jack looked into Aliena’s eyes as he said this. “She woke at once, but she was not afraid. The squire reached out and gently took her hand.” Jack mimed the story, reaching for Aliena’s hand and holding it in both of his. She was mesmerized by the intensity of his gaze and the power of the young squire’s love, and she hardly noticed that Jack was holding her hand. “He said to her, ‘I love you dearly,’ and kissed her on the lips.” Jack leaned over and kissed Aliena. His lips touched hers so gently that she hardly felt it. It happened very quickly, and he resumed the story instantly. “The princess fell asleep,” he continued. Aliena thought: Did that really happen? Did Jack kiss me? She could hardly believe it, but she could still feel the touch of his mouth on hers. “The next day, the squire asked the king if he could marry the princess, as his reward for bringing home the jeweled vine.” Jack kissed me without thinking, Aliena decided. It was just part of the story. He doesn’t even realize what he did. I’ll just forget about it. “The king refused him. The squire was heartbroken. All the courtiers laughed. That very day the squire left that land, riding on his piebald pony; but he vowed that one day he would return, and on that day he would marry the beautiful princess.” Jack stopped, and let go of Aliena’s hand.
“And then what happened?” she said.
“I don’t know,” Jack replied. “I haven’t thought of it yet.”
All the important people in Kingsbridge joined the parish guild. It was a new idea to most of them, but they liked the thought that Kingsbridge was now a town, not a village, and their vanity was touched by the appeal to them, as leading citizens, to provide a stone church.
Aliena and Alfred recruited the members and organized the first guild dinner, in mid-September. The major absentees were Prior Philip, who was somewhat hostile to the enterprise, although not enough to prohibit it; Tom Builder, who declined because of Philip’s feeling; and Malachi, who was excluded by his religion.
Meanwhile, Ellen had woven a bale of cloth from Aliena’s surplus wool. It was coarse and colorless, but it was good enough for monks’ robes, and the priory cellarer, Cuthbert Whitehead, had bought it. The price was cheap, but it was still double the cost of the original wool, and even after paying Ellen a penny a day Aliena was better off by half a pound. Cuthbert was keen to buy more cloth at that price, so Aliena bought Philip’s surplus wool to add to her own stock, and found a dozen more people, mostly women, to weave it. Ellen agreed to make another bale, but she would not felt it, for she said the work was too hard; and most of the others said the same.
Aliena sympathized. Felting, or fulling, was heavy work. She remembered how she and Richard had gone to a master fuller in Winchester and asked him to employ them. The fuller had had two men pounding cloth with bats in a trough while a woman poured water in. The woman had shown Aliena her raw, red hands, and when the men had put a bale of wet cloth on Richard’s shoulder it had brought him to his knees. Most people could manage to felt a small amount, enough to make clothes for themselves and their families, but only strong men could do it all day. Aliena told her weavers to go ahead and make loose-woven cloth, and she would hire men to felt it, or sell it to a master fuller in Winchester.
The guild dinner was held in the wooden church. Aliena organized the food. She parceled out the cooking among the members, most of whom had at least one domestic servant. Alfred and his men constructed a long table made of trestles and boards. They bought strong ale and a barrel of wine.
They sat at either side of the table, with nobody at the head or foot, for all were to be equal within the guild. Aliena wore a deep-red silk dress ornamented by a gold brooch with rubies in it, and a dark gray pelisse with fashionably wide sleeves. The parish priest said grace: he of course was delighted by the idea of the guild, for a new church would increase his prestige and multiply his income.
Alfred presented a budget and timetable for the building of the new church. He spoke as if this were all his own work, but Aliena knew that Tom had done most of it. The building would take two years and cost ninety pounds, and Alfred proposed that the guild’s forty members should each pay sixpence a week. It was a little more than some of them had reckoned on, Aliena could tell by their faces. They all agreed to pay it, but Aliena thought the guild could expect one or two to default.
She herself could pay it easily. Looking around the table, she realized she was probably the richest person there. She was in a small minority of women: the only others were a brewster with a reputation for good strong ale, a tailor who employed two seamstresses and some apprentices, and the widow of a shoemaker, who managed the business her husband had left. Aliena was the youngest woman there, and younger than any of the men except Alfred, who was a year or two younger than she.
Aliena missed Jack. She had not yet heard the second installment of the story of the young squire. Today was a holiday, and she would have liked to meet him in the glade. Perhaps she still could, later on.
The talk around the table was of the civil war. Stephen’s wife, Queen Matilda, had put up more of a fight than anyone expected: she had recently taken the city of Winchester and captured Robert of Gloucester. Robert was the brother of the Empress Maud and the commander in chief of her military forces. Some people said Maud was only a figurehead, and Robert was the true leader of the rebellion. In any event, the capture of Robert was almost as bad for Maud as the capture of Stephen had been for the loyalists, and everyone had an opinion on what direction the war would take next.
The drink at this feast was stronger than that provided by Prior Philip, and as the meal progressed, the revelers became quite raucous. The parish priest failed to act as a restraining influence, probably because he was drinking as much as anyone else. Alfred, who was sitting next to Aliena, seemed preoccupied, but even he became flushed. Aliena herself was not fond of strong drink, and she took a cup of apple cider with her dinner.
When most of the food was finished, someone proposed a toast to Alfred and Aliena. Alfred beamed with pleasure as he acknowledged it. After that the singing began, and Aliena started to wonder how soon she could slip away.
Alfred said to her: “We did well, together.”
Aliena smiled. “Let’s see how many of them are still paying sixpence a week this time next year.”
Alfred did not want to hear about misgivings or qualifications today. “We did well,” he repeated. “We’re a good team.” He raised his cup to her and drank. “Don’t you think we’re a good team?”
“We certainly are,” she said, to humor him.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he went on. “Doing this with you-the guild, I mean.”
“I’ve enjoyed it, too,” she said politely.
“Have you? That makes me very happy.”
She looked at him more carefully. Why was he laboring the point? His speech was clear and precise, and he showed no signs of real drunkenness. “It’s been fine,” she said neutrally.
He put a hand on her shoulder. She hated to be touched, but she had trained herself not to flinch, because men became so offended. “Tell me something,” he said, lowering his voice to an intimate level. “What are you looking for in a husband?”
Surely he’s not going to ask me to marry him, she thought dismally. She gave her standard answer. “I don’t need a husband-my brother is trouble enough.”
“But you need love,” he said.
She groaned inwardly.
She was about to reply when he held up a hand to stop her-a masculine habit she found particularly maddening. “Don’t tell me you don’t need love,” he said. “Everybody needs love.”
She gazed at him steadily. She knew there was something peculiar about her: most women were keen to get married; and if they were still single, as she was, at the age of twenty-two, they were more than keen, they were desperate. What’s wrong with me? she thought. Alfred was young, fit and prosperous: half the girls in Kingsbridge would like to marry him. For a moment she toyed with the idea of saying yes. But the thought of actually living with Alfred, eating supper with him every night and going to church with him and giving birth to his children, was appalling. She would rather be lonely. She shook her head. “Forget it, Alfred,” she said firmly. “I don’t need a husband, for love or anything else.”
He was not to be discouraged. “I love you, Aliena,” he said. “Working with you, I’ve been truly happy. I need you. Will you be my wife?”
He had said it now. She was sorry, for it meant she had to reject him formally. She had learned that there was no point in trying to do this gently, either: they took a kindly refusal as a sign of indecision, and pressed her all the more. “No, I won’t,” she said. “I don’t love you and I haven’t much enjoyed working with you, and I wouldn’t marry you if you were the only man on earth.”
He was hurt. He must have thought his chances were strong. Aliena was sure she had done nothing to encourage him. She had treated him as an equal partner, listened to him when he spoke, talked to him frankly and directly, fulfilled her responsibilities and expected him to fulfill his. But some men took that for encouragement. “How can you say that?” he spluttered.
She sighed. He was wounded, and she felt sorry for him; but in a moment he would be indignant, and act as if she had made an unfair accusation against him; then finally he would convince himself that she had gratuitously insulted him, and he would become offensive. Not all rejected suitors behaved like that, but a certain type did, and Alfred was that type. She was going to have to leave.
She stood up. “I respect your proposal, and I thank you for the honor you do me,” she said. “Please respect my refusal, and don’t ask me again.”
“I suppose you’re running off to see my snotnosed little stepbrother,” he said nastily. “I can’t imagine he gives you much of a ride.”
Aliena flushed with embarrassment. So people were beginning to notice her friendship with Jack. Trust Alfred to put a smutty interpretation on it. Well she was running off to see Jack, and she was not going to let Alfred stop her. She bent down and thrust her face into his. He was startled. Quietly and deliberately she said: “Go. To. Hell.” Then she turned and went out.
Prior Philip held court in the crypt once a month. In the old days it had been once a year, and even then the business rarely took all day. But when the population trebled, law-breaking had increased tenfold.
The nature of crime had changed, too. Formerly, most offenses had to do with land, crops or livestock. A greedy peasant would try surreptitiously to move the boundary of a field so as to extend his land at the expense of a neighbor; a laborer would steal a sack of corn from the widow he worked for; a poor woman with too many children would milk a cow that was not hers. Nowadays most of the cases involved money, Philip thought, as he sat through his court on the first day of December. Apprentices stole money from their masters, a husband took his wife’s mother’s savings, merchants passed dud coinage, and wealthy women underpaid simpleminded servants who could hardly count their weekly wages. There had been no such crimes in Kingsbridge five years ago, because then nobody had much cash.
Philip dealt with nearly all offenses by a fine. He could also have people flogged, or put in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cell beneath the monks’ dormitory, but these punishments were rarer, and reserved mainly for crimes of violence. He had the right to hang thieves, and the priory owned a stout wooden gallows; but he had never used it, not yet, and he cherished a secret hope that he never would. The most serious crimes-murder, killing the king’s deer, and highway robbery-were dealt with by the king’s court at Shiring, presided over by the sheriff, and Sheriff Eustace did more than enough hanging.
Today Philip had seven cases of unauthorized grain grinding. He left them until the end and dealt with them all together. The priory had just built a new water mill to run alongside the old one-Kingsbridge needed two mills now. But the new building had to be paid for, which meant that everyone had to bring their grain to be ground at the priory. Strictly speaking, that had always been the law, as it was in every manor in the country: peasants were not allowed to grind grain at home; they had to pay the lord to do it for them. In recent years, as the town grew and the old mill began to break down frequently, Philip had overlooked a growing amount of illicit grinding; but now he had to clamp down.
He had the names of the offenders scratched on a slate, and he read them out, one by one, beginning with the wealthiest. “Richard Longacre, you had a large grindstone turned by two men, Brother Franciscus says.” Franciscus was the priory’s miller.
A prosperous-looking yeoman stepped forward. “Yes, my lord prior, but I’ve broken it now.”
“Pay sixty pence. Enid Brewster, you had a handmill in your brewery. Eric Enidson was seen using it, and he is charged too.”
“Yes, lord,” said Enid, a red-faced woman with powerful shoulders.
“And where is the handmill now?” Philip asked her.
“I threw it in the river, Lord.”
Philip did not believe her, but there was not much he could do about it. “Fined twenty-four pence, and twelve for your son. Walter Tanner?”
Philip went on down the list, fining people according to the scale of their illegitimate operations, until he came to the last and poorest. “Widow Goda?”
A pinch-faced old woman in faded black clothes stepped forward.
“Brother Franciscus saw you grinding grain with a stone.”
“I didn’t have a penny for the mill, lord,” she said resentfully.
“You had a penny to buy grain, though,” Philip said. “You shall be punished like everyone else.”
“Would you have me starve?” she said defiantly.
Philip sighed. He wished Brother Franciscus had pretended not to notice Goda breaking the law. “When was the last time someone starved to death in Kingsbridge?” he said. He looked around at the assembled citizens. “Anybody remember the last time someone starved to death in our town?” He paused for a moment, as if waiting for a reply, then said: “I think you’ll find it was before my time.”
Goda said: “Dick Shorthouse died last winter.”
Philip remembered the man, a beggar who slept in pigsties and stables. “Dick fell down drunk in the street at midnight and froze to death when it snowed,” he said. “He didn’t starve, and if he’d been sober enough to walk to the priory, he wouldn’t have been cold either. If you’re hungry, don’t try to cheat me-come to me for charity. And if you’re too proud to do that, and you would rather break the law instead, you must take your punishment like everyone else. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Lord,” the old woman said sulkily.
“Fined a farthing,” Philip said. “Court is over.”
He stood up and went out, climbing the stairs that led up to ground level from the crypt.
Work on the new cathedral had slowed dramatically, as it always did a month or so before Christmas. The exposed edges and tops of the unfinished stonework were covered with straw and dung-the litter from the priory stables-to keep the frost off the new masonry. The masons could not build in the winter, because of the frost, they said. Philip had asked why they could not uncover the walls every morning and cover them again at night: it was not often frosty in the daytime. Tom said that walls built in winter fell down. Philip believed that, but he did not think it was because of the frost. He thought the real reason might be that the mortar took several months to set properly. The winter break allowed it to get really hard before the new year’s masonry was built on top. That would also explain the masons’ superstition that it was bad luck to build more than twenty feet high in a single year: more than that, and the lower courses might become deformed by the weight on them before the mortar could harden.
Philip was surprised to see all the masons out in the open, in what would be the chancel of the church. He went to see what they were doing.
They had made a semicircular wooden arch and stood it upright, propped up with poles on both sides. Philip knew that the wooden arch was a piece of what they called falsework: its purpose was to support the stone arch while it was being built. Now, however, the masons were assembling the stone arch at ground level, without mortar, to make sure the stones fit together perfectly. Apprentices and laborers were lifting the stones onto the falsework while the masons looked on critically.
Philip caught Tom’s eye and said: “What’s this for?”
“It’s an arch for the tribune gallery.”
Philip looked up reflexively. The arcade had been finished last year and the gallery above it would be completed next year. Then only the top level, the clerestory, would remain to be built before the roof went on. Now that the walls had been covered up for the winter, the masons were cutting the stones ready for next year’s work. If this arch was right, the stones for all the others would be cut to the same patterns.
The apprentices, among whom was Tom’s stepson, Jack, built the arch up from either side, with the wedge-shaped stones called voussoirs. Although the arch would eventually be built high up in the church, it would have elaborate decorative moldings; so each stone bore, on the surface that would be visible, a line of large dogtooth carving, another line of small medallions, and a bottom line of simple roll molding. When the stones were put together, the carvings lined up exactly, forming three continuous arcs, one of dogtooth, one of medallions and one of roll molding. This gave the impression that the arch was constructed of several semicircular hoops of stone one on top of another, whereas, in fact, it was made of wedges placed side by side. However, the stones had to fit together precisely, otherwise the carvings would not line up and the illusion would be spoiled.
Philip watched while Jack lowered the central keystone into place. Now the arch was complete. Four masons picked up sledgehammers and knocked out the wedges that supported the wooden falsework a few inches above the ground. Dramatically, the wooden support fell. Although there was no mortar between the stones, the arch remained standing. Tom Builder gave a grunt of satisfaction.
Someone pulled at Philip’s sleeve. He turned to see a young monk. “You’ve got a visitor, Father. He’s waiting in your house.”
“Thank you, my son.” Philip left the builders. If the monks had put the visitor in the prior’s house to wait, that meant it was someone important. He crossed the close and went into his house.
The visitor was his brother, Francis. Philip embraced him warmly. Francis looked careworn. “Have you been offered something to eat?” Philip said. “You seem weary.”
“They gave me some bread and meat, thanks. I’ve spent the autumn riding between Bristol, where King Stephen was imprisoned, and Rochester, where Earl Robert was held.”
“You said was.”
Francis nodded. “I’ve been negotiating a swap: Stephen for Robert. It was done on All Saints’ Day. King Stephen is now back in Winchester.”
Philip was surprised. “It seems to me that the Empress Maud got the worst of the bargain-she gave a king to get an earl.”
Francis shook his head. “She was helpless without Robert. Nobody likes her, nobody trusts her. Her support was collapsing. She had to have him back. Queen Matilda was clever. She wouldn’t take anything less than King Stephen in exchange. She held out for that and in the end she got it.”
Philip went to the window and looked out. It had started to rain, a cold slantwise rain blowing across the building site, darkening the high walls of the cathedral and dripping off the low thatched roofs of the craftsmen’s lodges. “What does it mean?” he said.
“It means that Maud is once again just an aspirant to the throne. After all, Stephen has actually been crowned, whereas Maud never was, not quite.”
“But it was Maud who licensed my market.”
“Yes. That could be a problem.”
“Is my license invalid?”
“No. It was properly granted by a legitimate ruler who had been approved by the Church. The fact that she wasn’t crowned doesn’t make any difference. But Stephen could withdraw it.”
“The market is paying for the stone,” Philip said anxiously. “I can’t build without it. This is bad news indeed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What about my hundred pounds?”
Francis shrugged. “Stephen will tell you to get it back from Maud.”
Philip felt sick. “All that money,” he said. “It was God’s money, and I lost it.”
“You haven’t lost it yet,” Francis said. “Stephen may not revoke your license. He’s never shown much interest in markets one way or the other.”
“Earl William may pressure him.”
“William changed allegiance, remember? He threw his lot in with Maud. He won’t have much influence with Stephen anymore.”
“I hope you’re right,” Philip said fervently. “I hope to God you’re right.”
When it got too cold to sit in the glade, Aliena took to visiting Tom Builder’s house in the evenings. Alfred was normally at the alehouse, so the family group consisted of Tom, Ellen, Jack and Martha. Now that Tom was doing so well, they had comfortable seats, and a roaring fire, and plenty of candles. Ellen and Aliena would work at the weaving. Tom would draw plans and diagrams, scratching his drawings with a sharp stone onto polished pieces of slate. Jack would pretend to be making a belt, or sharpening knives, or weaving a basket, although he would spend most of the time furtively staring at Aliena’s face in the candlelight, watching her lips move as she talked or studying her white throat as she drank a glass of ale. They laughed a lot that winter. Jack loved to make Aliena laugh. She was so controlled and reserved, in general, that it was a joy to see her let herself go, almost like catching a glimpse of her naked. He was constantly thinking of things to say to amuse her. He would do impressions of the craftsmen on the building site, imitating the accent of a Parisian mason or the bowlegged walk of a blacksmith. Once he invented a comical account of life with the monks, giving each of them plausible sins-pride for Remigius, gluttony for Bernard Kitchener, drunkenness for the guest-master, and lust for Pierre Circuitor. Martha was often helpless with laughter and even the taciturn Tom cracked a smile.
It was on one such evening that Aliena said: “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sell all this cloth.”
They were somewhat taken aback. Ellen said: “Then why are we weaving it?”
“I haven’t given up hope,” Aliena said. “I’ve just got a problem.”
Tom looked up from his slate. “I thought the priory was eager to buy it all.”
“That’s not the problem. I can’t find people to do the felting, and the priory doesn’t want loose-woven cloth-nor does anyone else.”
Ellen said: “Felting is backbreaking work. I’m not surprised no one will do it.”
“Can’t you get men to do it?” Tom suggested.
“Not in prosperous Kingsbridge. All the men have work enough. In the big towns there are professional fullers, but most of them work for weavers, and they’re prohibited from felting for their employer’s rivals. Anyway, it would cost too much to cart the cloth to Winchester and back.”
“It’s a real problem,” Tom acknowledged, and went back to his drawing.
Jack was struck by a thought. “It’s a pity we can’t get oxen to do it.”
The others laughed. Tom said: “You might as try to teach an ox to build churches.”
“Or a mill,” Jack persisted. “There are usually easy ways to do the hardest work.”
“She wants to felt the cloth, not grind it,” Tom said.
Jack was not listening. “We use lifting gear, and winding wheels, to raise stones up to the high scaffolding.”
Aliena said: “Oh, if there was some ingenious mechanism to get this cloth felted, it would be wonderful.”
Jack thought how pleased she would be if he could solve this problem for her. He determined to find a way.
Tom said thoughtfully: “I’ve heard of a water mill being used to work the bellows in a forge-but I’ve never seen it.”
“Really!” Jack said. “That proves it!”
Tom said: “A mill wheel goes round and round, and a grindstone goes round and round, so the one can drive the other; but a fuller’s bat goes up and down. You can’t make a round waterwheel drive an up-and-down bat.”
“But a bellows goes up and down.”
“True, true; but I never saw that forge, I only heard tell of it.”
Jack tried to picture the machinery of a mill. The force of the water drove the mill wheel around. The shaft of the mill wheel was connected to another wheel inside the mill. The inside wheel, which was upright, had teeth that interlocked with the teeth of another wheel which lay flat. The flat wheel turned the millstone. “An upright wheel can drive a flat wheel,” Jack muttered, thinking aloud.
Martha laughed. “Jack, stop! If mills could felt cloth, clever people would have thought of it already.”
Jack ignored her. “The fuller’s bats could be fixed to the shaft of the mill wheel,” he said. “The cloth could be laid flat where the bats fall.”
Tom said: “But the bats would strike once, then get stuck; and the wheel would stop. I told you-wheels go round and round, but bats have to go up and down.”
“There must be a way,” Jack said stubbornly.
“There’s no way,” Tom said decisively, in the tone of voice he used to close a conversational subject.
“I bet there is, though,” Jack muttered rebelliously; and Tom pretended not to hear.
On the following Sunday, Jack disappeared.
He went to church in the morning, and ate his dinner at home, as usual; but he did not appear at suppertime. Aliena, was in her own kitchen, making a thick broth of ham and cabbage with pepper in it, when Ellen came looking for Jack.
“I haven’t seen him since mass,” Aliena said.
“He vanished after dinner,” Ellen said. “I assumed he was with you.”
Aliena felt a little embarrassed that Ellen should have made that assumption so readily. “Are you worried?”
Ellen shrugged. “A mother is always worried.”
“Has he quarreled with Alfred?” Aliena said nervously.
“I asked the same question. Alfred says not.” Ellen sighed. “I don’t suppose he’s come to any harm. He’s done this before and I daresay he’ll do it again. I never taught him to keep regular hours.”
Later in the evening, just before bedtime, Aliena called at Tom’s house to see whether Jack had reappeared. He had not. She went to bed worried. Richard was away in Winchester, so she was alone. She kept thinking Jack might have fallen into the river and drowned, or something. How terrible that would be for Ellen: Jack was her only son. Tears came to Aliena’s eyes when she imagined Ellen’s grief at losing Jack. This is stupid, she thought: I’m crying over someone else’s sorrow about something that hasn’t happened. She pulled herself together and tried to think of another subject. The surplus cloth was her big problem. Normally she could worry about business half the night, but tonight her mind kept returning to Jack. Suppose he had broken his leg, and was lying in the forest, unable to move?
Eventually she drifted into a restless sleep. She woke at first light, still feeling tired. She threw on her heavy cloak over her nightshirt, and pulled on her fur-lined boots, then went outside to look for him.
He was not in the garden behind the alehouse, where men commonly fell asleep, and were saved from freezing by the heat of the fetid dunghill. She went down to the bridge and walked fearfully along the bank to a bend in the river where debris was washed up. A family of ducks was scavenging among the bits of wood, wornout shoes, rusty discarded knives and rotting meat bones on the beach. Jack was not there, thank God.
She went back up the hill and into the priory close, where the cathedral builders were beginning their day’s work. She found Tom in his shed. “Has Jack come back?” she said hopefully.
Tom shook his head. “Not yet.”
As she was going out, the master carpenter came up, looking worried. “All our hammers have gone,” he said to Tom.
“That’s funny,” Tom said. “I’ve been looking for a hammer and can’t find one.”
Then Alfred put his head around the door and said: “Where are all the masons’ bolsters?”
Tom scratched his head. “It seems as if every hammer on the site has disappeared,” he said in a baffled voice. Then his expression changed, and he said: “That boy Jack is behind this, I’ll bet.”
Of course, Aliena thought. Hammers. Felting. The mill.
Without saying what she was thinking, she left Tom’s shed and hurried across the priory close, going past the kitchen, to the southwest corner, where a channel diverted from the river drove two mills, one old and the other brand-new. As she had suspected, the wheel of the old mill was turning. She went inside.
What she saw confused and frightened her at first. There was a row of hammers fixed to a horizontal pole. Apparently of their own volition the hammers lifted their heads, like horses looking up from the manger. Then they went down again, all together, and struck simultaneously with a mighty bang that made her heart stop. She gave a cry of shock. The hammers lifted their heads, as if they had heard her cry, then they struck again. They were pounding a length of her loose-woven cloth that lay in an inch or two of water in a shallow wooden trough of the type used by mortar makers on the building site. The hammers were felting the cloth, she realized, and she stopped being frightened, although they still looked disturbingly alive. But how was it done? She saw that the pole on which the hammers were fixed ran parallel with the shaft of the mill wheel. A plank fixed to the shaft went round and round as the shaft turned. When the plank came around, it connected with the handles of the hammers, pushing the handles down so that the heads came up. As the plank continued to turn the handles were released. Then the hammers fell and pounded the cloth in the trough. It was exactly what Jack had talked about that evening: a mill that could felt cloth.
She heard his voice. “The hammers should be weighted so that they fall harder.” She turned around and saw him, looking tired but triumphant. “I think I’ve solved your problem,” he said, and grinned sheepishly.
“I’m so glad you’re all right-we were worried about you!” she said. Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and kissed him. It was a very brief kiss, not much more than a peck; but then, when their lips separated, his arms went around her waist, holding her body gently but firmly against his own, and she found herself looking into his eyes. All she could think of was how happy she was that he was alive and unhurt. She gave him an affectionate squeeze. She was suddenly aware of her own skin: she could feel the roughness of her linen undershirt and the soft fur of her boots, and her nipples tingled as they pressed against his chest.
“You were worried about me?” he said wonderingly.
“Of course! I hardly slept!”
She was smiling happily, but he looked terribly solemn, and after a moment his mood overcame hers, and she felt strangely moved. She could hear her heart beating, and her breath came faster. Behind her, the hammers thudded in unison, shaking the wooden structure of the mill with each concerted blow, and she seemed to feel the vibration deep inside her.
“I’m all right,” he said. “Everything’s all right.”
“I’m so glad,” she repeated, and it came out in a whisper.
She saw him close his eyes and bend his face to hers, and then she felt his mouth on her own. His kiss was gentle. He had full lips and a soft adolescent beard. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation. His mouth moved against hers, and it seemed natural to part her lips. Her mouth had suddenly become ultra-sensitive, so that she could feel the lightest touch, the tiniest movement. The tip of his tongue caressed the inside of her upper lip. She felt so overwhelmed with happiness that she wanted to cry. She pressed her body against his, crushing her soft breasts against his hard chest, feeling the bones of his hips dig into her belly. She was no longer merely relieved that he was safe, and glad to have him here. Now there was a new emotion. His physical presence filled her with an ecstatic sensation that made her slightly dizzy. Holding his body in her arms, she wanted to touch him more, to feel more of him, to get even closer. She rubbed his back with her hands. She wanted to feel his skin, but his clothes frustrated her. Without thinking, she opened her mouth and pushed her tongue between his lips. He made a small animal sound in the back of his throat, like a muffled moan of delight.
The door of the mill banged open. Aliena pulled away from Jack. Suddenly she felt shocked, as if she had been fast asleep and someone had slapped her to wake her up. She was horrified by what they had been doing-kissing and rubbing one another like a whore and a drunk in an alehouse! She stepped back and turned around, mortified with embarrassment. The intruder was Alfred, of all people. That made her feel worse. Alfred had proposed marriage to her, three months ago, and she had refused him haughtily. Now he had seen her acting like a bitch in heat. It seemed somehow hypocritical. She flushed with shame. Alfred was staring at her, his expression a mixture of lust and contempt that reminded her vividly of William Hamleigh. She was disgusted with herself for giving Alfred a reason to look down on her, and furious at Jack for his part in it.
She turned away from Alfred and looked at Jack. When his eyes met hers he registered shock. She realized that her anger was showing in her face but she could not help it. Jack’s expression of dazed happiness turned into confusion and hurt. Normally that would have melted her, but now she was too upset. She hated him for what he had made her do. Quick as a flash, she slapped his face. He did not move, but there was agony in his look. His cheek reddened where she had hit him. She could not bear to see the pain in his eyes. She tore her gaze away.
She could not stay there. She ran to the door with the incessant thud of the hammers pounding in her ears. Alfred stepped aside quickly, looking almost frightened. She dashed past him and went through the door. Tom Builder was just outside, with a small crowd of building workers. Everyone was heading for the mill to find out what was going on. Aliena hurried past them without speaking. One or two of them glanced curiously at her, making her burn with shame; but they were more interested in the hammering sound coming from the mill. The coldly logical part of Aliena’s mind recalled that Jack had solved the problem of felting her cloth; but the thought that he had been up all night doing something for her only made her feel worse. She ran past the stable, through the priory gate, and along the street, her boots slipping and sliding in the mud, until she reached her house.
When she got inside she found Richard there. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a loaf of bread and a bowl of ale. “King Stephen is on the march,” he said. “The war has started again. I need a new horse.”
For the next three months Aliena hardly spoke two words in a row to Jack.
He was heartbroken. She had kissed him as if she loved him, there was no mistaking that. When she left the mill he felt sure they would kiss like that again, soon. He walked around in an erotic haze, thinking: Aliena loves me! Aliena loves me! She had stroked his back and put her tongue into his mouth and pressed her breasts against him. When she avoided him he thought at first that she was just embarrassed. She could not possibly pretend not to love him, after that kiss. He waited for her to get over her shyness. With the help of the priory carpenter he made a stronger, more permanent fulling mechanism for the old mill, and Aliena got her cloth felted. She thanked him sincerely, but her voice was cold and her eyes evaded his.
When it had gone on not just for a few days, but for several weeks, he was forced to admit that there was something seriously wrong. A tidal wave of disillusionment engulfed him, and he felt as if he would drown in regret. He was baffled. He wished miserably that he was older, and had more experience with women, so that he could tell whether she was normal or peculiar, whether this was temporary or permanent, and whether he should ignore it or confront her. Being uncertain, and also being terrified of saying the wrong thing and making matters worse, he did nothing; and then the constant feeling of rejection began to get to him, and he felt worthless, stupid, and impotent. He thought how foolish he was, to have imagined that the most desirable and unattainable woman in the county might fall for him, a mere boy. He had amused her for a while, with his stories and his jokes, but as soon as he had kissed her like a man, she had run away. What a fool he was to have hoped for anything else!
After a week or two of telling himself how stupid he was he began to get angry. He was irritable at work, and people started to treat him warily. He was mean to his stepsister, Martha, who was almost as hurt by him as he was by Aliena. On Sunday afternoons he wasted his wages gambling on cockfights. All his passion came out in his work. He was carving corbels, the jutting-out stones that appeared to support arches or shafts that did not reach all the way to the ground. Corbels were often decorated with leaves, but a traditional alternative was to carve a man who appeared to be holding up the arch with his hands or supporting it on his back. Jack altered the customary pattern just a little, but the effect was to show a disturbingly twisted human figure with an expression of pain, condemned, as it were, to an eternity of agony as he held up the vast weight of stone. Jack knew it was brilliant: nobody else could carve a figure that looked as if it were in pain. When Tom saw it he shook his head, unsure whether to marvel at its expressiveness or disapprove of its unorthodoxy. Philip was very taken with it. Jack did not care what they thought: he felt that anyone who disliked it was blind.
One Monday in Lent, when everyone was short-tempered because they had not eaten meat for three weeks, Alfred came to work with a triumphant look on his face. He had been to Shiring the day before. Jack did not know what he had done there but he was clearly pleased about it.
During the midmorning break, when Enid Brewster tapped a barrel of ale in the middle of the chancel and sold it to the builders, Alfred held out a penny and called: “Hey, Jack Tomson, fetch me some ale.”
This is going to be about my father, Jack thought. He ignored Alfred.
One of the carpenters, an older man called Peter, said: “You’d better do what you’re told, prentice boy.” An apprentice was always supposed to obey a master craftsman.
“I’m not Tom’s son,” Jack said. “Tom is my stepfather, and Alfred knows it.”
“Do what he says, all the same,” Peter said in a reasonable tone.
Reluctantly, Jack took Alfred’s money and joined the line. “My father’s name was Jack Shareburg,” he said in a loud voice. “You can all call me Jack Jackson, if you want to make a difference between me and Jack Blacksmith.”
Alfred said: “Jack Bastard is more like it.”
Jack said to the world at large: “Have you ever wondered why Alfred never laces up his boots?” They all looked at Alfred’s feet. Sure enough, his heavy, muddy boots, which were designed to be tied at the top with cords, were loosely open. “It’s so that he can get at his toes quickly-in case he needs to count above ten.” The craftsmen smiled and the apprentices chortled. Jack handed Alfred’s penny to Enid and got a jug of ale. He took it to Alfred and handed it to him with a small satirical bow. Alfred was annoyed, but not very; he still had something up his sleeve. Jack moved away and drank his ale with the apprentices, hoping Alfred would lay off.
It was not to be. A few moments later Alfred followed him, and said: “If Jack Shareburg was my father I wouldn’t be so quick to claim him. Don’t you realize what he was?”
“He was a jongleur,” Jack said. He made himself sound confident, but he was afraid of what Alfred was going to say. “I don’t suppose you know what a jongleur is.”
“He was a thief,” said Alfred.
“Oh, shut up, shithead.” Jack turned away and sipped his beer, but he could hardly swallow. Alfred had a reason for saying this.
“Don’t you know how he died?” Alfred persisted.
This is it, Jack thought; this is what he learned yesterday in Shiring; this is why he’s wearing that stupid grin. He turned around reluctantly and faced Alfred. “No, I don’t know how my father died, Alfred, but I think you’re going to tell me.”
“He was hanged by the neck, like the lousy thief he was.”
Jack gave an involuntary cry of anguish. He knew intuitively that this was true. Alfred was so completely sure of himself that he could not be making it up. And Jack saw in a flash that this explained his mother’s reticence. For years he had secretly dreaded something like this. All the time he had pretended there was nothing wrong, he was not a bastard, he had a real father with a real name. In fact he had always feared that there was a disgrace about his father, that the taunts were valid, that he really did have something to be ashamed of. He was already low: Aliena’s rejection had left him feeling worthless and small. Now the truth about his father hit him like a blow.
Alfred stood there smiling, inordinately pleased with himself: the effect of his revelation had delighted him. His expression maddened Jack. It was bad enough, for Jack, that his father had been hanged. That Alfred was happy about it was too much to bear. Without thinking, Jack threw his beer in Alfred’s grinning face.
The other apprentices, who had been watching the two stepbrothers and enjoying the altercation, hastily moved a step or two back. Alfred dashed the beer from his eyes, roared with anger, and lashed out with one huge fist, a surprisingly quick movement for such a big man. The blow connected with Jack’s cheek, so hard that instead of hurting, it just went numb. Before he had time to react, Alfred’s other fist sank into his middle. This punch hurt terribly. Jack felt as if he would never breathe again. He crumpled and fell to the ground. As he landed, Alfred kicked him in the head with one heavy boot, and for a moment he saw nothing but white light.
He rolled over blindly and struggled to his feet. But Alfred was not yet satisfied. As Jack came upright he felt himself grabbed. He began to wriggle. He was frightened now. Alfred would have no mercy. Jack would be beaten to a pulp if he could not escape. For a moment Alfred’s grip was too strong and Jack could not get free, but then Alfred drew back one massive fist for a blow, and in that instant Jack slipped out of his grasp.
He darted away and Alfred lunged after him. Jack dodged around a lime barrel, pulling it over so that it fell in Alfred’s path, spilling lime on the ground. Alfred jumped over the barrel but cannoned into a water butt and that, too, was upset. When the water came into contact with the lime it boiled and hissed fiercely. Some of the builders, seeing the waste of costly material, shouted protests, but Alfred was deaf to them, and Jack could think of nothing but trying to get away from Alfred. He ran, still doubled up with pain and half blind from the kick in the head.
Hard on his heels, Alfred stuck out a foot and tripped him. Jack fell headlong. I’m going to die, he thought as he rolled over; Alfred will kill me now. He fetched up under a ladder that was leaning against the scaffolding high up on the building. Alfred bore down on him. Jack felt like a cornered rabbit. The ladder saved him. As Alfred ducked behind it, Jack dodged around to the front and catapulted himself up the rungs. He went up the ladder like a rat up a gutter.
He felt the ladder shake as Alfred came up behind him. Normally he could outrun Alfred, but he was still dazed and winded. He reached the top and lurched onto the scaffolding. He stumbled and fell against the wall. The stonework had been laid that morning and the mortar was still wet. As Jack careered into it, a whole section of the wall shifted, and three or four stones slipped sideways and fell over the side. Jack thought he was going with them. He teetered at the edge, and as he looked down he saw the big stones tumbling over and over as they fell eighty feet and landed on the roofs of the lean-to lodges at the foot of the wall. He righted himself and hoped no one was in the lodges. Alfred came up over the top of the ladder and advanced toward him on the flimsy scaffolding.
Alfred was red and panting, and his eyes were full of hate. Jack had no doubt that in this state Alfred could kill. If he gets hold of me, Jack thought, he’ll throw me over the side. As Alfred advanced, Jack retreated. He trod in something soft and realized it was a pile of mortar. Inspired, he stooped quickly, picked up a handful, and threw it accurately into Alfred’s eyes.
Blinded, Alfred stopped advancing and shook his head, trying to get rid of the mortar. At last Jack had a chance to escape. He ran to the far end of the scaffolding platform, intending to descend, run out of the priory close, and spend the rest of the day hiding in the forest. But to his horror there was no ladder at the other end of the platform. He could not climb down the scaffolding, for it did not reach to the ground-it was built on joists stuck into putlog holes in the wall. He was trapped.
He looked back. Alfred had got his eyesight back and was coming toward him.
There was one other way down.
At the unfinished end of the wall, where the chancel would join on to the transept, each course of masonry was half a stone’s length shorter than the one below, creating a steep flight of narrow steps, which was sometimes used by the more daring laborers as an alternative way up to the platform. With his heart in his mouth Jack got on top of the wall and walked along, carefully but quickly, trying not to see how far he would fall if he slipped. He reached the top of the stepped section, paused at the edge, and looked down. He felt faintly sick. He glanced back over his shoulder: Alfred was on the wall behind him. He went down.
Jack could not understand why Alfred was so unafraid: he had never been brave. It was as if hatred had dulled his sense of danger. As they ran down the dizzily steep steps, Alfred was gaining on Jack. They were still more than twelve feet off the ground when Jack realized Alfred was very nearly on him. In desperation he jumped off the side of the wall onto the thatched roof of the carpenters’ lodge. He bounced off the roof onto the ground, but he landed badly, twisting his ankle, and he fell to the ground.
He staggered upright. The seconds he lost by falling had enabled Alfred to reach the ground and run to the lodge. For a split second Jack stood with his back to the wall, and Alfred paused, waiting to see which way he would jump. Jack suffered a moment of terrified indecision; then, inspired, he stepped to one side and backed into the lodge.
It was empty of craftsmen, for they were all standing around Enid’s barrel. On the benches were the hammers and saws and chisels of the carpenters, and the pieces of wood they had been working on. In the middle of the floor was a large piece of new falsework, to be used in building an arch; and at the back, up against the church wall, was a blazing fire, fed by shavings and off-cuts from the carpenters’ raw material.
There was no way out.
Jack turned to face Alfred. He was cornered. For a moment he was paralyzed with fright. Then his fear gave way to anger. I don’t care if I get killed, he thought, so long as I make Alfred bleed before I die. He did not wait for Alfred to hit him. He lowered his head and charged. He was too maddened even to use his fists. He simply ran into Alfred full tilt.
It was the last thing Alfred expected. Jack’s forehead smashed into his mouth. Jack was two or three inches shorter and a lot lighter, but all the same his charge threw Alfred back. As Jack recovered his balance he saw blood on Alfred’s lips, and he was satisfied.
For a moment Alfred was too surprised to react. In that instant, Jack’s eye lit on a big wooden sledgehammer leaning against a bench. As Alfred recovered his wits and came at Jack, Jack lifted the hammer and swung it wildly. Alfred dodged back and the hammer missed him. Suddenly Jack had the upper hand. Encouraged, he went after Alfred, already relishing the sensation of solid wood crunching Alfred’s bones. This time he put all his strength into the blow. Once again it missed Alfred; but it connected with the pole supporting the roof of the lodge.
The lodge was not solidly constructed. Nobody lived in it. Its only function was to enable the carpenters to work in the rain. When Jack hit the pole with the hammer, the pole moved. The walls were flimsy hurdles of interwoven twigs, and gave no support at all. The thatched roof sagged. Alfred looked up fearfully. Jack hefted the hammer. Alfred backed through the door. Jack swung at him again. Alfred dodged back, tripped over a low stack of timber, and sat down heavily. Jack raised the hammer high for the coup de grâce. His arms were seized in a strong grasp. He looked around and saw Prior Philip, with a face like thunder. Philip wrenched the hammer from Jack’s grip.
Behind the prior, the roof of the lodge fell in. Jack and Philip looked. As it fell into the fire, the dry thatch caught alight instantly, and a moment later there was a fierce blaze.
Tom appeared and pointed at the three workmen nearest to him. “You, you and you-bring that water butt from outside the smithy.” He turned to three others. “Peter, Rolf, Daniel, fetch buckets. You apprentices, shovel earth over the flames-all of you, and quick about it!”
For the next few minutes everyone concentrated on the fire, and Alfred and Jack were forgotten. Jack got out of the way and stood watching, feeling stunned and helpless. Alfred stood some distance away. Was I really about to smash Alfred’s head with a hammer? Jack thought incredulously. The whole thing seemed unreal. He was still in a state of dazed shock when the combination of water and earth put out the flames.
Prior Philip stood looking at the mess, breathing hard after his exertions. “Look at that,” he said to Tom. He was furious. “A lodge wrecked. Carpenters’ work ruined. A barrel of lime wasted and a whole section of new masonry destroyed.”
Jack realized that Tom was in trouble: it was his job to keep order on the site and Philip blamed him for the damage. The fact that the culprits were Tom’s sons made it even worse.
Tom put his hand on Philip’s arm and spoke softly. “The lodge will deal with it,” he said.
Philip was not to be mollified. “I will deal with it,” he snapped. “I’m the prior and you all work for me.”
“Then allow the masons to deliberate before you make any decisions,” Tom said in a quiet and reasonable voice. “We may come up with a proposal that will recommend itself to you. If not, you’re still free to do what you will.”
Philip was visibly reluctant to let the initiative pass from his hands, but tradition was on Tom’s side: the masons disciplined themselves. After a pause Philip said: “Very well. But whatever you decide, I will not have both your sons working on this site. One of them must go.” Still fuming, he strode away.
With a black look at Jack and Alfred, Tom turned away and went into the largest of the masons’ lodges.
Jack realized he was in serious trouble as he followed Tom into the lodge. When the masons disciplined one of their number it was usually for offenses such as drunkenness at work and theft of building materials, and the commonest punishment was a fine. Fighting between apprentices generally resulted in both combatants being put in the stocks for a day, but of course Alfred was not an apprentice, and anyway, fights did not normally do so much damage. The lodge could expel a member who worked for less than the agreed minimum wage. It could also punish a member who committed adultery with another mason’s wife, although Jack had never known this. Theoretically, apprentices could be flogged, but although this punishment was sometimes threatened he had never seen it carried out.
The master masons crowded into the wooden lodge, sitting on the benches and leaning against the back wall, which was in fact the side of the cathedral. When they were all inside, Tom said: “Our employer is angry, and with justification. This incident has done a lot of costly damage. Worse, it has brought disgrace on us masons. We must deal firmly with those who are to blame. This is the only way to regain our good reputation as proud and disciplined builders, men who are masters of ourselves as well as masters of our craft.”
“Well said,” Jack Blacksmith called out, and there was a murmur of agreement.
“I only saw the end of this fight,” Tom went on. “Did anyone see it start?”
“Alfred went for the lad,” said Peter Carpenter, the one who had advised Jack to be obedient and fetch Alfred’s ale.
A young mason called Dan, who worked for Alfred, said: “Jack threw beer in Alfred’s face.”
“The lad was provoked, though,” said Peter. “Alfred insulted Jack’s natural father.”
Tom looked at Alfred. “Did you?”
“I said his father was a thief,” Alfred replied. “It’s true. He was hanged for it at Shiring. Sheriff Eustace told me yesterday.”
Jack Blacksmith said: “It’s a poor thing if a master craftsman has to hold his tongue in case an apprentice doesn’t like what he says.”
There was a murmur of approval. Jack realized despondently that, whatever happened, he was not going to get off lightly. Perhaps I’m doomed to be a criminal, like my father, he thought; perhaps I’ll end up on the gallows too.
Peter Carpenter, who was emerging as Jack’s defender, said: “I still say it makes a difference if the craftsman went out of his way to anger the apprentice.”
“The apprentice still has to be punished,” said Jack Blacksmith.
“I don’t deny that,” said Peter, “I just think the craftsman ought to be disciplined too. Master craftsmen should use the wisdom of their years to bring about peace and harmony on a building site. If they provoke fights they fail in their duty.”
There appeared to be some agreement with that, but Dan, Alfred’s supporter, said: “It’s a dangerous principle, to forgive the apprentice because the craftsman was unkind. Apprentices always think masters are unkind. If you start arguing that way you’ll end up with masters never speaking to their apprentices for fear the apprentices will strike them for discourtesy.”
That speech drew warm support, to Jack’s disgust. It just showed that the masters’ authority had to be bolstered, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case. He wondered what his punishment would be. He had no money to pay a fine. He hated the thought of being put in the stocks: what would Aliena think of him? But it would be worse to be flogged. He thought he would knife anyone who tried to flog him.
Tom said: “We mustn’t forget that our employer also has a strong view about this. He says he will not have both Alfred and Jack working on the site. One of them must go.”
“Might he be talked out of that?” said Peter.
Tom looked thoughtful, but after a pause he said: “No.”
Jack was shocked. He had not taken Prior Philip’s ultimatum seriously. But Tom had.
Dan said: “If one of them has to go, I trust there’s no argument about which it will be.” Dan was one of the masons working for Alfred, rather than directly for the priory, and if Alfred went Dan would probably have to go too.
Once again Tom looked thoughtful, and once again he said: “No, no argument.” He looked at Jack. “Jack must be the one to go.”
Jack realized he had fatally underestimated the consequences of the fight. But he could hardly believe they were going to throw him out. What would life be like if he did not work on Kingsbridge Cathedral? Since Aliena had withdrawn into her shell, the cathedral was all he cared about. How could he leave?
Peter Carpenter said: “The priory might accept a compromise. Jack could be suspended for a month.”
Yes, please, thought Jack.
“Too weak,” said Tom. “We must be seen to act decisively. Prior Philip will not accept anything less.”
“So be it,” Peter said, giving in. “This cathedral loses the most talented young stone carver most of us have ever seen, all because Alfred can’t keep his damn mouth shut.” Several masons voiced their approval of that sentiment. Encouraged, Peter went on: “I respect you, Tom Builder, more than I’ve ever respected any master builder I’ve worked for, but it must be said that you’ve got a blind spot about your pigheaded son Alfred.”
“No abuse, please,” Tom said. “Let’s stick to the facts of the case.”
“All right,” Peter said. “I say Alfred must be punished.”
“I agree,” Tom said, to everyone’s surprise. Jack thought the remark about his blind spot had got to him. “Alfred should be disciplined.”
“Why?” Alfred said indignantly. “For beating an apprentice?”
“He’s not your apprentice, he’s mine,” Tom said. “And you did more than beat him. You chased him all over the site. If you had let him run away the lime wouldn’t have spilled, the masonry wouldn’t have been damaged and the carpenters’ lodge wouldn’t have burned down; and you could have dealt with him as soon as he came back. There was no need for what you did.”
The masons agreed.
Dan, who seemed to have become the spokesman for Alfred’s masons, said: “I hope you’re not proposing we expel Alfred from the lodge. I for one will fight against that.”
“No,” Tom said. “It’s bad enough to lose a talented apprentice. I don’t also want to lose a sound mason who runs a reliable gang. Alfred must stay-but I think he should be fined.”
Alfred’s men looked relieved.
“A heavy fine,” said Peter.
“A week’s wages,” Dan proposed.
“A month’s,” said Tom. “I doubt whether Prior Philip will be satisfied with less.”
Several men said: “Aye.”
“Are we of one mind on this, brother masons?” Tom said, using a customary form of words.
“Aye,” they all said.
“Then I will tell the prior our decision. The rest of you had better go back to work.”
Jack watched miserably as they all filed out. Alfred shot him a look of smug triumph. Tom waited until they had all gone, then said to Jack: “I did my best for you-I hope your mother will see that.”
“You’ve never done anything for me!” Jack burst out.
“You couldn’t feed me or clothe me or house me. We were happy until you came along, and then we starved!”
“But in the end-”
“You won’t even protect me from that mindless brute you call your son!”
“I tried-”
“You wouldn’t even have this job if I hadn’t burned the old cathedral down!”
“What did you say?”
“Yes, I burned the old cathedral.”
Tom went pale. “That was lightning-”
“There was no lightning. It was a fine night. And no one had made a fire in the church, either. I set light to the roof.”
“But why?”
“So that you would have work. Otherwise my mother would have died in the forest.”
“She wouldn’t-”
“Your first wife did, though, didn’t she?”
Tom turned white. Suddenly he looked older. Jack realized that he had wounded Tom profoundly. He had won the argument, but he had probably lost a friend. He felt sour and sad.
Tom whispered: “Get out of here.”
Jack left.
He walked away from the towering walls of the cathedral, close to tears. His life had been devastated in a few moments. It was incredible that he was going away from this church forever. He turned at the priory gate and looked back. There were so many things he had been planning. He wanted to carve a whole doorway all by himself; he wanted to persuade Tom to have stone angels in the clerestory; he had an innovative design for blind arcading in the transepts which he had not even shown to anyone yet. Now he would never do any of these things. It was so unfair. His eyes filled with tears.
He made his way home, seeing through a blur. Mother and Martha were sitting at the kitchen table. Mother was teaching Martha to write with a sharp stone and a slate. They were surprised to see him. Martha said: “It can’t be dinnertime already.”
Mother read Jack’s face. “What is it?” she said anxiously.
“I had a fight with Alfred and got expelled from the site,” he said grimly.
“Wasn’t Alfred expelled?” said Martha.
Jack shook his head.
“That’s not fair!” Martha said.
Mother said wearily: “What did you fight about this time?”
Jack said: “Was my father hanged at Shiring for thieving?”
Martha gasped.
Mother looked sad. “He wasn’t a thief,” she said. “But yes, he was hanged at Shiring.”
Jack was fed up with enigmatic statements about his father. He said brutally: “Why will you never tell me the truth?”
“Because it makes me so sad!” Mother burst out, and to Jack’s horror she began to cry.
He had never seen her cry. She was always so strong. He was close to breaking down himself. He swallowed hard and persisted. “If he wasn’t a thief, why was he hanged?”
“I don’t know!” Mother cried. “I never knew. He never knew either. They said he stole a jeweled cup.”
“From whom?”
“From here-from Kingsbridge Priory.”
“Kingsbridge! Did Prior Philip accuse him?”
“No, no, it was long before the time of Philip.” She looked at Jack through her tears. “Don’t start asking me who accused him and why. Don’t get caught in that trap. You could spend the rest of your life trying to put right a wrong done before you were born. I didn’t raise you so that you could take revenge. Don’t make that your life.”
Jack vowed he would learn more sometime, despite what she said; but right now he wanted her to stop crying. He sat beside her on the bench and put his arm around her. “Well, it looks as if the cathedral won’t be my life, now.”
Martha said: “What will you do, Jack?”
“I don’t know. I can’t live in Kingsbridge, can I?”
Martha was distraught. “But why not?”
“Alfred tried to kill me and Tom expelled me from the site. I’m not going to live with them. Anyway, I’m a man. I should leave my mother.”
“But what will you do?”
Jack shrugged. “The only thing I know about is building.”
“You could work on another church.”
“I might come to love another cathedral as much as I love this one, I suppose,” he said despondently. He was thinking: But I’ll never love another woman the way I love Aliena.
Mother said: “How could Tom do this to you?”
Jack sighed. “I don’t think he really wanted to. Prior Philip said he wouldn’t have me and Alfred both working on the site.”
“So that damned monk is at the bottom of this!” Mother said angrily. “I swear-”
“He was very upset about the damage we did.”
“I wonder if he could be made to see reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“God is supposed to be merciful-perhaps monks should be too.”
“You think I should plead with Philip?” Jack asked, somewhat surprised at the direction of Mother’s thinking.
“I was thinking I might talk to him,” she said.
“You!” That was even more uncharacteristic. Jack was quite shocked. For Mother to be willing to ask Philip for mercy, she must be badly upset.
“What do you think?” she asked him.
Tom had seemed to think Philip would not be merciful, Jack recalled. But then, Tom’s overriding concern had been that the lodge should take decisive action. Having promised Philip that they would be firm, Tom could not then plead for mercy. Mother was not in the same position. Jack began to feel a little more hopeful. Perhaps he would not have to leave after all. Perhaps he could stay in Kingsbridge, close to the cathedral and to Aliena. He no longer hoped that she would love him, but nevertheless he hated the thought of going away and never seeing her again.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go and plead with Prior Philip. We’ve got nothing to lose but our pride.”
Mother put on her cloak and they went out together, leaving Martha sitting alone at the table, looking anxious.
Jack and his mother did not often walk side by side, and now he was struck by how short she was: he towered over her. He felt suddenly fond of her. She was always ready to fight like a cat for his sake. He put his arm around her and hugged her. She smiled at him as if she knew what he was thinking.
They entered the priory close and went to the prior’s house. Mother banged on the door and walked in. Tom was there with Prior Philip. Jack knew immediately, by their faces, that Tom had not told Philip about Jack setting fire to the old cathedral. That was a relief. Now he probably never would. That secret was safe.
Tom looked anxious, if not a little scared, when he saw Mother. Jack recalled that he had said I did my best for you, I hope your mother will see that. Tom was remembering the last time Jack and Alfred had a fight: Mother had left Tom in consequence. Tom was afraid she would leave now.
Philip was no longer looking angry, Jack thought. Perhaps the lodge’s decision had mollified him. He might even be feeling a trifle guilty about his harshness.
Mother said: “I’ve come here to ask you to be merciful, Prior Philip.”
Tom immediately looked relieved.
Philip said: “I’m listening.”
Mother said: “You’re proposing to send my son away from everything he loves-his home, his family and his work.”
And the woman he adores, Jack thought.
Philip said: “Am I? I thought he had simply been dismissed from his work.”
“He’s never learned any kind of work but building, and there’s no other building work in Kingsbridge for him. And the challenge of that vast church has got into his blood. He’ll go wherever someone is building a cathedral. He’ll go to Jerusalem if there’s stone there to be carved into angels and devils.” How does she know all this? Jack wondered. He had hardly thought it himself-but it was true. She added: “I might never see him again.” Her voice shook a little at the end, and he thought wonderingly how much she must love him. She would never plead like this for herself, he knew.
Philip looked sympathetic, but it was Tom who replied. “We can’t have Jack and Alfred working on the same site,” he said doggedly. “They’ll fight again. You know that.”
“Alfred could go,” Mother said.
Tom looked sad. “Alfred is my son.”
“But he’s twenty years old, and he’s as mean as a bear!” Although Mother’s voice was assertive, her cheeks were wet with tears. “He doesn’t care for this cathedral any more than I do-he’d be perfectly happy building houses for butchers and bakers in Winchester or Shiring.”
“The lodge can’t expel Alfred and keep Jack,” Tom said. “Besides, the decision is already made.”
“But it’s the wrong decision!”
Philip spoke. “There might be another answer.”
Everyone looked at him.
“There might be a way for Jack to stay in Kingsbridge, and even devote himself to the cathedral, without falling foul of Alfred.”
Jack wondered what was coming. This sounded too good to be true.
“I need someone to work with me,” Philip went on. “I spend too much time making detail decisions on the building. I need a kind of assistant, who would fulfill the role of clerk of works. He would deal with most of the queries himself, referring only the most important questions to me. He would also keep track of the money and the raw materials, handling payments to suppliers and carters, and wages too. Jack can read and write, and he can add numbers faster than anyone I’ve ever met-”
“And he understands every aspect of building,” Tom put in. “I’ve seen to that.”
Jack’s mind was spinning. He could stay after all! He would be clerk of works. He would not be carving stone, but he would be supervising the entire design on Philip’s behalf. It was an astonishing proposal. He would have to deal with Tom as an equal. But he knew he was capable of it. And Tom did too.
There was one snag. Jack voiced it. “I can’t live with Alfred any longer.”
Ellen said: “It’s time Alfred had a home of his own, anyway. Perhaps if he left us he’d be more serious about finding a wife.”
Tom said angrily: “You keep thinking of reasons for getting rid of Alfred. I’m not going to throw my own son out of my house!”
“You don’t understand me, either of you,” Philip said. “You haven’t completely comprehended my proposal. Jack would not be living with you.”
He paused. Jack guessed what was coming next, and it was the last, and biggest, shock of the day.
Philip said: “Jack would have to live here, in the priory.” He looked at them with a little frown, as if he could not see why they still had not grasped his meaning.
Jack had understood him. He recalled Mother saying, on Midsummer Eve last year, That sly prior has a knack of getting his own way in the end. She had been right. Philip was renewing the offer he had made then. But this time it was different. The choice Jack now faced was stark. He could leave Kingsbridge, and abandon everything he loved. Or he could stay, and lose his freedom.
“My clerk of works can’t be a layman, of course,” Philip finished, in the tone of one who states the obvious. “Jack will have to become a monk.”
On the night before the Kingsbridge Fleece Fair, Prior Philip stayed up after the midnight services, as usual; but instead of reading and meditating in his house, he made a tour of the priory close. It was a warm summer night, with a clear sky and a moon, and he could see without the aid of a lantern.
The entire close had been taken over by the fair, with the exception of the monastic buildings and the cloisters, which were sacred. In each of the four corners a huge latrine pit had been dug, so that the rest of the close would not become completely foul, and the latrines had been screened off to safeguard the sensibilities of the monks. Literally hundreds of market stalls had been erected. The simplest were nothing more than crude wooden counters on trestles. Most were a little more elaborate: they had a signboard with the name of the stall holder and a picture of his wares, a separate table for weighing, and a locked cupboard or shed to keep the goods in. Some stalls incorporated tents, either to keep the rain off or so that business could be done in private. The most elaborate stalls were small houses, with large storage areas, several counters, and tables and chairs where the merchant could offer hospitality to his important customers. Philip had been surprised when the first of the merchants’ carpenters had arrived a full week before the fair and demanded to be shown where to erect his stall, but the structure that went up had taken four days to build and two to stock.
Philip had originally planned the layout of the stalls in two wide avenues on the west side of the close, in much the same configuration as the stalls of the weekly market; but he had soon realized that that would not be enough. The two avenues of stalls now ran all along the north side of the church as well, and then turned down the east end of the close as far as Philip’s house; and there were more stalls actually inside the unfinished church, in the aisles between the piers. The stall holders were not all wool merchants by any means: everything was sold at a fair, from horsebread to rubies.
Philip walked along the moonlit rows. They were all ready now, of course: no stall building would be allowed today. Most of them were also stocked with goods. The priory had already collected more than ten pounds in fees and duties. The only goods that could be brought in on the day of the fair were freshly cooked foods, bread and hot pies and baked apples. Even the barrels of beer had been brought in yesterday.
As Philip walked around, he was watched by dozens of half-open eyes, and greeted by several sleepy grunts. The stall holders would not leave their precious goods unguarded: most of them were sleeping at their stalls, and the wealthier merchants had left servants on guard.
He was not yet certain exactly how much money he would make from the fair, but it was virtually guaranteed to be a success, and he was confident of reaching his original estimate of fifty pounds. There had been moments, in the past few months, when he had feared that the fair would not take place at all. The civil war dragged on, with neither Stephen nor Maud gaining the upper hand, but his license had not been revoked. William Hamleigh had tried to sabotage the fair in various ways. He had told the sheriff to ban it, but the sheriff had asked for authority from one of the two rival monarchs, and it had not been forthcoming. William had forbidden his tenants to sell wool at Kingsbridge; but most of them were anyway in the habit of selling to merchants such as Aliena, rather than marketing the fleeces themselves, so the main effect of the ban was to create more business for her. Finally, he had announced that he was reducing the rents and duties at the Shiring Fleece Fair to the levels Philip was charging; but his announcement came too late to make much difference, for the big buyers and sellers had already made their plans.
Now, with the sky growing perceptibly lighter in the east on the morning of the big day, William could do no more. The sellers were here with their wares, and in a little while the buyers would begin to arrive. Philip thought William would find that in the end the Kingsbridge Fleece Fair damaged the Shiring fair less than he reared. Sales of wool seemed to go up every year without fail: there was enough business for two fairs anyway.
He had walked all the way around the close to the southwest corner, where the mills and the fishpond were. He stood there for a while, watching the water flow past the two silent mills. One was now used exclusively for felting cloth, and it made a lot of money. Young Jack was responsible for that. He had an ingenious mind. He was going to be a tremendous asset to the priory. He seemed to have settled quite well as a novice, although he tended to regard the services as a distraction from cathedral building, rather than the other way around. However, he would learn. The monastic life was a sanctifying influence. Philip thought God had a purpose for Jack. In the very back of Philip’s mind was a secret long-term hope: that one day Jack would take his place as prior of Kingsbridge.
Jack got up at dawn and slipped out of the dormitory before the service of prime to make one last inspection tour of the building site. The morning air was cool and clear, like pure water from a spring. It would be a warm, sunny day, good for business, good for the priory.
He walked around the cathedral walls, making sure that all the tools and work-in-progress were safely locked inside the lodges. Tom had built light wooden fences around the stockpiles of timber and stone, to guard the raw materials against accidental damage by careless or drunken visitors. They did not want any daredevils climbing the structure, so all the ladders were safely hidden away, the spiral staircases in the thickness of the walls were closed off with temporary doors, and the stepped ends of the part-built walls were obstructed by wooden blocks. Some of the master craftsmen would be patrolling the site throughout the day to make sure there was no damage.
Jack managed to skip quite a lot of the services, one way or another. There was always something to be done on site. He did not have his mother’s hatred of the Christian religion, but he was more or less indifferent to it. He had no enthusiasm for it, but he was willing to go through the motions if it suited his purpose. He made sure to go to one service every day, usually one that was attended either by Prior Philip or the novice-master, who were the two senior monks most likely to notice his presence or absence. He could not have borne it if he had to attend them all. Being a monk was the strangest and most perverted way of life imaginable. Monks spent half their lives putting themselves through pain and discomfort that they could easily avoid, and the other half muttering meaningless mumbo jumbo in empty churches at all hours of the day and night. They deliberately shunned anything good-girls, sports, feasting and family life. However, Jack had noted, the happiest among them had usually found some pursuit that gave deep satisfaction: illustrating manuscripts, writing history, cooking, studying philosophy, or-like Philip-changing Kingsbridge from a sleepy village into a thriving cathedral city.
Jack did not like Philip but he liked working with him. Jack did not warm to professional men of God any more than his mother did. He was embarrassed by Philip’s piety; he disliked his singleminded sinlessness; and he mistrusted his tendency to believe that God would take care of anything that he, Philip, could not cope with. Nevertheless, Philip was good to work for. His orders were clear, he left Jack room to make decisions for himself, and he never blamed his servants for his own mistakes.
Jack had been a novice only three months, so he would not be asked to take vows for another nine months. The three vows were poverty, celibacy and obedience. The vow of poverty was not all it seemed. Monks had no personal possessions and no money of their own, but they lived more like lords than like peasants-they had good food, warm clothes and fine stone buildings to live in. Celibacy was no problem, Jack thought bitterly. He had gained a certain cold satisfaction from telling Aliena personally that he was entering the monastery. She had looked shocked and guilty. Now, whenever he felt the restless irritability that came from the lack of female companionship, he would think of how Aliena had treated him-their secret assignations in the forest, their winter evenings, the two times he had kissed her-and then he would recall how she had suddenly turned as cold and hard as a rock; and thinking of that made him feel that he never wanted to have anything more to do with women. However, the vow of obedience would be difficult to keep, he could tell already. He was happy to take orders from Philip, who was intelligent and organized; but it was hard to obey the foolish sub-prior, Remigius, or the drunken guest-master, or the pompous sacrist.
Nevertheless, he was contemplating taking the vows. He did not have to keep them. All he cared about was building the cathedral. The problems of supply, construction and management were endlessly absorbing. One day he might have to help Tom devise a method of checking that the number of stones arriving at the site was the same as the number leaving the quarry-a complex problem, for the journey time varied between two days and four, so it was not possible to have a simple daily tally. Another day the masons might complain that the carpenters were not making the falsework properly. Most challenging of all were the engineering problems, such as how to lift tons of stone to the top of the walls using makeshift machinery fixed to flimsy scaffolding. Tom Builder discussed these problems with Jack as with an equal. He seemed to have forgiven Jack for that angry speech, in which Jack said that Tom had never done anything for him. And Tom acted as if he had forgotten the revelation that Jack had set fire to the old cathedral. They worked together cheerfully, and the days flew by. Even during the tedious services Jack’s mind was occupied by some knotty question of construction or planning. His knowledge was increasing fast. Instead of spending years carving stones, he was learning cathedral design. There could hardly have been a better training for someone who wanted to be a master builder. For that, Jack was prepared to yawn through any number of midnight matins.
The sun was edging over the east wall of the priory close. Everything was in order on the site. The stall holders who had spent the night with their goods were beginning to fold away their bedding and put out their wares. The first customers would be here soon. A baker walked past Jack carrying a tray of new loaves on her head. The smell of hot fresh bread made Jack’s mouth water. He turned and went back to the monastery, heading for the refectory, where they would soon be serving breakfast.
The first customers were the families of the stall holders and the townspeople, all curious to look at the first Kingsbridge Fleece Fair, none very interested in buying. Thrifty people had filled their bellies with horsebread and porridge before leaving home, so that they would not be tempted by the highly spiced and garishly colored confections on the food stalls. The children wandered around wide-eyed, dazzled by the display of desirable things. An optimistic early-rising whore with red lips and red boots sauntered along, smiling hopefully at middle-aged men, but there were no takers at this hour.
Aliena watched it all from her stall, which was one of the biggest. In the last few weeks she had taken delivery of Kingsbridge Priory’s entire output of fleece for the year; the wool for which she had paid a hundred and seven pounds last summer. She had also been buying from farmers, as she always did; and this year there had been more sellers than usual, because William Hamleigh had forbidden his tenants to sell at the Kingsbridge fair, so they had all sold to merchants. And of all the merchants, Aliena had got the most business, because she was based at Kingsbridge where the fair was to be held. She had done so well that she had run out of money for buying, and had borrowed forty pounds from Malachi to keep her going. Now, in the warehouse that formed the rear half of her stall, she had a hundred and sixty sacks of raw wool, the product of forty thousand sheep, and it had cost her more than two hundred pounds, but she would sell it for three hundred, which was enough money to pay the wages of a skilled mason for over a century. The sheer scale of her own business amazed her whenever she thought of the numbers.
She did not expect to see her buyers until midday. There would be only five or six of them. They would all know each other, and she would know most of them from previous years. She would give each one a cup of wine, and sit and talk for a while. Then she would show him her wool. He would ask her to open a sack or two-never the top one on the pile, of course. He would plunge his hand deep into the sack and bring out a handful of wool. He would tease out the strands to determine their length, rub them between finger and thumb to test their softness, and sniff them. Finally he would offer to buy her entire stock at a ridiculously low price, and Aliena would refuse him. She would tell him her asking price, and he would shake his head. They would take another glass of wine.
Aliena would go through the same ritual with another buyer. She would give dinner to as many of them as were there at midday. Someone would offer to take a large quantity of wool at a price not much above what Aliena had paid for it. She would counter by dropping her asking price a shade. In the early afternoon she would begin closing deals. Her first deal would be at a lowish price. The other merchants would demand that she deal with them at the same price, but she would refuse. Her price would go up during the course of the afternoon. If it went up too fast, business would be slow, while the merchants calculated how soon they could fill their quotas elsewhere. If she was asking less than they were willing to pay, she would know by the relative haste with which they reached agreement. She would close deals one by one, and their servants would begin loading the huge sacks of wool onto the ox wagons with their enormous wooden wheels, while Aliena weighed the pound bags of silver pennies and guilders.
There was no doubt that today she would rake in more money than ever before. She had twice as much to sell, and wool prices were up. She planned to buy Philip’s output a year in advance again, and she had a secret scheme to build herself a stone house, with spacious cellars for storage of wool, an elegant and comfortable hall, and a pretty upstairs bedroom just for herself. Her future was secure, and she was confident of being able to support Richard as long as he needed her. Everything was perfect.
That was why it was so strange that she was completely and utterly miserable.
It was four years, almost to the day, since Ellen had returned to Kingsbridge, and they had been the best four years of Tom’s life.
The pain of Agnes’s death had dulled to an ache. It was still with him, but he no longer got that embarrassing feeling that he was about to burst into tears every now and again for no apparent reason. He still held imaginary conversations with her, in which he told her about the children, and Prior Philip, and the cathedral; but the conversations were less frequent. The bittersweet memory of her had not blighted his love for Ellen. He was able to live in the present. Seeing Ellen and touching her, talking to her and sleeping with her were daily joys.
He had been deeply wounded, on the day of the fight between Jack and Alfred, by Jack’s saying that Tom had never looked after him; and that accusation had overshadowed even the appalling revelation that Jack had set fire to the old cathedral. He had agonized over it for several weeks, but in the end he had decided that Jack was wrong. Tom had done his best, and no man could do any more. Having reached that conclusion he had stopped worrying.
Building Kingsbridge Cathedral was the most profoundly satisfying work he had ever done. He was responsible for the design and the execution. No one interfered with him, and there was no one else to blame if things went wrong. As the mighty walls rose, with their rhythmic arches, their graceful moldings, and their individual carvings, he could look around and think: I did all this, and I did it well.
His nightmare, that one day he would again find himself on the road with no work, no money and no way of feeding his children, seemed very far away, now that there was a stout money chest full to bursting with silver pennies buried under the straw in his kitchen. He still shuddered when he remembered that cold, cold night when Agnes had given birth to Jonathan and died; but he felt sure nothing that bad would ever happen again.
He sometimes wondered why Ellen and he had not had children. They had both been proved fertile in the past, and there was no shortage of opportunities for her to get pregnant-they still made love almost every night, even after four years. However, it was not a cause of deep regret to him. Little Jonathan was the apple of his eye.
He knew, from past experience, that the best way to enjoy a fair was with a small child, so he sought Jonathan out around midmorning, when the crowds began to arrive. Jonathan was almost an attraction in his own right, dressed as he was in his miniature habit. He had lately conceived a desire to have his head shaved, and Philip had indulged him-Philip was as fond of the child as Tom was-with the result that he looked more than ever like a tiny little monk. There were several real midgets in the crowd, performing tricks and begging, and they fascinated Jonathan. Tom had to hurry him away from one who drew a crowd by exposing his full-size penis. There were jugglers, acrobats and musicians performing and passing a hat round; soothsayers and surgeons and whores touting for business; trials of strength, wrestling contests and games of chance. People were wearing their most colorful clothes, and those who could afford it had doused themselves with scent and oiled their hair. Everyone seemed to have money to spend, and the air was full of the jingle of silver.
The bearbaiting was about to begin. Jonathan had never seen a bear, and he was fascinated. The animal’s grayish-brown coat was scarred in several places, indicating that it had survived at least one previous contest. A heavy chain around its waist was fixed to a stake driven deep into the ground, and it was padding around on all fours at the limit of the chain, glaring angrily at the waiting crowd. Tom fancied he saw a cunning light in the beast’s eye. Had he been a gambling man, he might have bet on the bear.
The sound of frantic barking came from a locked chest to one side. The dogs were in there, and they could smell their enemy. Every now and again the bear would stop his pacing, look at the box, and growl; and the barking would rise to hysteria pitch.
The owner of the animals, the bearward, was taking bets. Jonathan became impatient, and Tom was about to move on when at last the bearward unlocked the box. The bear stood upright at the limit of its chain and snarled. The bearward shouted something and threw the chest open.
Five greyhounds sprang out. They were light and fast-moving, and their gaping mouths showed sharp little teeth. They all went straight for the bear. The bear lashed out at them with its massive paws. It struck one dog and sent it flying; then the others backed off.
The crowd pushed closer. Tom checked on Jonathan: he was at the front, but still well out of the bear’s reach. The bear was clever enough to draw back to the stake, letting its chain go loose, so that when it lunged it would not be brought up short. But the dogs were smart, too. After their initial scattered attack they regrouped and then spread out in a circle. The bear swung around in an agitated fashion, trying to see all ways at once.
One of the dogs rushed at it, yapping fiercely. The bear came to meet it and lashed out. The dog quickly retreated, staying out of reach; and the other four rushed in from all sides. The bear swung around, swiping at them. The crowd cheered as three of them sank their teeth into the flesh of its haunches. It rose on its hind legs with a roar of pain, shaking them off, and they scrambled out of reach.
The dogs tried the same tactic once more. Tom thought the bear was going to fall for it again. The first dog darted within its reach, the bear went for it, and the dog backed off; but when the other dogs rushed the bear it was ready for them, and it turned quickly, lunged at the nearest, and swiped the dog’s side with its paw. The crowd cheered as much for the bear as they had for the dogs. The bear’s sharp claws ripped the dog’s silky skin and left three deep bloody tracks. The dog yelped pitifully and retired from the fight to lick its wounds. The crowd jeered and booed.
The remaining four dogs circled the bear warily, making the occasional rush but turning back well before the danger point. Someone started a slow handclap. Then a dog made a frontal attack. It rushed in like a streak of lightning, slipped under the bear’s swipe, and leaped for its throat. The crowd went wild. The dog sank its pointed white teeth into the bear’s massive neck. The other dogs attacked. The bear reared up, pawing at the dog at its throat, then went down and rolled. For a moment Tom could not tell what was happening: there was just a flurry of fur. Then three dogs jumped clear, and the bear righted itself and stood on all fours, leaving one dog on the ground, crushed to death.
The crowd became tense. The bear had eliminated two dogs, leaving three; but it was bleeding from its back, neck and hind legs, and it looked frightened. The air was full of the smell of blood and the sweat of the crowd. The dogs had stopped yapping, and were circling the bear silently. They too looked scared, but they had the taste of blood in their mouths and they wanted a kill.
Their attack began the same way: one of them rushed in and rushed out again. The bear swiped at it halfheartedly and swung around to meet the second dog. But now this one, too, cut short its rush and retreated out of reach; and then the third dog did the same. The dogs darted in and out, one at a time, keeping the bear constantly shifting and turning. With each rush they got a little closer, and the bear’s claws came a little nearer to catching them. The spectators could see what was happening, and the excitement in the crowd grew. Jonathan was still at the front, just a few steps from Tom, looking awestruck and a little frightened. Tom looked back at the fight just in time to see the bear’s claws brush one dog while another dashed between the great beast’s hind legs and savaged its soft belly. The bear made a sound like a scream. The dog dashed out from under it and escaped. Another dog rushed the bear. The bear slashed at it, missing by inches; and then the same dog went for its underbelly again. This time when the dog escaped it left the bear with a huge bleeding gash in its abdomen. The bear reared up and went down on all fours again. For a moment Tom thought it was finished, but he was wrong: the bear still had some fight left in it. When the next dog rushed in, the bear made a token swipe at it, turned its head, saw the second dog coming, turned surprisingly fast and hit it with a mighty blow that sent it flying through the air. The crowd roared with delight. The dog landed like a bag of meat. Tom watched it for a moment. It was alive, but it seemed unable to move. Perhaps its back was broken. The bear ignored it, for it was out of reach and out of action.
Now there were only two dogs left. They both darted in and out of the bear’s reach several times, until its lunges at them became perfunctory; then they began to circle it, moving faster and faster. The bear turned this way and that, trying to keep them both in sight. Exhausted and bleeding copiously, it could hardly stay upright. The dogs went around in ever-decreasing circles. The earth beneath the bear’s mighty paws had been turned to mud by all the blood. One way or another, the end was in sight. Finally the two dogs attacked at once. One went for the throat and the other for the belly. With a last desperate swipe, the bear slashed the dog at its throat. There was a grisly fountain of blood. The crowd yelled their approval. At first Tom thought the dog had killed the bear, but it was the other way around: the blood came from the dog, which now fell to the ground with its throat slashed open. Its blood pumped out for a moment longer, then stopped. It was dead. But in the meantime the last dog had ripped open the bear’s belly, and now its guts were falling out. The bear swiped feebly at the dog. The dog easily evaded the blow and struck again, savaging the bear’s intestines. The bear swayed and seemed about to fall. The roar of the crowd grew to a crescendo. The bear’s ripped guts gave out a revolting stench. It gathered its strength and struck at the dog again. The blow connected, and the dog jumped sideways, with blood oozing from a slash along its back; but the wound was superficial and the dog knew the bear was finished, so it went right back on the attack, biting at the bear’s guts until, at last, the great animal closed its eyes and slumped to the ground, dead.
The bearward came forward and took the victorious dog by the collar. The Kingsbridge butcher and his apprentice stepped out of the crowd and began to cut the bear up for its meat: Tom supposed they had agreed on a price with the bearward in advance. Those who had won their bets demanded to be paid. Everyone wanted to pat the surviving dog. Tom looked for Jonathan. He could not see him.
The child had been just a couple of yards away throughout the bearbaiting. How had he managed to disappear? It must have happened while the sport was at its height, and Tom was concentrating on the spectacle. Now he was cross with himself. He searched the crowd. Tom was a head taller than everyone else, and Jonathan was easy to spot with his monk’s habit and shaved head; but he was nowhere to be seen.
The child could not come to much harm in the priory close, but he might come across things that Prior Philip would prefer him not to see: whores servicing their clients up against the priory wall, for example. Looking around, Tom glanced up at the scaffolding high on the cathedral building, and there, to his horror, he saw a small figure in a monastic robe.
He felt a moment of panic. He wanted to yell Don’t move, you’ll fall! but his words would have been lost in the noise of the fair. He pushed through the crowd toward the cathedral. Jonathan was running along the scaffolding, absorbed in some imaginary game, heedless of the danger that he might slip and fall over the edge and tumble eighty feet to his death-
Tom quenched the terror rising like bile in his throat.
The scaffolding did not rest on the ground, but on heavy timbers inserted into purpose-built holes high up in the walls. These timbers jutted out six feet or so. Stout poles were laid across them and roped to them, and then trestles made of flexible saplings and woven reeds were laid on the poles. The scaffolding was normally reached via the spiral stone staircases built into the thickness of the walls. But those staircases had been closed off today. So how had Jonathan climbed up? There were no ladders-Tom had seen to that, and Jack had double-checked. The child must have climbed up the stepped end of the unfinished wall. The ends had been built up with wood, so that they no longer provided easy access; but Jonathan could have clambered over the blocks. The child was full of self-confidence-but all the same he fell over at least once a day.
Tom reached the foot of the wall and looked up fearfully. Jonathan was playing happily eighty feet above. Fear gripped Tom’s heart with a cold hand. He shouted at the top of his voice: “Jonathan!”
The people around him were startled, and looked up to see what he was shouting at. As they spotted the child on the scaffolding they pointed him out to their friends. A small crowd gathered.
Jonathan had not heard. Tom cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted again. “Jonathan! Jonathan!”
This time the boy heard. He looked down, saw Tom, and waved.
Tom shouted: “Come down!”
Jonathan seemed about to obey, then he looked at the wall along which he would have to walk, and the steep flight of steps he would have to descend, and he changed his mind. “I can’t!” he called back, and his high voice floated down to the people on the ground.
Tom realized he was going to have to go up and get him. “Just stay where you are until I reach you!” he shouted. He pushed the blocks of wood off the lower steps and mounted the wall.
It was four feet wide at the foot, but it narrowed as it went up. Tom climbed steadily. He was tempted to rush, but he forced himself to be calm. When he glanced up he saw Jonathan sitting on the edge of the scaffolding, dangling his short legs over the sheer drop.
At the very top the wall was only two feet thick. Even so, it was plenty wide enough to walk on, provided you had strong nerves, and Tom did. He made his way along the wall, jumped down onto the scaffolding, and took Jonathan in his arms. He was swamped with relief. “You foolish boy,” he said, but his voice was full of love, and Jonathan hugged him.
After a moment Tom looked down again. He saw a sea of upturned faces: a hundred or more people were watching. They probably thought it was another show, like the bear-baiting. Tom said to Jonathan: “All right, let’s go down now.” He set the boy on the wall, and said: “I’ll be right behind you, so don’t worry.”
Jonathan was not convinced. “I’m scared,” he said. He held out his arms to be picked up, and when Tom hesitated he burst into tears.
“Never mind, I’ll carry you,” Tom said. He was not very happy about it, but Jonathan was now too upset to be trusted at this height. Tom clambered onto the wall, knelt beside Jonathan, picked him up, and stood upright.
Jonathan held on tight.
Tom stepped forward. Because he had the child in his arms he could not see the stones immediately beneath his feet. That could not be helped. With his heart in his mouth, he walked gingerly along the wall, placing his feet cautiously. He had no fear for himself, but with the child in his arms he was terrified. At last he came to the beginning of the steps. It was no wider here at first, but somehow it seemed less precipitous, with the steps in front of him. He started down gratefully. With each step he felt calmer. When he reached the level of the gallery, and the wall widened to three feet, he paused to let his heartbeat slow down.
He looked out, past the priory close, over Kingsbridge, to the fields beyond, and there he saw something that puzzled him. There was a cloud of dust on the road leading to Kingsbridge, about half a mile away. After a moment he realized that he was looking at a large troop of men on horseback, approaching the town at a smart trot. He peered into the distance, trying to figure out who they were. At first he thought it must be a very wealthy merchant, or a group of merchants, with a large entourage, but there were too many of them, and somehow they did not look like commercial people. He tried to put his finger on what it was about them that made him think they were something other than merchants. As they came closer he saw that some of them were riding war-horses, most had helmets, and they were armed to the teeth.
Suddenly he felt scared.
“Jesus Christ, who are those people?” he said aloud.
“Don’t say ‘Christ,’ ” Jonathan reprimanded him.
Whoever they were, they meant trouble.
Tom hurried down the steps. The crowd cheered as he jumped down to the ground. He ignored them. Where were Ellen and the children? He looked all around, but he could not see them.
Jonathan tried to wriggle out of his arms. Tom held him tight. As he had his youngest child right here, the first thing to do was to put him somewhere safe. Then he could find the others. He pushed through the crowd to the door that led into the cloisters. It was locked from the inside, to preserve the privacy of the monastery during the fair. Tom banged on it and yelled: “Open up! Open up!”
Nothing happened.
Tom was not even sure there was anyone in the cloisters. There was no time to speculate. He stepped back, put Jonathan down, lifted his large booted right foot and kicked at the door. The wood around the lock splintered. He kicked it again, harder. The door flew open. Just the other side of it was an elderly monk, looking astonished. Tom lifted Jonathan and put him inside. “Keep him in there,” he said to the old monk. “There’s going to be trouble.”
The monk nodded dumbly and took Jonathan’s hand.
Tom closed the door.
Now he had to find the rest of his family in a crowd of a thousand or more.
The near impossibility of the task scared him. He could not see a single familiar face. He climbed onto an empty beer barrel to get a better view. It was midday, and the fair was at its height. The crowd moved like a slow river along the aisles between the stalls, and there were eddies around the vendors of food and drink as people queued to buy dinner. Tom raked the crowds but he could not see any of his family. He despaired. He looked over the roofs of the houses. The riders were almost at the bridge, and had increased their pace to a gallop. They were men-at-arms, all of them, and they carried firebrands. Tom was horrified. There would be mayhem.
Suddenly he saw Jack right beside him, looking up at him with an expression of amusement. “Why are you standing on a barrel?” he said.
“There’s going to be trouble!” Tom said urgently. “Where’s your mother?”
“At Aliena’s stall. What sort of trouble?”
“Bad. Where are Alfred and Martha?”
“Martha’s with Mother. Alfred’s watching the cockfighting. What is it?”
“See for yourself.” Tom gave Jack a hand up. Jack stood precariously on the rim of the barrel in front of Tom. The riders were pounding across the bridge into the village. Jack said: “Christ Jesus, who are they?”
Tom peered at the leader, a big man on a war-horse. He recognized the yellow hair and heavy build. “It’s William Hamleigh,” he said.
As the riders reached the houses they touched their torches to the roofs, setting fire to the thatch. “They’re burning the town!” Jack exploded.
“It’s going to be even worse than I thought,” Tom said. “Get down.”
They both jumped to the ground.
“I’ll get Mother and Martha,” Jack said.
“Take them to the cloisters,” Tom said urgently. “It will be the only safe place. If the monks object, tell them to go shit.”
“What if they lock the door?”
“I just broke the lock. Go quickly! I’ll fetch Alfred. Go!”
Jack hurried away. Tom headed for the cockpit, roughly pushing people aside. Several men objected to his shoving but he ignored them and they shut up when they saw his size and the look of stony determination on his face. It was not long before the smoke of the burning houses blew into the priory close. Tom smelled it, and he noticed one or two other people sniffing the air curiously. He had only a few moments left before panic broke out.
The cockpit was near the priory gate. There was a large, noisy crowd around it. Tom shoved through, looking for Alfred. In the middle of the crowd was a shallow hole in the ground a few feet across. In the center of the hole, two cocks were tearing each other to pieces with beaks and spurred claws. There were feathers and blood everywhere. Alfred was near the front, watching intently, yelling at the top of his voice, encouraging one or other of the wretched birds. Tom forced his way between the packed people and grabbed Alfred’s shoulder. “Come!” he shouted.
“I’ve got sixpence on the black one!” Alfred shouted back.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Tom yelled. At that moment a drift of smoke blew over the cockpit. “Can’t you smell the fire?”
One or two of the spectators heard the word fire and looked at Tom curiously. The smell came again, and they picked it up. Alfred smelled it too. “What is it?” he said.
“The town is on fire!” Tom said.
Suddenly everyone wanted to leave. The men dispersed in all directions, pushing and shoving. In the pit, the black cock killed the brown, but nobody cared anymore. Alfred started to go the wrong way. Tom grabbed him. “We’ll go to the cloisters,” he said. “It’s the only safe place.”
The smoke began to come over in billows, and fear spread through the crowd. Everyone was agitated but no one knew what to do. Looking over the heads, Tom could see that people were pouring out through the priory gate; but the gate was narrow, and anyway they were no safer out there than in here. Nevertheless, more people got the idea, and he and Alfred found themselves struggling against a tide of people frantically going in the opposite direction. Then, quite suddenly, the tide turned, and everyone was going their way. Tom looked around to discover the reason for the change, and saw the first of the horsemen ride into the close.
At that point the crowd became a mob.
The riders were a terrifying sight. Their huge horses, just as frightened as the crowd, plunged and reared and charged, trampling people left, right and center. The armed and helmeted riders laid about them with clubs and torches, felling men, women and children, and setting fire to stalls, clothes, and people’s hair. Everyone was screaming. More riders came through the gate, and more people disappeared beneath the massive hooves. Tom shouted in Alfred’s ear: “You go on to the cloisters-I want to make sure the others have got clear. Run!” He gave him a shove. Alfred took off. Tom headed for Aliena’s stall. Almost immediately he tripped over someone and fell to the ground. Cursing, he got to his knees; but before he could stand upright he saw a war-horse bearing down on him. The beast’s ears were back and its nostrils were flared, and Tom could see the whites of its terrified eyes. Above the horse’s head, Tom saw the beefy face of William Hamleigh, distorted into a grimace of hatred and triumph. The thought flashed through his mind that it would be nice to hold Ellen in his arms once again. Then a massive hoof kicked him in the exact center of his forehead, he felt a dreadful, frightening pain as his skull seemed to burst open, and the whole world went black.
The first time Aliena smelled smoke, she thought it was coming from the dinner she was serving.
Three Flemish buyers were sitting at the table in the open air in front of her storehouse. They were corpulent, black-bearded men who spoke English with a heavy Germanic accent and wore clothes of exquisitely fine cloth. Everything was going well. She was close to starting the selling, and had decided to serve lunch first in order to give the buyers time to get anxious. Nevertheless, she would be glad when this vast fortune in wool became someone else’s. She put the platter of honey-roast pork chops in front of them and looked critically at it. The meat was done to a turn, with the border of fat just crisp and brown. She poured more wine. One of the buyers sniffed the air, then they all looked around anxiously. Aliena was suddenly fearful. Fire was the wool merchant’s nightmare. She looked at Ellen and Martha, who were helping her serve dinner. “Can you smell smoke?” she said.
Before they could reply Jack appeared. Aliena had not got used to seeing him in a monk’s habit, with his carrot-colored hair shaved from the top of his head. There was an agitated look on his sweet face. She felt a sudden urge to take him in her arms and kiss away the frown on his forehead. But she turned away quickly, remembering how she had let herself down with him in the old mill six months ago. She still flushed for shame every time she recalled that incident.
“There’s trouble,” he shouted urgently. “We must all take refuge in the cloisters.”
She looked at him. “What’s happening-is there a fire?”
“It’s Earl William and his men-at-arms,” he said.
Aliena suddenly felt as cold as the grave. William. Again.
Jack said: “They’ve set fire to the town. Tom and Alfred are going to the cloisters. Come with me, please.”
Ellen unceremoniously dropped the bowl of greens she was carrying onto the table in front of a startled Flemish buyer. “Right,” she said. She grabbed Martha by the arm. “Let’s go.”
Aliena shot a panicky look at her storehouse. She had hundreds of pounds’ worth of raw wool in there that she had to protect from fire-but how? She caught Jack’s eye. He was looking at her expectantly. The buyers left the table hurriedly. Aliena said to Jack: “Go. I have to look after my stall.”
Ellen said: “Jack-come on!”
“In a moment,” he said, and turned back to Aliena.
Aliena saw Ellen hesitate. She was clearly torn between saving Martha and waiting for Jack. Again she said: “Jack! Jack!”
He turned to her. “Mother! Take Martha!”
“All right!” she said. “But please hurry!” She and Martha left.
Jack said: “The town is on fire. The cloisters will be the safest place-they’re made of stone. Come with me, quickly.”
Aliena could hear screams from the direction of the priory gate. The smoke was suddenly everywhere. She looked all around, trying to make out what was happening. Her insides were knotted with fear. Everything she had worked for for over six years was stacked up in the storehouse.
Jack said: “Aliena! Come to the cloisters-we’ll be safe there!”
“I can’t!” she shouted. “My wool!”
“To hell with your wool!”
“It’s all I’ve got!”
“It’s no good to you if you’re dead!”
“It’s easy for you to say that-but I’ve spent all these years getting to this position-”
“Aliena! Please!”
Suddenly the people right outside the stall were screaming in mortal terror. The riders had entered the priory close and were charging through the crowds, regardless of whom they trampled, setting fire to the stalls. Terror-stricken people were crushing one another in their desperate attempts to get out of the way of the flying hooves and the firebrands. The crowd pressed against the flimsy wooden hurdle that formed the front of Aliena’s stall, and it immediately collapsed. People spilled onto the open space in front of the storehouse and upset the table with its plates of food and cups of wine. Jack and Aliena were forced back. Two riders charged into the stall, one swinging a club at random, the other brandishing a flaming torch. Jack pushed himself in front of Aliena, shielding her. The club came down at Aliena’s head, but Jack threw a protective arm over her, and the club smashed down on his wrist. She felt the blow but he took the impact. When she looked up she saw the face of the second rider.
It was William Hamleigh.
Aliena screamed.
He looked at her for a moment, with the torch blazing in his hand and the light of triumph glittering in his eyes. Then he kicked his horse and forced it into her storehouse.
“No!” Aliena screamed.
She struggled to escape from the crush, shoving and punching those around her, including Jack. At last she got free and dashed into the storehouse. William was leaning out from the saddle, putting his torch to the piled sacks of wool. “No!” she screamed again. She threw herself at him and tried to pull him off the horse. He brushed her aside and she fell to the ground. He held his torch to the woolsacks again. The wool caught fire with a mighty roar. The horse reared and screamed in terror at the flames. Suddenly Jack was there, pulling Aliena out of the way. William wheeled the horse and went out of the storehouse fast. Aliena got to her feet. She picked up an empty sack and tried to beat the flames out. Jack said: “Aliena, you’ll be killed!” The heat became agonizing. She grabbed at a woolsack that was not yet on fire, and tried to pull it free. Suddenly she heard a roaring in her ears and felt intense heat on her face, and she realized in terror that her hair was on fire. An instant later Jack threw himself at her, wrapping his arms around her head and pulling her tightly against his body. They both fell to the ground. He held her hard for a moment, then loosed his hold. She smelled singed hair but it was no longer burning. She could see that Jack’s face was burned and his eyebrows had gone. He grabbed her by one ankle and dragged her out through the door. He kept on pulling her, despite her struggles, until they were well clear.
The area of her stall had emptied. Jack released his hold on her. She tried to get up, but he grabbed her and held her down. She continued to struggle, staring madly at the fire that was consuming all her years of work and worry, all her wealth and security, until she had no energy left to fight him. Then she just lay there and screamed.
Philip was in the undercroft beneath the priory kitchen, counting money with Cuthbert Whitehead, when he heard the noise. He and Cuthbert looked at one another, frowning, then got up to see what was going on.
They stepped through the door into a riot.
Philip was horrified. People were running in every direction, pushing and shoving, falling over and treading on one another. Men and women were shouting and children were crying. The air was full of smoke. Everyone seemed to be trying to get out of the priory close. Apart from the main gate, the only exit was through the gap between the kitchen buildings and the mill. There was no wall there, but there was a deep ditch that carried water from the millpond to the brewery. Philip wanted to warn people to be careful of the ditch, but nobody was listening to anyone.
The cause of the rush was obviously a fire, and a very big one. The air was thick with the smoke of it. Philip was full of fear. With this many people all crowded together, the slaughter could be appalling. What could be done?
First he had to find out exactly what was going on. He ran up the steps to the kitchen door, to get a better view. What he saw filled him with dread.
The entire town of Kingsbridge was alight.
A cry of horror and despair escaped his throat.
How could this be happening?
Then he saw the horsemen, charging through the crowd with their burning firebrands, and he realized that it was not an accident. His first thought was that there was a battle going on between the two sides in the civil war, and somehow it had engulfed Kingsbridge. But the men-at-arms were attacking the citizens, not one another. This was no battle: it was a massacre.
He saw a large blond man on a massive war-horse crashing through the crowds of people. It was William Hamleigh.
Hatred rose in Philip’s gorge. To think that the slaughter and destruction going on all around had been caused deliberately, for reasons of greed and pride, drove him half mad. He shouted at the top of his voice: “I see you, William Hamleigh!”
William heard his name called over the screams of the crowd. He reined in his horse and met Philip’s eye.
Philip yelled: “You’ll go to hell for this!”
William’s face was suffused with bloodlust. Even the threat of what he feared most had no effect on him today. He was like a madman. He waved his firebrand in the air like a banner. “This is hell, monk!” he shouted back; and he wheeled his horse and rode on.
Suddenly everyone had disappeared, the riders and the crowds. Jack released his hold on Aliena and stood up. His right hand felt numb. He remembered that he had taken the blow aimed at Aliena’s head. He was glad his hand hurt. He hoped it would hurt for a long time, to remind him.
The storehouse was an inferno, and smaller fires burned all around. The ground was littered with bodies, some moving, some bleeding, some limp and still. Apart from the crackle of the flames it was quiet. The mob had got out, one way or another, leaving their dead and wounded behind. Jack felt dazed. He had never seen a battlefield but he imagined it must look like this.
Aliena started to cry. Jack put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She pushed it off. He had saved her life, but she did not care for that: she cared only for her damned wool, which was now irretrievably lost in smoke. He looked at her for a moment, feeling sad. Most of her hair had burned away, and she no longer looked beautiful, but he loved her all the same. It hurt him to see her so distraught, and not to be able to comfort her.
He felt sure she would not try to go into the storehouse now. He was worried about the rest of his family, so he left Aliena and went looking for them.
His face hurt. He put a hand to his cheek, and his own touch stung him. He must have got burned too. He looked at the bodies on the ground. He wanted to do something for the wounded, but he did not know where to begin. He searched for familiar faces among the strangers, hoping not to see any. Mother and Martha had gone to the cloisters-they had been well ahead of the mob, he thought. Had Tom found Alfred? He turned toward the cloisters. Then he saw Tom.
His stepfather’s tall body was stretched out full length on the muddy ground. It was perfectly still. His face was recognizable, even peaceful-looking, up to the eyebrows; but his forehead was open and his skull was completely smashed. Jack was appalled. He could not take it in. Tom could not be dead. But this thing could not be alive. He looked away, then looked back. It was Tom, and he was dead.
Jack knelt beside the body. He felt the urge to do something, or say something, and for the first time he understood why people liked to pray for the dead. “Mother is going to miss you terribly,” he said. He remembered the angry speech he had made to Tom on the day of his fight with Alfred. “Most of that wasn’t true,” he said, and the tears started to flow. “You didn’t fail me. You fed me and took care of me, and you made my mother happy, truly happy.” But there was something more important than all that, he thought. What Tom had given him was nothing so commonplace as food and shelter. Tom had given him something unique, something no other man had to give, something even his own father could not have given him; something that was a passion, a skill, an art, and a way of life. “You gave me the cathedral,” Jack whispered to the dead man. “Thank you.”