The Pillars Of The Earth [Part Two]

Part Two

Aliena almost collapsed with relief. A verderer was a royal servant paid to enforce the forest laws. "Why didn't you say so, you foolish man?" she said, angry at having been scared. "I took you for an outlaw!" He looked startled, and rather offended, as if she had said something impolite; but all he said was: "You'll be a highborn lady, then." "I am the daughter of the earl of Shiring." "And the boy will be his son," said the verderer, although he had not seemed to see Richard. Richard now stepped forward and dropped his firewood. "That's right," he said. "What's your name?" "Brian. Are you planning to spend the night here?" "Yes." "All alone?" "Yes." Aliena knew he was wondering why they had no escort, but she was not going to tell him. "And you've no money, you say." Aliena frowned at him. "Do you doubt me?" "Oh, no. I can tell you're nobility, by your manners." Was there a hint of irony in his voice? "If you're alone and penniless, perhaps you'd prefer to spend the night at my house. It's not far." Aliena had no intention of putting herself at the mercy of this rough character. She was about to refuse when he spoke again. "My wife would be glad to give you supper. And I've a warm outhouse where you could sleep, if you prefer to sleep alone." The wife made a difference. Accepting the hospitality of a respectable family should be safe enough. Still Aliena hesitated. Then she thought of a fireplace, a bowl of hot pottage, a cup of wine, and a bed of straw with a roof over it. "We'd be grateful," she said. "We've nothing to give you--I told the truth about having no money--but we'll come back and reward you one day." "Good enough," said the verderer. He went over to the fire and kicked it out. Aliena and Richard mounted--they had not yet unsaddled the horses. The verderer came over and said: "Give me the reins." Not sure what he wanted to do, Aliena gave him the reins, and Richard did likewise. The man set off through the forest, leading the horses. Aliena would have preferred to hold the reins herself, but she decided to let him have his way. It was further than he had indicated. They had travelled three or four miles, and it was dark, by the time they reached a small wood house with a thatched roof on the edge of a field. But there was light shining through the shutters and a smell of cooking, and Aliena dismounted gratefully. The verderer's wife heard the horses and came to the door. The man said to her: "A young lord and lady, alone in the forest. Give them something to drink." He turned to Aliena. "In you go. I'll see to the horses." Aliena did not like his peremptory tone--she would have preferred it if she were the one giving instructions--but she had no wish to unsaddle her own horse, so she went inside. Richard followed. The house was smoky and smelly, but warm. There was a cow tethered in one corner. Aliena was glad the man had mentioned an outhouse: she had never slept with cattle. A pot bubbled on the fire. They sat on a bench, and the wife gave them each a bowl of soup from the pot. It tasted gamey. When she saw Richard's face in the light she was shocked. "What happened to you?" she said. Richard opened his mouth to reply but Aliena forestalled him. "We've had a series of misfortunes," she said. "We're on our way to see the king." "I see," said the wife. She was a small, brown-skinned woman with a guarded look. She did not persist in her questioning. Aliena ate her soup quickly and wanted more. She held out her bowl. The woman looked away. Aliena was puzzled. Did she not know what Aliena wanted? Or did she not have any more? Aliena was about to speak to her sharply when the verderer came in. "I'll show you the barn, where you can sleep," he said. He took a lamp from a hook by the door. "Come with me." Aliena and Richard stood up. Aliena said to the wife: "There is one thing more I need. Can you give me an old dress? I've got nothing on under this cloak." The woman looked annoyed for some reason. "I'll see what I can find," she muttered. Aliena went to the door. The verderer was giving her a strange look, staring at her cloak as if he might be able to see through it if he looked hard enough. "Lead the way!" she said sharply. He turned and went through the door. He led them around to the back of the house and through a vegetable patch. The shifting light of the lamp revealed a small wooden building, more of a shed than a barn. He opened the door. It banged against a water butt that collected the rain from the roof. "Take a look," he said. "See if it suits you." Richard went in first. "Bring the light, Allie," he said. Aliena turned to take the lamp from the verderer. As she did so, he gave her a powerful shove. She fell sideways, through the doorway and into the barn, cannoning off her brother. They both ended up in a tangle on the floor. It went dark and the door banged shut. There was a peculiar noise outside, as of something heavy being moved in front of the door. Aliena could not believe this was happening. "What's going on, Allie?" Richard cried. She sat up. Was the man really a verderer, or was he an outlaw? He could not be an outlaw--his house was too substantial. But if he really was a verderer, why had he locked them up? Had they broken a law? Did he guess that the horses were not theirs? Or did he have some dishonest motive? "Allie, why did he do that?" Richard said. "I don't know," she said wearily. She had no energy left to be upset or angry. She got up and pushed at the door. It would not move. She guessed that the verderer had put the water butt up against it. In the dark, she felt the walls of the barn. She could reach the lower slopes of the roof, too. The building was made of close-set timbers. It had been carefully constructed. It was the verderer's jail, where he kept offenders before taking them to the sheriff. "We can't get out," she said. She sat down. The floor was dry and covered with straw. "We're stuck here until he lets us out," she said resignedly. Richard sat beside her. After a while they lay down back to back. Aliena felt she was too battered and frightened and tense to go to sleep, but she was also exhausted, and within a few moments she fell into a healing slumber. She woke up when the door opened and daylight fell on her face. She sat up immediately, feeling frightened, not knowing where she was or why she was sleeping on the hard ground. Then she remembered, and was still more frightened: what was the verderer going to do to them? However, it was not the verderer who came in but his small brown wife; and although her face was as set and closed as it had been last night, she was carrying a hunk of bread and two cups. Richard sat up too. They both eyed the woman warily. She said nothing, but handed them each a cup, then broke the bread in two and gave half to each of them. Aliena suddenly realised she was starving. She dipped her bread in her beer and began to eat. The woman stood in the doorway, watching them, while they finished off the bread and beer. Then she handed Aliena what looked like a length of worn, yellowing linen, folded up. Aliena unfolded it. It was an old dress. The woman said: "Put that on and get out of here." Aliena was mystified by the combination of kindness and hard words, but she did not hesitate to take the dress. She turned her back, dropped her cloak, pulled the dress over her head quickly, and put the cloak back on. She felt better. The woman handed her a pair of worn wooden clogs, too big. Aliena said: "I can't ride with clogs on." The woman laughed harshly. "You won't be riding." "Why not?" "He's taken your horses." Aliena's heart sank. It was too unfair that they should suffer more bad luck. "Where's he taken them?" "He doesn't tell me these things, but I'd guess he's gone to Shiring. He'll sell the beasts, then find out who you are, and whether there's anything more to be made out of you than the price of your horseflesh." "So why are you letting us go?" The woman looked Aliena up and down. "Because I didn't like the way he looked at you when you told him you were naked under your cloak. You may not understand that now, but you will when you're a wife." Aliena understood it already, but she did not say so. Richard said: "Won't he kill you when he finds you've let us go?" She gave a cynical smile. "He doesn't scare me as much as he scares others. Now be off." They went out. Aliena understood that this woman had learned how to live with a brutal and heartless man, and had even managed to preserve a minimum of decency and compassion. "Thank you for the dress," she said awkwardly. The woman did not want her thanks. She pointed down the path and said: "Winchester is that way." They walked away and did not look back. Aliena had never worn clogs--people of her class always had leather boots or sandals--and she found them clumsy and uncomfortable. However, they were better than nothing when the ground was cold. When they were out of sight of the verderer's house, Richard said: "Allie, why are these things happening to us?" The question demoralised Aliena. Everyone was cruel to them. People were allowed to beat them and rob them as if they were horses or dogs. There was nobody to protect them. We've been too trusting, she thought. They had lived for three months in the castle without ever barring the doors. She resolved to trust nobody in the future. Never again would she let someone else take the reins of her horse, even if she had to be rude to prevent it. Never again would she let someone get behind her the way the verderer had last night, when he pushed her into the shed. She would never accept the hospitality of a stranger, never leave her door unlocked at night, never take kindness at face value. "Let's walk faster," she said to Richard. "Perhaps we can reach Winchester by nightfall." They followed the path to the clearing where they had met the verderer. The remains of their fire were still there. From there they easily found the road to Winchester. They had been to Winchester before, many times, and they knew the way. Once they were on the road they could move faster. Frost had hardened the mud since the storm two nights ago. Richard's face was returning to normal. He had washed it yesterday, in a cold brook in the woods, and most of the dried blood had gone. There was an ugly scab where his right earlobe had been. His lips were still swollen but the puffiness had gone from the rest of his face. However, he was still badly bruised, and the angry colour of the bruises gave him a rather frightening appearance. Still, that would do no harm. Aliena missed the heat of the horse beneath her. Her hands and feet were painfully cold, even though her body was warm from the exertion of walking. The weather remained cold all morning, then at midday the temperature rose a little. By then she was hungry. She remembered that only yesterday she had felt as if she did not care whether she ever got warm or ate food again. But she did not want to think about that. Whenever they heard horses or saw people in the distance they darted into the woods and hid until the other travellers had passed by. They hurried through villages, speaking to no one. Richard wanted to beg for food but Aliena would not let him. By the middle of the afternoon they were within a few miles of their destination and no one had bothered them. Aliena was thinking that it was not so difficult to avoid trouble, after all. Then, on a particularly desolate stretch of the road, a man suddenly stepped out of the bushes and stood in front of them. They had no time to hide. "Keep walking," Aliena said to Richard, but the man moved to block their way, and they had to stop. Aliena looked behind, thinking of running that way; but another fellow had materialised out of the forest and was standing ten or fifteen yards away, blocking their escape. "What have we here?" said the man in front, in a loud voice. He was a fat, red-faced man with a big swollen belly and a filthy matted beard, and he carried a heavy club. He was almost certainly an outlaw. Aliena could tell from his face that he was the kind of man who would commit violence readily, and her heart filled with dread. "Leave us alone," she said in a pleading tone. "We've got nothing for you to steal." "I'm not so sure," said the man. He took a step toward Richard. "This looks like a fine sword, worth several shillings." "It's mine!" Richard protested, but he just sounded like a scared child. It's no use, Aliena thought. We're powerless. I'm a woman and he's a boy, and people can do anything they like with us. With a surprisingly agile movement the fat man suddenly raised his club and struck at Richard. Richard tried to dodge. The blow was aimed at his head but it hit his shoulder. The fat man was strong, and the blow knocked Richard down. Suddenly Aliena lost her temper. She had been treated unjustly, vilely abused, and robbed, and she was cold and hungry and hardly in control of herself. Her little brother had been beaten half to death less than two days ago and now the sight of someone clubbing him maddened her. She lost all sense of reason or caution. Without even thinking, she pulled the dagger from her sleeve, flew at the fat outlaw, and jabbed the knife at his great belly, screaming: "Leave him alone, you dog!" She took him completely by surprise. His cloak had come open when he hit Richard, and his hands were still occupied with the club. He was completely off guard: no doubt he had thought himself safe from attack by a young girl who appeared unarmed. The point of the knife went through the wool of his tunic and the linen of his undershirt and was stopped by the taut skin of his belly. Aliena experienced a flash of revulsion, a moment of sheer horror at the thought of breaking human skin and penetrating the flesh of a real person; but fear stiffened her resolve, and she shoved the knife through his skin and into the soft organs of his abdomen; and then she became terrified that she might not kill him, that he might stay alive to take his revenge, and so she kept on pushing until the long knife was inside him up to the hilt and would not go in any further. Suddenly the fearsome, arrogant, cruel man was a frightened wounded animal. He cried out in pain, dropped his club, and stared down at the knife sticking into him. Aliena understood in a flash that he knew it was a mortal wound. She snatched her hand away in horror. The outlaw staggered back. Aliena remembered that there was another thief behind her, and panic seized her: he would surely take a terrible revenge for the death of his accomplice. She grabbed the hilt of the knife again and jerked. The wounded man had turned slightly away from her, and she had to pull the knife sideways. She felt it slice through his soft insides as it came out of his fat belly. Blood spurted on her hand and the man screamed like an animal and fell to the ground. She spun round, knife in bloody hand, and faced the other man. As she did so, Richard struggled to his feet and drew his sword. The second thief looked from one of them to the other, then at his dying friend, and without further ado he turned and ran into the woods. Aliena watched, incredulous. They had scared him off. It was hard to take in. She looked at the man on the ground. He lay flat on his back with his guts falling out of the great tear in his belly. His eyes were wide open and his face was twisted with pain and fear. Aliena felt no relief, no pride in having defended herself and her brother from ruthless men: she was too disgusted and repelled by the hideous sight. Richard felt no such qualms. "You stabbed him, Allie!" he said in a voice between excitement and hysteria. "You did for them!" Aliena looked at him. He had to be taught a lesson. "Kill this one," she said. Richard stared at her. "What?" "Kill him," she repeated. "Put him out of his misery. Finish him off!" "Why me?" She deliberately made her voice harsh. "Because you act like a boy and I need a man. Because you've never done anything with a sword except play at war, and you have to start somewhere. What's the matter with you? What are you afraid of? He's dying anyway. He can't hurt you. Use your sword. Get some practice. Kill him!" Richard held his sword in both hands and looked uncertain. "How?" The man screamed again. Aliena yelled at Richard: "I don't know how! Cut off his head, or stab him in the heart! Anything! Just shut him up!" Richard looked cornered. He lifted his sword and lowered it again. Aliena said: "If you don't do this I'll leave you alone, I swear by all the saints. I'll get up one night and go away and when you wake up in the morning I won't be there and you'll be all on your own. Now kill him!" Richard raised his sword again. Then, incredibly, the dying man stopped screaming and tried to get up. He rolled to one side and raised himself on one elbow. Richard gave a shout that was half a yell of fear and half a battle cry, and brought his sword down hard on the man's exposed neck. The weapon was heavy and the blade was sharp, and the blow sliced more than halfway through the fat neck. Blood spurted like a fountain and the head leaned grotesquely to one side. The body slumped to the earth. Aliena and Richard stared at it. Steam rose from the hot blood in the winter air. They were both stunned by what they had done. Suddenly Aliena wanted to get away from there. She started to run. Richard followed. She stopped when she could run no more, and that was when she realised she was sobbing. She walked on slowly, no longer caring if Richard saw her in tears. He seemed unaffected anyway. Gradually she calmed down. The wooden clogs were hurting her. She stopped and took them off. She walked on in her bare feet, carrying the clogs. Soon they would reach Winchester. After a while Richard said: "We're fools." "Why?" "That man. We just left him there. We should have taken his boots." Aliena stopped and stared, horrified, at her brother. He looked back at her and gave a little laugh. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?" he said. II Aliena began to feel hopeful again as she walked through the West Gate to Winchester High Street at nightfall. In the forest she had felt that she might be murdered and no one would ever know what had happened, but now she was back in civilization. Of course, the city was full of thieves and cutthroats, but they could not commit their crimes in broad daylight with impunity. In the city there were laws, and lawbreakers were banished, mutilated or hanged. She remembered going down this street with her father only a year or so ago. They had been on horseback, naturally; he on a highly strung chestnut courser and she on a beautiful grey palfrey. People made way for them as they rode through the broad streets. They owned a house in the south of the city, and when they arrived they were welcomed by eight or ten servants. The house had been cleaned, there was fresh straw on the floor, and all the fires were lit. During their stay Aliena had worn beautiful clothes every day: fine linen, silk, and soft wool, all dyed gorgeous colours; boots and belts of calf leather; and jewelled brooches and bracelets. It had been her job to make sure there was always a welcome for anyone who came to see the earl: meat and wine for the wealthy, bread and ale for the poorer sort, a smile and a place by the fire for either. Her father was punctilious about hospitality, but he was not good at doing it personally--people found him cool, remote, and even highhanded. Aliena supplied the lack Everyone respected her father, and the very highest had called on him: the bishop, the prior, the sheriff, the royal chancellor, and the barons at the court. She wondered how many of those people would recognise her now, walking barefoot through the mud and filth of that same High Street. The thought did not dampen her optimism. The important thing was that she no longer felt like a victim. She was back in a world where there were rules and laws, and she had a chance to regain control of her life. They walked past their house. It was empty and locked up: the Hamleighs had not yet taken it over. For a moment Aliena was tempted to try to get in. It's my house! she thought. But it was not, of course, and the idea of spending the night there reminded her of the way she had lived in the castle, closing her eyes to reality. She walked on determinedly. The other good thing about being in the city was that there was a monastery here. The monks would always provide a bed for anyone who begged it. She and Richard would sleep under a roof tonight, safe and dry. She found the cathedral and went into the priory courtyard. Two monks stood at a trestle table doling out horsebread and beer to a hundred or more people. It had not occurred to Aliena that there would be so many others begging the monks' hospitality. She and Richard joined the queue. It was amazing, she thought, how people who would normally jostle and shove one another to get at free food could be made to stand quietly in an orderly line just because a monk told them to. They got their supper and took it into the guesthouse. This was a big wooden building like a barn, bare of furniture, dimly lit by rushlights, smelling strongly of many people crowded closely together. They sat on the ground to eat. The floor was covered with rushes that were none too fresh. Aliena wondered whether she should tell the monks who she was. The prior might remember her. In such a large priory there would naturally be a superior guesthouse for highborn visitors. But she found herself reluctant to do that. Perhaps it was that she was afraid of being spurned; but she also felt she would be putting herself in someone else's power again, and although she had nothing to fear from a prior, nevertheless she felt more comfortable remaining anonymous and unnoticed. The other guests were mostly pilgrims, with a sprinkling of travelling craftsmen--identifiable by the tools they carried--and some hawkers, men who went from village to village selling things that peasants could not make for themselves, pins and knives and cooking pots and spices. Some of them had their wives and children with them. The children were noisy and excited, rushing around and fighting and falling over. Every now and again one would cannon into an adult, get a smack on the head, and burst into tears. Some of them were not perfectly house-trained, and Aliena saw several children urinating into the rushes on the floor. Such things were probably of no consequence in a house where the livestock slept in the same room as the people, but in a crowded hall it was rather disgusting, Aliena thought: they all had to sleep on those rushes later. She began to get the feeling that people were looking at her as if they knew she had been deflowered. It was ridiculous, of course, but the feeling would not go away. She kept checking to see whether she was bleeding. She was not. But every time she turned around she caught someone giving her a hard, penetrating stare. As soon as she met their eyes they would look away, but a little while later she would catch someone else doing it. She kept telling herself that this was foolish, they weren't staring at her, they were just looking curiously around a crowded room. There was nothing to look at, anyway: she was no different from them in appearance--she was as dirty, badly dressed and tired as they were. But the feeling persisted, and against her will she got angry. There was one man who kept catching her eye, a middle-aged pilgrim with a large family. Eventually she lost her temper and yelled at him: "What are you looking at? Stop staring at me!" He seemed embarrassed and averted his eyes without replying. Richard said quietly: "Why did you do that, Allie?" She told him to shut up and he did. The monks came around and took away the lights soon after supper. They liked people to go to sleep early: it kept them out of the alehouses and brothels of the city at night, and in the morning it made it easier for the monks to get the visitors off the premises early. Several of the single men left the hall when the lights went out, headed no doubt for the fleshpots, but most people curled up in their cloaks on the floor. It was many years since Aliena had slept in a hall like this. As a child she had always envied the people downstairs, lying side by side in front of the dying fire, in a room full of smoke and the smell of dinner, with the dogs to guard them: there had been a sense of togetherness in the hall which was absent from the spacious, empty chambers of the lord's family. In those days she had sometimes left her own bed and tiptoed down the stairs to sleep alongside one of her favourite servants, Madge Laundry or Old Joan. Drifting off to sleep with the smell of her childhood in her nostrils, she dreamed about her mother. Normally she had trouble remembering what her mother had looked like, but now, to her surprise, she could see Mama's face clearly, in every detail: the small features, the timid smile, the slight frame, the look of anxiety in the eyes. She saw her mother's walk, leaning slightly to one side as if she were always trying to get close to the wall, with the opposite arm extended a little for balance. She could hear her mother's laugh, that unexpectedly rich contralto, always ready to break into song or laughter but usually afraid to do so. She knew, in the dream, something that had never been clear to her awake: that her father had so frightened her mother and suppressed her sense of the joy of life that she had shrivelled up and died like a flower in a drought. All this came into Aliena's mind like something very familiar, something she had always known. However, what was shocking was that Aliena was pregnant. Mother seemed pleased. They sat together in a bedroom, and Aliena's belly was so distended that she had to sit with her legs slightly apart and her hands crossed over her bump, in the age-old pose of the mother-to-be. Then William Hamleigh burst into the room, carrying in his hand the dagger with the long blade, and Aliena knew he was going to stab her belly the way she had stabbed the fat outlaw in the forest, and she screamed so loud she woke up sitting upright; and then she realised that William was not here and she had not even screamed, the noise had only been in her head. After that she lay awake wondering if she really was pregnant. The thought had not occurred to her before, and now it terrified her. How disgusting it would be to have William Hamleigh's baby. It might not be his--it might be the groom's. She might never know. How could she love the baby? Every time she looked at it, it would remind her of that dreadful night. She would have the baby in secret, she vowed, and leave it out in the cold to die as soon as it was born, the way the peasants did when they had too many children. With that resolve she drifted off to sleep again. It was barely light when the monks brought breakfast. The noise woke Aliena. Most of the other guests were awake already, because they had gone to sleep so early, but Aliena had slept on: she had been very tired. Breakfast was hot gruel with salt. Aliena and Richard ate hungrily and wished there were bread to go with it. Aliena thought over what she would say to King Stephen. She felt sure that he had simply forgotten that the earl of Storing had two children. As soon as they appeared and reminded him, he would willingly make provision for them, she thought. However, in case he needed persuading she ought to have a few words ready. She would not insist that her father was innocent, she decided, for that would imply that the king's judgment had been at fault, and he would be offended. Nor would she protest about Percy Hamleigh being made earl. Men of affairs hated to have past decisions disputed. "For better or worse, that's been settled," her father would say. No, she would simply point out that she and her brother were innocent, and ask the king to give them a knight's estate, so that they could support themselves modestly, and Richard could prepare to become one of the king's fighting men in a few years' time. A small estate would enable her to take care of her father, when the king pleased to release him from jail. He was no longer a threat: he had no title, no followers and no money. She would remind the king that her father had faithfully served the old king, Henry, who had been Stephen's uncle. She would not be forceful, just humbly firm, clear and simple. After breakfast she asked a monk where she could wash her face. He looked startled: evidently it was an unusual request. However, monks were in favour of cleanliness, and he showed her an open conduit where clean cold water ran into the priory grounds, and warned her not to wash "indecently," as he put it, in case one of the brothers should accidentally see her and thereby soil his soul. Monks did a lot of good but their attitudes could be irritating. When she and Richard had washed the dirt of the road off their faces they left the priory and walked uphill along the High Street to the castle, which stood to one side of the West Gate. By coming early Aliena hoped to befriend or charm whoever was in charge of admitting petitioners, and ensure that she was not forgotten in the crowd of important people who would arrive later. However, the atmosphere within the castle walls was even quieter than she had hoped. Had King Stephen been here so long that few people needed to see him? She was not sure when he might have come. The king was normally at Winchester throughout Lent, she thought, but she was not sure when Lent had begun, for she had lost track of dates, living in the castle with Richard and Matthew and no priest. There was a burly guard with a grey beard standing at the foot of the keep steps. Aliena made to walk past him, as she had when she came here with her father, but the guard lowered his spear across her path. She looked at him imperiously and said: "Yes?" "And where do you think you're going, my girl?" said the guard. Aliena saw, with a sinking feeling, that he was the type of person who liked being a guard because it gave him the chance to stop people from going where they wanted to go. "We're here to petition the king," she said frostily. "Now let us pass." "You?" the guard said with a sneer. "Wearing a pair of clogs that my wife would be ashamed of? Clear off." "Get out of my way, guard," said Aliena. "Every citizen has the right to petition the king." "But the poorer sort generally are not foolish enough to try to exercise that right--" "We are not the poorer sort!" Aliena blazed. "I am the daughter of the earl of Shiring, and my brother is his son, so let us pass, or you'll end up rotting in a dungeon." The guard looked a little less bumptious, but he said smugly: "You can't petition the king, because he's not here. He's at Westminster, as you ought to know if you are who you say you are." Aliena was thunderstruck. "But why has he gone to Westminster? He should be here for Easter!" The guard realised she was not a street urchin. "Easter court is at Westminster. It seems he's not going to do everything exactly the same as the old king did, and why should he?" He was right, of course, but the idea that a new king would follow a different timetable had never occurred to Aliena, who was too young to remember when Henry had been the new king. Despair washed over her. She had thought she knew what to do, and she had been so wrong. She felt like giving up. She shook her head to dispel the sense of doom. This was a setback, not a defeat. Appealing to the king was not the only way to take care of her brother and herself. She had come to Winchester with two purposes, and the second was to find out what had happened to her father. He would know what she should do next. "Who is here, then?" she said to the guard. "There must be some royal officials. I just want to see my father." "There's a clerk and a steward up there," the guard replied. "Did you say the earl of Shiring was your father?" "Yes." Her heart missed a beat. "Do you know anything about him?" "I know where he is." "Where?" "In the jail right here at the castle." So close! "Where's the jail?" The guard jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Down the hill, past the chapel, opposite the main gate." Excluding them from the keep had gratified his mean streak and now he was willing to be informative. "You'd better see the jailer. His name is Odo, and he's got deep pockets." Aliena did not understand the remark about deep pockets but she was too agitated to clarify it. Until this moment her father had been in a vague, distant place called "prison," but now, suddenly, he was right here in this very castle. She forgot all about appealing to the king. All she wanted to do was see Father. The thought that he was close by, ready to help her, made her feel the danger and uncertainty of the last few months more acutely. She wanted to run into his arms and hear him say: "It's all right, now. Everything's going to be all right." The keep stood on a rise in one corner of the compound. Aliena turned and looked down at the rest of the castle. It was a motley collection of stone and wood buildings enclosed by high walls. Down the hill, the guard had said; past the chapel--she spotted a neat stone building that looked like a chapel--and opposite the main gate. The main entrance was a gate in the outer wall, permitting the king to come into his castle without first having to enter the city. Opposite that entrance, close to the back wall that separated the castle from the city, was a small stone building that could be the jail. Aliena and Richard hurried down the slope. Aliena wondered how he would be. Did they give people proper food in jail? Her father's own prisoners had always got horsebread and pottage at Earlscastle, but she had heard that prisoners were sometimes ill-treated elsewhere. She hoped Father was all right. Her heart was in her mouth as she crossed the compound. It was a big castle but it was crowded with buildings: kitchens, stables, and barracks. There were two chapels. Now that she knew the king was away, Aliena could see the signs of his absence, and she noted them distractedly as she wove her way toward the jail: stray pigs and sheep had wandered in from the suburbs just outside the gate and were rooting around in the rubbish tips, men-at-arms were lolling about with nothing to do but call out insolent remarks to passing women, and there was some kind of betting game going on in the porch of one of the chapels. The atmosphere of laxity bothered Aliena. She was afraid it might mean her father was not looked after properly. She began to dread what she might find. The jail was a semi-derelict stone building that looked as if it might once have been a house for a royal official, a chancellor or bailiff of some kind, before it fell into disrepair. The upper story, which had once been the hall, was completely ruined, having lost most of its roof. Only the undercroft remained whole. Here there were no windows, just a big wooden door with iron studs. The door stood slightly ajar. As Aliena hesitated outside, a handsome middle-aged woman in a good-quality cloak passed her, opened the door and went in. Aliena and Richard followed her. The gloomy interior smelled of old dirt and corruption. The undercroft had once been an open storeroom, but it had later been divided into small compartments by hastily built rubble walls. Somewhere in the depths of the building a man was moaning monotonously, like a monk chanting services alone in a church. The area just inside the door formed a small lobby, with a chair, a table and a fire in the middle of the floor. A big, stupid-looking man with a sword at his belt was lackadaisically sweeping the floor. He looked up and greeted the handsome woman. "Good morning, Meg." She gave him a penny and disappeared into the gloom. He looked at Aliena and Richard. "What do you want?" "I'm here to see my father," Aliena said. "He is the earl of Shiring." "No, he's not," said the jailer. "He's just plain Bartholomew now." "To hell with your distinctions, jailer. Where is he?" "How much have you got?" "I've no money, so don't bother asking for a bribe." "If you've no money, you can't see your father." He resumed sweeping. Aliena wanted to scream. She was within a few yards of her father and she was being kept from him. The jailer was big and he was armed: there was no chance of defying him. But she did not have any money. She had been afraid of this when she saw the woman Meg give him a penny, but that might have been for some special privilege. Obviously not: a penny must be the price of admission. She said: "I'll get a penny, and bring it to you as soon as I can. But won't you let us see him now, just for a few moments?" "Get the penny first," the jailer said. He turned his back and went on sweeping. Aliena was fighting back tears. She was tempted to yell out a message in the hope that her father would hear her; but she realised that a garbled message might frighten and demoralise him: it would make him anxious without giving him any information. She went to the door, feeling maddeningly impotent. She turned around on the threshold. "How is he? Just tell me that-- please? Is he all right?" "No, he's not," the jailer said. "He's dying. Now get out of here." Aliena's vision blurred with tears and she stumbled through the door. She walked away, not seeing where she was going, and bumped into something--a sheep or a pig--and almost fell. She began to sob. Richard took her arm, and she let him guide her. They went out of the castle by the main gate, into the scattered hovels and small fields of the suburbs, and eventually came to a meadow and sat on a tree stump. "I hate it when you cry, Allie," said Richard pathetically. She tried to pull herself together. She had located her father--that was something. She had learned that he was sick: the jailer was a cruel man who was probably exaggerating the seriousness of the illness. All she had to do was find a penny, and she would be able to talk to him, and see for herself, and ask him what she should do--for Richard and for Father. "How are we going to get a penny, Richard?" she said. "I don't know." "We've nothing to sell. No one would lend to us. You're not tough enough to steal...." "We could beg," he said. That was an idea. There was a prosperous-looking peasant coming down the hill toward the castle on a sturdy black cob. Aliena sprang to her feet and ran to the road. As he drew near she said: "Sir, will you give me a penny?" "Piss off," the man snarled, and kicked his horse into a trot. She walked back to the tree stump. "Beggars usually ask for food or old clothes," she said dejectedly. "I never heard of anyone giving them money." "Well, how do people get money?" Richard said. The question had obviously never occurred to him before. Aliena said: "The king gets money from taxes. Lords have rents. Priests have tithes. Shopkeepers have something to sell. Craftsmen get wages. Peasants don't need money because they have fields." "Apprentices get wages." "So do labourers. We could work." "Who for?" "Winchester is full of little manufactories where they make leather and cloth," Aliena said. She began to feel optimistic again. "A city is a good place to find work." She sprang to her feet. "Come on, let's get started!" Richard still hesitated. "I can't work like a common man," he said. "I'm the son of an earl." "Not anymore," Aliena said harshly. "You heard what the jailer said. You'd better realise that you're no better than anyone else, now." He looked sulky and said nothing. "Well, I'm going," she said. "Stay here if you like." She walked away from him, toward the West Gate. She knew his sulks: they never lasted. Sure enough, he caught her up before she reached the city. "Don't be cross, Allie," he said. "I'll work. I'm pretty strong, actually--I'll make a very good labourer." She smiled at him. "I'm sure you will." It was not true, but there was no point in discouraging him. They walked down the High Street. Aliena recalled that Winchester was laid out and divided up in a very logical way. The southern half, on their right as they walked, was divided into three parts: first there was the castle, then a district of wealthy homes, then the cathedral close and the bishop's palace in the southeast corner. The northern half, on their left, was also divided into three: the Jews' neighbourhood, the middle part where the shops were, and the manufactories in the northeast corner. Aliena led the way down the High Street to the eastern end of the city, then they turned left, into a street that had a brook running along it. On one side were normal houses, mostly wooden, a few partly of stone. On the other side was a jumble of improvised buildings, many of them no more than a roof supported by poles, most of them looking as if they might fall down at any minute. In some cases a little bridge, or a few planks, led across the brook to the building, but some of the buildings actually straddled the brook. In every building or yard, men and women were doing something that required large quantities of water: washing wool, tanning leather, fulling and dyeing cloth, brewing ale, and other operations that Aliena did not recognise. A variety of unfamiliar smells pricked her nostrils, acrid and yeasty, sulphurous and smoky, woody and rotten. The people all looked terribly busy. Of course, peasants also had a great deal to do, and they worked very hard, but they went about their tasks at a measured pace, and they always had time to stop and examine some curiosity or talk to passersby. The people in the manufactories never looked up. Their work seemed to take all their concentration and energy. They moved quickly, whether they were carrying sacks or pouring great buckets of water or pounding leather or cloth. As they went about their mysterious tasks in the gloom of their ramshackle huts, they made Aliena think of the demons stirring their cauldrons in pictures of hell. She stopped outside a place where they were doing something she understood: fulling cloth. A muscular-looking woman was drawing water from the brook and pouring it into a huge stone trough lined with lead, stopping every now and again to add a measure of fuller's earth from a sack. Lying in the bottom of the trough, completely submerged, was a length of cloth. Two men with large wooden clubs--called fuller's bats, Aliena recollected--were pounding the cloth in the trough. The process caused the cloth to shrink and thicken, making it more waterproof; and the fuller's earth leached out the oils from the wool. At the back of the premises were stacked bales of untreated cloth, new and loosely woven, and sacks of fuller's earth. Aliena crossed the brook and approached the people working at the trough. They glanced at her and continued working. The ground was wet all around them, and they worked with their feet bare, she noticed. When she realised they were not going to stop and ask her what she wanted, she said loudly: "Is your master here?" The woman replied by jerking her head toward the back of the premises. Aliena beckoned Richard to follow and went through a gate to a yard where lengths of cloth were drying on wooden frames. She saw the figure of a man bent over one of the frames, arranging the cloth. "I'm looking for the master," she said. He straightened up and looked at her. He was an ugly man with one eye and a slightly hunched back, as if he had been bending over drying frames for so many years that he could no longer stand quite upright. "What is it?" he said. "Are you the master fuller?" "I've been working at it nigh on forty year, man and boy, so I hope I'm master," he said. "What do you want?" Aliena realised she was dealing with the type of man who always had to prove how smart he was. She adopted a humble tone and said: "My brother and I want to work. Will you employ us?" There was a pause while he looked her up and down. "Christ Jesus and all the saints, what would I do with you?" "We'll do anything," Aliena said resolutely. "We need some money." "You're no good to me," the man said contemptuously, and he turned away to resume his work. Aliena was not going to content herself with that. "Why not?" she said angrily. "We're not scrounging, we want to earn something." He turned to her again. "Please?" she said, although she hated to beg. He regarded her impatiently, as he might have looked at a dog, wondering whether to make the effort of kicking it; but she could tell that he was tempted to show her how stupid she was being and how clever he was by contrast. "All right," he said with a sigh. "I'll explain it to you. Come with me." He led them to the trough. The men and the woman were pulling the length of cloth out of the water, rolling it as it emerged. The master spoke to the woman. "Come here, Lizzie. Show us your hands." The woman obediently came over and held out her hands. They were rough and red, with open sores where they had got chapped and the skin had broken. "Feel those," the master said to Aliena. Aliena touched the woman's hands. They were as cold as snow, and very rough, but what was most striking was how hard they were. She looked at her own hands, holding the woman's: they suddenly looked soft and white and very small. The master said: "She's had her hands in water since she was a little 'un, so she's used to it. You're different. You wouldn't last the morning at this work." Aliena wanted to argue with him, and say that she would get used to it, but she was not sure it was true. Before she could say anything, Richard spoke up. "What about me?" he said. "I'm bigger than both those men--I could do that work." It was true that Richard was actually taller and broader than the men who had been wielding the fuller's bats. And he could handle a war-horse, Aliena recalled, so he should be able to pound cloth. The two men finished rolling up the wet cloth, and one of them hoisted the roll onto his shoulder, ready to take it to the yard for drying. The master stopped him. "Let the young lord feel the weight of the cloth, Harry." The man called Harry lifted the cloth off his shoulder and put it on Richard's. Richard sagged under the weight, straightened up with a mighty effort, paled, and then sank to his knees so that the ends of the roll rested on the ground. "I can't carry it," he said breathlessly. The men laughed, the master looked triumphant, and the one called Harry took the cloth back, hoisted it onto his own shoulder with a practised movement, and carried it away. The master said: "It's a different kind of strength, one that comes from having to work." Aliena was angry. They were mocking her when all she wanted was to find an honest way to earn a penny. The master was thoroughly enjoying making a fool of her, she knew. He would probably keep it up as long as she let him. But he would never employ her or Richard. "Thank you for your courtesy," she said with heavy sarcasm, and she turned and walked away. Richard was upset. "It was heavy because it was so wet!" he said. "I wasn't expecting that." Aliena realised she had to stay cheerful, to keep Richard's morale up. "That's not the only kind of work there is," she said as she strode along the muddy street. "What else could we do?" Aliena did not answer immediately. They reached the north wall of the city and turned left, heading west. The poorest houses were here, built up against the wall, often no more than lean-to shacks; and because they had no backyards the street was filthy. Eventually Aliena said: "Remember how girls used to come to the castle, sometimes, when there was no room for them at home anymore and they had no husband yet? Father would always take them in. They worked in the kitchens or the laundry or the stables, and Father used to give them a penny on saint's days." "Do you think we could live at Winchester Castle?" Richard said dubiously. "No. They won't take people in while the king's away--they must have more people than they need. But there are lots of rich folk in the city. Some of them must want servants." "It's not man's work." Aliena wanted to say Why don't you come up with some ideas yourself, instead of just finding fault with everything I say? But she bit her tongue and said: "It only wants one of us to work long enough to get a penny, then we can see Father and ask him what we should do next." "All right." Richard was not averse to the idea of only one of them working, especially if the one was likely to be Aliena. They turned left again and entered the section of the city called the Jewry. Aliena stopped outside a big house. "They must have servants in there," she said. Richard was shocked. "You wouldn't work for Jews, would you." "Why not? You don't catch people's heresy the way you catch their fleas, you know." Richard shrugged and followed her inside. It was a stone house. Like most city homes, it had a narrow frontage but reached back a long way. They were in an entrance hall that was the full width of the house. There was a fire and some benches. The smell from the kitchen made Aliena's mouth water, although it was different from regular cooking, with a hint of alien spices. A young girl came from the back of the house and greeted them. She had dark skin and brown eyes, and she spoke respectfully. "Do you want to see the goldsmith?" So that was what he was. "Yes, please," said Aliena. The girl disappeared again and Aliena looked around. A goldsmith would need a stone house, of course, to protect his gold. The door between this room and the back of the house was made of heavy oak planks banded with iron. The windows were narrow, too small for anyone to climb through, even a child. Aliena thought how nerve-racking it must be to have all your wealth in gold or silver, which could be stolen in an instant, leaving you destitute. Then she reflected that Father had been rich with a more normal kind of wealth--land and a title-- and yet he had lost everything in a day. The goldsmith came out. He was a small, dark man, and he peered at them, frowning, as if he were examining a small piece of jewellery and assessing its worth. After a moment he seemed to sum them up, and he said: "You have something you would like to sell?" "You've judged us well, goldsmith," Aliena said. "You've guessed we're high-born people who now find themselves destitute. But we have nothing to sell." The man looked worried. "If you're looking for a loan, I fear--" "We don't expect anyone to lend us money," Aliena broke in. "Just as we have nothing to sell, so we have nothing to pawn." He looked relieved. "Then how can I help you?" "Would you take me on as a servant?" He was shocked. "A Christian? Certainly not!" He actually shrank back at the thought. Aliena was disappointed. "Why not?" she said plaintively. "It would never do." She felt rather offended. The idea that someone should find her religion distasteful was demeaning. She remembered the clever phrase she had used to Richard. "You don't catch people's religions the way you catch their fleas," she said. "The people of the town would object." Aliena felt sure he was using public opinion as an excuse, but it was probably true all the same. "I suppose we'd better seek out a rich Christian, then," she said. "It's worth a try," the goldsmith said doubtfully. "Let me tell you something candidly. A wise man would not employ you as a servant. You're used to giving orders, and you would find it very hard to be on the receiving end." Aliena opened her mouth to protest, but he held up his hand to stop her. "Oh, I know you're willing. But all your life others have served you, and even now you feel in your heart of hearts that things should be arranged to please you. Highborn people make poor servants. They are disobedient, resentful, thoughtless, touchy, and they think they're working hard even though they do less than everyone else- -so they cause trouble among the rest of the staff." He shrugged. "This is my experience." Aliena forgot that she had been offended by his distaste for her religion. He was the first kindly person she had met since she left the castle. She said: "But what can we do?" "I can only tell you what a Jew would do. He would find something to sell. When I came to this city I began by buying jewellery from people who needed cash, then melting the silver and selling it to the coiners." "But where did you get the money to buy the jewellery?" "I borrowed from my uncle--and paid him interest, by the way." "But nobody will lend to us!" He looked thoughtful. "What would I have done if I had no uncle? I think I would have gone into the forest and collected nuts, then brought them into the town and sold them to the housewives who do not have the time to go to the forest and cannot grow trees in their backyards because the yards are so full of refuse and filth." "It's the wrong time of year," Aliena said. "There's nothing growing now." The goldsmith smiled. "The impatience of youth," he said. "Wait a while." "All right." There was no point in explaining about Father. The goldsmith had done his best to be helpful. "Thank you for your advice." "Farewell." The goldsmith returned to the back of the house and closed the massive ironbound door. Aliena and Richard went out. The goldsmith had been kind but nevertheless they had spent half a day being turned away from places, and Aliena could not help feeling dejected. Not knowing where to go next, they wandered through the Jewry and emerged in the High Street again. Aliena was beginning to feel hungry--it was dinnertime--and she knew that if she was hungry, Richard would be ravenous. They walked aimlessly along the High Street, envying the well-fed rats that swarmed in the refuse, until they came to the old royal palace. There they stopped, as all out-of-towners did, to look through the bars at the coiners manufacturing money. Aliena stared at the stacks of silver pennies, thinking that she wanted only one of those, and she could not get it. After a while she noticed a girl of about her own age standing nearby, smiling at Richard. The girl looked friendly. Aliena hesitated, saw her smile again, and spoke to her. "Do you live here?" "Yes," the girl said. It was Richard she was interested in, not Aliena. Aliena blurted out: "Our father's in the jailhouse, and we're trying to find some way to make a living and get some money to bribe the jailer. Do you know what we might do?" The girl turned her attention from Richard back to Aliena. "You're penniless, and you want to know how to make some money?" "That's right. We're willing to work hard. We'll do anything. Can you think of something?" The girl gave Aliena a long, assessing look. "Yes, I can," she said at last. "I know someone who might help you." Aliena was thrilled: this was the first person to say Yes to her all day. "When can we see him?" she said eagerly. "Her." "What?" "It's a woman. And you can probably see her right away, if you come with me." Aliena and Richard exchanged a delighted look. Aliena could hardly believe the change in their luck. The girl turned away, and they followed. She led them to a large wooden house on the south side of the High Street. Most of the house was at ground level but it had a small upper story. The girl went up an outside staircase and beckoned them to follow her. The upstairs was a bedchamber. Aliena looked around her with wide eyes: it was more richly decorated and furnished than any of the rooms at the castle had been, even when Mother was alive. The walls were hung with tapestries, the floor was covered with fur rugs, and the bed was surrounded by embroidered curtains. On a chair like a throne sat a middle-aged woman in a gorgeous gown. She had been beautiful when she was young, Aliena guessed, although now her face was lined and her hair thin. "This is Mistress Kate," said the girl. "Kate, this girl is penniless and her father's in the jailhouse." Kate smiled. Aliena smiled back, but she had to force herself: there was something about Kate that she disliked. Kate said: "Take the boy to the kitchen and give him a cup of beer while we talk." The girl took Richard out. Aliena was glad he would get some beer-- perhaps they would give him something to eat as well. Kate said: "What's your name?" "Aliena." "That's unusual. But I like it." She stood up and came close, a little too close. She took Aliena's chin in her hand. "You've got a very pretty face." Her breath smelled of wine. "Takeoff your cloak." Aliena was puzzled by this inspection, but she submitted to it: it seemed harmless, and after this morning's rejections she did not want to throw away her first decent chance by seeming uncooperative. She shrugged off her cloak, dropped it on a bench, and stood there in the old linen dress the verderer's wife had given her. Kate walked around her. For some reason she seemed impressed. "My dear girl, you need never want for money, or anything else. If you work for me we'll both be rich." Aliena frowned. This sounded crazy. All she wanted to do was help with laundry, or cooking, or sewing: she did not see how she could make anybody rich. "What sort of work are you talking about?" she said. Kate was behind her. She ran her hands down Aliena's sides, feeling her hips, and stood close so that Aliena could feel Kate's breasts pressing against her back. "You've got a beautiful figure," Kate said. "And your skin is lovely. You're high-born, aren't you?" "My father was the earl of Shiring." "Bartholomew! Well, well. I remember him--not that he was ever a customer of mine. A very virtuous man, your father. Well, I understand why you're destitute." So Kate had customers. "What do you sell?" Aliena asked. Kate did not answer directly. She came around in front of Aliena again, looking at her face. "Are you a virgin, dear?" Aliena flushed with shame. "Don't be shy," said Kate. "I see you're not. Well, no matter. Virgins are worth a lot but they don't last, of course." She put her hands on Aliena's hips, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. "You're so voluptuous, although you don't know it. By the saints, you're irresistible." She slid her hand up from Aliena's hip to her bosom, and gently took one breast in her hand, weighing it and squeezing it slightly, then she leaned forward and kissed Aliena's lips. Aliena understood everything in a flash: why the girl had smiled at Richard outside the mint, where Kate got her money, what Aliena would have to do if she worked for Kate, and what kind of woman Kate was. She felt foolish for not having understood earlier. For a moment she let Kate kiss her--it was so different from what William Hamleigh had done that she was not in the least repelled--but this was not it, this was not what she would have to do to earn money. She pulled away from Kate's embrace. "You want me to become a whore," she said. "A lady of pleasure, my dear," said Kate. "Get up late, wear beautiful clothes every day, make men happy, and become rich. You'd be one of the best. There's a look about you.... You could charge anything, anything. Believe me, I know." Aliena shuddered. There had always been a whore or two at the castle--it was necessary in a place where there were so many men without their wives-- and they had been regarded as the lowest of the low, the humblest of the womenfolk, below even the sweepers. But it was not the low status that made Aliena tremble with disgust. It was the idea of men such as William Hamleigh walking in and fucking her for a penny. The thought brought back the memory of his big body poised over her, as she lay on the floor with her legs apart, shaking with terror and loathing, waiting for him to penetrate her. The scene came back to her with renewed horror and took away all her poise and confidence. She felt that if she stayed in this house a moment longer it would all happen to her again. She was overcome by a panicky urge to get outside. She backed toward the door. She was frightened of offending Kate, frightened that anyone should be angry with her. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Please forgive me, but I couldn't do that, really...." "Think about it!" Kate said cheerfully. "Come back if you change your mind. I'll still be here." "Thank you," Aliena said unsteadily. She found the door at last. She opened it and scuttled out. Still upset, she ran down the stairs into the street and went to the front door of the house. She pushed it open but she was frightened to go in. "Richard!" she called. "Richard, come out!" There was no reply. The interior was dimly lit, and she could see nothing but a few vague female figures inside. "Richard, where are you?" she screamed hysterically. She realised that passersby were staring at her, and that made her more anxious. Suddenly Richard appeared, with a cup of ale in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. "What's the matter?" he said through a mouthful of meat. His tone indicated that he was annoyed at having been disturbed. She grabbed his arm and pulled. "Come out of there," she said. "It's a whorehouse!" Several bystanders laughed loudly at this, and one or two called out jeering remarks. "They might give you some meat," Richard said. "They want me to be a whore!" she blazed. "All right, all right," Richard said. He downed his beer, put the cup on the floor inside the door, and stuffed the remains of the chicken leg inside his shirt. "Come on," Aliena said impatiently, though once again the need to deal with her younger brother had the effect of calming her. He did not seem angered by the idea that someone wanted his sister to become a whore, but he did look regretful at having to leave a place where there was chicken and beer to be had for the asking. Most of the bystanders walked on, seeing that the fun was over, but one remained. It was the well-dressed woman they had seen in the jailhouse. She had given the jailer a penny, and he had called her Meg. She was looking at Aliena with an expression of curiosity mingled with compassion. Aliena had developed an aversion to being stared at, and she looked away angrily; then the woman spoke to her. "You're in trouble, aren't you?" she said. A note of kindness in Meg's voice made Aliena turn back. "Yes," she said after a pause. "We're in trouble." "I saw you at the jailhouse. My husband is in prison--I visit him every day. Why were you there?" "Our father is there." "But you didn't go inside." "We haven't any money to pay the jailer." Meg looked over Aliena's shoulder at the whorehouse door. "Is that what you're doing here--trying to get money?" "Yes, but I didn't know what it was until..." "You poor thing," Meg said. "My Annie would have been your age, if she'd lived.... Why don't, you come to the jailhouse with me tomorrow morning, and between us we'll see if we can persuade Odo to act like a Christian and take pity on two destitute children." "Oh, that would be wonderful," Aliena said. She was touched. There was no guarantee of success, but the fact that someone was willing to help brought tears to her eyes. Meg was still looking hard at her. "Have you had any dinner?" "No. Richard got something in... that place." "You'd better come to my house. I'll give you some bread and meat." She noticed Aliena's wary look, and added: "And you don't have to do anything for it." Aliena believed her. "Thank you," she said. "You're very kind. Not many people have been kind to us. I don't know how to thank you. "No need," she said. "Come with me." Meg's husband was a wool merchant. At his house in the south of town, at his stall in the market on market days, and at the great annual fair held on St. Giles's Hill, he bought fleeces brought to him by peasants from the surrounding countryside. He crammed them into great woolsacks, each holding the fleece of two hundred and forty sheep, and stored them in the barn at the back of his house. Once a year, when the Flemish weavers sent their agents to buy the soft, strong English wool, Meg's husband would sell it all and arrange for the sacks to be shipped via Dover and Boulogne to Bruges and Ghent, where the fleece would be turned into top-quality cloth and sold all over the world at prices far too nigh for the peasants who kept the sheep. So Meg told Aliena and Richard over dinner, with that warm smile which said that whatever happens, there's no need for people to be unkind to one another. Her husband had been accused of selling short weight, a crime the city took very seriously, for its prosperity was based on a reputation for honest dealing. Judging by the way Meg spoke of it, Aliena thought he was probably guilty. His absence had made little different to the business, though. Meg had simply taken his place. In winter there was not much to do anyway: she had made a trip to Flanders; assured all her husband's agents that the enterprise was functioning normally; and carried out repairs to the barn, enlarging it a little at the same time. When shearing began she would buy wool just as he had done. She knew how to judge its quality and set a price. She had already been admitted into the merchant's guild of the city, despite the stain on her husband's reputation, for there was a tradition of merchants helping each other's families in times of trouble, and anyway he had not yet been proved guilty. Richard and Aliena ate her food and drank her wine and sat by her fire talking until it began to get dark outside; then they went back to the priory to sleep. Aliena had nightmares again. This time she dreamed about her father. In the dream he was sitting on a throne in the prison, as tall and pale and authoritative as ever, and when she went to see him she had to bow as if he were the king. Then he spoke to her accusingly, saying she had abandoned him here in prison and gone to live in a whorehouse. She was outraged by the injustice of the charge, and said angrily that he had abandoned her. She was going to add that he had left her to the mercy of William Hamleigh, but she was reluctant to tell her father what William had done to her; then she saw that William was also in the room, sitting on a bed and eating cherries from a bowl. He spat a cherry pip at her and it hit her cheek, stinging her. Her father smiled and then William started throwing soft cherries at her. They splattered her face and dress, and she began to cry, because although the dress was old it was the only one she had, and now it was blotched all over with cherry juice like bloodstains. She felt so unbearably sad in the dream that when she woke up and discovered it was not real she felt an enormous sense of relief, even though the reality--that she was homeless and penniless--was much worse than being pelted with soft cherries. The light of dawn was seeping through the cracks in the walls of the guesthouse. All around her people were waking up and beginning to move around. Soon the monks came in, opened the doors and the shutters, and called everyone to breakfast. Aliena and Richard ate hurriedly, then went to Meg's house. She was ready to leave. She had made a spicy beef stew to warm up for her husband's dinner, and Aliena told Richard to carry the heavy pot for her. Aliena wished they had something to give Father. She had not thought of it, but even if she had, she could not have bought anything. It was awful to think they could do nothing for him. They walked up the High Street, entered the castle by the back gate, and then walked past the keep and down the hill to the jail. Aliena recalled what Odo had told her yesterday, when she had asked whether Father was all right. "No, he's not," the jailer had said. "He's dying." She had thought he was exaggerating to be cruel, but now she began to worry. She said to Meg: "Is there anything wrong with my father?" "I don't know, dear," Meg said. "I've never seen him." "The jailer said he was dying." "That man is as mean as a cat. He probably said it just to make you miserable. Anyway, you'll know in a moment." Aliena was not comforted, despite Meg's good intentions, and she was full of dread as she walked through the doorway into the evil-smelling gloom of the jail. Odo was warming his hands at the fire in the middle of the lobby. He nodded at Meg and looked at Aliena. "Have you got the money?" he said. "I'll pay for them," Meg said. "Here's two pennies, one for me and one for them." A crafty look came over Odo's stupid face, and he said: "It's twopence for them--a penny for each." "Don't be such a dog," Meg said. "You let them both in, or I'll make trouble for you with the merchant guild, and you'll lose the job." "All right, all right, no need for threats," he said grumpily. He pointed to an archway in the stone wall to their right. "Bartholomew is that way." Meg said: "You'll need a light." She drew two candles from the pocket of her cloak and lit them at the fire, then gave one to Aliena. Her face looked troubled. "I hope all will be well," she said, and she kissed Aliena. Then she went quickly through the opposite arch. "Thank you for the penny," Aliena called after her, but Meg had disappeared into the gloom. Aliena peered apprehensively in the direction Odo had indicated. Holding the candle up high, she went through the archway, and found herself in a tiny square vestibule. The light of the candle showed three heavy doors, each barred on the outside. Odo called out: "Straight in front of you." Aliena said: "Lift the bar, Richard." Richard took the heavy wooden bar out of its brackets and stood it up against the wall. Aliena pushed the door open and sent up a quick silent prayer. The cell was dark but for the light of her candle. She hesitated in the doorway, peering into the moving shadows. The place smelled like a privy. A voice said: "Who is it?" Aliena said: "Father?" She made out a dark figure, sitting on the strawcovered floor. "Aliena?" There was incredulity in the voice. "Is that Aliena?" It sounded like Father's voice, but older. Aliena went closer, holding the candle up. He looked up at her, the candlelight caught his face, and she gasped in horror. He was hardly recognisable. He had always been a thin man, but now he looked like a skeleton. He was filthy dirty and dressed in rags. "Aliena!" he said. "It is you!" His face twisted into a smile, and it was like the grin of a skull. Aliena burst into tears. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing him so transformed. It was the most dreadful thing imaginable. She knew instantly that he was dying: the vile Odo had told the truth. But he was still alive, still suffering, and painfully pleased to see her. She had been determined to stay calm, but now she lost control completely, and fell to her knees in front of him, weeping with great racking sobs that came from deep inside her. He leaned forward and put his arms around her, patting her back as if he were comforting a child over a grazed knee or a broken toy. "Don't cry," he said gently. "Not when you've made your father so happy." Aliena felt the candle taken from her hand. Father said: "And is that tall young man my Richard?" "Yes, Father," Richard said stiffly. Aliena put her arms around Father, and felt his bones like sticks in a sack. He was wasting away: there was no flesh beneath his skin. She wanted to say something to him, some words of love or comfort, but she could not speak for sobbing. "Richard," he was saying, "you've grown! Have you got a beard yet?" "It's just started, Father, but it's very fair." Aliena realised that Richard was on the edge of tears and struggling to maintain his composure. He would feel humiliated if he broke down in front of Father, and Father would probably tell him to snap out of it and be a man, which would make it worse. Worrying about Richard, she stopped crying. With an effort she pulled herself together. She hugged Father's appallingly thin body once more; then she withdrew from his embrace, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose on her sleeve. "Are you both all right?" Father said. His voice was slower than it used to be, and it quavered occasionally. "How have you managed? Where have you been living? They wouldn't tell me anything about you--it was the worst torture they could have devised. But you seem fine--fit and healthy! This is wonderful!" Mention of torture made Aliena wonder whether he had suffered physical torments, but she did not ask him: she was afraid of what he might tell her. Instead she answered his question with a lie. "We're fine, Father." She knew that the truth would be devastating to him. It would destroy this moment of happiness and fill the last days of his life with an agony of self-reproach. "We've been living at the castle and Matthew has been taking care of us." "But you can't live there anymore," he said. "The king has made that fat oaf Percy Hamleigh the earl now--he'll have the castle." So he knew about that. "It's all right," she said. "We've moved out." He touched her dress, the old linen shift that the verderer's wife had given her. "What's this?" he said sharply. "Have you sold your clothes?" He was still perceptive, Aliena noted. It would not be easy to deceive him. She decided to tell him part of the truth. "We left the castle in a hurry, and we haven't any clothes." "Where's Matthew now? Why isn't he with you?" She had been afraid of this question. She hesitated. It was only a momentary pause, but he noticed it. "Come! Don't try to hide anything from me!" he said with something of his old authority. "Where's Matthew?" "He was killed by the Hamleighs," she said. "But they did us no harm." She held her breath. Would he believe her? "Poor Matthew," he said sorrowfully. "He was never a fighting man. I hope he went straight to heaven." He had accepted her story. She was relieved. She moved the conversation off this dangerous ground. "We decided to come to Winchester to ask the king to make some provision for us, but he--" "No use," Father interrupted briskly, before she could explain why they had failed to see the king. "He wouldn't do anything for you." Aliena was hurt by his dismissive tone. She had done her best, against the odds, and she wanted him to say Well done, not That was a waste of time. He had always been quick to correct and slow to praise. I ought to be used to it, she thought. Submissively she said: "What should we do now, Father?" He shifted his sitting position, and there was a clanking noise. Aliena realised with a shock that he was in chains. He said: "I had one chance to hide some money away. It wasn't much of a chance, but I had to take it. I had fifty bezants in a belt under my shirt. I gave the belt to a priest." "Fifty!" Aliena was surprised. A bezant was a gold coin. They were not minted in England, but came from Byzantium. She had never seen more than one at a time. A bezant was worth twenty-four silver pennies. Fifty were worth... she could not figure it out. "Which priest?" said Richard practically. "Father Ralph, of the church of St. Michael near the North Gate." "Is he a good man?" Aliena asked. "I hope so. I really don't know. On the day the Hamleighs brought me to Winchester, before they locked me up in here, I found myself alone with him, just for a few moments, and I knew it would be my only chance. I gave him the belt, and begged him to keep it for you. Fifty bezants is worth five pounds of silver." Five pounds. As this news sank in Aliena realised that the money would transform their existence. They would not be destitute; they would no longer have to live from hand to mouth. They could buy bread, and a pair of boots to replace those painful clogs, and even a couple of cheap ponies if they needed to travel. It did not solve all their problems, but it took away that frightening feeling of living constantly on the edge of a life-or-death crisis. She would not have to be thinking all the time of how they were going to survive. Instead she could turn her attention to something constructive--like getting Father out of this awful place. She said: "When we've got the money, what shall we do? We must get you freed." "I'm not coming out," he said harshly. "Forget about that. If I weren't dying already they'd have hanged me." Aliena gasped. How could he talk that way? "Why are you shocked?" he said. "The king has to get rid of me, but this way I won't be on his conscience." Richard said: "Father, this place is not well guarded while the king is away. With a few men I believe I could break you out." Aliena knew that was not going to happen. Richard did not have the ability or the experience to organise a rescue, and he was too young to persuade men to follow him. She was afraid Father would wound Richard by pouring scorn on the proposal, but all he said was: "Don't even think about it. If you break in here I'll refuse to go out with you." Aliena knew there was no point in arguing with him once he had made up his mind. But it broke her heart to think of him ending his days in this stinking jail. However, it occurred to her that there was a lot she could do to make him more comfortable here. She said: "Well, if you're going to stay here, we can clean the place up and get fresh rushes. We'll bring hot food in for you every day. We'll get some candles, and perhaps we could borrow a Bible for you to read. You can have a fire--" "Stop!" he said. "You're not going to do any of that. I will not have my children wasting their lives hanging around a jailhouse waiting for an old man to die." Tears came to Aliena's eyes again. "But we can't leave you like this!" He ignored her, which was his normal response to people who foolishly contradicted him. "Your dear mother had a sister, your Aunt Edith. She lives in the village of Huntleigh, on the road to Gloucester, with her husband, who is a knight. You are to go there." It occurred to Aliena that they could still see Father at intervals. And perhaps he would permit his in-laws to make him more comfortable. She tried to remember Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon. She had not seen them since Mama died. She had a vague recollection of a thin, nervous woman like her mother and a big, hearty man who ate and drank a lot. "Will they look after us?" she said uncertainly. "Of course. They're your kin." Aliena wondered whether that was sufficient reason for a modest knightly family to welcome two large and hungry youngsters into their home; but Father said it would be all right, and she trusted him. "What will we do?" she said. "Richard will be a squire to his uncle and learn the arts of knighthood. You will be lady-in-waiting to Aunt Edith until you marry." As they talked, Aliena felt as if she had been carrying a heavy weight for miles, and had not noticed the pain in her back until she put the burden down. Now that Father was taking charge, it seemed to her that the responsibility of the last few days had been far too much for her to bear. And his authority and ability to control the situation, even when he was sick in jail, gave her comfort and took the edge off her sorrow, for it seemed unnecessary to worry about the person who was in charge. Now he became even more magisterial. "Before you leave me, I want you both to swear an oath." Aliena was shocked. He had always counselled against oath-taking. To swear an oath is to put your soul at risk, he would say. Never take an oath unless you're sure you would rather die than break it. And he was here because of an oath: the other barons had broken their word and accepted Stephen as king, but Papa had refused. He would rather die than break his oath, and here he was dying. "Give me your sword," he said to Richard. Richard drew his sword and handed it over. Father took it and reversed it, holding out the hilt. "Kneel down." Richard knelt in front of Father. "Put your hand on the hilt." Father paused, as if gathering his strength; then his voice rang out like a peal of bells. "Swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that you will not rest until you are earl of Shiring and lord of all the lands I ruled." Aliena was surprised and somewhat awestruck. She had expected Father to demand some general promise, such as to tell the truth always and fear God; but no, he was giving Richard a very specific task, one that might take a lifetime. Richard took a deep breath and spoke with a shake in his voice. "I swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that I will not rest until I am earl of Shiring, and lord of all the lands you ruled." Papa sighed, as if he had completed an onerous task. Then he surprised Aliena again. He turned and proffered the hilt of the sword to her. "Swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that you will take care of your brother Richard until he has fulfilled his vow." A sense of doom swamped Aliena. This was to be their fate, then: Richard would avenge Father, and she would take care of Richard. For her it would be a mission of revenge, for if Richard became earl, William Hamleigh would lose his inheritance. It flashed across her mind that no one had asked her how she wanted to spend her life; but the foolish thought was gone as fast as it came. This was her destiny, and it was a fit and proper one. She was not unwilling, but she knew this was a fateful moment, and she had a sense of doors closing behind her and the path of her life being fixed irrevocably. She put her hand on the hilt of the sword and took the oath. Her voice surprised her by its strength and resolution. "I swear by Almighty God, and Jesus Christ, and all the saints, that I will take care of my brother Richard until he has fulfilled his vow." She crossed herself. It was done. I've sworn an oath, she thought, and I must die rather than break my word. The thought gave her a kind of angry satisfaction. "There," Father said, and his voice sounded weak again. "Now you need never come to this place again." Aliena could not believe he meant it. "Uncle Simon can bring us to see you now and again, and we can make sure you're warm and fed--" "No," he said sternly. "You have a task to fulfil. You're not going to waste your energies visiting a jail." She heard that don't-argue note in his voice again, but she could not help protesting against the harshness of his decision. "Then let us come again just once, to bring you a few comforts!" "I want no comforts." "Please..." "Never." She gave up. He was always at least as hard on himself as he was on everyone else. "Very well," she said, and it came out in a sob. "Now you'd better go," he said. "Already?" "Yes. This is a place of despair and corruption and death. Now that I've seen you, and I know you're well, and you've promised to rebuild what we have lost, I'm content. The only thing that could destroy my happiness would be to see you wasting your time visiting a jailhouse. Now go." "Papa, no!" she protested, although she knew it was no use. "Listen," he said, and his voice softened at last. "I've lived an honourable life, and now I'm going to die. I've confessed my sins. I'm ready for eternity. Pray for my soul. Go." Aliena leaned forward and kissed his brow. Her tears fell freely on his face. "Goodbye, Father dear," she whispered. She got to her feet. Richard bent down and kissed him. "Goodbye, Father," he said unsteadily. "May God bless you both, and help you keep your vows," Father said. Richard left him the candle. They went to the door. At the threshold Aliena turned and looked back at him in the unsteady light. His fleshless face was set in an expression of calm determination that was very familiar. She looked at him until tears obscured her vision. Then she turned away, went through the lobby of the jailhouse, and stumbled out into the open air. III Richard led the way. Aliena was stunned with grief. It was as if Father had already died; but it was worse, for he was still suffering. She heard Richard asking for directions but she paid no attention. She gave no thought to where they were going until he stopped outside a small wooden church with a lean-to hovel beside it. Looking around, Aliena saw that they were in a poor district of small tumbledown houses and filthy streets in which fierce dogs chased rats through the refuse and barefoot children played in the mud. "This must be St. Michael's," Richard said. The lean-to at the side of the church had to be the priest's house. It had one shuttered window. The door stood open. They went in. There was a fire in the middle of the single room. The place was furnished with a roughhewn table, a few stools, and a beer barrel in the corner. The floor was strewn with rushes. Near the fire a man sat on a chair drinking from a large cup. He was a small, thin man of about fifty years, with a red nose and wispy grey hair. He wore ordinary everyday clothes, a dirty undershirt with a brown tunic, and clogs. "Father Ralph?" said Richard dubiously. "What if I am?" he replied. Aliena sighed. Why did people manufacture trouble when there was already so much of it in the world? But she had no energy left for dealing with bad temper, so she left it to Richard, who said: "Does that mean yes?" The question was answered for them. A voice from outside called: "Ralph? Are you in?" A moment later a middle-aged woman came in and gave the priest a hunk of bread and a large bowl of something that smelled like meat stew. For once the smell of meat did not make Aliena's mouth water: she was too numb even to be hungry. The woman was probably one of Ralph's parishioners, for her clothes were of the same poor quality as his own. He took the food from her without a word and began to eat. She glanced incuriously at Aliena and Richard and went out again. Richard said: "Well, Father Ralph, I am the son of Bartholomew, the former earl of Shiring." The man paused in his eating and looked up at them. There was hostility in his face, and something else Aliena could not read--fear? Guilt? He returned his attention to his dinner, but mumbled: "What do you want with me?" Aliena felt a tug of fear. "You know what I want," Richard said. "My money. Fifty bezants." "I don't know what you're talking about," Ralph said. Aliena stared at him incredulously. This could not be happening. Father had left money for them with this priest--he had said so! Father did not make mistakes about such things. Richard had gone white. He said: "What do you mean?" "I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. Now piss off." He took another spoonful of stew. The man was lying, of course; but what could they do about it? Richard pressed on stubbornly. "My father left money with you--fifty bezants. He told you to give it to me. Where is it?" "Your father gave me nothing." "He said he did--" "He lied, then." That was one thing you could be sure Father had not done. Aliena spoke for the first time. "You're the liar, and we know it." Ralph shrugged. "Complain to the sheriff." "You'll be in trouble if we do. They cut off the hands of thieves in this city." The shadow of fear briefly crossed the priest's face, but it was gone in a moment, and his reply was defiant. "It will be my word against the word of a jailed traitor--if your father lives long enough to give evidence." Aliena realised he was right. There would be no independent witnesses to say that Father had given him the money, for the whole idea was that it was a secret, money that could not be taken away by the king or Percy Hamleigh or any of the other carrion crows who flocked around the possessions of a ruined man. Things were just as they had been in the forest, Aliena realised bitterly. People could rob her and Richard with impunity, because they were the children of a fallen noble. Why am I frightened of these men? she asked herself angrily. Why aren't they frightened of me? Richard looked at her and said in a low voice: "He's right, isn't he?" "Yes," she said venomously. "There's no point in our complaining to the sheriff." She was thinking of the one time men had been afraid of her: in the forest, when she had stabbed the fat outlaw, and the other one had run away in fear. This priest was no better than the outlaw. But he was old and quite feeble, and he had probably counted on never having to face his victims. Perhaps he could be frightened. Richard said: "What shall we do, then?" Aliena gave in to a sudden furious impulse. "Burn down his house," she said. She stepped to the middle of the room and kicked the fire with her wooden clogs, scattering burning logs. The rushes around the fireplace caught immediately. "Hey!" Ralph yelled. He half rose from his seat, dropping his bread and spilling the stew in his lap; but before he could get to his feet Aliena was on him. She felt completely out of control; she acted without thinking. She pushed him, and he slipped off the chair and tumbled to the floor. She was astonished at how easy it was to knock him down. She fell on him, landing with her knees on his chest and winding him. Mad with rage, she thrust her face close to his and screamed: "You lying thieving godless heathen, I'm going to burn you to death!" His eyes flicked to one side and he looked even more terrified. Following his glance, Aliena saw that Richard had drawn his sword and was holding it ready to strike. The priest's dirty face went pale, and he whispered: "You're a devil...." "You're the one who steals money from poor children!" Out of the corner of her eye she saw a stick with one end burning brightly. She picked it up and held the hot end close to his face. "Now I'm going to burn out your eyes, one by one. First the left eye--" "No, please," he whispered. "Please don't hurt me." Aliena was thrown by the rapidity with which he crumbled. She realised that the rushes were burning all around her. "Where's the money, then?" she said in a voice which suddenly sounded normal. The priest was still terrified. "In the church." "Where exactly?" "Under the stone behind the altar." Aliena looked up at Richard. "Guard him while I go and look," she said. "If he moves, kill him." Richard said: "Allie, the house will burn down." Aliena went to the corner and lifted the lid of the barrel. It was half full of beer. She grasped the rim and pulled it over. Beer flowed all over the floor, soaking the rushes and putting out the flames. Aliena walked out of the house. She knew she really had been ready to put out the priest's eyes, but instead of feeling ashamed she was overwhelmed by a sense of her own power. She had resolved not to let people make her a victim, and she had proved she could keep her resolution. She strode up to the front of the church and tried the door. It was fastened with a small lock. She could have gone back to the priest for the key, but instead she drew the dagger from her sleeve, inserted the blade in the crack of the door, and broke the lock. The door swung open and she marched inside. It was the poorest kind of church. There was no furniture other than the altar and no decoration except for some crude paintings on the limewashed wood of the walls. In one corner, a single candle flickered beneath a small wooden effigy which presumably represented Saint Michael. Aliena's triumph was disturbed for a moment by the realisation that five pounds presented a terrible temptation to a man as poor as Father Ralph. Then she put sympathy out of her mind. The floor was earth but there was a single large stone slab behind the altar. It made a rather obvious hiding place, but of course no one would bother to rob a church as visibly poor as this. Aliena went down on one knee and pushed the stone. It was very heavy and did not move. She began to feel anxious. Richard could not be relied upon to keep Ralph quiet indefinitely. The priest might get away and call for help, and then Aliena would have to prove that the money was hers. Indeed, that might be the least of her worries now that she had attacked a priest and broken into a church. She felt a chill of anxiety as she realised that she was on the wrong side of the law now. That frisson of fear gave her extra strength. With a mighty heave she moved the stone an inch or two. It covered a hole about a foot deep. She managed to move the stone a little further. Inside the hole was a wide leather belt. She put her hand in and drew the belt out. "There!" she said aloud. "I've got it." It gave her great satisfaction to think that she had defeated the dishonest priest and retrieved her father's money. Then, as she stood up, she realised that her victory was qualified: the belt felt suspiciously light. She unfastened the end and tipped out the coins. There were only ten of them. Ten bezants were worth a pound of silver. What had happened to the rest? Father Ralph had spent it! She became enraged again. Her father's money was all she had in the world and a thieving priest had taken four fifths of it. She marched out of the church, swinging the belt. On the street, a passerby looked startled when he caught her eye, as if there was something odd about her expression. She took no notice and went into the priest's house. Richard was standing over Father Ralph, with his sword at the priest's throat. As Aliena came through the door she screamed: "Where's the rest of my father's money?" "Gone," the priest whispered. She knelt by his head and put her knife to his face. "Gone where?" "I spent it," he confessed in a voice hoarse with fear. Aliena wanted to stab him, or beat him, or throw him into a river; but none of it would do any good. He was telling the truth. She looked at the overturned barrel: a drinking man could get through a great deal of beer. She felt as if she might explode with frustration. "I'd cut off your ear if I could sell it for a penny," she hissed at him. He looked as if he thought she might cut it off anyway. Richard said anxiously: "He's spent the money. Let's take what we've got and go." He was right, Aliena realised reluctantly. Her anger began to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of bitterness. There was nothing to be gained by frightening the priest any more, and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that someone would come in and cause trouble. She stood up. "All right," she said. She put the gold coins back in the belt and buckled it around her waist beneath her cloak. She pointed a finger at the priest. "I may come back one day and kill you," she spat. She went out. She strode away along the narrow street. Richard caught up with her hurrying. "You were wonderful, Allie!" he said excitedly. "You scared him half to death--and you got the money!" She nodded. "Yes, I did," she said sourly. She was still tense, but now that her fury had abated she felt deflated and unhappy. "What shall we buy?" he said eagerly. "Just a little food for our journey." "Shan't we buy horses?" "Not with a pound." "Still, we could get you some boots." She considered that. The clogs tortured her but the ground was too cold for bare feet. However, boots were expensive and she was reluctant to spend the money so quickly. "No," she decided. "I'll live a few more days without boots. We'll keep the money for now." He was disappointed, but he did not dispute her authority. "What food shall we get?" "Horsebread, hard cheese and wine." "Let's get some pies." "They cost too much." "Oh." He was silent for a moment, then he said: "You're awfully grumpy, Allie." Aliena sighed. "I know." She thought: Why do I feel this way? I should be proud. I brought us here from the castle, I defended my brother, I found my father, I got our money. Yes, and I stuck a knife into a fat man's belly, and made my brother kill him, and I held a burning stick to a priest's face, and I was ready to put his eyes out. "Is it because of Father?" said Richard sympathetically. "No, it's not," Aliena replied. "It's because of me." Aliena regretted not buying the boots. On the road to Gloucester she wore the clogs until they made her feet bleed, then she walked barefoot until she could no longer stand the cold, whereupon she put the clogs on again. She found it helped not to look at her feet: they hurt more when she could see the sores and the blood. In the hill country there were a lot of poor smallholdings where peasants grew an acre or so of oats or rye and kept a few scrawny animals. Aliena stopped on the outskirts of a village, when she thought they must be near Huntleigh, to speak to a peasant who was shearing a sheep in a fenced yard next to a low, wattle-and-daub farmhouse. He had the sheep's head trapped in a wooden fixture like a stocks, and was cutting its wool with a long-bladed knife. Two more sheep waited uneasily nearby, and one that was already shorn was grazing in the field, looking naked in the cold air. "It's early for shearing," Aliena said. The peasant looked up at her and grinned good-humoredly. He was a young man with red hair and freckles, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing hairy arms. "Ah, but I need the money. Better the sheep go cold than I go hungry." "How much do you get?" "Penny a fleece. But I have to go to Gloucester to get it, so I lose a day in the field, just when it's spring and there's a lot to do." He was cheerful enough, despite his grumbling. "What's this village?" Aliena asked him. "Strangers call it Huntleigh," he said. Peasants never used the name of their village--to them it was just the village. Names were for outsiders. "Who are you?" he asked with frank curiosity. "What brings you here?" "I'm the niece of Simon of Huntleigh," Aliena said. "Indeed. Well, you'll find him in the big house. Go back along this road a few yards, then take the path through the fields." "Thank you." The village sat in the middle of its ploughed fields like a pig in a wallow. There were twenty or so small dwellings clustered around the manor house, which was not much bigger than the home of a prosperous peasant. Aunt Edith and Uncle Simon were not very wealthy, it seemed. A group of men stood outside the manor house with a couple of horses. One of them appeared to be the lord: he wore a scarlet coat. Aliena looked at him more closely. It was twelve or thirteen years since she had seen her Uncle Simon, but she thought this was he. She remembered him as a big man, and now he looked smaller, but no doubt that was because Aliena had grown. His hair was thinning and he had a double chin which she did not recall. Then she heard him say: "He's very high in the wither, this beast," and she recognised the rasping, slightly breathy voice. She began to relax. From now on they would be fed and clothed and cared for and protected: no more horsebread and hard cheese, no more sleeping in barns, no more walking the roads with one hand on her knife. She would have a soft bed and a new dress and a dinner of roast beef. Uncle Simon caught her eye. At first he did not know who she was. "Look at this," he said to his men. "A handsome wench and a boy soldier to visit us." Then something else came into his eyes, and Aliena knew he had realised they were not total strangers. "I know you, don't I?" he said. Aliena said: "Yes, Uncle Simon, you do." He jumped, as if scared by something. "By the saints! The voice of a ghost!" Aliena did not understand that, but a moment later he explained. He came over to her, peering hard at her, as if he were about to look at her teeth like a horse; and he said: "Your mother had the same voice, like honey pouring out of a jar. You're as beautiful as she was too, by Christ." He put out his hand to touch her face, and she quickly stepped back out of reach. "But you're as stiff-necked as your damned father, I can see that. I suppose he sent you here, did he?" Aliena bristled. She did not like to hear Father referred to as "your damned father." But if she protested, he would take it as further proof that she was stiffnecked; so she bit her tongue and answered him submissively. "Yes. He said Aunt Edith would take care of us." "Well, he was wrong," Uncle Simon said. "Aunt Edith is dead. What's more, since your father's disgrace, I've lost half of my lands to that fat rogue Percy Hamleigh. It's hard times here. So you can turn right around and go back to Winchester. I'm not taking you in." Aliena was shaken. He seemed so hard. "But we're your kin!" she said. He had the grace to look slightly ashamed, but his reply was harsh. "You're not my kin. You used to be my first wife's niece. Even when Edith was alive she never saw her sister, because of that pompous ass your mother married." "We'll work," Aliena pleaded. "We're both willing--" "Don't waste your breath," he said. "I'm not having you." Aliena was shocked. He was so definite. It was clear there was no point in arguing with him or begging. But she had suffered so many disappointments and reverses of this kind that she felt bitter rather than sad. A week ago something like this would have made her burst into tears. Now she felt like spitting at him. She said: "I'll remember this when Richard is the earl and we take the castle back." He laughed. "Shall I live so long?" Aliena decided not to stay and be humiliated any longer. "Let's go," she said to Richard. "We'll look after ourselves." Uncle Simon had already turned away and was looking at the horse with the high wither. The men with him were a little embarrassed. Aliena and Richard walked away. When they were out of earshot, Richard said plaintively: "What are we going to do, Allie?" "We're going to show these heartless people that we're better than they are," she said grimly, but she did not feel brave, she was just full of hatred, for Uncle Simon, for Father Ralph, for Odo Jailer, for the outlaws, for the verderer, and most of all for William Hamleigh. "It's a good thing we've got some money," Richard said. It was. But the money would not last forever. "We can't just spend it," she said as they walked along the path that led back to the main road. "If we use it all up on food and things like that, we'll just be destitute again when it's all gone. We've got to do something with it." "I don't see why," Richard said. "I think we should buy a pony." She stared at him. Was he joking? There was no smile on his face. He simply did not understand. "We've got no position, no title, and no land," she said patiently. "The king won't help us. We can't get ourselves hired as labourers--we tried, in Winchester, and no one would take us on. But somehow we have to make a living and turn you into a knight." "Oh," he said. "I see." She could tell that he did not really see. "We need to establish ourselves in some occupation that will feed us and give us at least a chance of making enough money to buy you a good horse." "You mean I should become an apprentice to a craftsman?" Aliena shook her head. "You have to become a knight, not a carpenter. Have we ever met anyone who had an independent livelihood but no skills?" "Yes," Richard said unexpectedly. "Meg in Winchester." He was right. Meg was a wool merchant although she had never been an apprentice. "But Meg has a market stall." They passed the red-haired peasant who had given them directions. His four shorn sheep were grazing in the field, and he was tying their fleeces into bundles with cord made of reeds. He looked up from his work and waved. It was people such as he who took their wool into the towns and sold it to wool merchants. But the merchant had to have a place of business.... Or did he? An idea was forming in Aliena's mind. She turned back abruptly. Richard said: "Where are you going?" She was too excited to answer him. She leaned on the peasant's fence. "How much did you say you could get for your wool?" "Penny a fleece," he said. "But you have to spend all day going to Gloucester and back." "That's the trouble." "Suppose I buy your wool? That would save you the journey." Richard said: "Allie! We don't need wool!" "Shut up, Richard." She did not want to explain her idea to him now--she was impatient to try it out on the peasant. The peasant said: "That would be a kindness." But he looked dubious, as if he suspected trickery. "I couldn't offer you a penny a fleece, though." "Aha! I thought there'd be a snag." "I could give you twopence for four fleeces." "But they're worth a penny each!" he protested. "In Gloucester. This is Huntleigh." He shook his head. "I'd rather have fourpence and lose a day in the field than have twopence and gain a day." "Suppose I offer you threepence for four fleeces." "I lose a penny." "And save a day's journey." He looked bewildered. "I never heard of nothing like this before." "It's as if I were a carter, and you paid me a penny to take your wool to market." She found his slowness exasperating. "The question is, is an extra day in the fields worth a penny to you, or not?" "It depends what I do with the day," he said thoughtfully. Richard said: "Allie, what are we going to do with four fleeces?" "Sell them to Meg," she said impatiently. "For a penny each. That way we're a penny better off." "But we have to go all the way to Winchester for a penny!" "No, stupid. We buy wool from fifty peasants and take the whole lot to Winchester. Don't you see? We could make fifty pennies! We could feed ourselves and save up for a good horse for you!" She turned back to the peasant. His cheerful grin had gone, and he was scratching his ginger-coloured head. Aliena was sorry she had perplexed him, but she wanted him to accept her offer. If he did, she would know it was possible for her to fulfil her vow to her father. But peasants were stubborn. She felt like taking him by the collar and shaking him. Instead, she reached inside her cloak and fumbled in her purse. They had changed the gold bezants for silver pennies at the goldsmith's house in Winchester, and now she took out three pennies and showed them to the peasant. "Here," she said. "Take it or leave it." The sight of the silver helped the peasant make up his mind. "Done," he said, and took the money. Aliena smiled. It looked as if she might have found the answer. That night she used a bundled fleece for a pillow. The smell of sheep reminded her of Meg's house. When she woke up in the morning she discovered that she was not pregnant. Things were looking up. Four weeks after Easter, Aliena and Richard entered Winchester with an old horse pulling a homemade cart bearing a huge sack which contained two hundred and forty fleeces--the precise number which made up a standard woolsack. At that point they discovered taxes. Previously they had always entered the city without attracting any attention, but now they learned why city gates were narrow and constantly manned by customs officers. There was a toll of one penny for every cartload of goods taken into Winchester. Fortunately, they still had a few pennies left, and they were able to pay; otherwise they would have been turned away. Most of the fleeces had cost them between one half and three quarters of a penny each. They had paid seventy-two pence for the old horse, and the rickety cart had been thrown in. Most of the rest of the money had been spent on food. But tonight they would have a pound of silver and a horse and cart. Aliena's plan was then to go out again and buy another sackful of fleeces, and to do the same again and again until all the sheep were shorn. By the end of the summer she wanted to have the money to buy a strong horse and a new cart. She felt very excited as she led their old nag through the streets toward Meg's house. By the end of the day she would have proved that she could take care of herself and her brother without any help from anyone. It made her feel very mature and independent. She was in charge of her own destiny. She had had nothing from the king, she did not need relatives, and she had no use for a husband. She was looking forward to seeing Meg, who had been her inspiration. Meg was one of the few people who had helped Aliena without trying to rob, rape or exploit her. Aliena had a lot of questions to ask her about business in general and the wool trade in particular. It was market day, so it took them some time to drive their cart through the crowded city to Meg's street. At last they arrived at her house. Aliena stepped into the hall. A woman she had never seen before was standing there. "Oh!" said Aliena, and she stopped short. "What is it?" said the woman. "I'm a friend of Meg's." "She doesn't live here anymore," the woman said curtly. "Oh, dear." Aliena saw no need for her to be so brusque. "Where has she moved to?" "She's gone with her husband, who left this city in disgrace," the woman said. Aliena was disappointed and afraid. She had been counting on Meg to make the sale of the wool easy. "That's terrible news!" "He was a dishonest tradesman, and if I were you I wouldn't boast about being a friend of hers. Now clear off." Aliena was outraged that someone should speak ill of Meg. "I don't care what her husband may have done, Meg was a fine woman and greatly superior to the thieves and whores that inhabit this stinking city," she said, and she went out before the woman could think of a rejoinder. Her verbal victory gave her only momentary consolation. "Bad news," she said to Richard. "Meg has left Winchester." "Is the person who lives there now a wool merchant?" he said. "I didn't ask. I was too busy telling her off." Now she felt foolish. "What shall we do, Allie?" "We've got to sell these fleeces," she said anxiously. "We'd better go to the marketplace." They turned the horse around and retraced their steps to the High Street, then threaded their way through the crowds to the market, which was between the High Street and the cathedral. Aliena led the horse and Richard walked behind the cart, pushing it when the horse needed help, which was most of the time. The marketplace was a seething mass of people squeezing along the narrow aisles between the stalls, their progress constantly delayed by carts such as Aliena's. She stopped and stood on top of her sack of wool and looked for wool merchants. She could see only one. She got down and headed the horse in that direction. The man was doing good business. He had a large space roped off with a shed behind it. The shed was made of hurdles, light timber frames filled in with woven twigs and reeds, and it was obviously a temporary structure erected each market day. The merchant was a swarthy man whose left arm ended at the elbow. Attached to his stump he had a wooden comb, and whenever a fleece was offered to him he would put his arm into the wool, tease out a portion with the comb, and feel it with his right hand before giving a price. Then he would use the comb and his right hand together to count out the number of pennies he had agreed to pay. For large purchases he weighed the pennies in a balance. Aliena pushed her way through the crowd to the bench. A peasant offered the merchant three rather thin fleeces tied together with a leather belt. "A bit sparse," said the merchant. "Three farthings each." A farthing was a quarter of a penny. He counted out two pennies, then took a small hatchet and with a quick, practised stroke cut a third penny into quarters. He gave the peasant the two pennies and one of the quarters. "Three times three farthings is twopence and a farthing." The peasant took the belt off the fleeces and handed them over. Next, two young men dragged a whole sack of wool up to the counter. The merchant examined it carefully. "It's a full sack, but the quality's poor," he said. "I'll give you a pound." Aliena wondered how he could be so sure the sack was full. Perhaps you could tell with practice. She watched him weigh out a pound of silver pennies. Some monks were approaching with a huge cart piled high with sacks of wool. Aliena decided to get her business done before the monks. She beckoned to Richard, and he dragged their sack of wool off the cart and brought it up to the counter. The merchant examined the wool. "Mixed quality," he said. "Half a pound." "What?" Aliena said incredulously. "A hundred and twenty pennies," he said. Aliena was horrified. "But you just paid a pound for a sack!" "It's because of the quality." "You paid a pound for poor quality!" "Half a pound," he repeated stubbornly. The monks arrived and crowded the stall, but Aliena was not going to move: her livelihood was at stake, and she was more frightened of destitution than she was of the merchant. "Tell me why," she insisted. "There's nothing wrong with the wool, is there?" "No." "Then give me what you paid those two men." "No." "Why not?" she almost screamed. "Because nobody pays a girl what they would pay a man." She wanted to strangle him. He was offering her less than she had paid. It was outrageous. If she accepted his price, all her work would have been for nothing. Worse than that, her scheme for providing a livelihood for herself and her brother would have failed, and her brief period of independence and selfsufficiency would be over. And why? Because he would not pay a girl the same as he paid a man! The leader of the monks was looking at her. She hated people to stare at her. "Stop staring!" she said rudely. "Just do your business with this godless peasant." "All right," the monk said mildly. He beckoned to his colleagues and they dragged up a sack. Richard said: "Take the ten shillings, Allie. Otherwise we'll have nothing but a sack of wool!" Aliena stared angrily at the merchant as he examined the monks' wool. "Mixed quality," he said. She wondered if he ever pronounced wool good quality. "A pound and twelvepence a sack." Why did it have to happen that Meg went away? thought Aliena bitterly. Everything would have been all right if she had stayed. "How many sacks have you got?" said the merchant. A young monk in novice's robes said: "Ten," but the leader said: "No, eleven." The novice looked as if he was inclined to argue, but he said nothing. "That's eleven and a half pounds of silver, plus twelvepence." The merchant began to weigh out the money. "I won't give in," Aliena said to Richard. "We'll take the wool somewhere else--Shiring, perhaps, or Gloucester." "All that way! And what if we can't sell it there?" He was right--they might have the same trouble elsewhere. The real difficulty was that they had no status, no support, no protection. The merchant would not dare to insult the monks, and even the poor peasants could probably cause trouble for him if he dealt unfairly with them, but there was no risk to a man who tried to cheat two children with nobody in the world to help them. The monks were dragging their sacks into the merchant's shed. As each one was stashed, the merchant handed to the chief monk a weighed pound of silver and twelve pennies. When all the sacks were in, there was a bag of silver still on the counter. "That's only ten sacks," said the merchant. "I told you there was only ten," the novice said to the chief monk. "This is the eleventh," said the chief monk, and he put his hand on Aliena's sack. She stared at him in astonishment. The merchant was equally surprised. "I've offered her half a pound," he said. "I've bought it from her," the monk said. "And I've sold it to you." He nodded to the other monks and they dragged Aliena's sack into the shed. The merchant looked disgruntled, but he handed over the last pound bag and twelve more pennies. The monk gave the money to Aliena. She was dumbstruck. Everything had been going wrong and now this complete stranger had rescued her--after she had been rude to him, too! Richard said: "Thank you for helping us, Father." "Give thanks to God," said the monk. Aliena did not know what to say. She was thrilled. She hugged the money to her chest. How could she thank him? She stared at her saviour. He was a small, slight, intense-looking man. His movements were quick and he looked alert, like a small bird with dull plumage but bright eyes. His eyes were blue, in fact. The fringe of hair around his shaved pate was black streaked with grey, but his face was young. Aliena began to realise that he was vaguely familiar. Where had she seen him before? The monk's mind was going along the same path. "You don't remember me, but I know you," he said. "You're the children of Bartholomew, the former earl of Shiring. I know you've suffered great misfortunes, and I'm glad to have a chance to help you. I'll buy your wool anytime." Aliena wanted to kiss him. Not only had he saved her today, he was prepared to guarantee her future! She found her tongue at last. "I don't know how to thank you," she said. "God knows, we need a protector." "Well, now you have two," he said. "God, and me." Aliena was profoundly moved. "You've saved my life, and I don't even know who you are," she said. "My name is Philip," he said. "I'm the prior of Kingsbridge." Chapter 7 I IT WAS A GREAT DAY when Tom Builder took the stonecutters to the quarry. They went a few days before Easter, fifteen months after the old cathedral burned down. It had taken this long for Prior Philip to amass enough cash to hire craftsmen. Tom had found a forester and a master quarryman in Salisbury, where the Bishop Roger's palace was almost complete. The forester and his men had now been at work for two weeks, finding and felling tall pine trees and mature oaks. They were concentrating their efforts on the woods near the river, upstream from Kingsbridge, for it was very costly to transport materials on the winding mud roads, and a lot of money could be saved by simply floating the wood downstream to the building site. The timber would be roughly lopped for scaffolding poles, carefully shaped into templates to guide the masons and stonecarvers, or--in the case of the tallest trees--set aside for future use as roof beams. Good wood was now arriving in Kingsbridge at a steady rate and all Tom had to do was pay the foresters every Saturday evening. The quarrymen had arrived over the last few days. The master quarryman, Otto Blackface, had brought with him his two sons, both of whom were stonecutters; four grandsons, all apprentices; and two labourers, one his cousin and the other his brother-in-law. Such nepotism was normal, and Tom had no objection to it: a family group usually made a good team. As yet there were no craftsmen working in Kingsbridge, on the site itself, other than Tom and the priory's carpenter. It was a good idea to stockpile some materials. But soon Tom would hire the people who formed the backbone of the building team, the masons. They were the men who put one stone on another and made the walls rise. Then the great enterprise would begin. Tom walked with a spring in his step: this was what he had hoped for and worked toward for ten years. The first mason to be hired, he had decided, would be his own son Alfred. Alfred was sixteen years old, approximately, and had acquired the basic skills of a mason: he could cut stones square and build a true wall. As soon as hiring began, Alfred would get full wages. Tom's other son, Jonathan, was fifteen months old and growing fast. A sturdy child, he was the pampered pet of the whole monastery. Tom had worried a little, at first, about the baby being looked after by the half-witted Johnny Eightpence, but Johnny was as attentive as any mother and had more time than most mothers to devote to his charge. The monks still did not suspect that Tom was Jonathan's father, and now they probably never would. Seven-year-old Martha had a gap in her front teeth and she missed Jack. She was the one who worried Tom most, for she needed a mother. There was no shortage of women who would like to marry Tom and take care of his little daughter. He was not an unattractive man, he knew, and his livelihood looked secure now that Prior Philip was starting to build in earnest. Tom had moved out of the guesthouse and had built himself a fine two-room house, with a chimney, in the village. Eventually, as master builder in charge of the whole project, he could expect a salary and benefits that would be the envy of many minor gentry. But he could not conceive of marrying anyone but Ellen. He was like a man who has got used to drinking the finest wine, and now finds that everyday wine tastes like vinegar. There was a widow in the village, a plump, pretty woman with a smiling face and a generous bosom and two well-behaved children, who had baked several pies for him and kissed him longingly at the Christmas feast, and would marry him as quick as he liked. But he knew that he would be unhappy with her, for he would always hanker after the excitement of being married to the unpredictable, infuriating, bewitching, passionate Ellen. Ellen had promised to come back, one day, to visit. Tom felt fiercely certain that she would keep that promise, and he clung to it stubbornly, even though it was more than a year since she had walked out. And when she did come back he was going to ask her to marry him. He thought she might accept him now. He was no longer destitute: he could feed his own family and hers too. He felt that Alfred and Jack could be prevented from fighting, if they were handled right. If Jack were made to work, Alfred would not resent him so badly, Tom thought. He was going to offer to take Jack as an apprentice. The lad had shown an interest in building, he was as bright as a button, and in a year or so he would be big enough for the heavy work. Then Alfred would not be able to say that Jack was idle. The other problem was that Jack could read and Alfred could not. Tom was going to ask Ellen to teach Alfred to read and write. She could give him lessons every Sunday. Then Alfred would be able to feel every bit as good as Jack. The boys would be equal, both educated, both working, and before long much the same size. He knew Ellen had really liked living with him, despite all their trials. She liked his body and she liked his mind. She would want to come back to him. Whether he would be able to square things with Prior Philip was another matter. Ellen had insulted Philip's religion rather decisively. It was hard to imagine anything more offensive to a prior than what she had done. Tom had not yet solved that problem. Meanwhile, all his intellectual energy was employed in planning the cathedral. Otto and his team of stonecutters would build a rough lodge for themselves at the quarry, where they could sleep at night. When they were settled in, they would build real houses, and those who were married would bring their families to live with them. Of all the building crafts, quarrying required the least skill and the most muscle. The master quarryman did the brainwork: he decided which zones would be mined and in what order; he arranged for ladders and lifting gear; if a sheer face was to be worked he would design scaffolding; he made sure there was a constant supply of tools coming from the smithy. Actually digging out the stones was relatively simple. The quarryman would use an iron-headed pickax to make an initial groove in the rock, then deepen it with a hammer and chisel. When the groove was big enough to weaken the rock, he would drive a wooden wedge into it. If he had judged his rock rightly, it would split exactly where he wanted. Labourers removed the stones from the quarry, either carrying them on stretchers or lifting them with a rope attached to a huge winding wheel. In the lodge, stonecutters with axes would hack the stones roughly into the shape specified by the master builder. Accurate carving and shaping would be done at Kingsbridge, of course. The biggest problem would be transport. The quarry was a day's journey from the building site, and a carter would probably charge fourpence a trip-- and he could not carry more than eight or nine of the big stones without breaking his cart or killing his horse. As soon as the quarrymen were settled in, Tom had to explore the area and see whether there were any waterways that could be used to shorten the journey. They had set off from Kingsbridge at daybreak. As they walked through the forest, the trees arching over the road made Tom think of the piers of the cathedral he would build. The new leaves were just coming out. Tom had always been taught to decorate the cushion capitals on top of the piers with scrolls or zigzags, but now it occurred to him that decorations in the shape of leaves would look rather striking. They made good time, so that by midafternoon they were in the vicinity of the quarry. To his surprise, Tom heard in the distance the sound of metal clanging on rock, as if someone was working there. Technically the quarry belonged to the earl of Storing, Percy Hamleigh, but the king had given Kingsbridge Priory the right to mine it for the cathedral. Perhaps, Tom speculated, Earl Percy intended to work the quarry for his own benefit at the same time as the priory worked it. The king probably had not specifically prohibited that, but it would cause a lot of inconvenience. As they drew nearer, Otto, a dark-skinned man with a rough manner, frowned at the sound, but he said nothing. The other men muttered to one another uneasily. Tom ignored them but he walked faster, impatient to find out what was going on. The road curved through a patch of woodland and ended at the base of a hill. The hill itself was the quarry, and a huge bite had been taken out of its side by past quarry men. Tom's initial impression was that it would be easy to work: a hill was bound to be better than a pit, for it was always less trouble to lower stones from a height than to lift them out of a hole. The quarry was being worked, no question of that. There was a lodge at the foot of the hill, a sturdy scaffold reaching twenty feet or more up the scarred hillside, and a stack of stones waiting to be collected. Tom could see at least ten quarrymen. Ominously, there were a couple of hard-faced men-at-arms lounging outside the lodge, throwing stones at a barrel. "I don't like the look of this," said Otto. Tom did not like it either, but he pretended to be unperturbed. He marched into the quarry as if he owned it, and walked swiftly toward the two men-at-arms. They scrambled to their feet with the startled, faintly guilty air of sentries who have been on guard for too many uneventful days. Tom quickly looked over their weapons: each had a sword and a dagger, and they wore heavy leather jerkins, but they had no armour. Tom himself had a mason's hammer hanging from his belt. He was in no position to get into a fight. He walked straight at the two men without speaking, then at the last minute turned aside and walked around them, and continued on to the lodge. They looked at one another, unsure what to do: if Tom had been smaller, or had not had a hammer, they might have been quicker to stop him, but now it was too late. Tom went into the lodge. It was a spacious wood building with a fireplace. Clean tools hung around the walls and there was a big stone in the corner for sharpening them. Two stonecutters stood at a massive wooden bench called a banker, trimming stones with axes. "Greetings, brothers," Tom said, using the form of address of one craftsman to another. "Who's the master here?" "I'm the master quarryman," said one of them. "I'm Harold of Shiring." "I'm the master builder at Kingsbridge Cathedral. My name is Tom." "Greetings, Tom Builder. What are you here for?" Tom studied Harold for a moment before answering. He was a pale, dusty man with small dusty-green eyes, which he narrowed when he spoke, as if he were always blinking away stone dust. He leaned casually on the banker, but he was not as relaxed as he pretended. He was nervous, wary and apprehensive. He knows exactly why I'm here, Tom thought. "I've brought my master quarryman to work here, of course." The two men-at-arms had followed Tom in, and Otto and his team had come in behind them. Now one or two of Harold's men also crowded in, curious to see what the fuss was about. Harold said: "The quarry is owned by the earl. If you want to take stone you'll have to see him." "No, I won't," Tom said. "When the king gave the quarry to Earl Percy, he also gave Kingsbridge Priory the right to take stone. We don't need any further permission." "Well, we can't all work it, can we?" "Perhaps we can," said Tom. "I wouldn't want to deprive your men of employment. There's a whole hill of rock--enough for two cathedrals and more. We should be able to find a way to manage the quarry so that we can all cut stone here." "I can't agree to that," said Harold. "I'm employed by the earl." "Well, I'm employed by the prior of Kingsbridge, and my men start work here tomorrow morning, whether you like it or not." One of the men-at-arms spoke up then. "You won't be working here tomorrow or any other day." Until this moment Tom had been clinging to the idea that although Percy was violating the spirit of the royal edict by mining the quarry himself, if he was pushed he would adhere to the letter of the agreement, and permit the priory to take stone. But this man-at-arms had obviously been instructed to turn the priory's quarrymen away. That was a different matter. Tom realised, with sinking spirits, that he was not going to get any stone without a fight. The man-at-arms who had spoken was a short, stocky fellow of about twenty-five years, with a pugnacious expression. He looked stupid but stubborn-- the hardest type to reason with. Tom gave him a challenging look and said: "Who are you?" "I'm a bailiff for the earl of Shiring. He's told me to guard this quarry, and that's what I'm going to do." "And how do you propose to do it?" "With this sword." He touched the hilt of the weapon at his belt. "And what do you think the king will do to you when you're brought before him for breaking his peace?" "I'll take my chances." "But there are only two of you," Tom said in a reasonable tone of voice. "We're seven men and four boys, and we have the king's permission to work here. If we kill you, we won't hang." Both men-at-arms looked thoughtful, but before Tom could press his advantage, Otto spoke. "Just a minute," he said to Tom. "I brought my people here to cut stones, not fight." Tom's heart sank. If the quarrymen were not prepared to make a stand, there was no hope. "Don't be so timid!" he said. "Are you going to let yourselves be deprived of work by a couple of bully-boys?" Otto looked surly. "I'm not going to fight armed men," he replied. "I've been earning steadily for ten years and I'm not that desperate for work. Besides, I don't know the rights and wrongs of this--as far as I'm concerned it's your word against theirs." Tom looked at the rest of Otto's team. Both the stonecutters wore the same obstinate look as Otto. Of course, they would follow his lead: he was their father as well as their master. And Tom could see Otto's point. Indeed, if he were in Otto's position he would probably take the same line. He would not get into a brawl with armed men unless he was desperate. But knowing that Otto was being reasonable gave Tom no comfort; in fact it made him even more frustrated. He decided to give it one more try. "There won't be any fighting," he said. "They know the king will hang them if they hurt us. Let's just make our fire, and settle down for the night, and start work in the morning." Mentioning the night was a mistake. One of Otto's sons said: "How could we sleep, with these murdering villains nearby?" The others murmured agreement. "We'll set watches," Tom said desperately. Otto shook his head decisively. "We're leaving tonight. Now." Tom looked around at the men and saw that he was defeated. He had set out this morning with such high hopes, and he could hardly believe that his plans had been frustrated by these petty thugs. It was too galling for words. He could not resist a bitter parting shot. "You're going against the king, and that's a dangerous business," he said to Harold. "You tell the earl of Shiring that. And tell him that I'm Tom Builder of Kingsbridge, and if I ever get my hands around his fat neck I might just squeeze it until he chokes." Johnny Eightpence made a miniature monk's robe for little Jonathan, complete with wide sleeves and a hood. The tiny figure looked so fetching in it that he melted everyone's heart, but it was not very practical: the hood kept falling forward, obscuring his vision, and when he crawled the robe got in the way of his knees. In the middle of the afternoon, when Jonathan had had his nap (and the monks had had theirs), Prior Philip came across the baby, with Johnny Eightpence, in what had been the nave of the church, and was now the novices' playground. This was the time of day when the novices were allowed to let off steam, and Johnny was watching them play tag while Jonathan investigated the network of pegs and cord with which Tom Builder had laid out the ground plan of the east end of the new cathedral. Philip stood beside Johnny for a few moments in companionable silence, watching the youngsters race around. Philip was very fond of Johnny, who made up for his lack of brains by having an extraordinarily good heart. Jonathan was on his feet now, leaning against a stake Tom had driven into the ground where the north porch would be. He held on to the cord attached to the stake, and with that unsteady support took a couple of awkward, deliberate steps. "He'll be walking soon," Philip said to Johnny. "He keeps trying, Father, but he generally falls on his bottom." Philip crouched down and reached out his hands to Jonathan. "Walk to me," he said. "Come on." Jonathan grinned, showing miscellaneous teeth. He took another step holding on to Tom's cord. Then he pointed at Philip, as if that would help, and with a sudden access of boldness, he crossed the intervening space with three rapid, decisive steps. Philip caught him in his arms and said: "Well done!" He hugged him, feeling as proud as if the achievement were his, not the baby's. Johnny was equally excited. "He walked! He walked!" Jonathan struggled to be put down. Philip set him on his feet, to see if he would walk again; but he had had enough for one day, and he immediately dropped to his knees and crawled to Johnny. Some of the monks had been scandalised, Philip recalled, when he had brought Johnny and baby Jonathan to Kingsbridge; but Johnny was easy to deal with so long as you did not forget that he was essentially a child in a man's body; and Jonathan had overcome all opposition by sheer force of personal charm. Jonathan had not been the only cause of unrest during that first year. Having voted for a good provider, the monks felt cheated when Philip introduced an austerity drive to reduce the priory's day-to-day expenses. Philip had been a little hurt: he felt he had made it clear that his top priority would be the new cathedral. The monastic officers had also resisted his plan to take away their financial independence, even though they knew perfectly well that without reforms the priory was headed for ruin. And when he had spent money on enlarging the monastery's flocks of sheep there had almost been a mutiny. But monks were essentially people who wanted to be told what to do; and Bishop Waleran, who might have encouraged the rebels, had spent most of the year going to Rome and coming back; so in the end muttering was as far as the monks had got. Philip had suffered some lonely moments, but he was sure results would vindicate him. His policies were already bearing fruit in a very satisfying way. The price of wool had risen again, and Philip had already started shearing: that was why he could afford to hire foresters and quarrymen. As the financial position improved and cathedral building progressed, his position as prior would become unassailable. He gave Johnny Eightpence an affectionate pat on the head and walked through the building site. With some help from priory servants and younger monks, Tom and Alfred had made a start on digging the foundations. However, they were only five or six feet deep as yet. Tom had told Philip that the foundation holes would have to be twenty-five feet deep in places. He would need a large force of labourers, plus some lifting gear, to dig so far down. The new church would be bigger than the old one, but it would still be small for a cathedral. A part of Philip wanted it to be the longest, highest, richest and most beautiful cathedral in the kingdom, but he suppressed the wish, and told himself to be grateful for any kind of church. He went into Tom's shed and looked at the woodwork on the bench. The builder had spent most of the winter in here, working with an iron measuring stick and a set of fine chisels, making what he called templates--wooden models for the masons to use as guides when they were cutting stones into shape. Philip had watched with admiration while Tom, a big man with big hands, precisely and painstakingly carved the wood into perfect curves and square corners and exact angles. Now Philip picked up one of the templates and examined it. It was shaped like the edge of a daisy, a quarter-circle with several round projections like petals. What sort of stone needed to be that shape? He found that these things were hard to visualise, and he was constantly impressed by the power of Tom's imagination. He looked at Tom's drawings, engraved on plaster in wooden frames, and eventually he decided that he was holding a template for the piers of the arcade, which would look like clusters of shafts. Philip had thought they would actually be clusters of shafts, but now he realised that would be an illusion: the piers would be solid stone columns with shaft-like decorations. Five years, Tom had said, and the east end would be finished. Five years, and Philip would be able to hold services in a cathedral again. All he had to do was find the money. This year it had been hard to scrape together enough cash to make a modest start, because his reforms were slow to take effect; but next year, after he had sold the new spring's wool, he would be able to hire more craftsmen and begin to build in earnest. The bell rang for vespers. Philip left the little shed and walked to the crypt entrance. Glancing over at the priory gate, he was astonished to see Tom Builder coming in with all the quarrymen. Why were they back? Tom had said he would be away for a week and the quarrymen were to have stayed there indefinitely. Philip hurried to meet them. As he came close he saw that they looked tired and dispirited, as if something terribly discouraging had happened. "What is it?" he said. "Why are you here?" "Bad news," said Tom Builder. Philip simmered with fury all through vespers. What Earl Percy had done was outrageous. There was no doubt about the rights and wrongs of the case, no ambiguity about the king's instructions: the earl had been there himself when the announcement was made, and the priory's right to mine the quarry was enshrined in a charter. Philip's right foot tapped the stone floor of the crypt in an urgent, angry rhythm. He was being robbed. Percy might as well steal pennies from a church treasury. There was no shred of an excuse for it. Percy was flagrantly defying both God and the king. But the worst of it was that Philip could not build the new cathedral unless he got the stone for nothing from that quarry. He was already working with a bare-minimum budget, and if he had to pay the market price for his stone, and transport it from even further away, he could not build at all. He would have to wait another year or more, and then it would be six or seven years before he could hold services in a cathedral again. The thought was too much to bear. He held an emergency chapter immediately after vespers and told the monks the news. He had developed a technique for handling chapter meetings. Remigius, the sub-prior, still bore a grudge against Philip for defeating him in the election, and he often let his resentment show when monastery business was discussed. He was a conservative, unimaginative, pedantic man, and his whole approach to the running of the priory conflicted with Philip's. The brothers who had supported Remigius in the election tended to back him in chapter: Andrew, the apoplectic sacrist; Pierre, the circuitor, who was responsible for discipline and had the narrow-minded attitudes that seemed to go with the job; and John Small, the lazy treasurer. Similarly, Philip's closest colleagues were the men who had campaigned for him: Cuthbert Whitehead, the old cellarer; and young Milius, to whom Philip had given the newly created post of bursar, controller of the priory's finances. Philip always let Milius argue with Remigius. Philip had normally discussed anything important with Milius before the meeting, and when he had not, Milius could be relied on to present a point of view close to Philip's own. Then Philip could sum up like an impartial arbiter, and although Remigius rarely got his way, Philip would often accept some of his arguments, or adopt part of his proposal, to maintain the feeling of consensus government. The monks were enraged by what Earl Percy had done. They had all rejoiced when King Stephen had given the priory unlimited free timber and stone, and now they were scandalised that Percy should defy the king's order. When the protests died down, however, Remigius had another point to make. "I remember saying this a year ago," he began. "The pact according to which the quarry is owned by the earl but we have quarrying rights was always unsatisfactory. We should have held out for total ownership." The fact that there was some justice in this remark did not make it any easier for Philip to swallow. Total ownership was what he had agreed with Lady Regan, but she had cheated him out of it at the last minute. He was tempted to say that he had got the best deal he could, and he would like to see Remigius do any better in the treacherous maze of the royal court; but he bit his tongue, for he was, after all, the prior, and he had to take responsibility when things went wrong. Milius came to his rescue. "It's all very well to wish the king had given us outright ownership of the quarry, but he didn't, and the main question is, what do we do now?" "I should think that's fairly obvious," Remigius said immediately. "We can't expel the earl's men ourselves, so we'll have to get the king to do it. We must send a deputation to him and ask him to enforce his charter." There was a murmur of agreement. Andrew, the sacrist, said: "We should send our wisest and most fluent speakers." Philip realised that Remigius and Andrew saw themselves as leading the delegation. Remigius said: "After the king hears what has happened, I don't think Percy Hamleigh will be earl of Shiring much longer." Philip was not so sure of that. "Where is the king?" Andrew said as an afterthought. "Does anybody know?" Philip had recently been to Winchester, and had heard there of the king's movements. "He's gone to Normandy," he said. Milius quickly said: "It will take a long time to catch up with him." "The pursuit of justice always requires patience," Remigius intoned pompously. "But every day we spend pursuing justice, we're not building our new cathedral," Milius replied. His tone of voice showed that he was exasperated by Remigius's ready acceptance of a delay to the building program. Philip shared that feeling. Milius went on: "And that's not our only problem. Once we've found the king, we have to persuade him to hear us. That can take weeks. Then he may give Percy the chance to defend himself--more delay...." "How could Percy possibly defend himself?" Remigius said testily. Milius replied: "I don't know, but I'm sure he'll think of something." "But in the end the king is bound to stand by his word." A new voice was heard, saying: "Don't be so sure." Everyone turned to look. The speaker was Brother Timothy, the oldest monk in the priory. A small, modest man, he spoke rarely, but when he did he was worth listening to. Philip occasionally thought Timothy should have been prior. He normally sat through chapter looking half asleep, but now he was leaning forward, his eyes bright with conviction. "A king is a creature of the moment," he went on. "He's constantly under threat, from rebels within his own kingdom and from neighbouring monarchs. He needs allies. Earl Percy is a powerful man with a lot of knights. If the king needs Percy at the moment when we present our petition, we will be refused, quite regardless of the justice of our case. The king is not perfect. There is only one true judge, and that is God." He sat back, leaning against the wall and half closing his eyes, as if he were not in the least interested in how his speech was received. Philip concealed a smile: Timothy had precisely formulated Philip's own misgivings about going to the king for justice. Remigius was reluctant to give up the prospect of a long, exciting trip to France and a sojourn at the royal court; but at the same time he could not contradict Timothy's logic. "What else can we do, then?" he said. Philip was not sure. The sheriff would not be able to intervene in this case: Percy was too powerful to be controlled by a mere sheriff. And the bishop could not be relied upon either. It was frustrating. But Philip was not willing to sit back and accept defeat. He would take over that quarry if he had to do it himself.... Now there was an idea. "Just a minute," he said. It would involve all the able-bodied brothers in the monastery... it would have to be carefully organised, like a military operation without weapons... they would need food for two days.... "I don't know if this will work, but it's worth a try," he said. "Listen." He told them his plan. They set out almost immediately: thirty monks, ten novices, Otto Blackface and his team of quarrymen, Tom Builder and Alfred, two horses and a cart. When darkness fell they lit lanterns to show them the road. At midnight they stopped to rest and eat the picnic the kitchen had hastily prepared: chicken, white bread and red wine. Philip had always believed that hard work should be rewarded by good food. When they marched on, they sang the service they should have been performing back at the priory. At some point during the darkest hour, Tom Builder, who was leading the way, held up a hand to stop them. He said to Philip: "Only a mile more to the quarry." "Good," said Philip. He turned to the monks. "Take off your clogs and sandals, and put on the felt boots." He took off his own sandals and pulled on a pair of the soft felt boots that peasants wore in winter. He singled out two novices. "Edward and Philemon, stay here with the horses and the cart. Keep quiet, and wait until full daylight; then join us. Is that clear?" "Yes, Father," they said together. "All right, the rest of you," Philip said. "Follow Tom Builder, now, in complete silence, please." They all walked on. There was a light west wind blowing, and the rustling of the trees covered the sound of fifty men breathing and fifty pairs of felt boots shuffling. Philip began to feel tense. His plan seemed a little crazy now that he was about to put it into operation. He said a silent prayer for success. The road curved to the left, and then the flickering lanterns dimly showed a wooden lodge, a stack of part-finished stone blocks, some ladders and scaffolding, and in the background a dark hillside disfigured by the white scars of quarrying. Philip suddenly wondered whether the men asleep in the lodge had dogs. If they did, Philip would lose the element of surprise, and the whole scheme would be jeopardised. But it was too late to back out now. The whole crowd shuffled past the lodge. Philip held his breath, expecting at any moment to hear a cacophony of barking. But there were no dogs. He brought his people to a halt around the base of the scaffolding. He was proud of them for being so quiet. It was difficult for people to stay silent even in church. Perhaps they were too frightened to make a noise. Tom Builder and Otto Blackface began silently to place the quarrymen around the site. They divided them into two groups. One group gathered near the rock face at ground level. The others mounted the scaffolding. When they were all in position, Philip directed the monks, with gestures, to stand or sit around the workmen. He himself stayed apart from the rest, at a point halfway between the lodge and the rock face. Their timing was perfect. Dawn came a few moments after Philip made his final dispositions. He took a candle from inside his cloak and lit it from a lantern, then he faced the monks and lifted the candle. It was a prearranged signal. Each of the forty monks and novices took out a candle and lit it from one of the three lanterns. The effect was dramatic. Day broke over a quarry occupied by silent, ghostly figures each holding a small, flickering light. Philip turned again to face the lodge. As yet there was no sign of life. He settled down to wait. Monks were good at that. Standing still for hours was part of their everyday life. The workmen were not so used to it, however, and they began to get impatient after a while, shuffling their feet and murmuring to one another in low voices; but it did not matter now. Either the muttering or the strengthening daylight woke the inhabitants of the lodge. Philip heard someone cough and spit, then there was a scraping noise as of a bar being lifted from behind a door. He held up his hand for dead silence. The door of the lodge swung open. Philip kept his hand in the air. A man came out rubbing his eyes. Philip knew him, from Tom's description, to be Harold of Shiring, the master quarryman. Harold did not see anything unusual at first. He leaned against the doorpost and coughed again, the deep, bubbling cough of a man who has too much stone dust in his lungs. Philip dropped his hand. Somewhere behind him, the cantor hit a note, and immediately all the monks began to sing. The quarry was flooded with eerie harmonies. The effect on Harold was devastating. His head jerked up as if it had been pulled by a string. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he saw the spectral choir that had appeared, as if by magic, in his quarry. A cry of fear escaped from his open mouth, He staggered back through the door of the lodge. Philip permitted himself a satisfied smile. It was a good start. However, the supernatural dread would not last very long. He lifted his hand again and waved it without turning around. In response to his signal the quarrymen started to work and the clang of iron on rock punctuated the music of the choir. Two or three faces peeped fearfully from the doorway. The men soon realised they were looking at ordinary, corporeal monks and workmen, not visions or spirits, and they stepped out of the lodge for a better view. Two menat- arms came out, buckling their sword belts, and stood staring. This was the crucial moment for Philip: what would the men-at-arms do? The sight of them, big and bearded and dirty, with their chainlink belts, their swords and daggers, and their heavy leather jerkins, brought back to Philip a vivid, crystal-clear memory of the two soldiers who had burst into his home when he was six years old and killed his mother and father. He was stabbed, suddenly and unexpectedly, by grief for the parents he hardly remembered. He stared with loathing at Earl Percy's men, not seeing them but seeing instead an ugly man with a bent nose and a dark man with blood in his beard; and he was filled with rage and disgust and a fierce determination that such mindless, godless ruffians should be defeated. For a while they did nothing. Gradually all the earl's quarrymen came out of the lodge. Philip counted them: there were twelve workmen plus the men-atarms. The sun peeped over the horizon. The Kingsbridge quarrymen were already digging out stones. If the menat- arms wanted to stop them, they would have to lay hands on the monks who surrounded and protected the workers. Philip had gambled that the men-at-arms would hesitate to do violence to praying monks. So far he was right: they were hesitating. The two novices who had been left behind now arrived, leading the horses and the cart. They looked around fearfully. Philip indicated with a gesture where they should pull up. Then he turned, met Tom Builder's eye, and nodded. Several stones had been cut by this time, and now Tom directed some of the younger monks to pick up the stones and carry them to the cart. The earl's men watched this new development with interest. The stones were too heavy to be lifted by one man, so they had to be lowered from the scaffolding by ropes, then carried across the ground on stretchers. As the first stone was manhandled into the cart, the men-at-arms went into a huddle with Harold. Another stone was put into the cart. The two men-at-arms separated from the crowd around the lodge and walked over to the cart. One of the novices, Philemon, climbed into the cart and sat on the stones, looking defiant. Brave lad! thought Philip, but he was afraid. The men approached the cart. The four monks who had carried the two stones stood in front of it, forming a barrier. Philip tensed. The men stopped and stood face to face with the monks. They both put their hands to the hilts of their swords. The singing stopped as everyone watched with bated breath. Surely, Philip thought, they won't be able to bring themselves to put defenceless monks to the sword. Then he thought how easy it would be for them, big strong men who were accustomed to the slaughter of the battlefield, to run their sharp swords through these people from whom they had nothing to fear, not even retaliation. Then again, they must consider the divine punishment they would risk by murdering men of God. Even thugs such as these must know that eventually they would stand at the Day of Judgment. Were they afraid of the eternal fire? Perhaps; but they were also afraid of their employer, Earl Percy. Philip guessed that the thought uppermost in their minds must be whether he would consider they had an adequate excuse for their failure to keep the Kingsbridge men out of the quarry. He watched them, hesitating in front of a handful of young monks, hands on their swords, and imagined them weighing the danger of failing Percy against the wrath of God. The two men looked at one another. One shook his head. The other shrugged. Together, they walked out of the quarry. The cantor hit a new note and the monks burst into a triumphant hymn. A shout of victory went up from the quarrymen. Philip sagged with relief. For a moment it had looked dreadfully dangerous. He could not help beaming with pleasure. The quarry was his. He blew out his candle and went over to the cart. He embraced each of the four monks who had faced the men-at-arms, and the two novices who had brought the cart. "I'm proud of you," he said warmly. "And I believe God is too." The monks and the quarrymen were all shaking hands and congratulating one another. Otto Blackface came over to Philip and said: "That was well done, Father Philip. You're a brave man, if I may say so." "God protected us," Philip said. His eye fell on the earl's quarry men, standing in a disconsolate group around the door of their lodge. He did not want to make enemies of them, for while they were at a loose end there would always be a danger that Percy would use them to make further trouble. Philip decided to speak to them. He took Otto's arm and led him over to the lodge. "God's will has been done here today," he said to Harold. "I hope there are no hard feelings." "We're out of work," Harold said. "That's a hard feeling." Philip suddenly saw a way to get Harold's men on his side. Impulsively he said: "You can be back in work today, if you want. Work for me. I'll hire your whole team. You won't even have to move out of your lodge." Harold was surprised at this turn of events. He looked startled, then recovered his composure and said: "At what wages?" "Standard rates," Philip replied promptly. "Twopence a day for craftsmen, a penny a day for labourers, fourpence for yourself, and you pay your own apprentices." Harold turned away and looked at his colleagues. Philip drew Otto away to let them discuss the proposal in private. Philip could not really afford twelve more men, and if they accepted his offer he would have to postpone further the day when he could hire masons. That meant he would be cutting stone faster than he could use it. He would build up a stockpile, but it would be bad for his flow of cash. However, having all Percy's quarrymen on the priory payroll would be a good defensive move. If Percy wanted to try again to work the quarry himself, he would first have to hire a team of quarrymen; which might be difficult, once the news of today's events got around. And if at some future date Percy should try another stratagem to close the quarry, Philip would have a stockpile of stone. Harold appeared to be arguing with his men. After a few moments he left them and approached Philip again. "Who's to be in charge, if we work for you?" he said. "Me, or your own master quarry man?" "Otto here is in charge," Philip said without hesitation. Harold certainly could not be in charge, in case his loyalty should be won back by Percy. And there could not be two masters, for that would lead to disputes. "You can still run your own team," Philip said to Harold. "But Otto will be over you." Harold looked disappointed and returned to his men. The discussion continued. Tom Builder joined Philip and Otto. "Your plan worked, Father," he said with a broad grin. "We repossessed the quarry without shedding a drop of blood. You're amazing." Philip was inclined to agree, and realised he was guilty of the sin of pride. "It was God who worked the miracle," he said, reminding himself as well as Tom. Otto said: "Father Philip has offered to hire Harold and his men to work with me." "Really!" Tom looked displeased. It was the master builder who was supposed to recruit craftsmen, not the prior. "I shouldn't have thought he could afford it." "I can't," Philip admitted. "But I don't want these men hanging around with nothing to do, waiting for Percy to think of another way to get the quarry back." Tom looked thoughtful, then he nodded. "And it will do no harm to have a reserve of stone in case Percy succeeds." Philip was glad Tom saw the sense of what he had done. Harold seemed to be reaching agreement with his men. He came back to Philip and said: "Will you pay the wages to me, and leave me to distribute the money as I think fit?" Philip was dubious. That meant the master could take more than his share. But he said: "It's up to the master builder." "It's common enough," Tom said. "If that's what your team wants, I'm willing." "In that case, we accept," Harold said. Harold and Tom shook hands. Philip said: "So everyone gets what they want. Good!" "There's one who hasn't got what they want," Harold said. "Who's that?" said Philip. "Earl Percy's wife, Regan," Harold said lugubriously. "When she finds out what's happened here there's going to be blood all over the floor." II There was no hunting today, so the young men at Earlscastle played one of William Hamleigh's favourite games, stoning the cat. There were always plenty of cats in the castle, and one more or less made no difference. The men closed the doors and shuttered the windows of the hall of the keep, and pushed the furniture up against the wall so that the cat could not hide behind anything; then they made a pile of stones in the middle of the room. The cat, an aging mouser with grey in its fur, sensed the bloodlust in the air and sat near the door, hoping to get out. Each man had to put a penny into the pot for each stone he threw, and the man who threw the fatal stone took the pot. As they drew lots to determine the order of throwing, the cat became agitated, pacing up and down in front of the door. Walter threw first. This was lucky, for although the cat was wary it did not know the nature of the game, and might be taken by surprise. With his back to the animal, Walter picked a stone from the pile and concealed it in his hand; then he turned around slowly and threw suddenly. He missed. The stone thudded into the door and the cat jumped and ran. The others jeered. It was unlucky to throw second, for the cat was fresh and light on its feet, whereas later it would be tired and possibly injured. A young squire was next. He watched the cat run around the room, looking for a way out, and waited until it slowed down; then he threw. It was a good shot but the cat saw it coming and dodged it. The men groaned. It ran around the room again, faster now, getting panicky, jumping up onto the trestles and boards that were stacked against the wall, jumping back down to the floor. An older knight threw next. He feinted a throw, to see which way the cat would jump, then threw for real when it was running, aiming a little ahead of it. The others applauded his cunning, but the cat saw the stone coming and stopped suddenly, avoiding it. In desperation the cat tried to squeeze behind an oak chest in a corner. The next thrower saw an opportunity and seized it: he threw quickly, while the cat was stationary, and struck its rump. A great cheer went up. The cat gave up trying to squeeze behind the chest and ran on around the room, but now it was limping and it moved more slowly. It was William's turn next. He thought he could probably kill the cat if he was careful. In order to tire it a little more he yelled at it, making it run faster for a moment; then he feinted a throw, with the same effect. If one of the others had delayed like this he would have been booed, but William was the earl's son, so they waited patiently. The cat slowed down, obviously in pain. It approached the door hopefully. William drew back his arm. Unexpectedly the cat stopped against the wall beside the door. William began to throw. Before the stone left his hand the door was flung open, and a priest in black stood there. William threw, but the cat sprang like an arrow from a bow, howling triumphantly. The priest in the doorway gave a frightened, high-pitched shriek, and clutched at the skirts of his robes. The young men burst out laughing. The cat cannoned into the priest's legs, then landed on its feet and shot out through the door. The priest stood frozen in an attitude of fright, like an old woman scared by a mouse, and the young men roared with laughter. William recognised the priest. It was Bishop Waleran. He laughed all the more. The fact that the womanish priest who had been frightened by a cat was also a rival of the family made it even better. The bishop recovered his composure very quickly. He flushed red, pointed an accusing finger at William, and said in a grating voice: "You'll suffer eternal torment in the lowest depths of hell." William's laughter turned to terror in a flash. His mother had given him nightmares, when he was small, by telling him what the devils did to people in hell, burning them in the flames and poking their eyes out and cutting off their private parts with sharp knives, and ever since then he hated to hear talk of it, "Shut up!" he screamed at the bishop. The room fell silent. William drew his knife and walked toward Waleran. "Don't you come here preaching, you snake!" Waleran did not look frightened at all, just intrigued, as if he was interested to have discovered William's weakness; and that made William angrier still. "I'll swing for you, so help me--" He was mad enough to knife the bishop, but he was stopped by a voice from the staircase behind him. "William! Enough!" It was his father. William stopped and, after a moment, sheathed his knife. Waleran came into the hall. Another priest followed him and shut the door behind him: Dean Baldwin. Father said: "I'm surprised to see you, Bishop." "Because last time we met, you induced the prior of Kingsbridge to double-cross me? Yes, I suppose you would be surprised. I'm not normally a forgiving man." He turned his icy gaze on William again for a moment, then looked back at Father. "But I don't bear a grudge when it's against my interest. We need to talk." Father nodded thoughtfully. "You'd better come upstairs. You too, William." Bishop Waleran and Dean Baldwin climbed the stairs to the earl's quarters, and William followed. He felt let down because the cat had escaped. On the other hand, he realised that he too had had a lucky escape: if he had touched the bishop he probably would have been hanged for it. But there was something about Waleran's delicacy, his preciousness, that William hated. They went into Father's chamber, the room where William had raped Aliena. He remembered that scene every time he was here: her lush white body, the fear on her face, the way she had screamed, the twisted expression on her little brother's face as he had been forced to look on, and then-- William's masterstroke--the way he had let Walter enjoy her afterward. He wished he had kept her here, a prisoner, so that he could have her anytime he wanted. He had thought about her obsessively ever since. He had even tried to track her down. A verderer had been caught trying to sell William's war-horse in Shiring, and had confessed, under torture, that he had stolen it from a girl answering to the description of Aliena. William had learned from the Winchester jailer that she had visited her father before he died. And his friend Mistress Kate, the owner of a brothel he frequented, had told him she had offered Aliena a place in her house. But the trail had petered out. "Don't let her prey on your mind, Willyboy," Kate had said sympathetically. "You want big tits and long hair? We've got it. Take Betty and Millie together, tonight, four big breasts all to yourself, why don't you?" But Betty and Millie had not been innocent, and white-skinned, and frightened half to death; and they had not pleased him. In fact, he had not achieved real satisfaction with a woman since that night with Aliena here in the earl's chamber. He put the thought of her out of his mind. Bishop Waleran was speaking to Mother. "I suppose you know that the prior of Kingsbridge has taken possession of your quarry?" They did not know. William was astonished, and Mother was furious. "What?" she said. "How?" "Apparently your men-at-arms succeeded in turning away the quarry men, but the next day when they woke up they found the quarry overrun with monks singing hymns, and they were afraid to lay hands on men of God. Prior Philip then hired your quarrymen, and now they're all working together in perfect harmony. I'm surprised the men-at-arms didn't come back to you to report." "Where are they, the cowards?" Mother screeched. She was red in the face. "I'll see to them--I'll make them cut off their own balls--" "I see why they didn't come back," Waleran said. "Never mind the men-at-arms," Father said. "They're just soldiers. That sly prior is the one responsible. I never imagined he could pull a trick like this. He's outwitted us, that's all." "Exactly," said Waleran. "For all his air of saintly innocence, he's got the cunning of a house rat." William thought that Waleran, too, was like a rat, a black one with a pointed snout and sleek black hair, sitting in a corner with a crust in its paws, darting wary glances around the room as it nibbled its dinner. Why was he interested in who occupied the quarry? He was as cunning as Prior Philip: he, too, was plotting something. Mother said: "We can't let him get away with this. The Hamleighs must not be seen to be defeated. That prior must be humiliated." Father was not so sure. "It's only a quarry," he said. "And the king did--" "It's not just the quarry, it's the family's honour," Mother interrupted. "Never mind what the king said." William agreed with Mother. Philip of Kingsbridge had defied the Hamleighs, and he had to be crushed. If people were not afraid of you, you had nothing. But he did not see what the problem was. "Why don't we go in with some men and just throw the prior's quarrymen out?" Father shook his head. "It's one thing to obstruct the king's wishes passively, as we did by working the quarry ourselves; but quite another to send armed men to expel workmen who are there by express permission of the king. I could lose the earldom for that." William reluctantly saw his point of view. Father was always cautious, but he was usually justified. Bishop Waleran said: "I have a suggestion." William had felt sure he had something up his embroidered black sleeve. "I believe this cathedral should not be built at Kingsbridge." William was mystified by this remark. He did not see its relevance. Nor did Father. But Mother's eyes widened, she stopped scratching her face for a moment, and she said thoughtfully: "That's an interesting idea." "In the old days most cathedrals were in villages such as Kingsbridge," Waleran went on. "Many of them were moved to towns sixty or seventy years ago, during the time of the first King William. Kingsbridge is a small village in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing there but a run-down monastery that isn't rich enough to maintain a cathedral, let alone build one." Mother said: "And where would you wish it built?" "Shiring," said Waleran. "It's a big town--the population must be a thousand or more--and it has a market and an annual fleece fair. And it's on a main road. Shiring makes sense. And if we both campaign for it--the bishop and the earl united--we could push it through." Father said: "But if the cathedral were at Shiring, the Kingsbridge monks would not be able to look after it." "That's the point," Mother said impatiently. "Without the cathedral, Kingsbridge would be nothing, the priory would sink back into obscurity, and Philip would once again be a nonentity, which is what he deserves." "So who would look after the new cathedral?" Father persisted. "A new chapter of canons," Waleran said. "Appointed by me." William had been as puzzled as his father, but now he began to see Waleran's thinking: in moving the cathedral to Shiring, Waleran would also take personal control of it. "What about the money?" said Father. "Who would pay for the new cathedral, if not Kingsbridge Priory?" "I think we'd find that most of the priory's property is dedicated to the cathedral," Waleran said. "If the cathedral moves, the property goes with it. For example, when King Stephen divided up the old earldom of Shiring, he gave the hill farms to Kingsbridge Priory, as we know only too well; but he did that in order to help finance the new cathedral. If we told him that someone else was building the new cathedral, he would expect the priory to release those lands to the new builders. The monks would put up a fight, of course; but examination of their charters would settle the matter." The picture was becoming clearer to William. Not only would Waleran get control of the cathedral by this stratagem; he would also get his hands on most of the priory's wealth. Father was thinking the same thing. "It's a grand scheme for you, Bishop, but what's in it for me?" It was Mother who answered him. "Can't you see?" she said tetchily. "You own Shiring. Think how much prosperity would come to the town along with the cathedral. There would be hundreds of craftsmen and labourers building the church for years: they all have to live somewhere and pay you rent, and buy food and clothing at your market. Then there will be the canons who run the cathedral; and the worshipers who will come to Shiring instead of Kingsbridge at Easter and Whitsun for the big services; and the pilgrims who come to visit the shrines.... They all spend money." Her eyes were bright with greed. William could not remember seeing her so enthusiastic for a long time. "If we handle this right, we could turn Shiring into one of the most important cities in the kingdom!" And it will be mine, William thought. When Father dies I will be the earl. "All right," said Father. "It will ruin Philip, it will bring power to you, Bishop, and it will make me rich. How could it be done?" "The decision to move the location of the cathedral must be made by the archbishop of Canterbury, theoretically." Mother looked at him sharply. "Why ‘theoretically'?" "Because there is no archbishop just now. William of Corbeil died at Christmas and King Stephen has not yet nominated his successor. However, we know who is likely to get the job: our old friend Henry of Winchester. He wants the job; the pope has already given him interim control; and his brother is the king." "How much of a friend is he?" said Father. "He didn't do much for you when you were trying to get this earldom." Waleran shrugged. "He'll help me if he can. We'll have to make a convincing case." Mother said: "He won't want to make powerful enemies, just now, if he's hoping to be made archbishop." "Correct. But Philip isn't powerful enough to matter. He's not likely to be consulted about the choice of archbishop." "So why shouldn't Henry just give us what we want?" William asked. "Because he's not the archbishop, not yet; and he knows that people are watching him to see how he behaves during his caretakership. He wants to be seen making judicious decisions, not just handing out favours to his friends. Plenty of time for that after the election." Mother said reflectively: "So the best that can be said is that he will listen sympathetically to our case. What is our case?" "That Philip can't build a cathedral, and we can." "And how shall we persuade him of that?" "Have you been to Kingsbridge lately?" "No." "I was there at Easter." Waleran smiled. "They haven't started building yet. All they've got is a flat piece of ground with a few stakes banged into the soil and some ropes marking where they hope to build. They've started digging foundations, but they've only gone down a few feet. There's a mason working there with his apprentice, and the priory carpenter, and occasionally a monk or two doing some labouring. It's a very unimpressive sight, especially in the rain. I'd like Bishop Henry to see it." Mother nodded sagely. William could see that the plan was good, even though he hated the thought of collaborating with the loathsome Waleran Bigod. Waleran went on: "We'll brief Henry beforehand on what a small and insignificant place Kingsbridge is, and how poor the monastery is; then we'll show him the site where it has taken them more than a year to dig a few shallow holes; then we'll take him to Shiring and impress him with how fast we could build a cathedral there, with the bishop and the earl and the townspeople all putting their maximum energies into the project." "Will Henry come?" Mother said anxiously. "All we can do is ask," Waleran replied. "I'll invite him to visit on Whitsunday in his archiepiscopal role. That will flatter him by implying that we already consider him to be the archbishop." Father said: "We must keep this secret from Prior Philip." "I don't think that will be possible," Waleran said. "The bishop can't make a surprise visit to Kingsbridge--it would look very odd." "But if Philip knows in advance that Bishop Henry is coming, he might make a big effort to advance the building program." "What with? He hasn't any money, especially now that he's hired all your quarrymen. Quarrymen can't build walls." Waleran shook his head from side to side with a satisfied smile. "In fact, there isn't a thing he can do except hope the sun shines on Whitsunday." At first Philip was pleased that the bishop of Winchester was to come to Kingsbridge. It would mean an open-air service, of course, but that was all right. They would hold it where the old cathedral used to be. In case of rain, the priory carpenter would build a temporary shelter over the altar and the area immediately around it, to keep the bishop dry; and the congregation could just get wet. The visit seemed like an act of faith on Bishop Henry's part, as if he were saying that he still considered Kingsbridge to be a cathedral, and the lack of a real church was just a temporary problem. However, it occurred to him to wonder what Henry's motive was. The usual reason for a bishop to visit a monastery was to get free food, drink and lodging for himself and his entourage; but Kingsbridge was famous--not to say notorious--for the plainness of its food and the austerity of its accommodation, and Philip's reforms had merely raised its standard from dreadful to barely adequate. Henry was also the richest clergyman in the kingdom, so he certainly was not coming to Kingsbridge for its food and drink. But he had struck Philip as a man who did nothing without a reason. The more Philip thought about it, the more he suspected that Bishop Waleran had something to do with it. He had expected Waleran to arrive at Kingsbridge within a day or two of the letter, to discuss arrangements for the service and hospitality for Henry, and to make sure Henry would be pleased and impressed with Kingsbridge; and as the days went by and Waleran did not show up, Philip's misgivings deepened. However, even in his most mistrustful moments he had not dreamed of the treachery that was revealed, ten days before Whitsun, by a letter from the prior of Canterbury Cathedral. Like Kingsbridge, Canterbury was a cathedral run by Benedictine monks, and monks always helped one another if they could. The prior of Canterbury, who naturally worked closely with the acting archbishop, had learned that Waleran had invited Henry to Kingsbridge for the express purpose of persuading him to move the diocese, and the new cathedral, to Shiring. Philip was shocked. His heart beat faster and the hand holding the letter trembled. It was a fiendishly clever move by Waleran, and Philip had not anticipated it, had not imagined anything like it. It was his own lack of foresight that shook him. He knew how treacherous Waleran was. The bishop had tried to double-cross him, a year ago, over the Shiring earldom. And he would never forget how angry Waleran had been when Philip had outwitted him. He could picture Waleran's face, suffused with rage, as he said I swear by all that's holy, you'll never build your church. But as time went by the menace of that oath had faded, and Philip's guard had slipped. Now here was a brutal reminder that Waleran had a long memory. "Bishop Waleran says you have no money, and in fifteen months you have built nothing," the prior of Canterbury wrote. "He says that Bishop Henry will see for himself that the cathedral will never get built if it is left to Kingsbridge Priory to build it. He argues that the time to make the move is now, before any real progress is made." Waleran was too cunning to get caught in an outright lie, so he was purveying a gross exaggeration. Philip had in fact achieved a great deal. He had cleared the ruins, approved the plans, laid out the new east end, made a start on the foundations, and begun felling trees and quarrying stone. But he did not have much to show a visitor. And he had overcome terrific obstacles to achieve this much--reforming the priory's finances, winning a major grant of lands from the king, and defeating Earl Percy over the quarry. It was not fair! With the letter from Canterbury in his hand, he went to his window and looked out over the building site. Spring rains had turned it into a sea of mud. Two young monks with their hoods pulled over their heads were carrying timber up from the riverside. Tom Builder had made a contraption with a rope and a pulley for lifting barrels of earth out of the foundation hole, and he was operating the winding wheel while his son Alfred, down in the hole, filled the barrels with wet mud. They looked as though they could work at that pace forever and never make any difference. Anyone but a professional would see this scene and conclude that no cathedral would be built here this side of the Day of Judgment. Philip left the window and returned to his writing desk. What could be done? For a moment he was tempted to do nothing. Let Bishop Henry come and look, and make his own decision, he thought. If the cathedral is to be built at Shiring, so be it. Let Bishop Waleran take control of it and use it for his own ends; let it bring prosperity to the town of Shiring and the evil Hamleigh dynasty. God's will be done. He knew that would not do, of course. Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing that you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically. Philip's holy duty was to do all he could to prevent the cathedral from falling into the hands of cynical and immoral people who would exploit it for their own aggrandisement. That meant showing Bishop Henry that his building program was well under way and Kingsbridge had the energy and determination to finish it. Was it true? The fact was that Philip was going to find it mortally difficult to build a cathedral here. Already he had almost been forced to abandon the project just because the earl refused him access to the quarry. But he knew he would succeed, in the end, because God would help him. However, his own conviction would not be enough to persuade Bishop Henry. He decided he would do his best to make the site look more impressive, for what it was worth. He would set all the monks to work for the ten days remaining before Whitsun. Perhaps they could get part of the foundation hole dug to its full depth, so that Tom and Alfred could begin laying the foundation stones. Perhaps a part of the foundation could be completed up to ground level, so that Tom could start building a wall. That would be a little better than the present scene, but not much. What Philip really needed was a hundred labourers, but he did not have the money even for ten. Bishop Henry would arrive on a Sunday, of course, so nobody would be working, unless Philip were to co-opt the congregation. That would provide a hundred labourers. He imagined himself standing up in front of them and announcing a new kind of Whitsun service: instead of singing hymns and saying prayers, we're going to dig holes and carry stones. They would be astonished. They would... What would they do, actually? They would probably cooperate wholeheartedly. He frowned. Either I'm crazy, he thought, or this idea could actually work. He thought about it some more. I get up at the end of the service, and I say that today's penance for forgiveness of all sins is half a day's labour on the cathedral building site. Bread and ale will be provided at dinnertime. They would do it. Of course they would. He felt the need to try the idea out on someone else. He considered Milius, but rejected him: Milius's thought processes were too similar to his own. He needed someone with a slightly different outlook. He decided to talk to Cuthbert Whitehead, the cellarer. He pulled on his cloak, drew the hood forward to keep the rain off his face, and went out. He hurried across the muddy building site, passing Tom with a perfunctory wave, and made for the kitchen courtyard. This range of buildings now included a hen house, a cow shed and a dairy, for Philip did not like to spend scarce cash on simple commodities that the monks could provide for themselves, such as eggs and butter. He entered the cellarer's storeroom in the undercroft below the kitchen. He inhaled the dry, fragrant air, full of the herbs and spices Cuthbert had stored. Cuthbert was counting garlic, peering at the strings of bulbs and muttering numbers in an undertone. Philip saw with a small shock that Cuthbert was getting old: his flesh seemed to be wasting away beneath his skin. "Thirty-seven," Cuthbert said aloud. "Would you like a cup of wine?" "No, thank you." Philip found that wine in the daytime made him lazy and short-tempered. No doubt that was why Saint Benedict counselled monks to drink in moderation. "I want your advice, not your victuals. Come and sit down." Negotiating a path through the boxes and barrels, Cuthbert stumbled over a sack and almost fell before sitting on a three-legged stool in front of Philip. The storeroom was not as tidy as it had once been, Philip noted. He was struck by a thought. "Are you having trouble with your eyesight, Cuthbert?" "It's not what it was, but it will do," Cuthbert said shortly. His eyes had probably been poor for years--that might even be why he had never learned to read very well. However, he was obviously touchy about it, so Philip said no more, but made a mental note to begin grooming a replacement cellarer. "I've had a very disturbing letter from the prior of Canterbury," he said, and he told Cuthbert about Bishop Waleran's scheming. He concluded by saying: "The only way to make the site look like a hive of activity is to get the congregation to work on it. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't do that?" Cuthbert did not even think about it. "On the contrary, it's a good idea," he said immediately. "It's a little unorthodox, isn't it?" Philip said. "It's been done before." "Really?" Philip was surprised and pleased. "Where?" "I've heard of it in several places." Philip was excited. "Does it work?" "Sometimes. It probably depends on the weather." "How is it managed? Does the priest make an announcement at the end of the service, or what?" "It's more organised than that. The bishop, or prior, sends out messengers to the parish churches, announcing that forgiveness for sins may be had in return for work on the building site." "That's a grand idea," Philip said enthusiastically. "We might get a bigger congregation than usual, attracted by the novelty." "Or a smaller one," Cuthbert said. "Some people would rather give money to the priest, or light a candle to a saint, than spend all day wading in mud and carrying heavy stones." "I never thought of that," Philip said, suddenly deflated. "Perhaps this isn't such a good idea after all." "What other ideas have you got?" "Not one." "Then you'll have to try this, and hope for the best, won't you?" "Yes," said Philip. "Hope for the best." III Philip did not sleep at all during the night before Whitsunday. There had been a week of sunshine, perfect for his plan--more people would volunteer in fine weather--but as darkness fell on the Saturday, it began to rain. He lay awake listening disconsolately to the raindrops on the roof and the wind in the trees. He felt he had prayed enough. God must be fully aware of the circumstances now. On the previous Sunday, every monk in the priory had visited one or more churches to speak to the congregations and tell them they could obtain forgiveness for their sins by working on the cathedral building site on Sundays. On Whitsunday they would get forgiveness for the past year, and thereafter a day of labour was worth a week of routine sins, excluding murder and sacrilege. Philip himself had gone to the town of Shiring, and had spoken at each of its four parish churches. He had sent two monks to Winchester to visit as many as possible of the multitude of small churches in that city. Winchester was two days' journey away, but Whitsun was a six-day holiday, and people would make such a trip for a big fair or a spectacular service. In total, many thousands of people had heard the message. There was no knowing how many might respond. For the rest of the time they had all been working on the site. The good weather and the long days of early summer had helped, and they had achieved most of what Philip had hoped for. The foundation had been laid for the wall at the easternmost end of the chancel. Some of the foundation for the north wall had been dug to its full depth, ready for foundation stones to be laid; and Tom had built enough lifting mechanisms to keep scores of people busy digging the rest of the vast hole, if scores of people should turn up. In addition, the riverbank was crowded with timber sent downstream by the foresters and with stones from the quarry, all of which had to be carried up the slope to the cathedral site. There was work here for hundreds. But would anyone come? At midnight Philip got up and walked through the rain to the crypt for matins. When he returned after the service, the rain had stopped. He did not go back to bed, but sat up reading. Nowadays this period between midnight and dawn was the only time he had for study and meditation, for the whole of the day was always taken up with the administration of the monastery. Tonight, however, he had trouble concentrating, and his mind kept returning to the prospect of the day ahead, and the chances of success or failure. Tomorrow he could lose everything he had worked for over the past year and more. It occurred to him, perhaps because he was feeling fatalistic, that he ought not to want success for its own sake. Was it his pride that was at stake here? Pride was the sin he was most vulnerable to. Then he thought of all the people who depended on him for support, protection and employment: the monks, the priory servants, the quarrymen, Tom and Alfred, the villagers of Kingsbridge and the worshipers of the whole county. Bishop Waleran would not care for them the way Philip did. Waleran seemed to think he was entitled to use people any way he chose in the service of God. Philip believed that caring for people was the service of God. That was what salvation was about. No, it could not be God's will that Bishop Waleran should win this contest. Perhaps my pride is at stake, a little bit, Philip admitted to himself; but there are men's souls in the balance too. At last dawn cracked the night, and once again he walked to the crypt, this time for the service of prime. The monks were restless and excited: they knew that today was crucial to their future. The sacrist hurried through the service, and for once Philip forgave him. When they left the crypt and headed toward the refectory for breakfast it was fully light, and there was a clear blue sky. God had sent the weather they had prayed for, at least. It was a good start. Tom Builder knew that his future was at stake today. Philip had shown him the letter from the prior of Canterbury. Tom was sure that if the cathedral was built at Shiring, Waleran would hire his own master builder. He would not want to use a design Philip had approved, nor would he risk employing someone who might be loyal to Philip. For Tom, it was Kingsbridge or nothing. This was the only opportunity he would ever get to build a cathedral, and it was in jeopardy today. He was invited to attend chapter with the monks in the morning. This happened occasionally. Usually it was because they were going to discuss the building program and might need his expert opinion on questions of design, cost or timetabling. Today he was going to make arrangements for employing the volunteer workers, if any came. He wanted the site to be a hive of busy, efficient activity when Bishop Henry arrived. He sat patiently through the readings and the prayers, not understanding the Latin words, thinking about his plans for the day; then Philip switched to English and called on him to outline the organisation of the work. "I shall be building the east wall of the cathedral and Alfred will be laying stone in the foundations," Tom began. "The aim, in both cases, is to show Bishop Henry how far advanced the building is." "How many men will the two of you need to help you?" Philip asked. "Alfred will need two labourers to bring the stones to him. He'll be using material from the ruins of the old church. He'll also need someone to make mortar. I'll also need a mortar maker and two labourers. Alfred can use misshapen stones in the foundations, as long as they're flat top and bottom; but my stones will have to be properly dressed, since they will be visible aboveground, so I've brought two stonecutters back from the quarry to help me." Philip said: "All that is very important for impressing Bishop Henry, but most of the volunteers will be digging the foundations." "That's right. The foundations are marked out for the whole of the chancel of the cathedral, and most of them are still only a few feet deep. Monks must man the winding gear--I've instructed several of you how to do it--and the volunteers can fill the barrels." Remigius said: "What if we get more volunteers than we can use?" "We can employ just about any number," Tom said. "If we haven't enough lifting devices, people can carry earth out of the holes in buckets and baskets. The carpenter will have to stand by to make extra ladders--we've got the timber." "But there's a limit to the number of people who can get down in that foundation hole," Remigius persisted. Tom had the feeling that Remigius was just argumentative. "It will take several hundred," he said testily. "It's a big hole." Philip said: "And there's other work to be done, besides digging." "Indeed," Tom said. "The other main area of work is carrying timber and stone up to the site from the riverside. You monks must make sure the materials are stacked in the right places on the site. The stones should go beside the foundation holes, but on the outside of the church, where they won't get in the way. The carpenter will tell you where to put the timber." Philip said: "Will all the volunteers be unskilled?" "Not necessarily. If we get people from the towns, there may be some craftsmen among them--I hope so. We must find out who they are and use them. Carpenters can build lodges for winter work. Any masons can cut stones and lay foundations. If there's a blacksmith, we'll put him to work in the village forge, making tools. All that sort of thing will be tremendously useful." Milius the bursar said: "That's all quite clear. I'd like to get started. Some of the villagers are here already, waiting to be told what to do." There was something else Tom needed to tell them, something important but subtle, and he was searching for the right words. Monks could be arrogant, and might alienate the volunteers. Tom wanted today's operation to be easygoing and cheerful. "I've worked with volunteers before," he began. "It's important not to... not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are labouring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don't necessarily take that attitude. They feel they're working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch." He caught Philip's eye and saw that the prior was suppressing a smile, as if he knew what misgivings underlay Tom's honeyed words. "A good point," Philip said. "If we handle them right, these people will feel happy and uplifted, and that will create a good atmosphere, which will make a positive impression on Bishop Henry." He looked around at the assembled monks. "If there are no more questions, let's begin." Aliena had enjoyed a year of security and prosperity under the wing of Prior Philip. All her plans had worked. She and Richard had toured the countryside buying fleeces from peasants all last spring and summer, selling to Philip every time they had a standard woolsack. They had ended the season with five pounds of silver. Father had died just a few days after they saw him, although Aliena did not find out until Christmas. She had located his grave, after spending much hard-earned silver on bribes, in a pauper's cemetery in Winchester. She cried hard, not just for him but for the life they had lived together, secure and carefree, the life that would never come back. In a way she had said goodbye to him before he died: when she left the jail she knew she would never see him again. In another way he was still with her, for she was bound by the oath he had made her swear, and she was resigned to spending her life doing his will. During the winter she and Richard lived in a small house up against the wall of Kingsbridge Priory. They had built a cart, buying the wheels from the Kingsbridge cartwright, and in the spring they had bought a young ox to pull it. The shearing season was now in full swing and already they had made more than the cost of the ox and the new cart. Next year, perhaps she would employ a man to help her, and find Richard a place as a page in the household of a minor noble, so that he could begin his knightly training. But it was all dependent on Prior Philip. As an eighteen-year-old girl on her own, she was still considered fair game by every thief and many legitimate traders. She had tried to sell a sack of wool to merchants in Shiring and Gloucester, just to see what would happen, and both times she had been offered half price. There was never more than one merchant in a town so they knew she had no alternative. Eventually she would have her own storehouse, and sell her entire stock to the Flemish buyers; but that time was a long way off. Meanwhile she was dependent on Philip. And Philip's position had suddenly become precarious. She was constantly alert to danger from outlaws and thieves, but it had come as a great shock to her, when everything was going smoothly, to have her whole livelihood threatened in such an unexpected way. Richard had not wanted to work on the cathedral building site on Whitsunday--he was nothing if not ungrateful--but Aliena had bullied him into agreeing, and the two of them walked the few yards to the priory close soon after sunrise. Almost the whole village had turned out: thirty or forty men, some of them with their wives and children. Aliena was surprised, until she reflected that Prior Philip was their lord, and when your lord asked for volunteers it was probably unwise to refuse. In the past year she had gained a startling new perspective on the lives of ordinary people. Tom Builder was giving the villagers their assignments. Richard immediately went to speak to Tom's son Alfred. They were almost the same age- -Richard was fifteen and Alfred about a year older--and they played football with the other boys in the village every Sunday. The little girl, Martha, was here too, but the woman, Ellen, and the funny-looking boy with red hair had disappeared, no one knew where. Aliena remembered when Tom's family had come to Earlscastle. They had been destitute then. Like Aliena, they had been saved by Prior Philip. Aliena and Richard were given a shovel each and told to dig foundations. The ground was damp but the sun was out and it would soon dry the surface. Aliena began to dig energetically. Even with fifty people working, it took a long time to make the holes noticeably deeper. Richard rested on his shovel rather frequently. One time Aliena said: "If you ever want to be a knight, dig!" But it made no difference. She was thinner and stronger than she had been a year ago, thanks to tramping the roads and lifting heavy loads of raw wool, but now she found that digging could still make her back ache. She was grateful when Prior Philip rang a bell and declared a break. Monks brought hot bread from the kitchen and served weak beer. The sun was growing stronger, and some of the men stripped to the waist. While they were resting, a group of strangers came through the gate. Aliena looked at them hopefully. There were just a handful of them, but perhaps they were the forerunners of a large crowd. They came over to the table where the bread and beer was being handed out, and Prior Philip welcomed them. "Where are you from?" he asked as they gulped gratefully at their pots of beer. "From Horsted," one of them replied, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. That was promising: Horsted was a village of two or three hundred people a few miles west of Kingsbridge. They might hope for another hundred volunteers from there, with luck. "And how many of you are coming, in all?" Philip asked. The man looked surprised at the question. "Just us four," he replied. During the next hour people trickled through the priory gate until, by midmorning, there were seventy or eighty volunteers at work, including the villagers. Then the flow stopped altogether. It was not enough. Philip stood at the east end, watching Tom build a wall. He had already constructed the bases of two buttresses up to the level of the third course of stones, and now he was building the wall between. It would probably never be finished, Philip thought despondently. The first thing Tom did, when the labourers brought him a stone, was to take out an iron instrument shaped like the letter L and use it to check that the edges of the stone were square. Then he would shovel a layer of mortar on to the wall, furrow the mortar with the point of his trowel, put the new stone on, and scrape off the surplus mortar. In placing the stone he was guided by a taut string which was stretched between the two buttresses. Philip noticed that the stone was almost as smooth on the top and bottom, where the mortar was, as on the side that would show. This surprised him, and he asked Tom the reason. "A stone must never touch the ones above or below," Tom replied. "That's what the mortar's for." "Why must they not touch?" "It causes cracks." Tom stood upright to explain. "If you tread on a slate roof, your foot will go through it; but if you put a plank across the roof, you can walk on it without damaging the slates. The plank spreads the weight, and that's what mortar does." Philip had never thought of that. Building was an intriguing business, especially with someone like Tom, who was able to explain what he was doing. The roughest face of the stone was the back. Surely, Philip thought, that face would be visible from inside the church? Then he recalled that Tom was in fact building a double-skinned wall with a cavity between, so that the back of each stone would be hidden. When Tom had laid the stone on the bed of mortar, he picked up his level. This was an iron triangle with a leather thong attached to its apex and some markings on its base. The thong had a lead weight attached to it so that it always hung straight down. He put the base of the instrument on the stone and watched how the leather thong fell. If it hung to one side or the other of the centre line, he would tap the stone with his hammer until it was exactly level. Then he would move the instrument until it straddled the join between the two adjacent stones, to check that the tops of the stones were exactly in line. Finally he turned the instrument sideways on the stone to make sure it was not leaning one way or the other. Before picking up a new stone he would snap the taut string to satisfy himself that the faces of the stones were in a straight line. Philip had not realised it was so important that stone walls should be precisely straight and true. He lifted his gaze to the rest of the building site. It was so big that eighty men and women and a few children were lost in it. They were working away cheerfully in the sunshine, but they were so few that it seemed to him there was an air of futility about their efforts. He had originally hoped for a hundred people, but now he saw that even that would not have been enough. Another little group came through the gateway, and Philip forced himself to go to greet them with a smile. There was no need for them to know that their efforts would be wasted. They would gain forgiveness for their sins, anyway. It was a large group, he saw as he approached them. He counted twelve, and then two more came in. Perhaps after all he would have a hundred people by midday, when the bishop was expected. "God bless you all," he said to them. He was about to tell them where to start digging when he was interrupted by a loud shout. "Philip!" He frowned disapprovingly. The voice belonged to Brother Milius. Even Milius was supposed to call Philip "Father" in public. Philip looked in the direction from which the voice came. Milius was balancing on the priory wall in a somewhat undignified stance. In a calm but carrying voice, Philip said: "Brother Milius, get off the wall." To his astonishment Milius stayed there and shouted: "Come and look at this!" The new arrivals were getting a poor impression of monastic obedience, Philip thought, but he could not help wondering what it was that had got Milius so excited that he had forgotten all his manners. "Come here and tell me about it, Milius," he said in a voice he normally reserved for noisy novices. "You must look!" Milius yelled. He'd better have a very good reason for this, Philip thought crossly; but since he did not want to give his closest colleague a telling-off in front of all these strangers, he was obliged to smile and do as Milius asked. Feeling irritated to the point of anger, he walked across the muddy ground in front of the stable and jumped up onto the low wall. "What is the meaning of this behaviour?" he hissed. "Just look!" Milius said, pointing. Following his gesture, Philip looked out, over the roofs of the village, past the river, to the road that followed the rise and fall of the land to the west. At first he could not believe his eyes. Between the fields of green crops, the undulating road was a solid mass of people, hundreds of them, all walking toward Kingsbridge. "What is it?" he said uncomprehendingly. "An army?" And then he realised that, of course, they were his volunteers. His heart leaped for joy. "Look at them!" he shouted. "There must be five hundred--a thousand--more!" "That's right!" Milius said happily. "They came, after all!" "We're saved." Philip was too thrilled to remember why he was supposed to be angry with Milius. The mass of people filled the road all the way to the bridge, and the line wound through the village all the way to the priory gate. The people he had greeted were the head of a phalanx. They were pouring through the gate now, and milling about at the western end of the building site, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. "Hallelujah!" he yelled recklessly. It was not enough to rejoice--he had to use these people. He jumped down off the wall. "Come on!" he shouted to Milius. "Call all the monks off labouring--we're going to need them as marshals. Tell the kitchener to bake all the bread he can and roll out some more barrels of beer. We'll need more buckets and shovels. We must get all these people working before Bishop Henry arrives!" For the next hour Philip was frantically busy. At first, just to get people out of the way, he assigned a hundred or more to the task of bringing materials up from the riverbank. As soon as Milius had assembled a supervisory group of monks, he began sending the volunteers down into the foundations. They soon ran out of shovels, barrels and buckets. Philip ordered all the cooking pots brought from the kitchen, and set some of the volunteers to making rough timber boxes and basketwork platters for carrying earth. There were not enough ladders or lifting devices, so they made a long slope at one end of the largest foundation hole so that people could walk into and out of it. He realised he had not given sufficient thought to the question of where he was going to put the vast quantity of earth that was coming out of the foundations. Now it was too late to mull it over: he made a snap decision, and ordered the earth dumped on a patch of rocky ground near the river. Perhaps it might become cultivable. While he was giving that order, Bernard Kitchener came to him in a panic, saying he had only catered for two hundred people at most, and there seemed to be at least a thousand here. "Build a fire in the kitchen courtyard and make soup in an iron bath," Philip said. "Water the beer. Use all the stores. Get some of the villagers to prepare food on their own hearths. Improvise!" He turned away from the kitchener and resumed organising labourers. He was still giving orders when someone tapped him on the shoulder and said in French: "Prior Philip, may I have your attention for a moment?" It was Dean Baldwin, Waleran Bigod's associate. Philip turned around and saw the entire visiting party, all on horseback and gorgeously dressed, gazing in astonishment at the scene around them. There was Bishop Henry, a short, thickset man with a pugnacious look about him, his monkish haircut contrasting strangely with his embroidered scarlet coat. Beside him was Bishop Waleran, dressed in black as always, his dismay not quite concealed by his habitual look of frozen disdain. There was fat Percy Hamleigh, his strapping son, William, and his hideous wife, Regan: Percy and William were looking bemused, but Regan understood exactly what Philip had done and she was furious. Philip returned his attention to Bishop Henry, and found to his surprise that the bishop was favouring him with a look of intense interest. Philip returned his gaze frankly. Bishop Henry's expression showed surprise, curiosity and a kind of amused respect. After a moment Philip approached the bishop, held his horse's head, and kissed the beringed hand that Henry proffered. Henry dismounted with a smooth, agile movement, and the rest of his party followed suit. Philip called a couple of monks to stable the horses. Henry was the same age as Philip, approximately, but his florid complexion and wellcovered frame made him look older. "Well, Father Philip," he said. "I came to verify reports that you were not capable of getting a new cathedral built here at Kingsbridge." He paused, looked around at the hundreds of workers, then returned his gaze to Philip. "It seems I was misinformed." Philip's heart missed a beat. Henry could hardly make it plainer: Philip had won. Philip turned to Bishop Waleran. Waleran's face was a mask of suppressed fury. He knew he had been defeated again. Philip knelt, bowing his head to hide the look of triumphant delight on his face, and kissed Waleran's hand. Tom was enjoying building the wall. It was so long since he had done this that he had forgotten the deep tranquillity that came from laying one stone upon another in perfect straight lines and watching the structure grow. When the volunteers started to arrive by the hundred, and he realised that Philip's scheme was going to work, he enjoyed it all the more. These stones would be part of Tom's cathedral; and this wall that was now only a foot high would eventually reach for the sky. Tom felt he was at the beginning of the rest of his life. He knew when Bishop Henry arrived. Like a stone dropped into a pond, the bishop sent a ripple through the mass of labourers, as people stopped work for a moment to look up at the richly dressed figures picking their dainty way through the mud. Tom continued to lay stones. The bishop must be bowled over by the sight of a thousand volunteers cheerfully and enthusiastically labouring to build their new cathedral. Now Tom needed to make an equally good impression. He was never at ease with well-dressed people, but he needed to appear competent and wise, calm and self-assured, the kind of man to whom you would gratefully entrust the worrisome complexities of a vast and costly building project. He kept a lookout for the visitors and put down his trowel as the party approached him. Prior Philip led Bishop Henry up to Tom, and Tom knelt and kissed the bishop's hand. Philip said: "Tom is our builder, sent to us by God on the day the old church burned down." Tom knelt again to Bishop Waleran, then looked at the rest of the party. He reminded himself that he was the master builder, and should not be overly subservient. He recognised Percy Hamleigh, for whom he had once built half a house. "My Lord Percy," he said with a small bow. He spotted Percy's hideous wife. "My Lady Regan." Then his eye fell on the son. He remembered how William had almost run Martha down on his great war-horse; and how William had tried to buy Ellen in the forest. That young man was a nasty piece of work. But Tom made his face a polite mask. "And young Lord William. Greetings." Bishop Henry was looking keenly at Tom. "Have you drawn your plans, Tom Builder?" "Yes, my lord bishop. Would you like to see them?" "Most certainly." "Perhaps you will step this way." Henry nodded, and Tom led the way to his shed, a few yards away. He stepped inside the little wooden building and brought out the ground plan, drawn in plaster on a large wooden frame four feet long. He leaned it against the wall of the shed and stepped back. This was a delicate moment. Most people could not read a plan, but bishops and lords hated to admit it, so it was necessary to explain the concept to them in a way that did not reveal their ignorance to the rest of the world. Some bishops did understand it, of course, and then they were insulted when a mere builder presumed to instruct them. Nervously, Tom pointed at the plan and said: "This is the wall I'm building." "Yes, the eastern facade, obviously," said Henry. That answered the question: he could read a plan perfectly well. "Why aren't the transepts aisled?" "For economy," Tom answered promptly. "However, we won't start building them for another five years, and if the monastery continues to prosper as it has done in the first year under Prior Philip, it may well be that by then we will be able to afford aisled transepts." He had praised Philip and answered the question at the same time, and he felt rather clever. Henry nodded approval. "Sensible to plan modestly and leave room for expansion. Show me the elevation." Tom got out the elevation. He made no comment on it, now that he knew Henry was able to understand what he was looking at. This was confirmed when Henry said: "The proportions are pleasing." "Thank you," Tom said. The bishop seemed pleased with everything. Tom added: "It's a modest cathedral, but it will be lighter and more beautiful than the old one." "And how long will it take to complete?" "Fifteen years, if the work is uninterrupted." "Which it never is. However. Can you show us what it will look like--I mean, to someone standing outside?" Tom understood him. "You want to see a sketch." "Yes." "Certainly." Tom returned to his wall, with the bishop's party in tow. He knelt over his mortarboard and spread the mortar in a uniform layer, smoothing the surface. Then, with the point of his trowel, he drew a sketch of the west end of the church in the mortar. He knew he was good at this. The bishop, his party, and all the monks and volunteer workers nearby watched in fascination. Drawing always seemed a miracle to people who could not do it. In a few moments Tom had created a line drawing of the west facade, with its three arched doorways, its big window, and its flanking turrets. It was a simple trick, but it never failed to impress. "Remarkable," said Bishop Henry when the drawing was done. "May God's blessing be added to your skill." Tom smiled. That amounted to a powerful endorsement of his appointment. Prior Philip said: "My lord bishop, will you take some refreshment before you conduct the service?" "Gladly." Tom was relieved. His test was over and he had passed it. "Perhaps you would step into the prior's house, just across here," Philip said to the bishop. The party began to move off. Philip squeezed Tom's arm and said in a murmur of restrained jubilation: "We've done it!" Tom breathed a sigh of relief as the dignitaries left him. He felt pleased and proud. Yes, he thought, we've done it. Bishop Henry was more than impressed: he was flabbergasted, despite his composure. Obviously Waleran had primed him to expect a scene of lethargy and inactivity, so the reality had been even more striking. In the end Waleran's malice had worked against him and heightened the triumph of Philip and Tom. Just as he was basking in the glow of an honest victory, he heard a familiar voice. "Hello, Tom Builder." He turned around and saw Ellen. It was Tom's turn to be flabbergasted. The cathedral crisis had so filled his mind that he had not thought about her all day. He gazed at her happily. She looked just the same as the day she had walked away: slender, brown-skinned, with dark hair that moved like waves on a beach, and those deep-set luminous golden eyes. She smiled at him with that full-lipped mouth that always made him think of kissing. He was seized by an urge to take her in his arms but he fought it down. With some difficulty he managed to say: "Hello, Ellen." A young man beside her said: "Hello, Tom." Tom looked at him curiously. Ellen said: "Don't you remember Jack?" "Jack!" he said, startled. The lad had changed. He was a little taller than his mother now, and he had the bony physique that made grandmothers say that a boy had outgrown his strength. He still had bright red hair, white skin and blue eyes, but his features had resolved into more attractive proportions, and one day he might even be handsome. Tom looked back at Ellen. For a moment he just enjoyed staring at her. He wanted to say I've missed you, I can't tell you how much I've missed you, and he almost did, but then he lost his nerve, and instead he said: "Well, where have you been?" "We've been living where we always lived, in the forest," she said. "And what made you come back today, of all days?" "We heard about the appeal for volunteers, and we were curious to know how you were getting along. And I haven't forgotten that I promised to come back one day." "I'm so glad you did," Tom said. "I've been longing to see you." She looked guarded. "Oh?" This was the moment for which he had been waiting and planning for a year, and now that it had come he was scared. Until now he had been able to live in hope, but if she turned him down today he would know he had lost her forever. He was frightened to begin. The silence dragged out. He took a deep breath. "Listen," he said. "I want you to come back to me. Now, please don't say anything until you've heard what I have to say--please?" "All right," she said neutrally. "Philip is a very good prior. The monastery is getting wealthier all the time, thanks to his good management. My job here is secure. We won't have to tramp the roads again, ever, I promise." "It wasn't that--" "I know, but I want to tell you everything." "All right." "I've built a house in the village, with two rooms and a chimney, and I can make it bigger. We wouldn't have to live in the priory." "But Philip owns the village." "Philip is indebted to me right now." Tom waved an arm to indicate the scene all around. "He knows he couldn't have done this without me. If I ask him to forgive you for what you did, and to regard your year of exile as penance enough, he'll agree. He couldn't deny me that, today of all days." "What about the boys?" she said. "Am I supposed to watch Alfred spill Jack's blood every time he feels irritable?" "I think I've got the answer to that, really," Tom said. "Alfred is a mason now. I'll take Jack as my apprentice. That way, Alfred won't be resentful of Jack's idleness. And you can teach Alfred to read and write, so that the two boys will be equal--both workingmen, both literate." "You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?" she said. "Yes." He waited for her reaction. He was no good at being persuasive. All he could do was set out the situation. If only he could have drawn her a sketch! He felt he had dealt with every possible objection. She must agree now! But still she hesitated. "I'm not sure," she said. His self-control broke. "Oh, Ellen, don't say that." He was afraid of crying in front of all these people, and he was so choked up that he could hardly speak. "I love you so much, please don't go away again," he begged. "The only thing that's kept me going is the hope that you'd come back. I just can't bear to live without you. Don't close the gates of paradise. Can't you see that I love you with all my heart?" Her manner changed instantly. "Why didn't you say so, then?" she whispered, and she came to him. He wrapped his arms around her. "I love you, too, you silly fool," she said. He felt weak with joy. She does love me, she does, he thought. He hugged her hard, then he looked at her face. "Will you marry me, Ellen?" There were tears in her eyes, but she was smiling too. "Yes, Tom, I'll marry you," she said. She lifted her face. He pulled her to him and kissed her mouth. He had dreamed of this for a year. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the delightful touch of her full lips on his. Her mouth was slightly open and her lips were moist. The kiss was so delicious that for a moment he forgot himself. Then someone nearby said: "Don't swallow her, man!" He pulled away from her and said: "We're in a church!" "I don't care," she said merrily, and she kissed him again. Prior Philip had outwitted them again, William thought bitterly as he sat in the prior's house, drinking Philip's watery wine and eating sweetmeats from the priory kitchen. It had taken William a while to appreciate the brilliance and completeness of Philip's victory. There had been nothing wrong with Bishop Waleran's original assessment of the situation: it was true that Philip was short of money and would have great difficulty building a cathedral at Kingsbridge. But despite that, the wily monk had made dogged progress, hired a master builder, started the building and then, out of nothing, conjured a vast work force to bamboozle Bishop Henry. And Henry had been duly impressed, all the more so because Waleran had painted such a bleak picture in advance. That damned monk knew he had won, too. He could not keep the triumphant smile off his face. Now he was deep in conversation with Bishop Henry, talking animatedly about breeds of sheep and the price of wool, and Henry was listening carefully, almost respectfully, meanwhile rudely ignoring William's mother and father, who were far more important than a mere prior. Philip was going to regret this day. Nobody was allowed to best the Hamleighs and get away with it. They had not reached the position they enjoyed today by allowing monks to get the better of them. Bartholomew of Shiring had insulted them and had died in a traitor's jail. Philip would fare no better. Tom Builder was another man who was going to regret crossing the Hamleighs. William had not forgotten how Tom had defied him at Durstead, holding his horse's head and forcing him to pay the workmen. Today Tom had disrespectfully called him "young Lord William." He was obviously hand in glove with Philip now, building cathedrals, not manor houses. He would learn that it was better to take your chances with the Hamleighs than to join forces with their enemies. William sat quietly fuming until Bishop Henry got to his feet and said he was ready to hold the service. Prior Philip gestured to a novice, who went running from the room, and a few moments later a bell began to ring. They all left the house, Bishop Henry first, Bishop Waleran second, then Prior Philip, then the lay people. All the monks were waiting outside, and they fell into line behind Philip, forming a procession. The Hamleighs had to bring up the rear. The volunteers filled the entire western half of the priory close, sitting on walls and roofs. Henry mounted a platform in the middle of the building site. The monks formed up in rows behind him, where the quire of the new cathedral would be. The Hamleighs and the other lay members of the bishop's entourage made their way to what would become the nave. As they took their places, William saw Aliena. She looked very different. She wore rough, cheap clothing and wooden clogs, and the mass of curls that framed her head was damp with sweat. But it was definitely Aliena, and she was still so beautiful that his throat went dry and he stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away, while the service began and the priory close filled with the sound of a thousand voices saying the Our Father. She seemed to feel his intense look, for she appeared troubled, shifting from foot to foot and then glancing around as if searching. Finally she met his eyes. An expression of horror and fear came over her face, and she shrank back, although she was already ten yards or more away and separated from him by dozens of people. Her fear made her all the more desirable to him, and he felt his body respond in a way it had not done for a year. His lust for her was mingled with resentment because of the spell she had cast over him. She flushed and dropped her gaze, as if she were ashamed. She spoke briefly to a boy next to her--that was the brother, of course, William thought, recalling the face in a flash of erotic memory--and then she turned away and disappeared into the crowd. William felt let down. He was tempted to follow her, but of course he could not, not in the middle of a service, in front of his parents, two bishops, forty monks and a thousand worshipers. So he turned back to face the front, disappointed. He had lost his chance to find out where she lived. Although she had gone, she still filled his mind. He wondered if it was a sin to have an erection in church. He noticed that Father was looking agitated. "Look!" he was saying to Mother. "Look at that woman!" At first William thought Father must be talking about Aliena. But she was nowhere in sight, and when he followed his father's stare, he saw a woman nearer to thirty years of age, not as voluptuous as Aliena but with an agile, untamed look that made her interesting. She was standing some distance away with Tom, the master builder, and William thought it was probably the builder's wife, the woman he had tried to buy in the forest one day a year or so ago. But why would his father know her? "Is it her?" Father said. The woman turned her head, almost as if she had heard them, and looked straight at them, and William saw again her pale, penetrating golden eyes. "It is her, by God," Mother hissed. The woman's stare shook Father. His red face paled and his hands trembled. "Jesus Christ preserve us," he said. "I thought she was dead." And William thought: Now what the devil is that all about? Jack had been dreading this. For a whole year he had known that his mother missed Tom Builder. She was less even-tempered than she used to be; she often had a dreamy, faraway look; and in the night she sometimes made the panting noises, as if she were dreaming or imagining that she was making love to Tom. Jack had known, all along, that she would come back. And now she had agreed to stay. He hated the idea. The two of them had always been happy together. He loved his mother and his mother loved him, and there was no one else to interfere. Life in the forest was somewhat uninteresting, it was true. He had missed the fascination of the crowds and the cities he had seen in his brief sojourn with Tom's family. He missed Martha. Oddly enough, he had relieved the boredom of the forest by daydreaming about the girl he thought of as the Princess, although he knew her name was Aliena. And he would be interested to work with Tom, and find out how buildings were constructed. But he would no longer be free. People would tell him what to do. He would have to work whether he wanted to or not. And he would have to share his mother with the rest of the world. As he sat on the wall near the priory gate, ruminating disconsolately, he was astonished to see the Princess. He blinked. She was pushing her way through the crowd, heading for the gate, looking distressed. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. In those days she had had a rounded, voluptuous, girlish body dressed in costly clothes. Now she looked thinner and more like a woman than a girl. The sweatsoaked linen shift she wore clung to her body, showing her full breasts and the ribs beneath, a flat belly, narrow hips and long legs. Her face was smeared with mud and her massed curls were untidy. She was upset about something, frightened and distressed, but the emotion only made her face more radiant. Jack was captivated by the sight of her. He felt a peculiar stirring in his loins that he had never experienced before. He followed her. There was no conscious decision. One moment he was sitting on the wall gaping at her and the next he was hurrying through the gate behind her. He caught up with her on the street outside. She had a musky scent, as though she had been working hard. He remembered that she used to smell of flowers. "Is anything wrong?" he said. "No, nothing's wrong," she said curtly, and she quickened her step. Jack kept pace with her. "You don't remember me. Last time we met, you explained to me how babies were conceived." "Oh, shut up and go away!" she shouted. He stopped and let her walk on. He felt disappointed. Obviously he had said the wrong thing. She had treated him like an irritating child. He was thirteen years old, but that probably seemed like childhood to her, from the lofty height of eighteen or so years. He saw her go up to a house, take out a key that hung from a thong around her neck, and unlock the door. She lived right here! That made everything different. Suddenly the prospect of leaving the forest and living in Kingsbridge did not seem so bad. He would see the Princess every day. That would compensate for a lot. He stayed where he was, watching the door, but she did not reemerge. It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him; but he did not want to move. He was seething inside with a new emotion. Nothing seemed very important anymore except the Princess. He was single-minded about her. He was enchanted. He was possessed. He was in love. PART THREE 1140-1142 Chapter 8 I 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 twentyfive 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 realised 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 realised 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 realised, 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 recognise him. He saw a handsome, broadshouldered 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, grey-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 enquiries. 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 further 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 shrivelling, 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 chainmail 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 axe 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. II 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 grey 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 terrorising 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 travelling, 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 licence 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 tranquillity. 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 realised after a moment that it was their colourful dress. They were not regular labourers, 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 realised 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 mouldings 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 labourers, 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, marvelling at the cunning of Prior Philip, who had his master craftsmen busy on a Sunday and his labourers 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 humour 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 twentyfour, 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 grey, 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 licenced 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 licence--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 licence!" 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 licenced 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 ploughed 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 licence." "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 realised 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 outmanoeuvred 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." III 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 grey 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 longhandled axees. 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 axe. 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 realised 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 grey-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 realised that Otto was the problem. He was giving the stonecutters courage as well as organising 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 axe. 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 axe 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 axe. It came free when William was almost on him. William raised his sword. Otto stood his ground and lifted the axe. At the last moment William realised the axe 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 axe 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 axe. He jumped over its body and lunged furiously at Otto with the sword. Otto was no easy victim. He held his axe in both hands and used its heartof- 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 axe 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 axe. 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 axe 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 axe 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 axe, 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 grey. 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 warhorse. 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?" Chapter 9 I 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 further 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 realised, 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 favourite. 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 realised. 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 labourers-- 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 favours, 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 grey 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 travelling 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 travellers. 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-axe 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 realised 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 halfbuilt 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 realised 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 armour 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 realised 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 colours, 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 centre 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 grey 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, recognised 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 favour 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 realised 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 realised. 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 recognise 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 offence. 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 noman'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 scrutinise 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 labour, 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 licence it." "Will you pay for your licence?" 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 licence 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 recognised 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 agonisingly 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. II The bishop said mass in the cathedral when the sky was beginning to change from black to grey. 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 armour, 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 armour, 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 realised 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 recognised 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 woodand- 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 recognised 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."