The Pillars of the Earth (86 page)

Martha asked Jack: “How many years before you marry?”

Jack took a small bite: apparently he was keen to wed. Philip wondered if he had anyone in mind. To Jack’s evident dismay he got a mouthful of seeds, and as they were counted his face was a picture of indignation. The total came to thirty-one. “I’ll be forty-eight years old!” he protested. They all thought that was hilarious, except for Philip, who worked out the calculation, found it correct, and marveled that Jack had been able to figure it out so fast. Even Milius the bursar could not do that.

Jack was sitting next to Aliena. Philip realized he had seen those two together several times this summer. It was probably because they were both so bright. There were not many people in Kingsbridge who could talk to Aliena on her own level; and Jack, for all his ungovernable ways, was more mature than the other apprentices. Still Philip was intrigued by their friendship, for at their age five years was a big difference.

Jack passed the bread to Aliena and asked her the question he had been asked: “How many years until you marry?”

Everyone groaned, for it was too easy to ask the same question again. The game was supposed to be an exercise in wit and raillery. But Aliena, who was famous for the number of suitors she had turned down, made them laugh by taking a huge bite of bread, indicating that she did not want to marry. But her ploy was unsuccessful: she spat out only one seed.

If she was going to marry next year, Philip thought, the groom had not appeared on the scene yet. Of course he did not believe in the predictive power of the bread. The probability was that she would die an old maid—except that she was not a maiden, according to rumor, for she had been seduced, or raped, by William Hamleigh, people said.

Aliena passed the bread to her brother, Richard, but Philip did not hear what she asked him. He was still thinking about Aliena. Unexpectedly, both Aliena and Philip had failed to sell all their wool this year. The surplus was not great—less than a tenth of Philip’s stock, and an even smaller proportion for Aliena—but it was somewhat discouraging. After that, Philip had worried that Aliena would back out of the deal for next year’s wool, but she had stuck by her bargain, and paid him a hundred and seven pounds.

The big news of the Shiring Fleece Fair had been Philip’s announcement that next year Kingsbridge would be holding its own fair. Most people had welcomed the idea, for the rents and tolls charged by William Hamleigh at the Shiring fair were extortionate, and Philip was planning to set much lower rates. So far, Earl William had not made his reaction known.

By and large, Philip felt that the priory’s prospects were much brighter than they had seemed six months ago. He had overcome the problem caused by the closing of the quarry and defeated William’s attempt to shut down his market. Now his Sunday market was thriving again and paying for expensive stone from a quarry near Marlborough. Throughout the crisis, cathedral building had continued uninterrupted, although it had been a close thing. Philip’s only remaining anxiety was that Maud had not yet been crowned. Although she was indisputably in command, and she had been approved by the bishops, her authority rested only on her military might until there was a proper coronation. Stephen’s wife still held Kent, and the commune of London was ambivalent. A single stroke of misfortune, or one bad decision, could topple her, as the battle of Lincoln had destroyed Stephen, and then there would be anarchy again.

Philip told himself not to be pessimistic. He looked at the people around the table. The game had ended and they were tucking in to their dinner. They were honest, good-hearted men and women who worked hard and went to church. God would take care of them.

They ate vegetable pottage, baked fish flavored with pepper and ginger, a variety of ducks, and a custard cleverly colored with red and green stripes. After dinner they all carried their benches into the unfinished church for the play.

The carpenters had made two screens, which were placed in the side aisles, at the east end, closing the space between the aisle wall and the first pier of the arcade, so that they effectively hid the last bay of each aisle. The monks who would play the parts were already behind those screens, waiting to walk into the middle of the nave to act out the story. The one who would be Saint Adolphus, a beardless novice with an angelic face, was lying on a table at the far end of the nave, draped in a shroud, pretending to be dead and trying not to giggle.

Philip had mixed feelings about the play, as he did about the how-many bread. It could so easily slip into irreverence and vulgarity. But people loved it so much that if he had not permitted it they would have made their own play, outside the church, and free from his supervision it would have become thoroughly bawdy. Besides, the ones who loved it most were the monks who performed it. Dressing up and pretending to be someone else, and acting outrageously—even sacrilegiously—seemed to give them some kind of release, probably because they spent the rest of their lives being so solemn.

Before the play there was a regular service, which the sacrist kept brief. Philip then gave a short account of the spotless life and miraculous works of Saint Adolphus. Then he took his seat in the audience and settled down to watch the performance.

From behind the left-hand screen came a large figure dressed in what at first looked like shapeless, colorful garments, and on closer examination turned out to be pieces of brightly colored cloth wrapped around him and pinned. His face was painted and he carried a bulging moneybag. This was the rich barbarian. There was a murmur of admiration for his getup, followed by a ripple of laughter as people recognized the actor beneath the costume: it was fat Brother Bernard, the kitchener, whom they all knew and liked.

He paraded up and down several times, to let everyone admire him, and rushed at the little children in the front row, causing squeals of fright; then he crept up to the altar, looking around as if to make sure he was alone, and placed the moneybag behind it. He turned to the audience, leered, and said in a loud voice: “These foolish Christians will fear to steal my silver, for they imagine it is protected by Saint Adolphus. Ha!” He then retired behind the screen.

From the opposite side entered a group of outlaws, dressed in rags, carrying wooden swords and hatchets, their faces smeared with soot and chalk. They stalked around the nave, looking fearsome, until one of them saw the moneybag behind the altar. There followed an argument: should they steal it or not? The Good Outlaw argued that it would surely bring them bad luck; the Bad Outlaw said that a dead saint could do them no harm. In the end they took the money and retired into the corner to count it.

The barbarian reentered, looked everywhere for his money, and flew into a rage. He approached the tomb of Saint Adolphus and cursed the saint for failing to protect his treasure.

At that, the saint rose up from his grave.

The barbarian shuddered violently with terror. The saint ignored him and approached the outlaws. Dramatically, he struck them down one by one just by pointing at them. They simulated agonized death throes, rolling around on the ground, twisting their bodies into grotesque shapes and making hideous faces.

The saint spared only the Good Outlaw, who now put the money back behind the altar. With that the saint turned to the audience and said: “Beware, all you who may doubt the power of Saint Adolphus!”

The audience cheered and clapped. The actors stood in the nave grinning sheepishly for a while. The purpose of the drama was its moral, of course, but Philip knew that the parts people enjoyed most were the grotesqueries, the rage of the barbarian and the death throes of the outlaws.

When the applause died down Philip stood up, thanked the actors, and announced that the races would begin shortly in the pasture by the riverside.

This was the day that five-year-old Jonathan discovered he was not, after all, the fastest runner in Kingsbridge. He entered the children’s race, wearing his specially made monkish robe, and caused howls of laughter when he hitched it up around his waist and ran with his tiny bottom exposed to the world. However, he was competing with older children, and he finished among the last. His expression when he realized he had lost was so shocked and disappointed that Tom felt heartbroken for him, and picked him up to console him.

The special relationship between Tom and the priory orphan had grown gradually, and no one in the village had thought to wonder if there was a secret reason for it. Tom spent all day within the priory close, where Jonathan ran free, so it was inevitable that they saw a lot of one another; and Tom was at the age when a man’s children are too old to be cute but have not yet given him grandchildren, and he sometimes takes a fond interest in other people’s babies. As far as Tom knew, it had never crossed anyone’s mind to suspect that he was Jonathan’s father. If anything, people suspected that Philip was the boy’s real father. That was a much more natural supposition—though Philip would no doubt be horrified to hear it.

Jonathan spotted Aaron, the eldest son of Malachi, and wriggled out of Tom’s arms to go and play with his friend, the disappointment forgotten.

While the apprentices’ races were on, Philip came and sat on the grass beside Tom. It was a hot, sunny day, and there was perspiration on Philip’s shaved head. Tom’s admiration for Philip grew year by year. Looking all around, at the young men running their race, the old people dozing in the shade, and the children splashing in the river, he reflected that it was Philip who kept all this together. He ruled the village, administering justice, deciding where new houses should be built, and settling quarrels; he employed most of the men and many of the women too, either as building workers or priory servants; and he managed the priory, which was the beating heart of the organism. He fought off predatory barons, negotiated with the monarch, and kept the bishop at bay. All these well-fed people sporting in the sunshine owed their prosperity in some measure to Philip. Tom himself was the prime example.

Tom was very conscious of the depth of Philip’s clemency in pardoning Ellen. It was quite something for a monk to forgive what she had done. And it meant so much to Tom. When she went away, his joy at building the cathedral had been shadowed by loneliness. Now that she was back, he felt complete. She was still willful, maddening, quarrelsome and intolerant, but somehow these things were trifling: there was a passion inside her that burned like a candle in a lantern, and it lit up his life.

Tom and Philip watched a race in which the boys had to walk on their hands: Jack won it. “That boy is exceptional,” Philip said.

“Not many people can walk that fast on their hands,” Tom said.

Philip laughed. “Indeed—but I wasn’t thinking about his acrobatic skill.”

“I know.” Jack’s cleverness had long been a source of both pleasure and pain to Tom. Jack had a lively curiosity about building—something Alfred had always lacked—and Tom enjoyed teaching Jack the tricks of the trade. But Jack had no sense of tact, and would argue with his elders. It was often better to conceal one’s superiority, but Jack had not learned that yet, not even after years of persecution by Alfred.

“The boy should be educated,” Philip went on.

Tom frowned. Jack was being educated. He was an apprentice. “What do you mean?”

“He should learn to write a good hand, and study Latin grammar, and read the ancient philosophers.”

Tom was even more puzzled. “To what end? He’s going to be a mason.”

Philip looked him in the eye. “Are you sure?” he said. “He’s a boy who doesn’t do what he’s expected to.”

Tom had never considered this. There were youngsters who defied expectations: earls’ sons who refused to fight, royal children who entered monasteries, peasants’ bastards who became bishops. It was true, Jack was the type. “Well, what do you think he will do?” he said.

“It depends on what he learns,” Philip said. “But I want him for the Church.”

Torn was surprised: Jack seemed such an unlikely clergyman. Tom was also a little wounded, in a strange way. He was looking forward to Jack’s becoming a master mason, and he would be terribly disappointed if the boy chose another course in life.

Philip did not notice Tom’s unhappiness. He went on: “God needs the best and the brightest young men to work for him. Look at those apprentices, competing to see who can jump the highest. All of them are capable of being carpenters, or masons, or stone cutters. But how many of them could be a bishop? Only one—Jack.”

That was true, Tom thought. If Jack had the chance of a career in the Church, with a powerful patron in Philip, he should probably take it, for it would lead to much greater wealth and power than he could hope for as a mason. Reluctantly Tom said: “What have you got in mind, exactly?”

“I want Jack to become a novice monk.”

“A monk!” It seemed an even more unlikely calling than the priesthood for Jack. The boy chafed at the discipline of a building site—how would he cope with the monastic rule?

“He would spend most of his time studying,” Philip said. “He would learn everything our novice-master can teach him, and I would give him lessons myself as well.”

When a boy became a monk, it was normal for the parents to make a generous donation to the monastery. Tom wondered what this proposal would cost.

Philip guessed his thoughts. “I wouldn’t expect you to present a gift to the priory,” he said. “It will be enough that you give a son to God.”

What Philip did not know was that Tom had already given one son to the priory: little Jonathan, who was now paddling at the edge of the river with his robe once again hoisted up around his waist. However, Tom knew he should suppress his own feelings in this. Philip’s proposal was generous: he obviously wanted Jack badly. The offer was a tremendous opportunity for Jack. A father would give his right arm to be able to set a son on such a career. Tom suffered a twinge of resentment that it was his stepson, rather than Alfred, who was being given this marvelous chance. The feeling was unworthy and he suppressed it. He should be glad, and encourage Jack, and hope the lad would learn to reconcile himself to the monastic regime.