The Pillars of the Earth (19 page)

He hesitated, not sure how much Waleran might have heard of the political news. “I expect you know that Stephen of Blois has claimed the throne of England with the blessing of the Church.”

Waleran knew more than Philip. “And he was crowned at Westminster three days before Christmas,” he said.

“Already!” Francis had not known that.

“What was the secret?” Waleran said with a touch of impatience.

Philip took the plunge. “Before he died, the horseman told me that his master Bartholomew, earl of Shiring, had conspired with Robert of Gloucester to raise a rebellion against Stephen.” He studied Waleran’s face, holding his breath.

Waleran’s pale cheeks went a shade whiter. He leaned forward in his chair. “Do you think he was telling the truth?” he said urgently.

“A dying man usually tells the truth to his confessor.”

“Perhaps he was repeating a rumor that was current in the earl’s household.”

Philip had not expected Waleran to be skeptical. He improvised hastily. “Oh, no,” he said. “He was a messenger sent by Earl Bartholomew to muster the earl’s forces in Hampshire.”

Waleran’s intelligent eyes raked Philip’s expression. “Did he have the message in writing?”

“No.”

“Any seal, or token of the earl’s authority?”

“Nothing.” Philip began to perspire slightly. “I gathered he was well known, by the people he was going to see, as an authorized representative of the earl.”

“What was his name?”

“Francis,” Philip said stupidly, and wanted to bite his tongue.

“Just that?”

“He didn’t tell me what else he was called.” Philip had the feeling that his story was coming unraveled under Waleran’s interrogation.

“His weapons and his armor may identify him.”

“He had no armor,” Philip said desperately. “We buried his weapons with him—monks have no use for swords. We could dig them up, but I can tell you that they were plain and undistinguished—I don’t think you would find clues there. ...” He had to divert Waleran from this line of inquiry. “What do you think can be done?”

Waleran frowned. “It’s hard to know what to do without proof. The conspirators can simply deny the charge, and then the accuser stands condemned.” He did not say
especially if the story turns out to be false
,
but Philip guessed that was what he was thinking. Waleran went on: “Have you told anyone else?”

Philip shook his head.

“Where are you going when you leave here?”

“Kingsbridge. I had to invent a reason for leaving the cell, so I said I would visit the priory; and now I must do so, to make the lie true.”

“Don’t speak of this to anyone there.”

“I shan’t.” Philip had not intended to, but he wondered why Waleran was insisting on the point. Perhaps it was self-interest: if he was going to take the risk of exposing the conspiracy, he wanted to be sure to get the credit. He was ambitious. So much the better, for Philip’s purpose.

“Leave this with me.” Waleran was suddenly brusque again, and the contrast with his previous manner made Philip realize that his amiability could be put on and taken off like a coat. Waleran went on: “You’ll go to Kingsbridge Priory now, and forget about the sheriff, won’t you.”

“Yes.” Philip realized it was going to be all right, at least for a while, and a weight rolled off his back. He was not going to be thrown into a dungeon, interrogated by a torturer, or accused of sedition. He had also handed the responsibility to someone else—someone who appeared quite happy to take it on.

He got up and went to the nearest window. It was mid-afternoon, and there was plenty of daylight left. He had an urge to get away from here and leave the secret behind him. “If I go now I can cover eight or ten miles before nightfall,” he said.

Waleran did not press him to stay. “That will take you to the village of Bassingbourn. You’ll find a bed there. If you set out early in the morning you can be at Kingsbridge by midday.”

“Yes.” Philip turned from the window and looked at Waleran. The archdeacon was frowning into the fire, deep in thought. Philip watched him for a moment. Waleran did not share his thoughts. Philip wished he knew what was going on in that clever head. “I’ll go right away,” he said.

Waleran came out of his reverie and grew charming again. He smiled and stood up. “All right,” he said. He walked with Philip to the door and then followed him down the stairs to the yard.

A stableboy brought Philip’s horse and saddled it. Waleran might have said goodbye then and returned to his fire, but he waited. Philip guessed that he wanted to make sure Philip took the road to Kingsbridge, not the road to Shiring.

Philip mounted, feeling happier than he had when he had arrived. He was about to take his leave when he saw Tom Builder come through the gate with his family in tow. Philip said to Waleran: “This man is a builder I met on the road. He seems like an honest fellow fallen on hard times. If you need any repairs you’ll be glad of him.”

Waleran made no reply. He was staring at the family as they walked across the compound. All his poise and composure had deserted him. His mouth was open and his eyes were staring. He looked like a man suffering a shock.

“What is it?” Philip said anxiously.

“That woman!” Waleran’s voice was just above a whisper.

Philip looked at her. “She’s rather beautiful,” he said, realizing it for the first time. “But we’re taught that it is better for a priest to be chaste. Turn your eyes away, Archdeacon.”

Waleran was not listening. “I thought she was dead,” he muttered. He seemed to remember Philip suddenly. He tore his gaze from the woman and looked up at Philip, collecting his wits. “Give my regards to the prior of Kingsbridge,” he said. Then he slapped Philip’s horse’s rump, and the animal sprang forward and trotted out through the gate; and by the time Philip had shortened his reins and got the horse under control he was too far away to say goodbye.

Philip came within sight of Kingsbridge at about noon on the following day, as Archdeacon Waleran had forecast. He emerged from a wooded hillside and looked out across a landscape of lifeless, frozen fields relieved only by the occasional bare skeleton of a tree. There were no people to be seen, for in the dead of winter there was no work to do on the land. A couple of miles away across the cold countryside, Kingsbridge Cathedral stood on a rise; a huge, squat building like a tomb on a burial mound.

Philip followed the road into a dip and Kingsbridge disappeared from view. His placid pony picked her way carefully along the frosted ruts. Philip was thinking about Archdeacon Waleran. Waleran was so poised and confident and capable that he made Philip feel young and naive, although there was not much difference in age between them. Waleran had effortlessly controlled the whole meeting: he had got rid of his guests graciously, listened attentively to Philip’s tale, homed in immediately on the crucial problem of lack of evidence, swiftly realized that that line of inquiry was fruitless, and then promptly sent Philip on his way—without, Philip now realized, any guarantee that action would be taken.

Philip grinned ruefully as he saw how well he had been manipulated. Waleran had not even promised to tell the bishop what Philip had reported. But Philip felt confident that the large vein of ambition he detected in Waleran would ensure that the information was used somehow. He even had a notion that Waleran might feel a little indebted to him.

Because he was impressed by Waleran, he was all the more intrigued by the archdeacon’s single sign of weakness—his reaction to the wife of Tom Builder. To Philip she had seemed obscurely dangerous. Apparently Waleran found her desirable—which might amount to the same thing, of course. However, there was more to it than that. Waleran must have met her before, for he had said
I thought she was dead
.
It sounded as if he had sinned with her in the distant past. He certainly had
something
to feel guilty about, judging by the way he had made sure Philip did not stay around to learn more.

Even this guilty secret did not much reduce Philip’s opinion of Waleran. Waleran was a priest, not a monk. Chastity had always been an essential part of the monastic way of life, but it had never been enforced for priests. Bishops had mistresses and parish priests had housekeepers. Like the prohibition against evil thoughts, clerical celibacy was a law too harsh to be obeyed. If God could not forgive lascivious priests, there would be very few clergy in heaven.

Kingsbridge reappeared as Philip crested the next rise. The landscape was dominated by the massive church, with its roundheaded arches and small, deep windows, just as the village was dominated by the monastery. The west end of the church, which faced Philip, had stubby twin towers, one of which had fallen in a thunderstorm four years ago. It still had not been rebuilt, and the facade had a reproachful look. This view never failed to anger Philip, for the pile of rubble at the entrance of the church was a shameful reminder of the collapse of monastic rectitude at the priory. The monastery buildings, made of the same pale limestone, stood near the church in groups, like conspirators around a throne. Outside the low wall that enclosed the priory was a scatter of ordinary hovels made of timber and mud with thatched roofs, occupied by the peasants who tilled the fields round about and the servants who worked for the monks. A narrow, impatient river hurried across the southwest corner of the village, bringing fresh water to the monastery.

Philip was already feeling bilious as he crossed the river by an old wooden bridge. Kingsbridge Priory brought shame on God’s church and the monastic movement, but there was nothing Philip could do about it; and anger and impotence together turned sour in his stomach.

The priory owned the bridge and charged a toll, and as the woodwork creaked with the weight of Philip and his horse, an elderly monk emerged from a shelter on the opposite bank and came forward to move the willow branch that served as a barrier. He recognized Philip and waved. Philip noticed that he was limping, and said: “What’s wrong with your foot, Brother Paul?”

“Just a chilblain. It will ease when the spring comes.”

He had nothing on his feet but sandals, Philip saw. Paul was a tough old bird but he was too far gone in years to be spending the whole day out-of-doors in this weather. “You should have a fire,” Philip said.

“It would be a mercy,” said Paul. “But Brother Remigius says the fire would cost more money than the toll brings.”

“How much do we charge?”

“A penny for a horse, and a farthing for a man.”

“Do many people use the bridge?”

“Oh, yes, plenty.”

“Then how is it that we can’t afford a fire?”

“Well, the monks don’t pay, of course, nor do the priory servants, nor the villagers. So it’s just a traveling knight or a tinker every day or two. Then on holy days, when people come from all over the country to hear the services in the cathedral, we gather farthings galore.”

“It seems to me we might man the bridge on holy days only, and give you a fire out of the proceeds,” said Philip.

Paul looked anxious. “Don’t say anything to Remigius, will you? If he thinks I’ve been complaining he’ll be displeased.”

“Don’t worry,” said Philip. He kicked his horse on so that Paul should not see the expression on his face. This kind of foolishness infuriated him. Paul had given his life to the service of God and the monastery, and now in his declining years he was made to suffer pain and cold for the sake of a farthing or two a day. It was not just cruel, it was wasteful, for a patient old man such as Paul could be set to work at some productive task—raising chickens, perhaps—and the priory would benefit by much more than a few farthings. But the prior of Kingsbridge was too old and lethargic to see that, and it seemed that the same must be true of Remigius, the sub-prior. It was a grave sin, Philip thought bitterly, to waste so carelessly the human and material assets that had been given to God in loving piety.

He was in an unforgiving mood as he guided his pony through the spaces between the hovels to the priory gate. The priory was a rectangular enclosure with the church in the middle. The buildings were laid out so that everything to the north and west of the church was public, worldly, secular and practical, whereas what was to the south and east was private, spiritual and holy.

The entrance to the close was therefore at the northwest corner of the rectangle. The gate stood open, and the young monk in the gatehouse waved as Philip trotted through. Just inside the gate, up against the west wall of the enclosure, was the stable, a stout wooden structure rather better built than some of the dwellings for people on the other side of the wall. Two stable hands sat inside on bales of straw. They were not monks, but employees of the priory. They got reluctantly to their feet as if they resented a visitor coming to cause them extra work. The acrid air stung Philip’s nostrils, and he could see that the stalls had not been mucked out for three or four weeks. He was not disposed to overlook the negligence of stable lads today. As he handed over the reins he said: “Before you stable my pony you can clean out one of the stalls and put down fresh straw. Then do the same for the other horses. If their litter becomes permanently wet, they get hoof rot. You don’t have so much to do that you can’t keep this stable clean.” They both looked sullen, so he added: “Do as I say, or I’ll make sure you both lose a day’s pay for idleness.” He was about to leave when he remembered something. “There’s a cheese in my saddlebag. Take it to the kitchen and give it to Brother Milius.”

He went out without waiting for a reply. The priory had sixty employees to look after its forty-five monks, a shameful excess of servants in Philip’s opinion. People who did not have enough to do could easily become so lazy that they skimped what little work they did have, as had clearly happened to the two stable hands. It was just another example of Prior James’s slackness.

Philip walked along the west wall of the priory close, past the guesthouse, curious to see whether the priory had any visitors. But the big one-room building was cold and disused, with a windblown drift of last year’s dead leaves covering its threshold. He turned left and started across the broad expanse of sparse grass that separated the guesthouse—which sometimes lodged ungodly people and even women—from the church. He approached the west end of the church, the public entrance. The broken stones of the collapsed tower lay where they had fallen, in a big heap twice the height of a man.