by Ken Follett
He and Aliena had one thing in common: they liked the forest. They were peculiar in this: most people preferred the safety of the fields and villages, and stayed away from the forest. But Aliena often walked in the woodlands near Kingsbridge, and there was a particular secluded spot where she liked to stop and sit down. He had seen her there once or twice. She had not seen him: he walked silently, as he had learned to in childhood, when he had had to find his dinner in the forest.
He was heading for her clearing without any idea of what he would do if he found her there. He knew what he would like to do: lie down beside her and stroke her body. He could talk to her, but what would he say? It was easy to talk to girls of his own age. He had teased Edith, saying: "I don't believe any of the terrible things your brother says about you," and of course she had wanted to know what the terrible things were. With Ann he had been direct: "Would you like to walk in the fields with me this afternoon?" But when he tried to come up with an opening line for Aliena his mind went blank. He could not help thinking of her as belonging to the older generation. She was so grave and responsible. She had not always been like that, he knew: at seventeen she had been quite playful. She had suffered terrible troubles since then, but the playful girl must still be there somewhere inside the solemn woman. For Jack that made her even more fascinating.
He was getting near her spot. The forest was quiet in the heat of the day. He moved silently through the undergrowth. He wanted to see her before she saw him. He was still not sure he had the nerve to approach her. Most of all he was afraid of putting her off. He had spoken to her on the very first day he returned to Kingsbridge, the Whitsunday that all the volunteers had come to work on the cathedral, and he had said the wrong thing then, with the result that he had hardly talked to her for four years. He did not want to make a similar blunder now.
A few moments later he peeped around the trunk of a beech tree and saw her.
She had picked an extraordinarily pretty place. There was a little waterfall trickling into a deep pool surrounded by mossy stones. The sun shone on the banks of the pool, but a yard or two back there was shade beneath the beech trees. Aliena sat in the dappled sunlight reading a book.
Jack was astonished. A woman? Reading a book? In the open air? The only people who read books were monks, and not many of them read anything except the services. It was an unusual book, too--much smaller than the tomes in the priory library, as if it had been made specially for a woman, or for someone who wanted to carry it around. He was so surprised that he forgot to be shy. He pushed his way through the bushes and came out into her clearing, saying: "What are you reading?"
She jumped, and looked up at him with terror in her eyes. He realized he had frightened her. He felt very clumsy, and was afraid he had once again started off on the wrong foot. Her right hand flew to her left sleeve. He recalled that she had once carried a knife in her sleeve--perhaps she did still. A moment later she recognized him, and her fear went as quickly as it had come. She looked relieved, and then--to his chagrin--faintly irritated. He felt unwelcome, and he would have liked to turn right around and disappear back into the forest. But that would have made it difficult to speak to her another time, so he stayed, and faced her rather unfriendly look, and said: "Sorry I frightened you."
"You didn't frighten me," she said quickly.
He knew that was not true, but he was not going to argue with her. He repeated his initial question. "What are you reading?"
She glanced down at the bound volume on her knee, and her expression changed again: now she looked wistful. "My father got this book on his last trip to Normandy. He brought it home for me. A few days later he was put in jail."
Jack edged closer and looked at the open page. "It's in French!" he said.
"How do you know?" she said in astonishment. "Can you read?"
"Yes--but I thought all books were in Latin."
"Nearly all. But this is different. It's a poem called 'The Romance of Alexander.' "
Jack was thinking: I'm really doing it--I'm talking to her! This is wonderful! But what am I going to say next? How can I keep this going? He said: "Um ... well, what's it about?"
"It's the story of a king called Alexander the Great, and how he conquered wonderful lands in the east where precious stones grow on grapevines and plants can talk."
Jack was sufficiently intrigued to forget his anxiety. "How do the plants talk? Do they have mouths?"
"It doesn't say."
"Do you think the story is true?"
She looked at him with interest, and he stared into her beautiful dark eyes. "I don't know," she said. "I always wonder whether stories are true. Most people don't care--they just like the stories."
"Except for the priests. They always think the sacred stories are true."
"Well of course they are true."
Jack was as skeptical of the sacred stories as he was of all the others; but his mother, who had taught him skepticism, had also taught him to be discreet, so he did not argue. He was trying not to look at Aliena's bosom, which was just at the edge of his vision: he knew that if he dropped his eyes she would know what he was looking at. He tried to think of something else to say. "I know a lot of stories," he said. "I know 'The Song of Roland,' and 'The Pilgrimage of William of Orange'--"
"What do you mean, you know them?"
"I can recite them."
"Like a jongleur?"
"What's a jongleur?"
"A man who goes around telling stories."
That was a new concept to Jack. "I never heard of such a man."
"There are lots in France. I used to go overseas with my father when I was a child. I loved the jongleurs."
"But what do they do? Just stand on the street and speak?"
"It depends. They come into the lord's hall on feast days. They perform at markets and fairs. They entertain pilgrims outside churches. Great barons sometimes have their own jongleur."
It occurred to Jack that not only was he talking to her, but he was having a conversation he could not have had with any other girl in Kingsbridge. He and Aliena were the only people in the town, apart from his mother, who knew about French romance poems, he was sure. They had an interest in common, and they were discussing it. The thought was so exciting that he lost track of what they were saying and he felt confused and stupid.
Fortunately she carried on. "Usually the jongleur plays the fiddle while he recites the story. He plays fast and high when there's a battle, slow and sweet when two people are in love, jerky for a funny part."
Jack liked that idea: background music to enhance the high points of the story. "I wish I could play the fiddle," he said.
"Can you really recite stories?" she said.
He could hardly believe she was really interested in him, asking him questions about himself! And her face was even lovelier when it was animated by curiosity. "My mother taught me," he said. "We used to live in the forest, just the two of us. She told me the stories again and again."
"But how can you remember them? Some of them take days to tell."
"I don't know. It's like knowing your way through the forest. You don't keep the whole forest in your mind, but wherever you are, you know where to go next." Glancing at the text of her book again, he was struck by something. He sat on the grass next to her to look more closely. "The rhymes are different," he said.
She was not sure what he meant. "In what way?"
"They're better. In 'The Song of Roland,' the word sword rhymes with horse, or lost, or with ball. In your book, sword rhymes with horde but not with horse; lord but not loss; board but not ball. It's a completely different way of rhyming. But it's better, much better. I like these rhymes."
"Would you ..." She looked diffident. "Would you tell me some of 'The Song of Roland'?"
Jack shifted his position a little so that he could look at her. The intensity of her look, the sparkle of eagerness in her bewitching eyes, gave him a choking feeling. He swallowed hard, then began.
The lord and king of all France, Charles the Great
Has spent seven long years fighting in Spain.
He has conquered the highlands and the plain.
Before him not a single fort remains,
No town or city wall for him to break,
But Saragossa, on a high mountain
Ruled by King Marsilly the Saracen.
He serves Mahomed, to Apollo prays,
But even there he never will be safe.
Jack paused, and Aliena said: "You know it! You really do! Just like a jongleur!"
"You see what I mean about the rhymes, though."
"Yes, but it's the stories I like, anyway," she said. Her eyes twinkled with delight. "Tell me some more."
Jack felt as if he would faint with happiness. "If you like," he said weakly. He looked into her eyes and began the second verse.
II
The first game of Midsummer Eve was eating the how-many bread. Like many of the games, it had a hint of superstition about it that made Philip uneasy. However, if he tried to ban every rite that smacked of the old religions, half the people's traditions would be prohibited, and they would probably defy him anyway; so he exercised a discreet tolerance of most things, and took a firm line on one or two excesses.
The monks had set up tables on the grass at the western end of the priory close. Kitchen hands were already carrying steaming cauldrons across the courtyard. The prior was lord of the manor, so it was his responsibility to provide a feast for his tenants on important holidays. Philip's policy was to be generous with food and mean with drink, so he served weak beer and no wine. Nevertheless there were five or six incorrigibles who managed to drink themselves insensible every feast day.
The leading citizens of Kingsbridge sat at Philip's table: Tom Builder and his family; the senior master craftsmen, including Tom's elder son, Alfred; and the merchants, including Aliena but not Malachi the Jew, who would join in the festivities later, after the service.
Philip called for silence and said grace; then he handed the how-many loaf to Tom. As the years went by, Philip valued Tom more and more. There were not many people who said what they meant and did what they said. Tom reacted to surprises, crises and disasters by calmly weighing up the consequences, assessing the damage and planning the best response. Philip looked at him fondly. Tom was very different today from the man who had walked into the priory five years ago begging for work. Then he had been exhausted, haggard, and so thin that his bones seemed to be on the point of poking through his weatherbeaten skin. In the intervening years he had filled out, especially since his woman came back. He was not fat, but there was flesh on his big frame, and the desperate look had long gone from his eyes. He was expensively dressed, in a tunic of Lincoln green, and soft leather shoes, and a belt with a silver buckle.
Philip had to ask the question that would be answered by the how-many bread. He said: "How many years will it take to finish the cathedral?"
Tom took a bite of the bread. It was baked with small, hard seeds, and as Tom spat the seeds into his hand, everyone counted aloud. Sometimes when this game was played, and someone got a big mouthful of seeds, it was found that nobody around the table could count high enough; but there was no danger of that today, with all the merchants and craftsmen present. The answer came to thirty. Philip pretended to be dismayed. Tom said: "I should live so long!" and everyone laughed.
Tom passed the bread to his wife, Ellen. Philip was very wary of this woman. Like the Empress Maud, she had power over men, a kind of power Philip could not compete with. The day Ellen was thrown out of the priory, she had done an appalling thing, a thing Philip could still hardly bring himself to think about. He had assumed she would never be seen again, but to his horror she had returned, and Tom had begged Philip to forgive her. Cleverly, Tom had argued that if God could forgive her sin, then Philip had no right to refuse. Philip suspected the woman was not very repentant. But Tom had asked on the day the volunteers had come and saved the cathedral, and Philip had found himself granting Tom's wish against all his instincts. They had been married in the parish church, a small wooden building in the village that had been there longer than the priory. Since then Ellen had behaved herself, and had not given Philip reason to regret his decision. Nevertheless she made him uneasy.
Tom asked her: "How many men love you?"
She took a tiny bite of the bread, which made everyone laugh again. In this game the questions tended to be mildly suggestive. Philip knew that if he had not been present they would have been downright ribald.
Ellen counted three seeds. Tom pretended to be outraged. "I shall tell you who my three lovers are," said Ellen. Philip hoped she was not going to say anything offensive. "The first is Tom. The second is Jack. And the third is Alfred."
There was a round of applause for her wit, and the bread went on around the table. Next it was the turn of Tom's daughter, Martha. She was about twelve years old, and shy. The bread predicted that she would have three husbands, which seemed most unlikely.
Martha passed the bread to Jack, and as she did so Philip saw a light of adoration in her eyes, and realized that she hero-worshiped her stepbrother.
Jack intrigued Philip. He had been an ugly child, with his carrot-colored hair and pale skin and bulging blue eyes, but now that he was a young man his features had composed themselves, as it were, and his face was so strikingly attractive that strangers would turn and stare. But in temperament he was as wild as his mother. He had very little discipline and he had no concept of obedience. As a stonemason's laborer he had been almost useless, for instead of providing a steady stream of mortar and stones he would try to pile up a whole day's supply, then go off and do something else. He was always disappearing. One day he had decided that none of the stones on the site suited the particular carving he had to do, so without telling anyone he had gone all the way to the quarry and picked out a stone he liked. He had brought it back on a borrowed pony two days later. But people forgave him his transgressions, partly because he was a truly exceptional stone carver, and partly because he was so likable--a trait he definitely had not inherited from his mother, in Philip's opinion. Philip had given some thought to what Jack would do with his life. If he went into the Church he could easily end up a bishop.
Martha asked Jack: "How many years before you marry?"
Jack took a small bite: apparently he was keen to wed. Philip wondered if he had anyone in mind. To Jack's evident dismay he got a mouthful of seeds, and as they were counted his face was a picture of indignation. The total came to thirty-one. "I'll be forty-eight years old!" he protested. They all thought that was hilarious, except for Philip, who worked out the calculation, found it correct, and marveled that Jack had been able to figure it out so fast. Even Milius the bursar could not do that.
Jack was sitting next to Aliena. Philip realized he had seen those two together several times this summer. It was probably because they were both so bright. There were not many people in Kingsbridge who could talk to Aliena on her own level; and Jack, for all his ungovernable ways, was more mature than the other apprentices. Still Philip was intrigued by their friendship, for at their age five years was a big difference.
Jack passed the bread to Aliena and asked her the question he had been asked: "How many years until you marry?"
Everyone groaned, for it was too easy to ask the same question again. The game was supposed to be an exercise in wit and raillery. But Aliena, who was famous for the number of suitors she had turned down, made them laugh by taking a huge bite of bread, indicating that she did not want to marry. But her ploy was unsuccessful: she spat out only one seed.
If she was going to marry next year, Philip thought, the groom had not appeared on the scene yet. Of course he did not believe in the predictive power of the bread. The probability was that she would die an old maid--except that she was not a maiden, according to rumor, for she had been seduced, or raped, by William Hamleigh, people said.
Aliena passed the brea
d 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.