by Ken Follett
If Alfred really was willing to finance Richard, Aliena still had a chance to fulfill her vow to her father, that she would take care of Richard until he won back the earldom. In her heart she knew she had to marry Alfred. She just could not face it.
She walked along the southern side aisle, dragging her hand along the wall, feeling the rough texture of the stones, running her fingernails over the shallow grooves made by the stonemason's toothed chisel. Here in the aisles, under the windows, the wall was decorated with blind arcading, like a row of filled-in arches. The arcading served no purpose but it added to the sense of harmony Aliena felt when she looked at the building. Everything in Tom's cathedral looked as if it was meant to be. Perhaps her life was like that, everything foreordained in a grand design, and she was like a foolish builder who wanted a waterfall in the chancel.
In the southeast corner of the church, a low doorway led to a narrow spiral staircase. On impulse Aliena went through the doorway and climbed the stairs. When she lost sight of the doorway, and could not yet see the top of the stairs, she began to feel peculiar, for the passage looked as if it might wind upward forever. Then she saw daylight: there was a small slit window in the turret wall, put there to light the steps. Eventually she emerged onto the wide gallery over the aisle. It had no windows to the outside, but on the inside it looked into the roofless church. She sat on the sill of one of the inner arches, leaning against the pillar. The cold stone caressed her cheek. She wondered whether Jack had carved this one. It occurred to her that if she fell from here she might die. But it was not really high enough: she might just break her legs, and lie in agony until the monks came and found her.
She decided to climb to the clerestory. She returned to the turret staircase and went on up. The next stage was shorter, but still she found it frightening, and her heart was beating loudly by the time she reached the top. She stepped into the clerestory passage, a narrow tunnel in the wall. She edged along the passage until it came out onto the inner sill of a clerestory window. She held on to the pillar that divided the window. When she looked down at the seventy-five-foot drop, she started to shake.
She heard footsteps on the turret stairs. She found herself breathing hard, as if she had been running. There had been no one else in sight. Had someone crept up behind her, trying to sneak up on her? The steps came along the clerestory passage. She let go of the pillar and stood teetering on the edge. A figure appeared on the sill. It was Jack. Her heart beat so loudly she could hear it.
"What are you doing?" he said warily.
"I ... I was seeing how your cathedral is coming along."
He pointed to the capital above her head. "I did that."
She looked up. The stone was carved with the figure of a man who appeared to be holding the weight of the arch on his back. His body was twisted as if in pain. Aliena stared at it. She had never seen anything quite like it. Without thinking, she said: "That's how I feel."
When she looked back at him he was beside her, holding her arm gently but firmly. "I know," he said.
She looked at the drop. The thought of falling all that way made her sick with fear. He tugged at her arm. She allowed herself to be led into the clerestory passage.
They went all the way down the turret stairs and came out on the ground. Aliena felt weak. Jack turned to her and said in a conversational tone: "I was reading in the cloisters, and looked up and saw you in the clerestory."
She looked at his young face, so full of concern and tenderness; and she remembered why she had run away from everyone else and sought solitude here. She yearned to kiss him, and she saw the answering longing in his eyes. Every fiber of her body told her to throw herself into his arms, but she knew what she had to do. She wanted to say I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage; but instead she said: "I think I'm going to marry Alfred. "
He stared at her. He looked stunned. Then his face became sad, with an old, wise sadness that was beyond his years. She thought he was going to cry, but he did not. Instead there was anger in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind, hesitated, then spoke at last.
In a voice like the cold north wind he said: "You would have done better to jump off the clerestory."
He turned from her and walked back into the monastery.
I've lost him forever, Aliena thought; and she felt as if her heart would break.
II
Jack was seen sneaking out of the monastery on Lammas Day. It was not a serious offense in itself, but he had been caught several times before, and the fact that this time he had gone out to speak to an unmarried woman made the whole thing more grave. His transgression was discussed in chapter the following day, and he was ordered to be kept in close confinement. That meant he was restricted to the monastic buildings, the cloisters and the crypt, and any time he went from one building to another he had to be accompanied.
He hardly noticed. He was so devastated by Aliena's announcement that nothing else made much difference. If he had been flogged instead of just confined, he felt, he would have been equally oblivious.
There was now no question of his working on the cathedral, of course; but much of the pleasure had gone out of that since Alfred had taken charge. Now he spent the free afternoons reading. His Latin had improved by leaps and bounds and he could read anything, albeit slowly; and as he was supposed to be reading to improve his Latin, rather than for any other purpose, he was allowed to use any book that took his fancy. Small though the library was, it had several works of philosophy and mathematics, and Jack had plunged into them with enthusiasm.
Much of what he read was disappointing. There were pages of genealogies, repetitive accounts of miracles performed by long-dead saints, and endless theological speculation. The first book that really appealed to Jack told the whole history of the world from the Creation to the founding of Kingsbridge Priory, and when he finished it he felt he knew everything that had ever happened. He realized after a while that the book's claim to tell all events was implausible, for after all, things were going on everywhere all the time, not just in Kingsbridge and England, but in Normandy, Anjou, Paris, Rome, Ethiopia, and Jerusalem, so the author must have left a lot out. Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended.
Even more intriguing were the puzzles. One philosopher asked why a weak man can move a heavy stone with a lever. This had never seemed strange to Jack before, but now the question tormented him. He had spent several weeks at the quarry at one time, and he recalled that when a stone could not be moved with a crowbar a foot long, the solution was generally to use a crowbar two feet long. Why should the same man be unable to move the stone with a short lever yet able to move it with a long one? That question led to others. The cathedral builders used a huge winding wheel to lift large stones and timbers up to the roof. The load at the end of the rope was much too heavy for a man to lift with his hands, but the same man could turn the wheel that wound the rope, and the load would rise. How was that possible?
Such speculations distracted him for a while, but his thoughts returned again and again to Aliena. He would stand in the cloisters, with a heavy book on a lectern in front of him, and recall that morning in the old mill when he had kissed her. He could remember every instant of that kiss, from the first soft touch of lips to the thrilling sensation of her tongue in his mouth. His body had pressed hers from thighs to shoulders, so that he could feel the contours of her breasts and her hips. The memory was so intense that it was like experiencing it all over again.
Why had she changed? He still believed that the kiss was real and her subsequent coldness was false. He felt he knew her. She was loving, sensual, romantic, imaginative, and warm. She was also thoughtless and imperious, and she had learned to be tough; but she was not cold, not cruel, not heartless. It was not in character for her to marry for money a
man she did not love. She would be unhappy, she would regret it, she would be sick with misery; he knew it and in her heart she must know it too.
One day when he was in the writing room, a priory servant who was sweeping the floor stopped for a rest, leaned on his broom, and said: "Big celebration coming up in your family, then."
Jack was studying a map of the world drawn on a big sheet of vellum. He looked up. The speaker was a gnarled old man too feeble now for heavy work. He probably had Jack confused with someone else. "Why's that, Joseph?"
"Didn't you know? Your brother's getting married."
"I have no brothers," Jack said automatically, but his heart had gone cold.
"Stepbrother, then," said Joseph.
"No, I didn't know." Jack had to ask the question. He gritted his teeth. "Who is he marrying?"
"That Aliena."
So she was determined to go through with it. Jack had been harboring a secret hope that she would change her mind. He looked away so that Joseph should not see the despair on his face. "Well, well," he said, trying to make his voice sound unemotional.
"Yes--her that used to be so high-and-mighty, until she lost everything in the fire."
"Did--did you say when?"
"Tomorrow. They're going to get wed in the new parish church Alfred built."
Tomorrow!
Aliena was going to marry Alfred tomorrow. Until now Jack had never really believed it would happen. Now the reality burst on him like a thunderclap. Aliena was going to get married tomorrow. Jack's life would end tomorrow.
He looked down at the map on the lectern in front of him. What did it matter whether the center of the world was Jerusalem or Wallingford? Would he be happier if he knew how levers worked? He had told Aliena that she should jump from the clerestory rather than marry Alfred. What he should have said was that he, Jack, might as well jump from the clerestory.
He despised the priory. Being a monk was a stupid way of life. If he could not work on the cathedral and Aliena married someone else, he had nothing to live for.
What made it worse was that he knew how thoroughly miserable she would be living with Alfred. This was not just because he hated Alfred. There were some girls who might be more or less contented married to Alfred: for example, Edith, the one who had giggled when Jack talked to her about how he loved to carve stone. Edith would not expect much of Alfred, and she would be glad to flatter him and obey him as long as he continued prosperous and loved their children. But Aliena would hate every minute. She would loathe Alfred's physical coarseness, she would despise him for his bullying ways, she would be disgusted by his meanness, and she would find his slow-wittedness maddening. Marriage to Alfred would be hell for her.
Why could she not see that? Jack was mystified. What was going on in her mind? Surely anything would be better than marriage to a man she did not love. She had caused a sensation by refusing to marry William Hamleigh seven years ago, yet now she had passively accepted a proposal from someone equally unsuitable. What was she thinking of?
Jack had to know.
He had to talk to her, and to hell with the monastery.
He rolled up the map, replaced it in the cupboard, and went to the door. Joseph was still leaning on his broomstick. "Are you leaving?" he said to Jack. "I thought you were supposed to stay here until the circuitor comes for you."
"The circuitor can go shit," said Jack, and he stepped out. As he emerged into the east walk of the cloisters, he caught the eye of Prior Philip, who was coming in from the building site to the north. Jack turned away quickly, but Philip called out: "Jack! What are you doing? You're supposed to be confined."
Jack had no patience for monastic discipline now. He ignored Philip and walked the other way, heading for the passage that led from the south walk down to the small houses around the new quay. But his luck was out. At that moment Brother Pierre, the circuitor, came out of the passage, followed by his two deputies. They saw Jack and stopped dead. A look of astonished indignation spread over Pierre's moon-shaped face.
Philip called out: "Stop that novice, Brother Circuitor!"
Pierre held out a hand to stop Jack. Jack pushed him aside. Pierre reddened and grabbed at Jack's arm. Jack wrenched his arm free and punched Pierre on the nose. Pierre gave a shout, more of outrage than pain. Then his two deputies jumped on Jack.
Jack struggled like a maniac, and almost got free, but when Pierre recovered from the blow to his nose and joined in, the three of them were able to wrestle Jack to the ground and hold him there. He continued to wriggle, furious that this monastic horseshit was now keeping him from something really important, speaking to Aliena. He kept saying: "Let me go, you stupid fools!" The two deputies sat on him. Pierre stood upright, wiping his bleeding nose on the sleeve of his habit. Philip appeared beside him.
Despite his own rage, Jack could see that Philip too was angry, angrier than Jack had ever seen him. "I will not tolerate this behavior from anyone," he said in a voice like iron. "You're a novice monk, and you will obey me." He turned to Pierre. "Put him in the obedience room."
"No!" Jack shouted. "You can't!"
"I most certainly can," Philip said wrathfully.
The obedience room was a small, windowless cell in the undercroft beneath the dormitory, at the south end, next to the latrines. It was mainly used to imprison lawbreakers who were waiting to be dealt with at the prior's court, or to be transferred to the sheriffs jail at Shiring; but it did occasional service as a punishment cell for monks who committed serious disciplinary offenses, such as acts of impurity with priory servants.
It was not the solitary confinement that scared Jack--it was the fact that he would not be able to get out to see Aliena. "You don't understand!" he yelled at Philip. "I have to speak to Aliena!"
It was the worst thing he could have said. Philip got angrier. "It was for speaking to her that you were originally punished," he said furiously.
"But I must!"
"The only thing you must do is learn to fear God and obey your superiors."
"You're not my superior, you silly ass! You're nothing to me. Let me go, damn you all!"
"Take him away," Philip said grimly.
A little crowd had gathered by now, and several monks lifted Jack by his arms and legs. He wriggled like a fish on a hook but there were too many of them. He could not believe that this was happening. They carried him, kicking and struggling, along the passage to the door of the obedience room. Someone opened it. Brother Pierre's voice said vengefully: "Throw him in!" They swung him back, then he was hurled through the air. He landed in a heap on the stone floor. He scrambled to his feet, numb to his bruises, and rushed at the door, but it slammed shut just as he crashed into it, and a moment later the heavy iron bar thudded down outside and the key turned in the lock.
Jack hammered on the door with all his might. "Let me out!" he yelled hysterically. "I have to stop her from marrying him! Let me out!" There was no sound from outside. He kept on calling, but his demands turned into pleas, and his voice dropped to a whine, then eventually to a whisper, and he wept tears of frustrated rage.
At last his eyes dried up and he could cry no more.
He turned from the door. The cell was not quite pitch-black: a little light came under the door and he could make out his surroundings vaguely. He went around the walls, feeling with his hands. He could tell by the pattern of chisel marks on the stones that the cell had been built a long time ago. The room was almost featureless. It was about six feet square, with a column in one corner and an upward-arching ceiling: clearly it had once been part of a larger room and had been walled off for use as a prison. In one wall there was a space like an opening for a slit window, but it was tightly shuttered, and would have been too small for anyone to crawl through even if it had been open. The stone floor felt damp. Jack became aware of a constant rushing noise, and realized that the water channel, which ran through the priory from the millpond to the latrines, must pass beneath the cell. That would explain why
the floor was of stone instead of beaten earth.
He felt drained. He sat on the floor with his back to the wall and stared at the crack of light under the door, the tantalizing reminder of where he wanted to be. How had he got into this fix? He had never believed in the monastery, never intended to dedicate his life to God--he did not really believe in God. He had become a novice as a solution to an immediate problem, a way of staying in Kingsbridge, close to what he loved. He had thought: I can always leave if I want to. But now he did want to leave, wanted to more than he had ever imagined, and he could not: he was a prisoner. I'll strangle Prior Philip as soon as I get out of here, he thought, even if I have to hang for it afterward.
That started him wondering when he would be released. He heard the bell ring for supper. They certainly intended to leave him here all night. They were probably discussing him right now. The worst of the monks would argue that he should be shut up for a week--he could just see Pierre and Remigius calling for firm discipline. Others, who liked him, might say one night was sufficient punishment. What would Philip say? He liked Jack, but he would be terribly angry now, especially after Jack had said You're not my superior, you silly ass, you're nothing to me. Philip would be tempted to let the hard-liners have their own way. The only hope was that they might want Jack thrown out of the monastery immediately, which in their view would be a harsher sentence. That way he might be able to speak to her before the wedding. But Philip would be against that, Jack was sure. Philip would see expelling Jack as an admission of defeat.
The light under the door was growing fainter. It was getting dark outside. Jack wondered how prisoners were supposed to relieve themselves. There was no pot in the cell. It would not be characteristic of the monks to overlook that particular detail: they believed in cleanliness, even for sinners. He inspected the floor again, inch by inch, and found a small hole close to one corner. The noise of water was louder there, and he guessed it led to the underground channel. This was presumably his latrine.