The Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett

  Except that Philip was none of these things anymore, according to Aliena.

  Jack found that hard to imagine. A quiescent Philip seemed as unlikely as a kindly Waleran Bigod. However, Philip had suffered a series of terrible disappointments. First there had been the burning of the town. Jack shuddered when he recalled that awful day: the smoke, the fear, the dreadful horsemen with their flaming torches, and the blind panic of the hysterical mob. Perhaps the heart had gone out of Philip then. Certainly the town had lost its nerve afterward. Jack remembered it well: the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty had pervaded the place like a faint but unmistakable odor of decay. No doubt Philip had wanted the opening ceremony for the new chancel to be a symbol of new hope. Then, when it turned into another disaster, he must have given up.

  Now the builders had gone away, the market had declined, and the population was shrinking. Young people were beginning to move to Shiring, Aliena said. It was only a problem of morale, of course: the priory still had all its property, including the vast flocks of sheep which brought in hundreds of pounds every year. If it were only a question of money, Philip could surely afford to recommence building, on some scale. It would not be easy, certainly: masons would be superstitious about working on a church that had already fallen down once; and it would be difficult to whip up the enthusiasm of the local people yet again. But the main problem, judging by what Aliena said, was that Philip had lost the will. Jack wished he could do something to help bring it back.

  Meanwhile, the bishops, archbishops, dukes and counts began arriving at Saint-Denis two or three days before the ceremony. All the notables were taken on a conducted tour of the building. Suger himself escorted the most distinguished visitors, and lesser dignitaries were taken around by monks or craftsmen. They were all awestruck by the lightness of the new construction and the sunny effect of the huge windows of colored glass. As just about every important church leader in France was seeing this, it struck Jack that the new style was likely to be widely imitated; indeed, masons who could say they had actually worked on Saint-Denis would be in great demand. Coming here had been a clever move, cleverer than he had imagined: it had greatly improved his chances of designing and building a cathedral himself.

  King Louis arrived on the Saturday, with his wife and his mother, and they moved into the abbot's house. That night matins were sung from dusk to dawn. By sunrise there was a crowd of peasants and Parisian citizens outside the church, waiting for what promised to be the greatest assemblage of holy and powerful men that most of them would ever see. Jack and Aliena joined the crowd as soon as Tommy had been fed. One day, Jack thought, I'll say to Tommy: "You don't remember it, but when you were just a year old you saw the king of France."

  They bought bread and cider for their breakfast and ate while they were waiting for the show to begin. The public was not allowed into the church, of course, and the king's men-at-arms kept them at a distance; but all the doors were open, and people clustered in knots where they could see in. The nave was packed with the lords and ladies of the nobility. Fortunately the chancel was raised several feet, because of the large crypt under it, so Jack could still see the ceremony.

  There was a flurry of activity at the far end of the nave, and suddenly all the nobles bowed. Over their lowered heads, Jack saw the king enter the church from the south. He could not see the king's face to make out his features, but his purple tunic made a vivid splash of color as he moved into the center of the crossing and knelt before the main altar.

  The bishops and archbishops came in immediately afterward. They were all dressed in dazzling white robes with gold embroidery, and each bishop carried his ceremonial crozier. The crozier was supposed to be a simple shepherd's crook, but so many of them were ornamented with fabulous jewels that the whole procession glittered like a mountain stream in the sunlight.

  They all walked slowly across the church and up the steps into the chancel, then took prearranged places around the font in which--Jack knew because he had observed the preparations--there were several gallons of holy water. There followed a lull during which prayers were said and hymns were sung. The crowd became restless, and Tommy got bored. Then the bishops moved off in procession again.

  They left the church by the south door and disappeared into the cloisters, much to the disappointment of the spectators; but then they emerged from the monastic buildings and filed across the front of the church. Each bishop carried a small brush called an aspergillum and a vessel of holy water, and as they marched, singing, they dipped the brushes in the water and sprinkled the walls of the church. The crowd surged forward, people begging for a blessing and trying to touch the snow-white robes of the holy men. The king's men-at-arms beat the people back with sticks. Jack stayed well back in the crowd. He did not want a blessing and he preferred to stay away from those sticks.

  The procession made its stately way along the north side of the church, and the crowd followed, trampling over the graves in the cemetery. Some spectators had taken up positions here in anticipation, and they resisted the pressure from the newcomers. One or two fights broke out.

  The bishops passed the north porch and continued around the half circle of the east end, the new part. This was where the craftsmen's workshops had been built, and now the crowd surged around the huts, threatening to flatten the light wooden buildings. As the leaders of the procession began to disappear back into the abbey, the more hysterical members of the crowd became desperate, and pushed forward more determinedly. The king's men responded with increased violence.

  Jack began to feel anxious. "I don't like the look of this," he said to Aliena.

  "I was about to say the same," she replied. "Let's get out of this crowd."

  Before they could move, a scuffle broke out between the king's men and a group of youths at the front. The men-at-arms laid about them fiercely with their clubs, but the youths, instead of cowering away, fought back. The last of the bishops hurried into the cloisters with a distinctly perfunctory sprinkling of the last part of the chancel. When the holy men were out of sight, the crowd turned its attention on the men-at-arms. Someone threw a stone and hit one of the men square on the forehead. A cheer went up as he fell. The hand-to-hand fighting spread quickly. Men-at-arms came running from the west front of the church to defend their comrades.

  It was turning into a riot.

  There was no hope of the ceremony providing a distraction in the next few moments. Jack knew that the bishops and the king were now descending into the crypt to fetch the remains of Saint Denis. They would carry them all around the cloisters but would not bring them out of doors. The dignitaries were not due to show themselves again until the service was over. Abbot Suger had not anticipated the size of the crowd of spectators, nor had he made arrangements to keep them happy. Now they were dissatisfied, they were hot--the sun was high by this time--and they wanted to vent their emotions.

  The king's men were armed but the spectators were not, and at first the armed men got the better of it; then someone had the bright idea of breaking into the craftsmen's huts for weapons. A pair of youths kicked down the door of the masons' lodge and came out a moment later with bolster hammers in their hands. There were masons in the crowd, and some of them pushed through the throng to the lodge and tried to stop people from going in; but they were unable to stand their ground, and got shoved aside.

  Jack and Aliena were trying to retreat out of the crowd, but the people behind them were pressing forward urgently, and they found themselves trapped. Jack kept Tommy hard up against his chest, protecting the baby's back with his arms and covering the little head with his hands, at the same time struggling to stay close to Aliena. He saw a small, furtive-looking man with a black beard emerge from the masons' lodge carrying the wooden statue of the weeping lady. I'll never see that again, he thought with a pang of regret; but he was too busy trying to escape from the crush to worry about being robbed.

  The carpenters' lodge was broken open next. The craftsmen had given
up hope of protecting their lodges, and they made no attempt to restrain the crowd. The smithy proved too strong, but the crowd burst through the flimsy wall of the roofers' lodge and took the heavy, wickedly sharp tools used for trimming and nailing lead sheets, and Jack thought: Someone is going to be killed before this is over.

  Despite all his efforts he was pushed forward, toward the north porch where the fighting was fiercest. The same thing was happening to the black-bearded thief, he noticed: the man was trying to get away with his loot, hugging the wooden statue to his chest the way Jack was hugging Tommy, but he, too, was being forced farther into the melee by the press of the crowd.

  Suddenly Jack had a brainwave. He gave Tommy to Aliena, saying: "Stay close to me." Then he grabbed the little thief and wrested the statue away from him. The man resisted for a moment, but Jack was bigger, and anyway the thief was now more worried about saving his skin than stealing the statue, and after a moment he relinquished his hold.

  Jack lifted the statue above his head and started to shout: "Revere the Madonna!" At first nobody took any notice. Then one or two people looked at him. "Touch not the Holy Mother!" he shouted at the top of his voice. The people near him backed off superstitiously, making a space around him. He began to warm to his theme. "It is a sin to desecrate the image of the Virgin!" He held the statue high above his head and walked forward, toward the church. This just might work, he thought with a surge of hope. More people stopped fighting to see what was going on.

  He glanced behind him. Aliena was following, unable to do anything else because of the press of the crowd. However, the riot was rapidly simmering down. The crowd moved forward with Jack, and people began to repeat his words in an awestruck murmur: "It is the Mother of God.... Hail, Mary.... Make way for the effigy of the Blessed Maiden...." All they wanted was a show, and now that Jack was giving them one the fighting stopped almost completely, with only two or three continuing scuffles on the fringes. Jack marched forward solemnly. He was rather startled at the ease with which he had stopped a riot. The crowd fell away before him, and he reached the north porch of the church. There he set the statue down, with great reverence, in the cool shade of the doorway. It was a little over two feet high, and seemed less impressive standing on the ground.

  The mob gathered around the doorway expectantly. Jack was at a loss to know what to do. They probably wanted a sermon. He had acted like a clergyman, bearing the statue on high and calling out sonorous warnings, but that was the limit of his priestly skills. He felt fearful: what might the crowd do to him if he disappointed them now?

  Suddenly they gave a collective gasp.

  Jack looked behind him. Some of the nobles from the congregation had gathered in the north transept, looking out, but he could see nothing to justify the crowd's apparent amazement.

  "A miracle!" someone said, and others took up the cry: "A miracle! A miracle!"

  Jack looked at the statue, and then he understood. Water was dripping from its eyes. At first he was as awestruck as the crowd, but a moment later he recalled his theory that the lady wept when there was a sudden change from warm to cold, as happened at nightfall in southern regions. The statue had just been moved from the heat of the day into the cool of the north porch. That would explain the tears. But the crowd did not know that, of course. All they saw was a statue weeping, and they marveled.

  A woman at the front tossed a denier, the French silver penny, at the feet of the statue. Jack felt like laughing aloud. What was the point of giving money to a piece of wood? But the people had been so indoctrinated by the Church that their automatic response to something holy was to give money, and several others in the crowd followed the woman's example.

  Jack had never thought that Raschid's toy might make money. Indeed, it could not make money for Jack--the people would not give if they thought the money was going into Jack's pocket. But it would be worth a fortune to any church.

  And when Jack realized that, he suddenly saw what he had to do.

  It came to him in a flash, and he began speaking even before he had seen all the implications himself: the words came at the same time as the thoughts. "The Weeping Madonna belongs not to me, but to God," he began. The crowd fell silent. This was the sermon they had been waiting for. Behind Jack, the bishops were singing in the church, but no one was interested in them now. "For hundreds of years, she languished in the land of the Saracens," Jack went on. He had no idea what the history of the statue was, but it did not seem to matter: the priests themselves never inquired too closely into the truth of stories of miracles and holy relics. "She has traveled many miles, but her journey is not yet ended. Her destination is the cathedral church of Kingsbridge, in England."

  He caught Aliena's eye. She was staring at him in amazement. He had to resist the temptation to wink at her to let her know he was making it up as he went along.

  "It is my holy mission to take her to Kingsbridge. There, she will find her resting place. There, she will be at peace." As he looked at Aliena the final, most brilliant inspiration came to him and he said: "I have been appointed master builder of the new church at Kingsbridge."

  Aliena's mouth fell open. Jack looked away from her. "The Weeping Madonna has commanded that a new, more glorious church be built for her at Kingsbridge, and with her help I shall create a shrine for her as beautiful as the new chancel which has been erected here for the sacred remains of Saint Denis."

  He glanced down, and the money on the ground gave him the idea for his finishing touch. "Your pennies will be used for the new church," he said. "The Madonna confers a blessing on every man, woman and child who offers a gift to help her build her new home."

  There was a moment of silence; then his listeners started to throw pennies on the ground around the base of the statue. Each person called out something as he or she made the offering. Some said "Alleluia" or "Praise God" and others asked for a blessing, or some more specific favor: "Make Robert well," or "Let Anne conceive," or "Give us a good harvest." Jack studied their faces: they were excited, elevated, happy. They pushed forward, jostling one another in their eagerness to give their pennies to the Weeping Madonna. Jack looked down and watched, marveling, as the money piled up like a snowdrift around his feet.

  The Weeping Madonna had the same effect in every town and village on the road to Cherbourg. As they walked in procession along the main street a crowd would gather; and then, after they had paused in front of the church to give time for the entire population to assemble, they would take the statue into the cool of the building, and it would weep, whereupon the people would fall over one another in their eagerness to give money for the building of Kingsbridge Cathedral.

  They had almost lost it, right at the start. The bishops and archbishops examined the statue and pronounced it genuinely miraculous, and Abbot Suger wanted to keep it for Saint-Denis. He had offered Jack a pound, then ten pounds, and finally fifty pounds. When he realized Jack was not interested in money he threatened to take the statue away forcibly; but Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury prevented him. Theobald also saw the moneymaking potential of the statue and he wanted it to go to Kingsbridge, which was in his archdiocese. Suger had given in with bad grace, churlishly expressing reservations about the genuineness of the miracle.

  Jack had told the craftsmen at Saint-Denis that he would hire any of them who cared to follow him to Kingsbridge. Suger was not pleased about that, either. Most of them would stay where they were, in fact, on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; but there were a few who were from England originally and might be tempted to move back; and the others would spread the word, for it was every mason's duty to tell his brothers about new building sites. Within a few weeks, craftsmen from all over Christendom would begin drifting into Kingsbridge, the way Jack had drifted into six or seven different sites over the past two years. Aliena asked Jack what he would do if Kingsbridge Priory did not make him master builder. Jack had no idea. He had made his announcement on the spur of the mome
nt and he had no contingency plans in case things went wrong.

  Archbishop Theobald, having claimed the Weeping Madonna for England, was not willing to let Jack simply walk away with it. He had sent two priests from his entourage, Reynold and Edward, to accompany Jack and Aliena on their journey. Jack had been displeased about this at first, but he quickly got to like them. Reynold was a fresh-faced, argumentative young man with an incisive mind, and he was very interested in the mathematics Jack had learned in Toledo. Edward was a mild-mannered older man who was something of a glutton. Their principal function was to make sure none of the donations went into Jack's purse, of course. In fact, the priests spent freely out of the donations to pay their traveling expenses, whereas Jack and Aliena paid their own, so the archbishop would have done better to trust Jack.

  They went to Cherbourg on their way to Barfleur, where they would take a ship for Wareham. Jack knew something was wrong long before they reached the heart of the little seaside town. People were not staring at the Madonna.

  They were staring at Jack.

  The priests noticed it after a while. They were carrying the statue on a wooden trestle, as they always did when entering a town. As the crowd began to follow them, Reynold hissed at Jack: "What's going on?"

  "I don't know."

  "They're more interested in you than the statue! Have you been here before?"

  "Never."

  Aliena said: "It's the older ones who look at Jack. The youngsters look at the statue."

  She was right. The children and young people were reacting to the statue with normal curiosity. It was the middle-aged who stared at him. He tried staring back, and found that they got scared. One made the Sign of the Cross at him. "What have they got against me?" he wondered aloud.

  Their procession attracted followers just as rapidly as always, however, and they reached the marketplace with a large crowd in tow. They put the Madonna down in front of the church. The air smelled of salt water and fresh fish. Several townspeople went into the church. What normally happened next was that the local clergy would come out and talk to Reynold and Edward. There would be a discussion and explanations, and then the statue would be carried inside, where it would weep. The Madonna had only failed once: on a cold day, when Reynold insisted on going through with the procedure despite Jack's warning that it might not work. Now they respected his advice.