The Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett

  In a tone of mild exasperation, Philip said: "Perhaps you would tell us, Brother Remigius, why you chose to read that short verse in the middle of our discussion of building plans?"

  Remigius pointed an accusing finger at Jack. "Because the man who wants to be our master builder is living in a state of sin!" he thundered.

  Jack could hardly believe he was serious. He said indignantly: "It's true that our union has not been blessed by the Church, because of special circumstances, but we'll get married as soon as you like."

  "You can't," Remigius said triumphantly. "Aliena is already married."

  "But that union was never consummated."

  "Nevertheless, the couple were wed in church."

  "But if you won't let me marry her, how can I avoid committing adultery?" Jack said angrily.

  "That's enough!" The voice was Philip's. Jack looked at him. He seemed furious. He said: "Jack, are you living in sin with your brother's wife?"

  Jack was flabbergasted. "Didn't you know?"

  "Of course I didn't!" Philip roared. "Do you think I could have remained silent about it if I had?"

  There was a silence. It was unusual for Philip to shout. Jack saw that he was in real trouble. His offense was a technicality, of course, but monks were supposed to be strict about such things. Unfortunately, the fact that Philip had not known that he was living with Aliena made matters much worse. It had enabled Remigius to take Philip by surprise and make a fool of him. Now Philip would have to be firm, to prove that he was strict.

  Jack said miserably: "But you can't build the wrong sort of church just to punish me."

  Remigius said with relish: "You'll have to leave the woman."

  "Piss off, Remigius," Jack said. "She has my child--he's a year old!"

  Remigius sat back with a look of satisfaction.

  Philip said: "Jack, if you speak like that in chapter you'll have to leave."

  Jack knew he should calm down but he could not. "But it's ludicrous!" he said. "You're telling me to abandon my woman and our child! This isn't morality, it's hairsplitting."

  Philip's anger abated somewhat, and Jack saw the more familiar light of sympathy in his clear blue eyes. He said: "Jack, you may take a pragmatic approach to God's laws but we prefer to be rigid--that's why we're monks. And we cannot have you as builder while you're living in a state of adultery."

  Jack remembered a line of Scripture. "Jesus said: 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.' "

  Philip said: "Yes, but Jesus said to the adulteress: 'Go, and sin no more.' " He turned to Remigius. "I take it you would withdraw your opposition if the adultery ceased."

  "Of course!" said Remigius.

  Despite his anger and misery, Jack noticed that Philip had outmaneuvered Remigius neatly. He had made the adultery the decisive question, thereby sidestepping the whole issue of the new design. But Jack was not ready to go along with that. He said: "I'm not going to leave her!"

  Philip said: "It might not be for long."

  Jack paused. That had taken him by surprise. "What do you mean?"

  "You could marry Aliena if her first marriage was annulled."

  "Can that be done?"

  "It should be automatic, if, as you say, the marriage was never consummated."

  "What do I have to do?"

  "Apply to an ecclesiastical court. Normally it would be Bishop Waleran's court, but in this case you probably should go straight to the archbishop of Canterbury."

  "And is the archbishop bound to agree?"

  "In justice, yes."

  That was not a totally unequivocal answer, Jack noted. "But we would have to live apart meanwhile?"

  "If you want to be appointed master builder of Kingsbridge Cathedral--yes."

  Jack said: "You're asking me to choose between the two things I love most in all the world."

  Philip said: "Not for long."

  His voice made Jack look up sharply: there was real compassion in it. Jack realized Philip was genuinely sorry to have to do this. That made him less angry and more sad. He said: "How long?"

  "It could be as much as a year."

  "A year!"

  "You don't have to live in different towns," Philip said.

  "You can still see Aliena and the child."

  "Do you know she went to Spain to look for me?" Jack said. "Can you imagine that?" But the monks had no conception of what love was about. He said bitterly: "Now I must tell her we've got to live apart."

  Philip stood up and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "The time will go by faster than you think, I promise you," he said. "And you'll be busy--building the new cathedral."

  II

  The forest had grown and changed in eight years. Jack had thought he could never get lost in territory he had once known like the back of his hand, but he had been wrong. Old trails were overgrown, new ones had been trodden in the undergrowth by the deer and the boar and the wild ponies, streamlets had altered course, old trees had fallen and young ones were taller. Everything was diminished: distances seemed less and hills not so steep. Most striking of all, he felt a stranger here. When a young deer gazed at him, startled, across a glade, Jack could not guess which family the deer belonged to or where its dam was. When a flight of ducks took off, he did not instantly know what stretch of water they had risen from and why. And he was nervous, for he had no idea where the outlaws were.

  He had ridden most of the way here from Kingsbridge, but he had to dismount as soon as he left the main road, for the trees grew too low over the trail to permit him to ride. Returning to the haunts of his boyhood made him feel irrationally sad. He had never appreciated, because he had never realized, how simple life had been then. His greatest passion had been for strawberries, and he had known that every summer, for a few days, there would be as many as he could eat, growing on the forest floor. Nowadays everything was problematical: his combative friendship with Prior Philip; his frustrated love for Aliena; his towering ambition to build the most beautiful cathedral in the world; his burning need to find out the truth about his father.

  He wondered how much his mother had changed in the two years he had been away. He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to fight for you, and he had missed that comforting feeling.

  It had taken him all day to reach the part of the forest where he and she used to live. Now the short winter afternoon was darkening rapidly. Soon he would have to give up the search for their old cave, and concentrate on finding a sheltered place in which to spend the night. It would be cold. Why am I worried? he thought. I used to spend every night in the forest.

  In the end she found him.

  He was on the point of giving up. A narrow, almost invisible track through the vegetation, probably used only by badgers and foxes, petered out in a thicket. There was nothing to do but retrace his steps. He turned his horse around and almost walked into her.

  "You've forgotten how to move quietly in the forest," she said. "I could hear you crashing around a mile away."

  Jack smiled. She had not changed. "Hello, Mother," he said. He kissed her cheek, then, in a rush of affection, he hugged her.

  She touched his face. "You're thinner than ever."

  He looked at her. She was brown and healthy, her hair still thick and dark, without any gray. Her eyes were the same golden color, and they still seemed to see right through Jack. He said: "You're just the same."

  "Where did you go?" she said.

  "All the way to Compostela, and even farther, to Toledo."

  "Aliena went after you--"

  "She found me. Thanks to you."

  "I'm glad." She closed her eyes as if sending up a prayer of thanks. "I'm so glad."

  She led him through the forest to the cave, which was less than a mile away: his memory had not been so bad after all. She had a blazing log fire and three sputtering rushlights. She gave him a m
ug of the cider she made with crab apples and wild honey, and they roasted some chestnuts. Jack could remember the items that a forest dweller could not make for herself, and he had brought his mother knives, cord, soap and salt. She began to skin a coney for the cooking pot. He said: "How are you, Mother?"

  "Fine," she said; then she looked at him and realized the question was serious. "I grieve for Tom Builder," she said. "But he's dead and I don't care to take another husband."

  "And are you happy here, otherwise?"

  "Yes and no. I'm used to living in the forest. I like being alone. I never did get used to busybody priests telling me how to behave. But I miss you, and Martha, and Aliena; and I wish I could see more of my grandson." She smiled. "But I can never go back to live in Kingsbridge, not after cursing a Christian wedding. Prior Philip will never forgive me for that. However, it's all worth it if I've brought you and Aliena together at last." She looked up from her work with a pleased smile. "So how do you like married life?"

  "Well," he said hesitantly, "we're not married. In the eyes of the Church, Aliena is still married to Alfred."

  "Don't be stupid. What does the Church know about it?"

  "Well, they know who they've married, and they wouldn't let me build the new cathedral while I was living with another man's wife."

  Her eyes flashed anger. "So you've left her?"

  "Yes. Until she can get an annulment."

  Mother put the rabbit's skin to one side. With a sharp knife in her bloody hands she began to joint the carcass, dropping the pieces into the cooking pot bubbling on the fire. "Prior Philip did that to me, once, when I was with Tom," she said, slicing the raw meat with swift strokes. "I know why he gets so frantic about people making love. It's because he's not allowed to do it himself, and he resents other people's freedom to enjoy what is forbidden to him. Of course, there's nothing he can do about it when they're married by the Church. But if they're not, he gets the chance to spoil things for them, and that makes him feel better." She cut off the rabbit's feet and threw them into a wooden bucket full of rubbish.

  Jack nodded. He had accepted the inevitable, but every time he said good night to Aliena and walked away from her door he felt angry with Philip, and he understood his mother's persistent resentment. "It's not forever, though," he said.

  "How does Aliena feel about it?"

  Jack grimaced. "Not good. But she thinks it's her fault, for marrying Alfred in the first place."

  "So it is. And it's your fault for being determined to build churches."

  He was sorry that she could not share his vision. "Mother, it's not worth building anything else. Churches are bigger and higher and more beautiful and more difficult to build, and they have more decoration and sculpture than any other kind of building."

  "And you won't be satisfied with anything less."

  "Right."

  She shook her head in perplexity. "I'll never know where you got the idea that you were destined for greatness." She dropped the rest of the rabbit in the pot and began to clean the underside of its skin. She would use the fur. "You certainly didn't inherit it from your forebears."

  That was the cue he had been waiting for. "Mother, when I was overseas I learned some more about my forebears."

  She stopped scraping and looked at him. "What on earth do you mean?"

  "I found my father's family."

  "Good God!" She dropped the rabbit skin. "How did you do that? Where are they? What are they like?"

  "There's a town in Normandy called Cherbourg. That's where he came from."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "I look so much like him, they thought I was a ghost." Mother sat down heavily on a stool. Jack felt guilty about having shocked her so badly, but he had not expected her to be so shaken by the news. She said: "What ... what are his people like?"

  "His father's dead, but his mother's still alive. She was kind, once she was convinced I wasn't the ghost of my father. His older brother is a carpenter with a wife and three children. My cousins." He smiled. "Isn't that nice? We've got relations."

  The thought seemed to upset her, and she looked distressed. "Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry I didn't give you a normal upbringing."

  "I'm not," he said lightly. He was embarrassed when his mother showed remorse: it was so out of character for her. "But I'm glad I met my cousins. Even if I never see them again, it's good to know they're there."

  She nodded sadly. "I understand."

  Jack took a deep breath. "They thought my father had drowned in a shipwreck twenty-four years ago. He was aboard a vessel called the White Ship which went down just out of Barfleur. Everyone was thought to have drowned. Obviously my father survived. But somehow they never knew that, because he never went back to Cherbourg."

  "He went to Kingsbridge," she said.

  "But why?"

  She sighed. "He clung to a barrel and was washed ashore near a castle," she said. "He went to the castle to report the shipwreck. There were several powerful barons at the castle, and they showed great consternation when he turned up. They took him prisoner and brought him to England. After some weeks or months--he got rather confused--he ended up in Kingsbridge."

  "Did he say anything else about the wreck?"

  "Only that the ship went down very fast, as if it had been holed."

  "It sounds as if they needed to keep him out of the way."

  She nodded. "And then, when they realized they couldn't hold him prisoner forever, they killed him."

  Jack knelt in front of her and forced her to look at him. In a voice shaking with emotion he said: "But who were they, Mother?"

  "You've asked me that before."

  "And you've never told me."

  "Because I don't want you to spend your life trying to avenge the death of your father!"

  She was still treating him like a child, withholding information that might not be good for him, he felt. He tried to be calm and adult. "I'm going to spend my life building Kingsbridge Cathedral and making babies with Aliena. But I want to know why they hanged my father. And the only people who have the answer are the men who gave false testimony against him. So I have to know who they were."

  "At the time I didn't know their names."

  He knew she was being evasive and it made him angry. "But you know now!"

  "Yes, I do," she said tearfully, and he realized that this was as painful for her as it was for him. "And I'll tell you, because I can see you'll never stop asking." She sniffed and wiped her eyes.

  He waited in suspense.

  "There were three of them: a monk, a priest and a knight."

  Jack looked at her hard. "Their names."

  "You're going to ask them why they lied under oath?"

  "Yes."

  "And you expect them to tell you?"

  "Perhaps not. I'll look into their eyes when I ask them, and that may tell me all I need to know."

  "Even that may not be possible."

  "I want to try, Mother!"

  She sighed. "The monk was the prior of Kingsbridge."

  "Philip!"

  "No, not Philip. This was before Philip's time. It was his predecessor, James."

  "But he's dead."

  "I told you it might not be possible to question them."

  Jack narrowed his eyes. "Who were the others?"

  "The knight was Percy Hamleigh, the earl of Shiring."

  "William's father!"

  "Yes."

  "He's dead, too!"

  "Yes."

  Jack had a terrible feeling that all three would turn out to be dead men, and the secret buried with their bones. "Who was the priest?" he said urgently.

  "His name was Waleran Bigod. He's now the bishop of Kingsbridge."

  Jack gave a sigh of profound satisfaction. "And he's still alive," he said.

  Bishop Waleran's castle was finished at Christmas. William Hamleigh and his mother rode to it on a fine morning early in the new year. They saw it from a distance, across the valley. It was at the highest p
oint of the opposite ridge, overlooking the surrounding countryside with a forbidding regard.

  As they crossed the valley they passed the old palace. It was now used as a storehouse for fleeces. Income from wool was paying for much of the new castle.

  They trotted up the gentle slope on the far side of the valley and followed the road through a gap in the earth ramparts and across a deep dry moat to a gateway in a stone wall. With ramparts, a moat and a stone wall, this was a highly secure castle, superior to William's own and to many of the king's.

  The inner courtyard was dominated by a massive square keep three stories high which dwarfed the stone church that stood alongside it. William helped his mother dismount. They left their knights to stable the horses and mounted the steps that led to the hall.

  It was midday, and in the hall Waleran's servants were preparing the table. Some of his archdeacons, deans, employees and hangers-on were standing around waiting for dinner. William and Regan waited while a steward went up to the bishop's private quarters to announce their arrival.

  William was burning inside with a fierce, agonizing jealousy. Aliena was in love, and the whole county knew it. She had given birth to a love child, and her husband had thrown her out of his house. With her baby in her arms, she had gone off to look for the man she loved, and had found him after searching half of Christendom. The story was being told and retold all over southern England. It made William sick with hatred every time he heard it. But he had thought of a way to get revenge.

  They were taken up the stairs and shown into Waleran's chamber. They found him sitting at a table with Baldwin, who was now an archdeacon. The two clerics were counting money on a checkered cloth, building the silver pennies into piles of twelve and moving them from black squares to white. Baldwin stood up and bowed to Lady Regan, then quickly put away the cloth and the coins.