The Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett

  Before he could finish his drawing of the plinth he was interrupted by the master roofer, who had hit a problem and wanted Jack to solve it.

  Jack followed the man up the turret staircase, past the clerestory, and into the roof space. They walked across the rounded domes that were the top side of the ribbed vault. Above them, the roofers were unrolling great sheets of lead and nailing them to the rafters, starting at the bottom and working up so that the upper sheets would overlap the lower and keep the rain out.

  Jack saw the problem immediately. He had put a decorative pinnacle at the end of a valley between two sloping roofs, but he had left the design to a master mason, and the mason had not made provision for rainwater from the roof to pass through or under the pinnacle. The mason would have to alter it. He told the master roofer to pass this instruction on to the mason, then he returned to his tracing floor.

  He was astonished to find Alfred waiting for him there.

  He had not spoken to Alfred for ten years. He had seen him at a distance, now and again, in Shiring or Winchester. Aliena had not so much as caught sight of him for nine years, even though they were still married, according to the Church. Martha went to visit him at his house in Shiring about once a year. She always brought back the same report: he was prospering, building houses for the burgers of Shiring; he lived alone; he was the same as ever.

  But Alfred did not appear prosperous now. Jack thought he looked tired and defeated. Alfred had always been big and strong, but now he had a lean look: his face was thinner, and the hand with which he pushed the hair out of his eyes was bony where it had once been beefy.

  He said: "Hello, Jack."

  His expression was aggressive but his tone of voice was ingratiating--an unattractive mixture.

  "Hello, Alfred," Jack said warily. "Last time I saw you, you were wearing a silk tunic and running to fat."

  "That was three years ago--before the first of the bad harvests."

  "So it was." Three bad harvests in a row had caused a famine. Serfs had starved, many tenant farmers were destitute, and presumably the burghers of Shiring could no longer afford splendid new stone houses. Alfred was feeling the pinch. Jack said: "What brings you to Kingsbridge after all this time?"

  "I heard about your transepts and came to look." His tone was one of grudging admiration. "Where did you learn to build like this?"

  "Paris," Jack said shortly. He did not want to discuss that period of his life with Alfred, who had been the cause of his exile.

  "Well." Alfred looked awkward, then said with elaborate indifference: "I'd be willing to work here, just to pick up some of these new tricks."

  Jack was flabbergasted. Did Alfred really have the nerve to ask him for a job? Playing for time, he said: "What about your gang?"

  "I'm on my own now," Alfred said, still trying to be casual. "There wasn't enough work for a gang."

  "We're not hiring, anyway," Jack said, equally casually. "We've got a full complement."

  "But you can always use a good mason, can't you?"

  Jack heard a faint pleading note and realized that Alfred was desperate. He decided to be honest. "After the life we've had, Alfred, I'm the last person you should come to for help."

  "You are the last," Alfred said candidly. "I've tried everywhere. Nobody's hiring. It's the famine."

  Jack thought of all the times Alfred had mistreated him, tormented him, and beaten him. Alfred had driven him into the monastery and then had driven him away from his home and family. He had no reason to help Alfred: indeed, he had cause to gloat over Alfred's misfortune. He said: "I wouldn't take you on even if I was needing men."

  "I thought you might," Alfred said with bullheaded persistence. "After all, my father taught you everything you know. It's because of him that you're a master builder. Won't you help me for his sake?"

  For Tom. Suddenly Jack felt a twinge of conscience. In his own way, Tom had tried to be a good stepfather. He had not been gentle or understanding, but he had treated his own children much the same as Jack, and he had been patient and generous in passing on his knowledge and skills. He had also made Jack's mother happy, most of the time. And after all, Jack thought, here I am, a successful and prosperous master builder, well on the way to achieving my ambition of building the most beautiful cathedral in the world, and there's Alfred, poor and hungry and out of work. Isn't that revenge enough?

  No, it's not, he thought.

  Then he relented.

  "All right," he said. "For Tom's sake, you're hired."

  "Thank you," Alfred said. His expression was unreadable. "Shall I start right away?"

  Jack nodded. "We're laying foundations in the nave. Just join in."

  Alfred held out his hand. Jack hesitated momentarily, then shook it. Alfred's grip was as strong as ever.

  Alfred disappeared. Jack stood staring down at his drawing of a nave plinth. It was life-size, so that when it was finished a master carpenter could make a wooden template directly from the drawing. The template would then be used by the masons to mark the stones for carving.

  Had he made the right decision? He recalled that Alfred's vault had collapsed. However, he would not use Alfred on difficult work such as vaulting or arches: straightforward walls and floors were his metier.

  While Jack was still pondering, the noon bell rang for dinner. He put down his sharpened-wire drawing instrument and went down the turret staircase to ground level.

  The married masons went home to dinner and the single ones ate in the lodge. On some building sites dinner was provided, as a way of preventing afternoon lateness, absenteeism and drunkenness; but monks' fare was often Spartan and most building workers preferred to provide their own. Jack was living in Tom Builder's old house with Martha, his stepsister, who acted as his housekeeper. Martha also minded Tommy and Jack's second child, a girl whom they had named Sally, while Aliena was busy. Martha usually made dinner for Jack and the children, and Aliena sometimes joined them.

  He left the priory close and walked briskly home. On the way a thought struck him. Would Alfred expect to move back into the house with Martha? She was his natural sister, after all. Jack had not thought of that when he gave Alfred the job.

  It was a foolish fear, he decided a moment later. The days when Alfred could bully him were long past. He was the master builder of Kingsbridge, and if he said Alfred could not move into the house, then Alfred would not move into the house.

  He half expected to find Alfred at the kitchen table, and was relieved to find he was not. Aliena was watching the children eat, while Martha stirred a pot on the fire. The smell of lamb stew was mouth-watering.

  He kissed Aliena's forehead briefly. She was thirty-three years old now, but she looked as she had ten years ago: her hair was still a rich dark-brown mass of curls, and she had the same generous mouth and fine, dark eyes. Only when she was naked did she show the physical effects of time and childbirth: her marvelous deep breasts were lower, her hips were broader, and her belly had never reverted to its original taut flatness.

  Jack looked affectionately at the two offspring of Aliena's body: nine-year-old Tommy, a healthy red-haired boy, big for his age, shoveling lamb stew into his mouth as if he had not eaten for a week; and Sally, age seven, with dark curls like her mother's, smiling happily and showing a gap between her front teeth just like the one Martha had had when Jack first saw her seventeen years ago. Tommy went to the school in the priory every morning to learn to read and write, but the monks would not take girls, so Aliena was teaching Sally.

  Jack sat down, and Martha took the pot off the fire and set it on the table. Martha was a strange girl. She was past twenty years old, but she showed no interest in getting married. She had always been attached to Jack, and now she seemed perfectly content to be his housekeeper.

  Jack presided over the oddest household in the county, without a doubt. He and Aliena were two of the leading citizens of the town: he the master builder at the cathedral and she the largest manufacturer of cloth ou
tside Winchester. Everyone treated them as man and wife, yet they were forbidden to spend nights together, and they lived in separate houses, Aliena with her brother and Jack with his stepsister. Every Sunday afternoon, and on every holiday, they would disappear, and everyone knew what they were doing except, of course, Prior Philip. Meanwhile, Jack's mother lived in a cave in the forest because she was supposed to be a witch.

  Every now and again Jack got angry about not being allowed to marry Aliena. He would lie awake, listening to Martha snoring in the next room, and think: I'm twenty-eight years old--why am I sleeping alone? The next day he would be bad-tempered with Prior Philip, rejecting all the chapter's suggestions and requests as impracticable or overexpensive, refusing to discuss alternatives or compromises, as if there were only one way to build a cathedral and that was Jack's way. Then Philip would steer clear of him for a few days and let the storm blow over.

  Aliena, too, was unhappy, and she took it out on Jack. She would become impatient and intolerant, criticizing everything he did, putting the children to bed as soon as he came in, saying she was not hungry when he ate. After a day or two of this mood she would burst into tears and say she was sorry, and they would be happy again, until the next time the strain became too much for her.

  Jack ladled some stew into a bowl and began to eat. "Guess who came to the site this morning," he said. "Alfred."

  Martha dropped an iron pot lid on the hearthstone with a loud clang. Jack looked at her and saw fear on her face. He turned to Aliena and saw that she had turned white.

  Aliena said: "What's he doing in Kingsbridge?"

  "Looking for work. The famine has impoverished the merchants of Shiring, I guess, and they aren't building stone houses like they used to. He's dismissed his gang and he can't find work."

  "I hope you threw him out on his tail," Aliena said.

  "He said I should give him a job for Tom's sake," Jack said nervously. He had not anticipated such a strong reaction from the two women. "After all, I owe everything to Tom."

  "Cow shit," Aliena said, and Jack thought: she got that expression from my mother.

  "Well, I hired him anyway," he said.

  "Jack!" Aliena screamed. "How could you? You can't let him come back to Kingsbridge--that devil!"

  Sally began to cry. Tommy stared wide-eyed at his mother. Jack said: "Alfred isn't a devil. He's hungry and penniless. I saved him, for the sake of his father's memory."

  "You wouldn't feel sorry for him if he'd forced you to sleep on the floor at the foot of his bed like a dog for nine months."

  "He's done worse things to me--ask Martha."

  Martha said: "And to me."

  Jack said: "I just decided that seeing him like that was enough revenge for me."

  "Well it's not enough for me!" Aliena stormed. "By Christ, you're a damned fool, Jack Jackson. Sometimes I thank God I'm not married to you."

  That hurt. Jack looked away. He knew she did not mean it, but it was bad enough that she should say it, even in anger. He picked up his spoon and started to eat. It was hard to swallow.

  Aliena patted Sally's head and put a piece of carrot into her mouth. Sally stopped crying.

  Jack looked at Tommy, who was still staring at Aliena with a frightened face. "Eat, Tommy," said Jack. "It's good."

  They finished their dinner in silence.

  In the spring of the year that the transepts were finished, Prior Philip made a tour of the monastery's property in the south. After three bad years he needed a good harvest, and he wanted to check what state the farms were in.

  He took Jonathan with him. The priory orphan was now a tall, awkward, intelligent sixteen-year-old. Like Philip at that age, he did not seem to suffer a moment's doubt about what he wanted to do with his life: he had completed his novitiate and taken his vows, and he was now Brother Jonathan. Also like Philip, he was interested in the material side of God's service, and he worked as deputy to Cuthbert Whitehead, the aging cellarer. Philip was proud of the boy: he was devout, hardworking, and well liked.

  Their escort was Richard, the brother of Aliena. Richard had at last found his niche in Kingsbridge. After they built the town wall, Philip had suggested to the parish guild that they appoint Richard as Head of the Watch, responsible for the town's security. He organized the night watchmen and arranged for the maintenance and improvement of the town walls, and on market days and holy days he was empowered to arrest troublemakers and drunks. These tasks, which had become essential as the village had grown into a town, were all things a monk was not supposed to do; so the parish guild, which Philip had at first seen as a threat to his authority, had turned out to be useful after all. And Richard was happy. He was about thirty years old now, but the active life he led kept him looking young.

  Philip wished Richard's sister could be as settled. If ever a person had been failed by the Church it was Aliena. Jack was the man she loved and the father of her children, but the Church insisted that she was married to Alfred, even though she had never had carnal knowledge of him; and she was unable to get an annulment because of the ill will of the bishop. It was shameful, and Philip felt guilty, even though he was not responsible.

  Toward the end of the trip, when they were riding home through the forest on a bright spring morning, young Jonathan said: "I wonder why God makes people starve."

  It was a question every young monk asked sooner or later, and there were lots of answers to it. Philip said: "Don't blame this famine on God."

  "But God made the weather that caused the bad harvests."

  "The famine is not just due to bad harvests," Philip said. "There are always bad harvests, every few years, but people don't starve. What's special about this crisis is that it comes after so many years of civil war."

  "Why does that make a difference?" Jonathan asked.

  Richard, the soldier, answered him. "War is bad for farming," he said. "Livestock get slaughtered to feed the armies, crops are burned to deny them to the enemy, and farms are neglected while knights go to war."

  Philip added: "And when the future is uncertain, people are not willing to invest time and energy clearing new ground, increasing herds, digging ditches and building barns."

  "We haven't stopped doing that sort of work," Jonathan said.

  "Monasteries are different. But most ordinary farmers let their farms run down during the fighting, so that when the bad weather came they were not in good shape to ride it out. Monks take a longer view. But we have another problem. The price of wool has slumped because of the famine."

  "I don't see the connection," Jonathan said.

  "I suppose it's because starving people don't buy clothes." It was the first time in Philip's memory that the price of wool had failed to go up annually. He had been forced to slow the pace of cathedral building, stop taking new novices, and eliminate wine and meat from the monks' diet. "Unfortunately, it means that we're economizing just when more and more destitute people are coming to Kingsbridge looking for work."

  Jonathan said: "And so they end up queueing at the priory gate for free horsebread and pottage."

  Philip nodded grimly. It broke his heart to see strong men reduced to begging for bread because they could find no work. "But remember, it's caused by war, not bad weather," he said.

  With youthful passion Jonathan said: "I hope there's a special place in hell for the earls and kings who cause such misery."

  "I hope so--Saints preserve us, what's that?"

  A strange figure had burst from the undergrowth and was running full-tilt at Philip. His clothes were ragged, his hair was wild, and his face was black with dirt. Philip thought the poor man must be running away from an enraged boar, or even an escaped bear.

  Then the man ran up and threw himself on Philip.

  Philip was so surprised that he fell off his horse.

  His attacker fell on top of him. The man smelled like an animal, and sounded like one too: he made a constant inarticulate grunting noise. Philip wriggled and kicked. The man seemed t
o be trying to get hold of the leather satchel that Philip had slung over his shoulder. Philip realized the man was trying to rob him. There was nothing in the satchel but a book, The Song of Solomon. Philip struggled desperately to get free, not because he was specially attached to the book, but because the robber was so disgustingly dirty.

  But Philip was tangled up in the strap of the satchel and the robber would not let go. They rolled over on the hard ground, Philip trying to get away and the robber trying to keep hold of the satchel. Philip was vaguely aware that his horse had bolted.

  Suddenly the robber was jerked away by Richard. Philip rolled over and sat upright, but he did not get to his feet for a moment. He was dazed and winded. He breathed the clean air, relieved to be free of the robber's noxious embrace. He felt his bruises. Nothing was broken. He turned his attention to the others.

  Richard had the robber flat on the ground and was standing over him, with one foot between the man's shoulder blades and the point of his sword touching the back of the man's neck. Jonathan was holding the two remaining horses and looking bewildered.

  Philip got gingerly to his feet, feeling weak. When I was Jonathan's age, he thought, I could fall off a horse and jump right back on again.

  Richard said: "If you keep an eye on this cockroach, I'll catch your horse." He offered Philip his sword.

  "All right," Philip said. He waved the sword away. "I shan't need that."

  Richard hesitated, then sheathed his sword. The robber lay still. The legs sticking out from under his tunic were as thin as twigs, and the same color; and he was barefoot. Philip had never been in any serious danger: this poor man was too weak to strangle a chicken. Richard walked off after Philip's horse.