Epic Historial Collection (92 page)

“You said
was
.”

Francis nodded. “I've been negotiating a swap: Stephen for Robert. It was done on All Saints' Day. King Stephen is now back in Winchester.”

Philip was surprised. “It seems to me that the Empress Maud got the worst of the bargain—she gave a king to get an earl.”

Francis shook his head. “She was helpless without Robert. Nobody likes her, nobody trusts her. Her support was collapsing. She had to have him back. Queen Matilda was clever. She wouldn't take anything less than King Stephen in exchange. She held out for that and in the end she got it.”

Philip went to the window and looked out. It had started to rain, a cold slantwise rain blowing across the building site, darkening the high walls of the cathedral and dripping off the low thatched roofs of the craftsmen's lodges. “What does it mean?” he said.

“It means that Maud is once again just an aspirant to the throne. After all, Stephen has actually been crowned, whereas Maud never was, not quite.”

“But it was Maud who licensed my market.”

“Yes. That could be a problem.”

“Is my license invalid?”

“No. It was properly granted by a legitimate ruler who had been approved by the Church. The fact that she wasn't crowned doesn't make any difference. But Stephen could withdraw it.”

“The market is paying for the stone,” Philip said anxiously. “I can't build without it. This is bad news indeed.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What about my hundred pounds?”

Francis shrugged. “Stephen will tell you to get it back from Maud.”

Philip felt sick. “All that money,” he said. “It was God's money, and I lost it.”

“You haven't lost it yet,” Francis said. “Stephen may not revoke your license. He's never shown much interest in markets one way or the other.”

“Earl William may pressure him.”

“William changed allegiance, remember? He threw his lot in with Maud. He won't have much influence with Stephen anymore.”

“I hope you're right,” Philip said fervently. “I hope to God you're right.”

 

When it got too cold to sit in the glade, Aliena took to visiting Tom Builder's house in the evenings. Alfred was normally at the alehouse, so the family group consisted of Tom, Ellen, Jack and Martha. Now that Tom was doing so well, they had comfortable seats, and a roaring fire, and plenty of candles. Ellen and Aliena would work at the weaving. Tom would draw plans and diagrams, scratching his drawings with a sharp stone onto polished pieces of slate. Jack would pretend to be making a belt, or sharpening knives, or weaving a basket, although he would spend most of the time furtively staring at Aliena's face in the candlelight, watching her lips move as she talked or studying her white throat as she drank a glass of ale. They laughed a lot that winter. Jack loved to make Aliena laugh. She was so controlled and reserved, in general, that it was a joy to see her let herself go, almost like catching a glimpse of her naked. He was constantly thinking of things to say to amuse her. He would do impressions of the craftsmen on the building site, imitating the accent of a Parisian mason or the bowlegged walk of a blacksmith. Once he invented a comical account of life with the monks, giving each of them plausible sins—pride for Remigius, gluttony for Bernard Kitchener, drunkenness for the guest-master, and lust for Pierre Circuitor. Martha was often helpless with laughter and even the taciturn Tom cracked a smile.

It was on one such evening that Aliena said: “I don't know if I'm going to be able to sell all this cloth.”

They were somewhat taken aback. Ellen said: “Then why are we weaving it?”

“I haven't given up hope,” Aliena said. “I've just got a problem.”

Tom looked up from his slate. “I thought the priory was eager to buy it all.”

“That's not the problem. I can't find people to do the felting, and the priory doesn't want loose-woven cloth—nor does anyone else.”

Ellen said: “Felting is backbreaking work. I'm not surprised no one will do it.”

“Can't you get men to do it?” Tom suggested.

“Not in prosperous Kingsbridge. All the men have work enough. In the big towns there are professional fullers, but most of them work for weavers, and they're prohibited from felting for their employer's rivals. Anyway, it would cost too much to cart the cloth to Winchester and back.”

“It's a real problem,” Tom acknowledged, and went back to his drawing.

Jack was struck by a thought. “It's a pity we can't get oxen to do it.”

The others laughed. Tom said: “You might as well try to teach an ox to build churches.”

“Or a mill,” Jack persisted. “There are usually easy ways to do the hardest work.”

“She wants to felt the cloth, not grind it,” Tom said.

Jack was not listening. “We use lifting gear, and winding wheels, to raise stones up to the high scaffolding.”

Aliena said: “Oh, if there was some ingenious mechanism to get this cloth felted, it would be wonderful.”

Jack thought how pleased she would be if he could solve this problem for her. He determined to find a way.

Tom said thoughtfully: “I've heard of a water mill being used to work the bellows in a forge—but I've never seen it.”

“Really!” Jack said. “That proves it!”

Tom said: “A mill wheel goes round and round, and a grindstone goes round and round, so the one can drive the other; but a fuller's bat goes up and down. You can't make a round waterwheel drive an up-and-down bat.”

“But a bellows goes up and down.”

“True, true; but I never saw that forge, I only heard tell of it.”

Jack tried to picture the machinery of a mill. The force of the water drove the mill wheel around. The shaft of the mill wheel was connected to another wheel inside the mill. The inside wheel, which was upright, had teeth that interlocked with the teeth of another wheel which lay flat. The flat wheel turned the millstone. “An upright wheel can drive a flat wheel,” Jack muttered, thinking aloud.

Martha laughed. “Jack, stop! If mills could felt cloth, clever people would have thought of it already.”

Jack ignored her. “The fuller's bats could be fixed to the shaft of the mill wheel,” he said. “The cloth could be laid flat where the bats fall.”

Tom said: “But the bats would strike once, then get stuck; and the wheel would stop. I told you—wheels go round and round, but bats have to go up and down.”

“There must be a way,” Jack said stubbornly.

“There's no way,” Tom said decisively, in the tone of voice he used to close a conversational subject.

“I bet there is, though,” Jack muttered rebelliously; and Tom pretended not to hear.

 

On the following Sunday, Jack disappeared.

He went to church in the morning, and ate his dinner at home, as usual; but he did not appear at suppertime. Aliena was in her own kitchen, making a thick broth of ham and cabbage with pepper in it, when Ellen came looking for Jack.

“I haven't seen him since mass,” Aliena said.

“He vanished after dinner,” Ellen said. “I assumed he was with you.”

Aliena felt a little embarrassed that Ellen should have made that assumption so readily. “Are you worried?”

Ellen shrugged. “A mother is always worried.”

“Has he quarreled with Alfred?” Aliena said nervously.

“I asked the same question. Alfred says not.” Ellen sighed. “I don't suppose he's come to any harm. He's done this before and I daresay he'll do it again. I never taught him to keep regular hours.”

Later in the evening, just before bedtime, Aliena called at Tom's house to see whether Jack had reappeared. He had not. She went to bed worried. Richard was away in Winchester, so she was alone. She kept thinking Jack might have fallen into the river and drowned, or something. How terrible that would be for Ellen: Jack was her only son. Tears came to Aliena's eyes when she imagined Ellen's grief at losing Jack. This is stupid, she thought: I'm crying over someone else's sorrow about something that hasn't happened. She pulled herself together and tried to think of another subject. The surplus cloth was her big problem. Normally she could worry about business half the night, but tonight her mind kept returning to Jack. Suppose he had broken his leg, and was lying in the forest, unable to move?

Eventually she drifted into a restless sleep. She woke at first light, still feeling tired. She threw on her heavy cloak over her nightshirt, and pulled on her fur-lined boots, then went outside to look for him.

He was not in the garden behind the alehouse, where men commonly fell asleep, and were saved from freezing by the heat of the fetid dunghill. She went down to the bridge and walked fearfully along the bank to a bend in the river where debris was washed up. A family of ducks was scavenging among the bits of wood, wornout shoes, rusty discarded knives and rotting meat bones on the beach. Jack was not there, thank God.

She went back up the hill and into the priory close, where the cathedral builders were beginning their day's work. She found Tom in his shed. “Has Jack come back?” she said hopefully.

Tom shook his head. “Not yet.”

As she was going out, the master carpenter came up, looking worried. “All our hammers have gone,” he said to Tom.

“That's funny,” Tom said. “I've been looking for a hammer and can't find one.”

Then Alfred put his head around the door and said: “Where are all the masons' bolsters?”

Tom scratched his head. “It seems as if every hammer on the site has disappeared,” he said in a baffled voice. Then his expression changed, and he said: “That boy Jack is behind this, I'll bet.”

Of course, Aliena thought. Hammers. Felting. The mill.

Without saying what she was thinking, she left Tom's shed and hurried across the priory close, going past the kitchen, to the south-west corner, where a channel diverted from the river drove two mills, one old and the other brand-new. As she had suspected, the wheel of the old mill was turning. She went inside.

What she saw confused and frightened her at first. There was a row of hammers fixed to a horizontal pole. Apparently of their own volition the hammers lifted their heads, like horses looking up from the manger. Then they went down again, all together, and struck simultaneously with a mighty bang that made her heart stop. She gave a cry of shock. The hammers lifted their heads, as if they had heard her cry, then they struck again. They were pounding a length of her loose-woven cloth that lay in an inch or two of water in a shallow wooden trough of the type used by mortar makers on the building site. The hammers were felting the cloth, she realized, and she stopped being frightened, although they still looked disturbingly alive. But how was it done? She saw that the pole on which the hammers were fixed ran parallel with the shaft of the mill wheel. A plank fixed to the shaft went round and round as the shaft turned. When the plank came around, it connected with the handles of the hammers, pushing the handles down so that the heads came up. As the plank continued to turn the handles were released. Then the hammers fell and pounded the cloth in the trough. It was exactly what Jack had talked about that evening: a mill that could felt cloth.

She heard his voice. “The hammers should be weighted so that they fall harder.” She turned around and saw him, looking tired but triumphant. “I think I've solved your problem,” he said, and grinned sheepishly.

“I'm so glad you're all right—we were worried about you!” she said. Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and kissed him. It was a very brief kiss, not much more than a peck; but then, when their lips separated, his arms went around her waist, holding her body gently but firmly against his own, and she found herself looking into his eyes. All she could think of was how happy she was that he was alive and unhurt. She gave him an affectionate squeeze. She was suddenly aware of her own skin: she could feel the roughness of her linen undershirt and the soft fur of her boots, and her nipples tingled as they pressed against his chest.

“You were worried about me?” he said wonderingly.

“Of course! I hardly slept!”

She was smiling happily, but he looked terribly solemn, and after a moment his mood overcame hers, and she felt strangely moved. She could hear her heart beating, and her breath came faster. Behind her, the hammers thudded in unison, shaking the wooden structure of the mill with each concerted blow, and she seemed to feel the vibration deep inside her.

“I'm all right,” he said. “Everything's all right.”

“I'm so glad,” she repeated, and it came out in a whisper.

She saw him close his eyes and bend his face to hers, and then she felt his mouth on her own. His kiss was gentle. He had full lips and a soft adolescent beard. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sensation. His mouth moved against hers, and it seemed natural to part her lips. Her mouth had suddenly become ultra-sensitive, so that she could feel the lightest touch, the tiniest movement. The tip of his tongue caressed the inside of her upper lip. She felt so overwhelmed with happiness that she wanted to cry. She pressed her body against his, crushing her soft breasts against his hard chest, feeling the bones of his hips dig into her belly. She was no longer merely relieved that he was safe, and glad to have him here. Now there was a new emotion. His physical presence filled her with an ecstatic sensation that made her slightly dizzy. Holding his body in her arms, she wanted to touch him more, to feel more of him, to get even closer. She rubbed his back with her hands. She wanted to feel his skin, but his clothes frustrated her. Without thinking, she opened her mouth and pushed her tongue between his lips. He made a small animal sound in the back of his throat, like a muffled moan of delight.