The Pillars of the Earth (144 page)

Looking around, Aliena realized that year by year Philip’s house was slowly becoming more comfortable. It was still bare by the standards of an earl’s private quarters in a castle, say, but it was not as austere as it had once been. In front of the little altar in the corner there was now a small rug, to save the prior’s knees during the long nights of prayer; and on the wall behind the altar hung a jeweled silver crucifix that must have been a costly gift. It would do Philip no harm to be easier on himself as he got older, Aliena thought. Perhaps he would be a little easier on others too.

A few moments later Philip came in, with a flustered-looking Richard in tow. Richard began speaking immediately. “William can’t do this, it’s mad! I found Alfred trying to rape my sister—he had a knife in his hand—he almost killed me!”

“Calm down,” Philip said. “Let’s talk about this quietly, and try calmly to determine what the dangers are, if any. Why don’t we all take a seat?”

Richard sat down, but he went on talking. “Dangers? There are no dangers. A sheriff can’t imprison an earl for anything, even murder.”

“He’s going to try,” Philip said. “He’ll have men waiting outside the priory.”

Richard made a dismissive gesture. “I can get past William’s men blindfold. They’re no problem. Jack can be waiting for me outside the town wall with a horse.”

“And when you reach Earlscastle?” said Philip.

“Same thing. I can sneak past William’s men. Or have my own men come out to meet me.”

“That sounds satisfactory,” said Philip. “And what then?”

“Then nothing,” said Richard. “What can William do?”

“Well, he still has a royal writ that summons you to answer a charge of murder. He’ll try to arrest you anytime you leave the castle.”

“I’ll go everywhere escorted.”

“And when you hold court, in Shiring and other places?”

“Same thing.”

“But will anyone abide by your decisions, knowing that you yourself are a fugitive from the law?”

“They’d better,” Richard said darkly. “They should remember how William enforced his decisions when he was the earl.”

“They may not be as frightened of you as they were of William. They may think you’re not as bloodthirsty and evil. I hope they would be right.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Aliena frowned. It was not like Philip to be so pessimistic—unless he had an ulterior motive. She suspected that he was laying the groundwork for some scheme he had up his sleeve. I’d bet money, she thought, that the quarry will come into this somehow.

“My main worry is the king,” Philip was saying. “In refusing to answer the charge, you’re defying the crown. A year ago I would have said go ahead and defy it. But now that the war is over, it won’t be so easy for earls to do as they please.”

Jack said: “It looks as if you’ll have to answer the charge, Richard.”

“He can’t do that,” Aliena said. “He’s got no hope of justice.”

“She’s right,” Philip said. “The case would be heard in the royal court. The facts are already known: Alfred tried to force himself upon Aliena, Richard came in, they fought, and Richard killed Alfred. Everything depends on the interpretation. And with William, a loyal supporter of King Stephen, making the complaint, and Richard being one of Duke Henry’s greatest allies, the verdict will probably be guilty. Why did King Stephen sign the writ? Presumably because he’s decided to take revenge on Richard for fighting against him. The death of Alfred provides him with a perfect excuse.”

Aliena said: “We must appeal to Duke Henry to intervene.”

It was Richard who looked dubious now. “I wouldn’t like to rely on him. He’s in Normandy. He might write a letter of protest, but what else could he do? Conceivably he could cross the channel with an army, but then he would be in breach of the peace pact, and I don’t think he’d risk that for me.”

Aliena felt miserable and frightened. “Oh, Richard, you’re caught in a terrible web, and it’s all because you saved me.”

He gave her his most charming grin. “I’d do it again, too, Allie.”

“I know.” He meant it. For all his faults, he was brave. It seemed unfair that he should be confronted with such an intractable problem so soon after he succeeded to the earldom. As earl he was a disappointment to Aliena—a terrible disappointment—but he did not deserve this.

“Well, what a choice,” he said. “I can stay here in the priory until Duke Henry becomes king, or hang for murder. I’d become a monk if you monks didn’t eat so much fish.”

“There might be another way out,” said Philip.

Aliena looked at him eagerly. She had suspected that he was hatching a plot, and she would be grateful to him if he could resolve Richard’s dilemma.

“You could do penance for the killing,” Philip went on.

“Would it involve eating fish?” Richard said flippantly.

“I’m thinking about the Holy Land,” Philip said.

They all went quiet. Palestine was ruled by the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, a Christian of French origin. It was constantly under attack by neighboring Muslim countries, especially Egypt to the south and Damascus to the east. To go there, a journey of six months or a year, and join the armies fighting to defend the Christian kingdom, was indeed the kind of penance a man might do to purge his soul of a killing. Aliena felt a qualm of anxiety: not everybody came back from the Holy Land. But she had been worrying about Richard in wars for years, and the Holy Land was probably no more dangerous than England. She would just have to fret. She was used to it.

“The king of Jerusalem always needs men,” Richard said. Every few years emissaries from the pope would tour the country, telling tales of battle and glory in the defense of Christendom, trying to inspire young men to go and fight in the Holy Land. “But I’ve only just come into my earldom,” he said. “And who would be in charge of my lands while I was away?”

“Aliena,” said Philip.

Aliena suddenly felt breathless. Philip was proposing that she should take the place of the earl, and rule as her father had done. ... The proposal stunned her for a moment, but as soon as she recovered her senses she knew it was right. When a man went to the Holy Land his domains were normally looked after by his wife. There was no reason why a sister should not fulfill the same role for an unmarried earl. And she would run the earldom the way she had always known it ought to be run, with justice and vision and imagination. She would do all the things Richard had so dismally failed to do. Her heart raced as she thought the idea through. She would try out new ideas, plowing with horses instead of oxen, and planting spring crops of oats and peas on fallow land. She would clear new lands for planting, establish new markets, and open the quarry to Philip after all this time—

He had thought of that, of course. Of all the clever schemes Philip had dreamed up over the years, this was probably the most ingenious. At one stroke he solved three problems: he got Richard off the hook, he put a competent ruler in charge of the earldom, and he got his quarry at last.

Philip said: “I’ve no doubt that King Baldwin would welcome you—especially if you went with such of your knights and men who feel inspired to join you. It would be your own small crusade.” He paused a moment to let that thought sink in. “William couldn’t touch you over there, of course,” he went on. “And you would return a hero. Nobody would dare try to hang you then.”

“The Holy Land,” Richard said, and there was a death-or-glory light in his eyes. It was the right thing for him, Aliena thought. He was no good at governing the earldom. He was a soldier, and he wanted to fight. She saw the faraway look on his face. In his mind he was there already, defending a sandy redoubt, sword in hand, a red cross on his shield, fighting off a heathen horde under the baking sun.

He was happy.

The whole town came to the wedding.

Aliena was surprised. Most people treated her and Jack as more or less married already, and she had thought they would consider the wedding a mere formality. She had expected a small group of friends, mostly people of her own age and Jack’s fellow master craftsmen. But every man, woman and child in Kingsbridge turned out. She was touched by their presence. And they all looked so
happy
for her. She realized that they had sympathized with her predicament all these years, even though they had tactfully refrained from mentioning it to her; and now they shared her joy in finally marrying the man she had loved for so long. She walked through the streets on her brother Richard’s arm, dazzled by the smiles that followed her, drunk with happiness.

Richard was leaving for the Holy Land tomorrow. King Stephen had accepted this solution—indeed, he seemed relieved to be rid of Richard so easily. Sheriff William was furious, of course, for his aim had been to dispossess Richard of the earldom, and now he had lost all chance of doing that. Richard himself still had that faraway look in his eyes: he could hardly wait to be gone.

This was not the way her father had intended things to turn out, she thought as she entered the priory close: Richard fighting in a distant land and Aliena herself playing the role of earl. However, she no longer felt obliged to run her life according to her father’s wishes. He had been dead for seventeen years, and anyway, she knew something that he had not understood: that she would be a far better earl than Richard.

She had already taken the reins of power. The castle servants were lazy after years of slack management and she had smartened them up. She had reorganized the stores, had the great hall painted, and cleaned out the bakehouse and the brewery. The kitchen had been so filthy that she had burned it down and built a new one. She had started to pay out the weekly wages herself, as a sign that she was in charge; and she had dismissed three men-at-arms for persistent drunkenness.

She had also ordered a new castle to be built an hour’s ride from Kingsbridge. Earlscastle was too far from the cathedral. Jack had drawn a design for the new place. They would move in as soon as the keep was built. Meanwhile, they would split their time between Earlscastle and Kingsbridge.

They had already spent several nights together in Aliena’s old room at Earlscastle, far from Philip’s disapproving gaze. They had been like honeymooners, swamped by insatiable physical passion. Perhaps it was because for the first time ever they had a bedroom with a door they could lock. Privacy was an extravagance of lords: everyone else slept and made love downstairs in the communal hall. Even couples who lived in a house were always liable to be seen by their children, or relatives, or neighbors dropping by: people locked their doors when they were out, not when they were in. Aliena had never been dissatisfied with that, but now she had discovered the special thrill of knowing you could do anything you liked without the risk of being seen. She thought of some of the things she and Jack had done in the past two weeks, and she blushed.

Jack was waiting for her in the partly built nave of the cathedral, with Martha and Tommy and Sally. At weddings, the couple normally exchanged vows in the church porch, then went inside for the mass. Today the first bay of the nave would serve as porch. Aliena was glad they were getting married in the church Jack was building. It was as much a part of Jack as the clothes he wore or the way he made love. His cathedral was going to be like him: graceful, inventive, cheerful, and totally unlike anything that had gone before.

She looked lovingly at him. He was thirty years old. He was such a handsome man, with his mane of red hair and his sparkling blue eyes. He had been a very ugly boy, she remembered: she had thought him somewhat beneath her notice. But he had fallen in love with her at the very start, he said; and he still winced when he remembered how they had all laughed at him because he said he had never had a father. It was nearly twenty years ago. Twenty years ...

She might never have seen Jack again had it not been for Prior Philip, who now entered the church from the cloisters and came smiling into the nave. He looked genuinely thrilled to be marrying them at last. She thought of her first meeting with him. She recalled vividly the despair she had felt when the wool merchant tried to cheat her, after all the effort and heartbreak that had gone into amassing that sack of fleeces; and her overwhelming gratitude to the young black-haired monk who had saved her and said: “I’ll buy your wool any time. ...” His hair was gray now.

He had saved her, then he had almost destroyed her, by forcing Jack to choose between her and the cathedral. He was a hard man on questions of right and wrong; a bit like her father. However, he had wanted to perform the marriage service.

Ellen had cursed Aliena’s first wedding, and the curse had worked. Aliena was glad. If her marriage to Alfred had not been completely insupportable she might be living with him still. It was odd to reflect on what might have been: it gave her chills, like bad dreams and dreadful imaginings. She recalled the pretty, sexy Arab girl in Toledo who had fallen in love with Jack: what if he had married her? Aliena would have arrived in Toledo, with her baby in her arms, to find Jack in the lap of domesticity, sharing his body and his mind with someone else. The thought was horrifying.

She listened to him mumbling the Paternoster. It seemed amazing, now, to think that when she came to live in Kingsbridge she had paid no more attention to him than to the grain merchant’s cat. But he had noticed her: he had loved her secretly all those years. How patient he had been! He had watched as the younger sons of the county gentry came to court her, one by one, and went away again disappointed or offended or defiant. He had seen—clever, clever boy that he was—that she could not be won by wooing; and he had approached her sidelong, as a friend rather than a lover, meeting her in the woods and telling her stories and making her love him without her noticing. She remembered that first kiss, so light and casual, except that it had burned her lips for weeks afterward. She remembered the second kiss even more vividly. Every time she heard the rumble of the fulling mill she remembered the dark, unfamiliar, unwelcome surge of lust that she had felt.

One of the abiding regrets of her life was the way she had turned cold after that. Jack had loved her totally and honestly, and she had been so frightened that she had turned away, pretending she did not care for him. It had hurt him deeply; and although he had continued to love her, and the wound had healed, it left a scar, as deep wounds do; and sometimes she saw that scar, in the way he looked at her when they quarreled and she spoke coldly to him, and his eyes seemed to say: Yes, I know you, you can be cold, you can hurt me, I must be on my guard.