The Pillars of the Earth (146 page)

Waleran’s hauteur was icy. “I say Philip used to have a mistress, when he ran that little priory out in the forest. Then he became prior of Kingsbridge and had to leave the woman behind. She didn’t want the baby if she couldn’t have the father, so she dumped the child on him. Philip, being a sentimental soul, felt obliged to take care of it, so he passed it off as a foundling.”

William shook his head. “Unbelievable. Anyone else, yes. Philip, no.”

Waleran persisted: “If the baby was abandoned, how can he prove where it came from?”

“He can’t,” William acknowledged. He looked across the south transept to where Philip and Jonathan stood together, talking to the bishop of Hereford. “But they don’t even look alike.”

“You don’t look like your mother,” Waleran said. “Thank God.”

“What good is all this?” William said. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Accuse him before an ecclesiastical court,” Waleran replied.

That made a difference. No one who knew Philip would credit Waleran’s accusation for a moment, but a judge who was a stranger to Kingsbridge might find it more plausible. William saw reluctantly that Waleran’s idea was not so stupid after all. As usual, Waleran was shrewder than William. Waleran was looking irritatingly smug, of course. But William was enthused by the prospect of bringing Philip down. “By God,” he said eagerly. “Do you think it could be done?”

“It depends who the judge is. But I may be able to arrange something there. I wonder ...”

William looked across the transept at Philip, triumphant and smiling, with his tall protégé beside him. The vast stained-glass windows threw an enchanted light over them, and they were like figures in a dream. “Fornication and nepotism,” William said gleefully. “My God.”

“If we can make it stick,” Waleran said with relish, “it will be the finish of that damned prior.”

No reasonable judge could possibly find Philip guilty.

The truth was that he had never had to try very hard to resist the temptation of fornication. He knew, from hearing confession, that some monks struggled desperately with fleshly lust, but he was not like that. There had been a time, at the age of about eighteen, when he had suffered impure dreams, but that phase had not lasted long. For most of his life chastity had come easily to him. He had never performed the sexual act and he was now probably too old for it.

However, the Church was taking the accusation very seriously. Philip was to be tried by an ecclesiastical court. An archdeacon from Canterbury would be present. Waleran had wanted the trial to be held at Shiring, but Philip had fought against that, successfully, and it would now be held at Kingsbridge, which was, after all, the cathedral city. Now Philip was clearing his personal possessions out of the prior’s house to make way for the archdeacon, who would be staying here.

Philip knew he was innocent of fornication, and it followed logically that he could not be guilty of nepotism, for a man cannot favor his sons if he has none. Nevertheless he searched his heart to see whether he had done wrong in promoting Jonathan. Just as impure thoughts were a kind of shadow of a graver sin, perhaps favoritism toward a loved orphan was the shadow of nepotism. Monks were supposed to forgo the consolations of family life, yet Jonathan had been like a son to Philip. Philip had made Jonathan cellarer at a young age, and had now promoted him to sub-prior. Did I do that for my own pride and pleasure? he asked himself.

Well, yes, he thought.

He had taken enormous satisfaction from teaching Jonathan, watching him grow, and seeing him learn how to manage priory affairs. But even if these things had not given Philip such intense pleasure, Jonathan would still have been the ablest young administrator in the priory. He was intelligent, devout, imaginative and conscientious. Brought up in the monastery, he knew no other life, and he never hankered after freedom. Philip himself had been raised in an abbey. We monastery orphans make the best monks, he thought.

He put a book into a satchel: Luke’s Gospel, so wise. He had treated Jonathan like a son, but he had not committed any sins worth taking before an ecclesiastical court. The charge was absurd.

Unfortunately, the mere accusation would be damaging. It diminished his moral authority. There would be people who would remember the charge and forget the verdict. Next time Philip stood up and said: “The commandment forbids a man to covet his neighbor’s wife,” some of the congregation would be thinking
But you had your fun when you were young
.

Jonathan burst in, breathing hard. Philip frowned. The sub-prior ought not to burst into rooms panting. Philip was about to launch into a homily on the dignity of monastic officers, when Jonathan said: “Archdeacon Peter is here already!”

“All right, all right,” Philip soothed. “I’ve just about finished, anyway.” He handed Jonathan the satchel. “Take this to the dormitory, and don’t rush everywhere: a monastery is a place of peace and quiet.”

Jonathan accepted the satchel and the rebuke, but he said: “I don’t like the look of the archdeacon.”

“I’m sure he’ll be a just judge, and that’s all we want,” Philip said.

The door opened again, and the archdeacon came in. He was a tall, rangy man of about Philip’s age, with thinning gray hair and a rather superior look on his face. He seemed vaguely familiar.

Philip offered a handshake, saying: “I’m Prior Philip.”

“I know you,” the archdeacon said sourly. “Don’t you remember me?”

The gravelly voice did it. Philip’s heart sank. This was his oldest enemy. “Archdeacon Peter,” he said grimly. “Peter of Wareham.”

“He was a troublemaker,” Philip explained to Jonathan a few minutes later, when they had left the archdeacon to make himself comfortable in the prior’s house. “He would complain that we didn’t work hard enough, or we ate too well, or the services were too short. He said I was indulgent. He wanted to be prior himself, I’m sure. He would have been a disaster, of course. I made him almoner, so that he had to spend half his time away. I did it just to get rid of him. It was best for the priory and best for him, but I’m sure he still hates me for it, even after thirty-five years.” He sighed. “I heard, when you and I visited St-John-in-the-Forest after the great famine, that Peter had gone to Canterbury. And now he’s going to sit in judgment on me.”

They were in the cloisters. The weather was mild and the sun was warm. Fifty boys in three different classes were learning to read and write in the north walk, and the subdued murmur of their lessons floated across the quadrangle. Philip remembered when the school had consisted of five boys and a senile novice-master. He thought of all he had done here: the building of the cathedral; the transformation of the impoverished, run-down priory into a wealthy, busy, influential institution; the enlargement of the town of Kingsbridge. In the church, more than a hundred monks were singing mass. From where he sat he could see the astonishingly beautiful stained-glass windows in the clerestory. At his back, off the east walk, was a stone-built library containing hundreds of books on theology, astronomy, ethics, mathematics, indeed, every branch of knowledge. In the outside world the priory’s lands, managed with enlightened self-interest by monastic officers, fed not just the monks but hundreds of farm workers. Was all that to be taken from him by a lie? Would the prosperous and God-fearing priory be handed over to someone else, a pawn of Bishop Waleran’s such as the slimy Archdeacon Baldwin, or a self-righteous fool such as Peter of Wareham, to be run down to penury and depravity as quickly as Philip had built it up? Would the vast flocks of sheep shrink to a handful of scrawny ewes, the farms return to weed-grown inefficiency, the library become dusty with disuse, the beautiful cathedral sink into damp and disrepair? God helped me to achieve so much, he thought; I can’t believe he intended it to come to nothing.

Jonathan said: “All the same, Archdeacon Peter can’t possibly find you guilty.”

“I think he will,” Philip said heavily.

“In all conscience, how can he?”

“I think he’s been nursing a grievance against me all his life, and this is his chance to prove that I was the sinner and he was the righteous man all along. Somehow Waleran found out about that and made sure Peter was appointed to judge this case.”

“But there’s no proof!”

“He doesn’t need proof. He’ll hear the accusation, and the defense; then he’ll pray for guidance, and he’ll announce his verdict.”

“God may guide him aright.”

“Peter won’t listen to God. He’s never been a listener.”

“What will happen?”

“I’ll be deposed,” Philip said grimly. “They may let me continue here as an ordinary monk, to do penance for my sin, but it’s not likely. More probably they will expel me from the order, to prevent my having any further influence here.”

“What would happen then?”

“There would have to be an election, of course. Unfortunately, royal politics enter into the picture now. King Henry is in dispute with the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, and Archbishop Thomas is in exile in France. Half his archdeacons are with him. The other half, the ones who stayed behind, have sided with the king against their archbishop. Peter obviously belongs to that crowd. Bishop Waleran has also taken the king’s side. Waleran will recommend his choice of prior, backed by the Canterbury archdeacons and the king. It will be hard for the monks here to oppose him.”

“Who do you think it might be?”

“Waleran has someone in mind, rest assured. It could be Archdeacon Baldwin. It might even be Peter of Wareham.”

“We
must
do something to prevent this!” Jonathan said.

Philip nodded. “But everything is against us. There’s nothing we can do to alter the political situation. The only possibility ...”

“What?” Jonathan said impatiently.

The case seemed so hopeless that Philip felt there was no point in toying with desperate ideas: it would excite Jonathan’s optimism only to disappoint him. “Nothing,” Philip said.

“What were you going to say?”

Philip was still working it out. “If there was a way to prove my innocence beyond doubt, it would be impossible for Peter to find me guilty.”

“But what would count as proof?”

“Exactly. You can’t prove a negative. We would have to find your real father.”

Jonathan was instantly enthusiastic. “Yes! That’s it! That’s what we’ll do!”

“Slow down,” Philip said. “I tried at the time. It’s not likely to be any easier so many years later.”

Jonathan was not to be discouraged. “Were there no clues at all to where I might have come from?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid.” Philip was now worried that he had raised hopes in Jonathan which could not be fulfilled. Although the boy had no memories of his parents, the fact that they had abandoned him had always troubled him. Now he thought he might solve the mystery and find some explanation which proved they had loved him really. Philip felt sure this could only lead to frustration.

“Did you question people living nearby?” Jonathan said.

“There was nobody living nearby. That cell is deep in the forest. Your parents probably came from miles away, Winchester perhaps. I’ve been over all this ground already.”

Jonathan persisted. “You didn’t see any travelers in the forest around that time?”

“No.” Philip frowned. Was that true? A stray thought tugged at his memory. The day the baby was found, Philip had left the priory to go to the bishop’s palace, and on his way he had spoken to some people. Suddenly it came back to him. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, Tom Builder and his family were passing through.”

Jonathan was astonished. “You never told me that!”

“It never seemed important. It still doesn’t. I met them a day or two later. I questioned them, and they said they hadn’t seen anyone who might have been the mother or father of an abandoned baby.”

Jonathan was crestfallen. Philip was afraid this whole line of inquiry was going to prove doubly disappointing to him: he would not find out about his parents and he would fail to prove Philip’s innocence. But there was no stopping him now. “What were they doing in the forest, anyway?” he persisted.

“Tom was on his way to the bishop’s palace. He was looking for work. That’s how they ended up here.”

“I want to question them again.”

“Well, Tom and Alfred are dead. Ellen is living in the forest, and only God knows when she will reappear. But you could talk to Jack or Martha.”

“It’s worth a try.”

Perhaps Jonathan was right. He had the energy of youth. Philip had been pessimistic and discouraging. “Go ahead,” he said to Jonathan. “I’m getting old and tired; otherwise I would have thought of it myself. Talk to Jack. It’s a slender thread to hang on to. But it’s our only hope.”

The design of the window had been drawn, full size, and painted, on a huge wooden table which had been washed with ale to prevent the colors from running. The drawing showed the Tree of Jesse, a genealogy of Christ in picture form. Sally picked up a small piece of thick ruby-colored glass and placed it on the design over the body of one of the kings of Israel—Jack was not sure which king: he had never been able to remember the convoluted symbolism of theological pictures. Sally dipped a fine brush in a bowl of chalk ground up in water, and painted the shape of the body onto the glass: shoulders, arms, and the skirt of the robe.

In the fire on the ground beside her table was an iron rod with a wooden handle. She took the rod out of the fire and then, quickly but carefully, she ran the red-hot end of the rod around the outline she had painted. The grass cracked neatly along the line. Her apprentice picked up the piece of glass and began to smooth its edges with a grozing iron.

Jack loved to watch his daughter work. She was quick and precise, her movements economical. As a little girl she had been fascinated by the work of the glaziers Jack had brought over from Paris, and she always said that was what she wanted to do when she grew up. She had stuck by that choice. When people came to Kingsbridge Cathedral for the first time, they were more struck by Sally’s glass than her father’s architecture, Jack thought ruefully.