The Pillars of the Earth (26 page)

The Epiphany service ended with the announcement of the death of the bishop. William hoped this news would at last overshadow the sensation of the canceled marriage. The monks left in procession, and there was a buzz of excited conversation as the congregation headed for the exits. Many of them had material as well as spiritual ties to the bishop—as his tenants, or subtenants, or as employees on his lands—and everyone was interested in the question of who would succeed him, and whether the successor would make any changes. The death of a great lord was always perilous for those ruled by him.

As William followed his parents down the nave he was surprised to see Archdeacon Waleran coming toward them. He moved briskly through the congregation, like a big black dog in a field of cows; and like cows the people looked nervously over their shoulders at him and moved a step or two out of his way. He ignored the peasants, but spoke a few words to each of the gentry. When he reached the Hamleighs he greeted William’s father, ignored William, and turned his attention on Mother. “Such a shame about the marriage,” he said.

William flushed. Did the fool think he was being
polite
with his commiserations?

Mother was no more keen to talk about it than William was. “I’m not one to bear a grudge,” she lied.

Waleran ignored that. “I’ve heard something about Earl Bartholomew that may interest you,” he said. His voice went quieter, so that he could not be overheard, and William had to strain to catch his words. “It seems the earl will not renege on his vows to the dead king.”

Father said: “Bartholomew always was a stiff-necked hypocrite.”

Waleran looked pained. He wanted them to listen, not comment. “Bartholomew and Earl Robert of Gloucester will not accept King Stephen, who is the choice of the Church and the barons, as you know.”

William wondered why an archdeacon was telling a lord about this routine baronial squabble. Father was thinking the same thought, for he said: “But there’s nothing the earls can do about it.”

Mother shared Waleran’s impatience with Father’s interjected comments. “
Listen
,”
she hissed at him.

Waleran said: “What I hear is that they’re planning to mount a rebellion and make Maud queen.”

William could not believe his ears. Had the archdeacon really made that foolhardy statement, in his quiet, matter-of-fact murmur, right here in the nave of Kingsbridge Cathedral? A man could be hanged for it, true or false.

Father was startled, too, but Mother said thoughtfully: “Robert of Gloucester is the half brother of Maud. ... It makes sense.”

William wondered how she could be so down-to-earth about such a scandalous piece of news. But she was very clever, and she was almost always right about everything.

Waleran said: “Anyone who could get rid of Earl Bartholomew, and stop the rebellion before it gets started, would earn the eternal gratitude of King Stephen and the Holy Mother Church.”

“Indeed?” said Father in a dazed tone, but Mother was nodding wisely.

“Bartholomew is expected back at home tomorrow.” Waleran looked up as he said this, and caught someone’s eye. He looked back at Mother and said: “I thought you, of all people, would be interested.” Then he moved away and greeted someone else.

William stared after him. Was that really all he was going to say?

William’s parents moved on, and he followed them through the great arched doorway into the open air. All three of them were silent. William had heard a good deal of talk, over the past five weeks, about who would be king, but the matter had seemed to be settled when Stephen was crowned at Westminster Abbey three days before Christmas. Now, if Waleran was right, the matter was an open question once again. But why had Waleran made a point of telling the Hamleighs?

They started across the green to the stables. As soon as they got clear of the crowd outside the church porch, and could no longer be overheard, Father said excitedly: “What a piece of good fortune—the very man who insulted the family, caught out in high treason!”

William did not see why that was such good fortune, but Mother obviously did, for she nodded agreement.

Father went on: “We can arrest him at the point of a sword, and hang him from the nearest tree.”

William had not thought of that, but now he saw it in a flash. If Bartholomew was a traitor, it was all right to kill him. “We can take our revenge,” William burst out. “And instead of being punished for it we’ll get a reward from the king!” They would be able to hold their heads high again, and—

“You stupid fools,” Mother said with sudden viciousness. “You blind, brainless idiots. So you would hang Bartholomew from the nearest tree. Shall I tell you what would happen then?”

Neither of them said anything. It was wiser not to respond to her questions when she was in this frame of mind.

She said: “Robert of Gloucester would deny there had been any plot, and he would embrace King Stephen and swear loyalty; and there would be the end of it, except that you two would be hanged as murderers.”

William shuddered. The idea of being hanged terrified him. He had nightmares about it. However, he could see that Mother was right: the king might believe, or pretend to believe, that no one could have the temerity to rebel against him; and he would think nothing of sacrificing a couple of lives for credibility.

Father said: “You’re right. We’ll truss him up like a pig for the slaughter, and carry him alive to the king at Winchester, and denounce him there, and claim our reward.”

“Why don’t you
think
?”
said Mother contemptuously. She was very tense, and William could see that she was as excited about all this as Father was, but in a different way. “Wouldn’t Archdeacon Waleran like to take a traitor trussed to the king?” she said. “Doesn’t he want a reward for himself—don’t you know that he lusts with all his heart to be bishop of Kingsbridge? Why has he given you the privilege of making the arrest? Why did he contrive to meet us in church, as if by accident, instead of coming to see us at Hamleigh? Why was our conversation so short and indirect?”

She paused rhetorically, as if for an answer, but both William and Father knew that she did not really want one. William recalled that priests were not supposed to see bloodshed, and considered the possibility that perhaps that might be why Waleran did not want to be involved in arresting Bartholomew; but on further reflection he realized that Waleran had no such scruples.

“I’ll tell you why,” Mother went on. “Because he’s not sure that Bartholomew is a traitor. His information is unreliable. I can’t guess where he got it—perhaps he overheard a drunken conversation, or intercepted an ambiguous message, or spoke with an untrustworthy spy. In any case he’s not willing to stick his neck out. He won’t accuse Earl Bartholomew of treason openly, in case the charge should turn out to be false, and Waleran himself be branded a slanderer. He wants someone else to take the risk, and do the dirty work for him; and then when it is over, if treason should be proved, he will step forward and take his share of the credit; but if Bartholomew should turn out to be innocent, Waleran will simply never admit that he said what he said to us today.”

It seemed obvious when she put it like that. But without her, William and his father would have fallen right into Waleran’s trap. They would have willingly acted as Waleran’s agents and taken the risks for him. Mother’s political judgment was acute.

Father said: “Do you mean we must just forget about this?”

“Certainly not.” Her eyes glittered. “It’s still a chance to destroy the people who have humiliated us.” A groom held her horse ready. She took the reins and waved him away, but she did not mount immediately. She stood beside the horse, patting its neck reflectively, and spoke in a low voice. “We need evidence of the conspiracy, so that no one will be able to deny it after we’ve made our accusation. We’ll have to get that evidence by stealth, without revealing what we’re looking for. Then, when we have it, we can arrest Earl Bartholomew and take him to the king. Confronted with proof, Bartholomew will confess, and beg for mercy. Then we ask for our reward.”

“And deny that Waleran helped us,” added Father.

Mother shook her head. “Let him have his share of the glory, and his reward. Then he will be indebted to us. That can’t do us anything but good.”

“But how shall we go about finding evidence of the plot?” said Father anxiously.

“We’ll have to find a way to look around Bartholomew’s castle,” Mother said with a frown. “It won’t be easy. Nobody would credit us making a social call—everyone knows we hate Bartholomew.”

William was struck by a thought. “I could go,” he said.

His parents were both a little startled. Mother said: “You’d arouse less suspicion than your father, I suppose. But what pretext would you have?”

William had thought of that. “I could go to see Aliena,” he said, and his pulse raced at the idea. “I could beg her to reconsider her decision. After all, she doesn’t really know me. She misjudged me when we met. I could make her a good husband. Perhaps she just needs to be wooed a little harder.” He gave what he hoped was a cynical smile, so that they would not know that he meant every word.

“A perfectly credible excuse,” said Mother. She looked hard at William. “By Christ, I wonder whether the boy might have some of his mother’s brains after all.”

William felt optimistic, for the first time in months, when he set out for Earlscastle on the day after Epiphany. It was a clear, cold morning. The north wind stung his ears and the frosted grass crunched under the hooves of his war-horse. He wore a gray cloak of fine Flanders cloth trimmed with rabbit fur over a scarlet tunic.

He was accompanied by Walter, his groom. When William was twelve years old Walter had become his tutor in arms, and had taught him to ride, hunt, fence and wrestle. Now Walter was his groom, companion and bodyguard. He was as tall as William but broader, a formidable barrel of a man. Nine or ten years older than William, he was young enough to go drinking and chasing girls but old enough to keep the boy out of trouble when necessary. He was William’s closest friend.

William was strangely excited by the prospect of seeing Aliena again, even though he knew he faced rejection and humiliation once more. That glimpse of her in Kingsbridge Cathedral, when for an instant he had looked into her dark, dark eyes, had rekindled his desire for her. He looked forward eagerly to talking to her, getting close to her, seeing her mass of curls tumble and shake as she talked, watching her body move under her dress.

At the same time, the opportunity for revenge had sharpened William’s hatred. He was tense with excitement at the thought that now he might wipe out the humiliation he and his family had suffered.

He wished he had a clearer idea of what he was looking for. He was fairly confident he would find out whether Waleran’s story was true, for there would surely be signs of preparation for war at the castle—horses being mustered, weapons being cleaned, food being stockpiled—even though the activity would naturally be masked as something else, preparations for an expedition perhaps, to deceive the casual observer. However, convincing himself of the existence of a plot was not the same as finding proof. William could not think of anything that would count as proof. He planned to keep his eyes open and hope that something would suggest itself. This was not much of a plan, however, and he suffered a nagging worry that the opportunity for revenge might yet slip through his fingers.

As he came nearer he began to feel tense. He wondered whether he might be refused admittance to the castle, and he suffered a moment of panic, until he realized how unlikely it was: the castle was a public place, and for the earl to close it to the local gentry would be as good as an announcement that treachery was afoot.

Earl Bartholomew lived a few miles from the town of Shiring. The castle of Shiring itself was occupied by the sheriff of the county, so the earl had a castle of his own outside the town. The small village that had grown up around the castle walls was known as Earlscastle. William had been there before, but now he looked at it through the eyes of an attacker.

There was a wide, deep moat in the shape of the number eight, with the upper circle smaller than the lower. The earth that had been dug out to form the moat was piled up inside the twin circles, forming ramparts.

At the foot of the eight was a bridge across the moat and a gap in the earth wall, giving admittance to the lower circle. This was the only entrance. There was no way into the upper circle except by going through the lower circle and crossing another bridge over the moat that divided the two circles. The upper circle was the inner sanctum.

As William and Walter trotted across the open fields that surrounded the castle they could see a lot of coming and going. Two men-at-arms crossed the bridge on fast horses and rode off in different directions, and a group of four horsemen preceded William across the bridge as he and Walter entered.

William noted that the last section of the bridge could be drawn up into the massive stone gatehouse that formed the entrance to the castle. There were stone towers at intervals all around the earth wall, so that every part of the perimeter could be covered by defending archers. To take this castle by frontal assault would be a long and bloody business, and the Hamleighs could not muster enough men to be sure of success, William concluded gloomily.

Today, of course, the castle was open for business. William gave his name to the sentry in the gatehouse and was admitted without further ado. Within the lower circle, shielded from the outside world by the earth walls, was the usual range of domestic buildings: stables, kitchens, workshops, a privy tower and a chapel.

A sense of excitement was in the air. The grooms, squires, servants and maids all walked briskly and talked loudly, calling greetings to one another and making jokes. To an unsuspecting mind the excitement and the coming and going might be no more than a normal reaction to the return of the master, but to William it seemed more than that.

He left Walter at the stable with the horses and crossed to the far side of the compound where, exactly opposite the gatehouse, there was a bridge across the moat to the upper circle. When he had crossed the bridge he was challenged by another guard in another gatehouse. This time he was asked his business, and he said: “I’ve come to see the Lady Aliena.”