The Pillars of the Earth (35 page)

The monk carrying him was a cheerful-looking boy of about twenty years, with unruly hair and a big, rather stupid grin. Unlike most of the monks, he did not react to the presence of a woman. He smiled at everyone and then spoke to Cuthbert. “Jonathan needs more milk.”

Tom wanted to take the child in his arms. He tried to freeze his face so that his expression would not betray his emotions. He threw a furtive glance at the children. All they knew was that the abandoned baby had been found by a traveling priest. They did not even know that the priest had taken him to the little monastery in the forest. Now their faces showed nothing but mild curiosity. They had not connected this baby with the one they had left behind.

Cuthbert picked up a ladle and a small jug, and filled the jug from a bucket of milk. Ellen said to the young monk: “May I hold the baby?” She held out her arms and the monk handed the child to her. Tom envied her. He longed to hold that tiny hot bundle close to his heart. Ellen rocked the baby, and he was quiet for a moment.

Cuthbert looked up and said: “Ah. Johnny Eightpence is a fair nursemaid, but he doesn’t have the woman’s touch.”

Ellen smiled at the boy. “Why do they call you Johnny Eightpence?”

Cuthbert answered for him. “Because he’s only eight pence to the shilling,” he said, tapping the side of his head to indicate that Johnny was half-witted. “But he seems to understand the needs of poor dumb creatures better than us wise folk. All part of God’s wider purpose, I’m sure,” he finished vaguely.

Ellen had edged over to Tom, and now she held the baby out to him. She had read his thoughts. He gave her a look of profound gratitude, and took the tiny child in his big hands. He could feel the baby’s heartbeat through the blanket in which it was wrapped. The material was fine: he wondered briefly where the monks had got such soft wool. He held the baby to his chest and rocked. His technique was not as good as Ellen’s, and the child started to cry again, but Tom did not mind: that loud, insistent yell was music to his ears, for it meant that the child he had abandoned was fit and strong. Hard though it was, he felt he had made the right decision in leaving the baby at the monastery.

Ellen asked Johnny: “Where does he sleep?”

Johnny answered for himself this time. “He has a crib in the dormitory with the rest of us.”

“He must wake you all in the night.”

“We get up at midnight anyway, for matins,” Johnny said.

“Of course! I was forgetting that monks’ nights are as sleepless as mothers’.”

Cuthbert handed Johnny the jug of milk. Johnny took the baby from Tom with a practiced one-arm movement. Tom was not ready to give the baby up, but in the monks’ eyes he had no rights at all, so he had to let him go. A moment later Johnny and the baby were gone, and Tom had to resist the impulse to go after them and say
Wait, stop, that’s my son, give him back to me
.
Ellen stood beside him and squeezed his arm in a discreet gesture of sympathy.

Tom realized he had new reason to hope. If he could get work here, he could see baby Jonathan all the time, and it would be almost as if he had never abandoned him. It seemed almost too good to be true, and he did not dare to wish for it.

Cuthbert was looking shrewdly at Martha and Jack, who had both gone big-eyed at the sight of the jug full of creamy milk that Johnny had taken away. “Would the children like some milk?” he asked.

“Yes, please, Father, they would,” Tom said. He would have liked some himself.

Cuthbert ladled milk into two wooden bowls and gave them to Martha and Jack. They both drank quickly, leaving big white rings around their mouths. “Some more?” Cuthbert offered.

“Yes, please,” they replied in unison. Tom looked at Ellen, knowing that she must feel as he did, deeply thankful to see the little ones fed at last.

As Cuthbert refilled the bowls he said casually: “Where have you folks come from?”

“Earlscastle, near Shiring,” said Tom. “We left there yesterday morning.”

“Have you eaten since?”

“No,” Tom said flatly. He knew that Cuthbert’s inquiry was kindly, but he hated to admit that he had been unable to feed his children himself.

“Have some apples to keep you going until suppertime, then,” Cuthbert said, pointing to the barrel near the door.

Alfred, Ellen and Tom went to the barrel while Martha and Jack were drinking their second bowl of milk. Alfred tried to fill his arms with apples. Tom smacked them out of his hands and said in a low voice: “Just take two or three.” He took three.

Tom ate his apples gratefully, and his belly felt a little better, but he could not help wondering how soon supper would be served. Monks generally ate before dark, to save candles, he recalled happily.

Cuthbert was looking hard at Ellen. “Do I know you?” he said eventually.

She looked uneasy. “I don’t think so.”

“You seem familiar,” he said uncertainly.

“I used to live near here as a child,” she said.

“That would be it,” he said. “That’s why I have this feeling that you look older than you should.”

“You must have a very good memory.”

He frowned at her. “Not quite good enough,” he said. “I’m sure there’s something else. ... No matter. Why did you leave Earlscastle?”

“It was attacked, yesterday at dawn, and taken,” Tom replied. “Earl Bartholomew is accused of treason.”

Cuthbert was shocked. “Saints preserve us!” he exclaimed, and suddenly he looked like an old maid frightened by a bull. “Treason!”

There was a footstep outside. Tom turned and saw another monk walk in. Cuthbert said: “This is our new prior.”

Tom recognized the prior. It was Philip, the monk they had met on their way to the bishop’s palace, the one who had given them the delicious cheese. Now everything fell into place: the new prior of Kingsbridge was the old prior of the little cell in the forest, and he had brought Jonathan with him when he came here. Tom’s heart leaped with optimism. Philip was a kindly man, and he had seemed to like and trust Tom. Surely he would give him a job.

Philip recognized him. “Hello, Master Builder,” he said. “You didn’t get much work at the bishop’s palace, then?”

“No, Father. The archdeacon wouldn’t hire me, and the bishop wasn’t there.”

“Indeed he wasn’t—he was in heaven, though we didn’t know it at the time.”

“The bishop is dead?”

“Yes.”

“That’s old news,” Cuthbert butted in impatiently. “Tom and his family have just come from Earlscastle. Earl Bartholomew has been captured and his castle overrun!”

Philip was very still. “Already!” he murmured.

“Already?” Cuthbert repeated. “Why do you say ‘already’?” He seemed fond of Philip but wary of him, like a father whose son has been away to war and has come home with a sword in his belt and a slightly dangerous look in his eye. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

Philip was slightly flustered. “No, not exactly,” he said uncertainly. “I had heard a rumor that Earl Bartholomew was opposed to King Stephen.” He recovered his composure. “We can all be thankful for this,” he announced. “Stephen has promised to protect the Church, whereas Maud might have oppressed us as much as her late father did. Yes, indeed. This is good news.” He looked as pleased as if he had done it himself.

Tom did not want to talk about Earl Bartholomew. “It isn’t good news for me,” he said. “The earl had hired me, the day before, to strengthen the castle’s defenses. I didn’t even get a single day’s pay.”

“What a shame,” said Philip. “Who was it that attacked the castle?”

“Lord Percy Hamleigh.”

“Ah.” Philip nodded, and once again Tom felt his news was only confirming Philip’s expectations.

“You’re making some improvements here, then,” Tom said, trying to bring the subject around to his own interest.

“I’m trying,” Philip said.

“You’ll want to rebuild the tower, I’m sure.”

“Rebuild the tower, repair the roof, pave the floor—yes, I want to do all of that. And you want the job, of course,” he added, apparently having just realized why Tom was here. “I wasn’t thinking. I wish I could hire you. But I couldn’t pay you, I’m afraid. This monastery is penniless.”

Tom felt as if he had been struck by a fist. He had been confident of getting work here—everything had pointed to it. He could hardly believe his ears. He stared at Philip. It really was not credible that the priory had no money. The cellarer had said it was monks doing all the extra work, but even so, a monastery could always borrow money from the Jews. Tom felt as if this were the end of the road for him. Whatever it was that had kept him going all winter now seemed to drain out of him, and he felt weak and spineless. I can’t go on, he thought; I’m finished.

Philip saw his distress. “I can offer you supper, and a place to sleep, and some breakfast in the morning,” he said.

Tom felt bitterly angry. “I’ll accept it,” he said, “but I’d rather earn it.”

Philip raised his eyebrows at the note of anger, but he spoke mildly. “Ask God—that’s not begging, it’s prayer.” Then he went out.

The others looked a little scared, and Tom realized that his anger must be showing. Their staring at him annoyed him. He went out of the storeroom a few steps behind Philip, and stood in the courtyard, looking at the big old church, trying to control his feelings.

After a moment Ellen and the children followed him out. Ellen put her arm around his waist in a comforting gesture, which made the novices whisper and nudge one another. Tom ignored them. “I’ll pray,” he said sourly. “I’ll pray for a thunderbolt to strike the church and level it to the ground.”

In the last two days Jack had learned to fear the future.

During his short life he had never had to think farther ahead than tomorrow; but if he had, he would have known what to expect. One day was much like another in the forest, and the seasons changed slowly. Now he did not know, from day to day, where he would be, what he would do or whether he would eat.

The worst part of it was feeling hungry. Jack had been secretly eating grass and leaves, to try to ease the pangs, but they gave him a different kind of stomachache and made him feel peculiar. Martha often cried because she was so hungry. Jack and Martha always walked together. She looked up to him, and nobody had ever done that before. Being helpless to relieve her suffering was worse than his own hunger.

If they had still been living in the cave he would have known where to go to kill ducks, or find nuts, or steal eggs; but in towns and villages, and on the unfamiliar roads between them, he was at a loss. All he knew was that Tom had to find work.

They spent the afternoon in the guesthouse. It was a simple one-room building with a dirt floor and a fireplace in the middle, exactly like the houses peasants lived in, but Jack, who had always lived in a cave, thought it was marvelous. He was curious about how the house was made, and Tom told him. Two young trees had been chopped down, trimmed, and leaned against one another at an angle; then two more had been placed in the same way at four yards distance; and the two triangles thus formed were linked, at their tops, by a ridgepole. Parallel with the ridgepole, light slats were fixed, joining the trees, forming a sloping roof that reached to the ground. Rectangular frames of woven reeds, called hurdles, were laid over the slats, and made waterproof with mud. The gable ends were made of stakes driven into the ground, the chinks between them filled with mud. There was a door in one gable end. There were no windows.

Jack’s mother spread fresh straw on the floor and Jack lit a fire with the flint he always carried. When the others were out of earshot he asked Mother why the prior would not hire Tom, when there was obviously work to be done. “It seems he would rather save his money, so long as the church is still usable,” she said. “If the whole church had fallen down, they would be forced to rebuild it, but as it’s just the tower, they can live with the damage.”

When the daylight began to soften into dusk, a kitchen hand came to the guesthouse with a cauldron of pottage and a loaf as long as a man is tall, all just for them. The pottage was made with vegetables and herbs and meat bones, and its surface glistened with fat. The loaf was horsebread, made with all kinds of grain, rye and barley and oats, plus dried peas and beans; it was the cheapest bread, Alfred said, but to Jack, who had never eaten bread until a few days ago, it was delicious. Jack ate until his belly ached. Alfred ate until there was nothing left.

As they sat by the fire trying to digest their feast, Jack said to Alfred: “Why did the tower fall down, anyway?”

“Probably it was struck by lightning,” said Alfred. “Or there might have been a fire.”

“But there’s nothing to burn,” Jack said. “It’s all made of stone.”

“The
roof
isn’t stone, stupid,” Alfred said scornfully. “The roof is made of wood.”

Jack thought about that for a moment. “And if the roof burns, does the building always fall down?”

Alfred shrugged. “Sometimes.”

They sat in silence for a while. Tom and Jack’s mother were talking in low voices on the other side of the fireplace. Jack said: “It’s funny about that baby.”

“What’s funny?” Alfred said after a moment.

“Well, your baby was lost in the forest, miles away, and now here’s a baby at the priory.”

Neither Alfred nor Martha seemed to think the coincidence very remarkable, and Jack promptly forgot about it.

The monks all went to bed immediately after supper, and they did not provide candles for the humbler sort of guest, so Tom’s family sat and looked at the fire until it went out, then lay down on the straw.

Jack stayed awake, thinking. It had occurred to him that if the cathedral were to burn down tonight, all their problems would be solved. The prior would hire Tom to rebuild the church, they would all live here in this fine house, and they would have meat-bone pottage and horsebread for ever and ever.

If I were Tom, he thought, I’d set fire to the church myself. I’d get up quietly while everyone else was sleeping, and sneak into the church, and start a fire with my flint, then creep back here while it was spreading, and pretend to be asleep when the alarm was raised. And when the people started throwing buckets of water on the flames, as they did when the stables burned at Earl Bartholomew’s castle, I’d join in with them, as if I wanted to put out the fire just as much as they did.