The Pillars of the Earth (64 page)

He knew Ellen had really liked living with him, despite all their trials. She liked his body and she liked his mind. She would want to come back to him.

Whether he would be able to square things with Prior Philip was another matter. Ellen had insulted Philip’s religion rather decisively. It was hard to imagine anything more offensive to a prior than what she had done. Tom had not yet solved that problem.

Meanwhile, all his intellectual energy was employed in planning the cathedral. Otto and his team of stonecutters would build a rough lodge for themselves at the quarry, where they could sleep at night. When they were settled in, they would build real houses, and those who were married would bring their families to live with them.

Of all the building crafts, quarrying required the least skill and the most muscle. The master quarryman did the brainwork: he decided which zones would be mined and in what order; he arranged for ladders and lifting gear; if a sheer face was to be worked he would design scaffolding; he made sure there was a constant supply of tools coming from the smithy. Actually digging out the stones was relatively simple. The quarryman would use an iron-headed pickax to make an initial groove in the rock, then deepen it with a hammer and chisel. When the groove was big enough to weaken the rock, he would drive a wooden wedge into it. If he had judged his rock rightly, it would split exactly where he wanted.

Laborers removed the stones from the quarry, either carrying them on stretchers or lifting them with a rope attached to a huge winding wheel. In the lodge, stonecutters with axes would hack the stones roughly into the shape specified by the master builder. Accurate carving and shaping would be done at Kingsbridge, of course.

The biggest problem would be transport. The quarry was a day’s journey from the building site, and a carter would probably charge fourpence a trip—and he could not carry more than eight or nine of the big stones without breaking his cart or killing his horse. As soon as the quarrymen were settled in, Tom had to explore the area and see whether there were any waterways that could be used to shorten the journey.

They had set off from Kingsbridge at daybreak. As they walked through the forest, the trees arching over the road made Tom think of the piers of the cathedral he would build. The new leaves were just coming out. Tom had always been taught to decorate the cushion capitals on top of the piers with scrolls or zigzags, but now it occurred to him that decorations in the shape of leaves would look rather striking.

They made good time, so that by midafternoon they were in the vicinity of the quarry. To his surprise, Tom heard in the distance the sound of metal clanging on rock, as if someone was working there. Technically the quarry belonged to the earl of Storing, Percy Hamleigh, but the king had given Kingsbridge Priory the right to mine it for the cathedral. Perhaps, Tom speculated, Earl Percy intended to work the quarry for his own benefit at the same time as the priory worked it. The king probably had not specifically prohibited that, but it would cause a lot of inconvenience.

As they drew nearer, Otto, a dark-skinned man with a rough manner, frowned at the sound, but he said nothing. The other men muttered to one another uneasily. Tom ignored them but he walked faster, impatient to find out what was going on.

The road curved through a patch of woodland and ended at the base of a hill. The hill itself was the quarry, and a huge bite had been taken out of its side by past quarry men. Tom’s initial impression was that it would be easy to work: a hill was bound to be better than a pit, for it was always less trouble to lower stones from a height than to lift them out of a hole.

The quarry was being worked, no question of that. There was a lodge at the foot of the hill, a sturdy scaffold reaching twenty feet or more up the scarred hillside, and a stack of stones waiting to be collected. Tom could see at least ten quarrymen. Ominously, there were a couple of hard-faced men-at-arms lounging outside the lodge, throwing stones at a barrel.

“I don’t like the look of this,” said Otto.

Tom did not like it either, but he pretended to be unperturbed. He marched into the quarry as if he owned it, and walked swiftly toward the two men-at-arms. They scrambled to their feet with the startled, faintly guilty air of sentries who have been on guard for too many uneventful days. Tom quickly looked over their weapons: each had a sword and a dagger, and they wore heavy leather jerkins, but they had no armor. Tom himself had a mason’s hammer hanging from his belt. He was in no position to get into a fight. He walked straight at the two men without speaking, then at the last minute turned aside and walked around them, and continued on to the lodge. They looked at one another, unsure what to do: if Tom had been smaller, or had not had a hammer, they might have been quicker to stop him, but now it was too late.

Tom went into the lodge. It was a spacious wood building with a fireplace. Clean tools hung around the walls and there was a big stone in the corner for sharpening them. Two stonecutters stood at a massive wooden bench called a banker, trimming stones with axes. “Greetings, brothers,” Tom said, using the form of address of one craftsman to another. “Who’s the master here?”

“I’m the master quarryman,” said one of them. “I’m Harold of Shiring.”

“I’m the master builder at Kingsbridge Cathedral. My name is Tom.”

“Greetings, Tom Builder. What are you here for?”

Tom studied Harold for a moment before answering. He was a pale, dusty man with small dusty-green eyes, which he narrowed when he spoke, as if he were always blinking away stone dust. He leaned casually on the banker, but he was not as relaxed as he pretended. He was nervous, wary and apprehensive. He knows exactly why I’m here, Tom thought. “I’ve brought my master quarryman to work here, of course.”

The two men-at-arms had followed Tom in, and Otto and his team had come in behind them. Now one or two of Harold’s men also crowded in, curious to see what the fuss was about.

Harold said: “The quarry is owned by the earl. If you want to take stone you’ll have to see him.”

“No, I won’t,” Tom said. “When the king gave the quarry to Earl Percy, he also gave Kingsbridge Priory the right to take stone. We don’t need any further permission.”

“Well, we can’t all work it, can we?”

“Perhaps we can,” said Tom. “I wouldn’t want to deprive your men of employment. There’s a whole hill of rock—enough for two cathedrals and more. We should be able to find a way to manage the quarry so that we can all cut stone here.”

“I can’t agree to that,” said Harold. “I’m employed by the earl.”

“Well, I’m employed by the prior of Kingsbridge, and my men start work here tomorrow morning, whether you like it or not.”

One of the men-at-arms spoke up then. “You won’t be working here tomorrow or any other day.”

Until this moment Tom had been clinging to the idea that although Percy was violating the spirit of the royal edict by mining the quarry himself, if he was pushed he would adhere to the letter of the agreement, and permit the priory to take stone. But this man-at-arms had obviously been instructed to turn the priory’s quarrymen away. That was a different matter. Tom realized, with sinking spirits, that he was not going to get any stone without a fight.

The man-at-arms who had spoken was a short, stocky fellow of about twenty-five years, with a pugnacious expression. He looked stupid but stubborn—the hardest type to reason with. Tom gave him a challenging look and said: “Who are you?”

“I’m a bailiff for the earl of Shiring. He’s told me to guard this quarry, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“And how do you propose to do it?”

“With this sword.” He touched the hilt of the weapon at his belt.

“And what do you think the king will do to you when you’re brought before him for breaking his peace?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“But there are only two of you,” Tom said in a reasonable tone of voice. “We’re seven men and four boys, and we have the king’s permission to work here. If we kill you, we won’t hang.”

Both men-at-arms looked thoughtful, but before Tom could press his advantage, Otto spoke. “Just a minute,” he said to Tom. “I brought my people here to cut stones, not fight.”

Tom’s heart sank. If the quarrymen were not prepared to make a stand, there was no hope. “Don’t be so timid!” he said. “Are you going to let yourselves be deprived of work by a couple of bully-boys?”

Otto looked surly. “I’m not going to fight armed men,” he replied. “I’ve been earning steadily for ten years and I’m not that desperate for work. Besides,
I
don’t know the rights and wrongs of this—as far as I’m concerned it’s your word against theirs.”

Tom looked at the rest of Otto’s team. Both the stonecutters wore the same obstinate look as Otto. Of course, they would follow his lead: he was their father as well as their master. And Tom could see Otto’s point. Indeed, if he were in Otto’s position he would probably take the same line. He would not get into a brawl with armed men unless he was desperate.

But knowing that Otto was being reasonable gave Tom no comfort; in fact it made him even more frustrated. He decided to give it one more try. “There won’t be any fighting,” he said. “They know the king will hang them if they hurt us. Let’s just make our fire, and settle down for the night, and start work in the morning.”

Mentioning the night was a mistake. One of Otto’s sons said: “How could we sleep, with these murdering villains nearby?”

The others murmured agreement.

“We’ll set watches,” Tom said desperately.

Otto shook his head decisively. “We’re leaving tonight. Now.”

Tom looked around at the men and saw that he was defeated. He had set out this morning with such high hopes, and he could hardly believe that his plans had been frustrated by these petty thugs. It was too galling for words. He could not resist a bitter parting shot. “You’re going against the king, and that’s a dangerous business,” he said to Harold. “You tell the earl of Shiring that. And tell him that I’m Tom Builder of Kingsbridge, and if I ever get my hands around his fat neck I might just squeeze it until he chokes.”

Johnny Eightpence made a miniature monk’s robe for little Jonathan, complete with wide sleeves and a hood. The tiny figure looked so fetching in it that he melted everyone’s heart, but it was not very practical: the hood kept falling forward, obscuring his vision, and when he crawled the robe got in the way of his knees.

In the middle of the afternoon, when Jonathan had had his nap (and the monks had had theirs), Prior Philip came across the baby, with Johnny Eightpence, in what had been the nave of the church, and was now the novices’ playground. This was the time of day when the novices were allowed to let off steam, and Johnny was watching them play tag while Jonathan investigated the network of pegs and cord with which Tom Builder had laid out the ground plan of the east end of the new cathedral.

Philip stood beside Johnny for a few moments in companionable silence, watching the youngsters race around. Philip was very fond of Johnny, who made up for his lack of brains by having an extraordinarily good heart.

Jonathan was on his feet now, leaning against a stake Tom had driven into the ground where the north porch would be. He held on to the cord attached to the stake, and with that unsteady support took a couple of awkward, deliberate steps. “He’ll be walking soon,” Philip said to Johnny.

“He keeps trying, Father, but he generally falls on his bottom.”

Philip crouched down and reached out his hands to Jonathan. “Walk to me,” he said. “Come on.”

Jonathan grinned, showing miscellaneous teeth. He took another step holding on to Tom’s cord. Then he pointed at Philip, as if that would help, and with a sudden access of boldness, he crossed the intervening space with three rapid, decisive steps.

Philip caught him in his arms and said: “Well done!” He hugged him, feeling as proud as if the achievement were his, not the baby’s.

Johnny was equally excited. “He walked! He walked!”

Jonathan struggled to be put down. Philip set him on his feet, to see if he would walk again; but he had had enough for one day, and he immediately dropped to his knees and crawled to Johnny.

Some of the monks had been scandalized, Philip recalled, when he had brought Johnny and baby Jonathan to Kingsbridge; but Johnny was easy to deal with so long as you did not forget that he was essentially a child in a man’s body; and Jonathan had overcome all opposition by sheer force of personal charm.

Jonathan had not been the only cause of unrest during that first year. Having voted for a good provider, the monks felt cheated when Philip introduced an austerity drive to reduce the priory’s day-to-day expenses. Philip had been a little hurt: he felt he had made it clear that his top priority would be the new cathedral. The monastic officers had also resisted his plan to take away their financial independence, even though they knew perfectly well that without reforms the priory was headed for ruin. And when he had spent money on enlarging the monastery’s flocks of sheep there had almost been a mutiny. But monks were essentially people who wanted to be told what to do; and Bishop Waleran, who might have encouraged the rebels, had spent most of the year going to Rome and coming back; so in the end muttering was as far as the monks had got.

Philip had suffered some lonely moments, but he was sure results would vindicate him. His policies were already bearing fruit in a very satisfying way. The price of wool had risen again, and Philip had already started shearing: that was why he could afford to hire foresters and quarrymen. As the financial position improved and cathedral building progressed, his position as prior would become unassailable.

He gave Johnny Eightpence an affectionate pat on the head and walked through the building site. With some help from priory servants and younger monks, Tom and Alfred had made a start on digging the foundations. However, they were only five or six feet deep as yet. Tom had told Philip that the foundation holes would have to be twenty-five feet deep in places. He would need a large force of laborers, plus some lifting gear, to dig so far down.