Epic Historial Collection (118 page)

Aliena's mouth fell open. Jack looked away from her. “The Weeping Madonna has commanded that a new, more glorious church be built for her at Kingsbridge, and with her help I shall create a shrine for her as beautiful as the new chancel which has been erected here for the sacred remains of Saint Denis.”

He glanced down, and the money on the ground gave him the idea for his finishing touch. “Your pennies will be used for the new church,” he said. “The Madonna confers a blessing on every man, woman and child who offers a gift to help her build her new home.”

There was a moment of silence; then his listeners started to throw pennies on the ground around the base of the statue. Each person called out something as he or she made the offering. Some said “Alleluia” or “Praise God” and others asked for a blessing, or some more specific favor: “Make Robert well,” or “Let Anne conceive,” or “Give us a good harvest.” Jack studied their faces: they were excited, elevated, happy. They pushed forward, jostling one another in their eagerness to give their pennies to the Weeping Madonna. Jack looked down and watched, marveling, as the money piled up like a snowdrift around his feet.

 

The Weeping Madonna had the same effect in every town and village on the road to Cherbourg. As they walked in procession along the main street a crowd would gather; and then, after they had paused in front of the church to give time for the entire population to assemble, they would take the statue into the cool of the building, and it would weep, whereupon the people would fall over one another in their eagerness to give money for the building of Kingsbridge Cathedral.

They had almost lost it, right at the start. The bishops and archbishops examined the statue and pronounced it genuinely miraculous, and Abbot Suger wanted to keep it for Saint-Denis. He had offered Jack a pound, then ten pounds, and finally fifty pounds. When he realized Jack was not interested in money he threatened to take the statue away forcibly; but Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury prevented him. Theobald also saw the moneymaking potential of the statue and he wanted it to go to Kingsbridge, which was in his archdiocese. Suger had given in with bad grace, churlishly expressing reservations about the genuineness of the miracle.

Jack had told the craftsmen at Saint-Denis that he would hire any of them who cared to follow him to Kingsbridge. Suger was not pleased about that, either. Most of them would stay where they were, in fact, on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; but there were a few who were from England originally and might be tempted to move back; and the others would spread the word, for it was every mason's duty to tell his brothers about new building sites. Within a few weeks, craftsmen from all over Christendom would begin drifting into Kingsbridge, the way Jack had drifted into six or seven different sites over the past two years. Aliena asked Jack what he would do if Kingsbridge Priory did not make him master builder. Jack had no idea. He had made his announcement on the spur of the moment and he had no contingency plans in case things went wrong.

Archbishop Theobald, having claimed the Weeping Madonna for England, was not willing to let Jack simply walk away with it. He had sent two priests from his entourage, Reynold and Edward, to accompany Jack and Aliena on their journey. Jack had been displeased about this at first, but he quickly got to like them. Reynold was a fresh-faced, argumentative young man with an incisive mind, and he was very interested in the mathematics Jack had learned in Toledo. Edward was a mild-mannered older man who was something of a glutton. Their principal function was to make sure none of the donations went into Jack's purse, of course. In fact, the priests spent freely out of the donations to pay their traveling expenses, whereas Jack and Aliena paid their own, so the archbishop would have done better to trust Jack.

They went to Cherbourg on their way to Barfleur, where they would take ship for Wareham. Jack knew something was wrong long before they reached the heart of the little seaside town. People were not staring at the Madonna.

They were staring at Jack.

The priests noticed it after a while. They were carrying the statue on a wooden trestle, as they always did when entering a town. As the crowd began to follow them, Reynold hissed at Jack: “What's going on?”

“I don't know.”

“They're more interested in you than the statue! Have you been here before?”

“Never.”

Aliena said: “It's the older ones who look at Jack. The youngsters look at the statue.”

She was right. The children and young people were reacting to the statue with normal curiosity. It was the middle-aged who stared at him. He tried staring back, and found that they got scared. One made the Sign of the Cross at him. “What have they got against me?” he wondered aloud.

Their procession attracted followers just as rapidly as always, however, and they reached the marketplace with a large crowd in tow. They put the Madonna down in front of the church. The air smelled of salt water and fresh fish. Several townspeople went into the church. What normally happened next was that the local clergy would come out and talk to Reynold and Edward. There would be a discussion and explanations, and then the statue would be carried inside, where it would weep. The Madonna had only failed once: on a cold day, when Reynold insisted on going through with the procedure despite Jack's warning that it might not work. Now they respected his advice.

The weather was right today, but something else was wrong. There was superstitious fear on the wind-whipped faces of the sailors and fishermen all around. The young sensed the disquiet of their elders, and the whole crowd was suspicious and vaguely hostile. No one approached the little group to ask questions about the statue. They stood at a distance, talking in low voices, waiting for something to happen.

At last the priest emerged. In other towns the priest had approached in a mood of wary curiosity, but this one came out like an exorcist, holding a cross in front of him like a shield and carrying a chalice of holy water in his other hand. Reynold said: “What does he think he's going to do—cast out demons?” The priest walked over, chanting something in Latin, and approached Jack. He said in French: “I command, thee, evil spirit, to return to the Place of Ghosts! In the name—”

“I'm not a ghost, you damn fool!” Jack burst out. He felt unnerved.

The priest went on: “Father, Son and Holy Spirit—”

“We're on a mission for the archbishop of Canterbury,” Reynold protested. “We've been blessed by him.”

Aliena said: “He's not a ghost; I've known him since he was twelve years old!”

The priest began to look uncertain. “You are the ghost of a man of this town who died twenty-four years ago,” he said. Several people in the crowd voiced their agreement, and the priest recommenced his incantation.

“I'm only twenty years old,” Jack said. “Perhaps I just resemble the man who died.”

Someone stepped out from the crowd. “You don't just resemble him,” he said. “You are him—no different from the day you died.”

The crowd murmured with superstitious dread. Jack, feeling unnerved, looked at the speaker. He was a gray-bearded man of forty or so years, wearing the clothes of a successful craftsman or small merchant. He was not the hysterical type. Jack addressed him with a voice that faltered somewhat. “My companions know me,” he said. “Two of them are priests. The woman is my wife. The baby is my son. Are they ghosts, too?”

The man looked uncertain.

A white-haired woman standing beside him spoke up. “Don't you know me, Jack?”

Jack jumped as if he had been stung. Now he was scared. “How did you know my name?” he said.

“Because I'm your mother,” she said.

“You're not!” Aliena said, and Jack heard a note of panic in her voice. “I know his mother, and she's not you! What's happening here?”

“Evil magic!” said the priest.

“Wait a minute,” said Reynold. “Jack may be related to the man who died. Did he have any children?”

“No,” said the gray-bearded man.

“Are you sure?”

“He never married.”

“That's not the same thing.”

One or two people snickered. The priest glared at them.

The gray-bearded man said: “But he died twenty-four years ago, and
this
Jack says he's only twenty.”

“How did he die?” Reynold asked.

“Drowned.”

“Did you see the body?”

There was a silence. Finally the gray-bearded man said: “No, I never saw his body.”

“Did
anyone
see it?” Reynold said, his voice rising as he scented victory.

Nobody spoke.

Reynold turned to Jack. “Is your father alive?”

“He died before I was born.”

“What was he?”

“A jongleur.”

A gasp went up from the crowd, and the white-haired woman said: “My Jack was a jongleur.”

“But
this
Jack is a stonemason,” Reynold said. “I've seen his work. However, he could be the
son
of Jack the jongleur.” He turned to Jack. “What was your father called? Jack Jongleur, I suppose?”

“No. They called him Jack Shareburg.”

The priest repeated the name, pronouncing it slightly differently. “Jacques Cherbourg?”

Jack was stunned. He had never understood his father's name, but now it was clear. Like many traveling men, he was called by the name of the town he came from. “Yes,” Jack said wonderingly. “Of course. Jacques Cherbourg.” He had found traces of his father at last, long after he had given up looking. He had gone all the way to Spain, but what he wanted had been here, on the coast of Normandy. He had fulfilled his quest. He felt wearily satisfied, as if he had put down a heavy burden after carrying it a long way.

“Then everything is clear,” Reynold said, looking around triumphantly at the crowd. “Jacques Cherbourg did not drown, he survived. He went to England, lived there a while, made a girl pregnant, and died. The girl gave birth to a boy and named him after the father. Jack here is now twenty, and looks exactly like his father did twenty-four years ago.” Reynold looked at the priest. “No need for exorcism here, father. It's just a family reunion.”

Aliena put her arm through Jack's and squeezed his hand. He felt stupefied. There were a hundred questions he wanted to ask and he did not know where to start. He blurted one out at random. “Why were you so sure he died?”

“Everyone on the White Ship died,” said the gray-bearded man.

“The White Ship?”

“I remember the White Ship,” said Edward. “That was a famous disaster. The heir to the throne was drowned. Then Maud became the heir, and that's why we've got Stephen.”

Jack said: “But why was he on such a ship?”

The old woman who had spoken earlier answered. “He was to entertain the nobles on the voyage.” She looked at Jack. “You must be his boy, then. My grandson. I'm sorry I thought you were a ghost. You look so like him.”

“Your father was my brother,” said the gray-bearded man. “I'm your Uncle Guillaume.”

Jack realized with a glow of pleasure that this was the family he had longed for, his father's relations. He was no longer alone in the world. He had found his roots at last.

“Well, this is my son, Tommy,” he said. “Look at his red hair.”

The white-haired woman looked fondly at the baby, then said in a shocked voice: “Oh, my soul, I'm a great-grandmother!”

Everyone laughed.

Jack said: “I wonder how my father got to England?”

“S
O GOD SAID TO SATAN
, ‘Look at my man Job. Look at him. There's a good man, if ever I saw one.'” Philip paused for effect. This was not a translation, of course: this was a freestyle retelling of the story. “‘Tell me if that isn't a perfect and upright man, who fears God and does no evil.' So Satan said: ‘Of course he worships you. You've given him everything. Just look at him. Seven sons and three daughters. Seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred pairs of oxen, and five hundred asses. That's why he's a good man.' So God said: ‘All right. Take it all away from him, and see what happens.' And that's what Satan did.”

While Philip was preaching, his mind kept wandering to a mystifying letter he had received that morning from the archbishop of Canterbury. It began by congratulating him on obtaining the miraculous Weeping Madonna. Philip did not know what a weeping madonna was but he was quite sure he did not have one. The archbishop was glad to hear that Philip was recommencing the building of the new cathedral. Philip was doing no such thing. He was waiting for a sign from God before doing anything, and while he waited he was holding Sunday services in the small new parish church. Finally Archbishop Theobald commended his shrewdness in appointing a master builder who had worked on the new chancel at Saint-Denis. Philip had heard of the abbey of Saint-Denis, of course, and the famous Abbot Suger, the most powerful churchman in the kingdom of France; but he knew nothing of the new chancel there and he had not appointed a master builder from anywhere. Philip thought the letter had probably been intended for someone else and sent to him in error.

“Now, what did Job say, when he lost all his wealth, and his children died? Did he curse God? Did he worship Satan? No! He said: ‘I was born naked, and I'll die naked. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away—blessed be the name of the Lord.' That's what Job said. And then God said to Satan: ‘What did I tell you?' And Satan said: ‘All right, but he's still got his health, hasn't he? A man can put up with anything while he's in good health.' And God saw that he had to let Job suffer some more in order to prove his point, so he said: ‘Take away his health, then, and see what happens.' So Satan made Job ill, and he had boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.”

Sermons were becoming more common in churches. They had been rare when Philip was a boy. Abbot Peter had been against them, saying they tempted the priest to indulge himself. The old-fashioned view was that the congregation should be mere spectators, silently witnessing the mysterious holy rites, hearing the Latin words without understanding them, blindly trusting in the efficacy of the priest's intercession. But ideas had changed. Progressive thinkers nowadays no longer saw the congregation as mute observers of a mystical ceremony. The Church was supposed to be an integral part of their everyday existence. It marked the milestones in their lives, from christening, through marriage and the birth of children, to extreme unction and burial in consecrated ground. It might be their landlord, judge, employer or customer. Increasingly, people were expected to be Christians every day, not just on Sundays. They needed more than just rituals, according to the modern view: they wanted explanations, rulings, encouragement, exhortation.

“Now, I believe that Satan had a conversation with God about Kingsbridge,” Philip said. “I believe that God said to Satan: ‘Look at my people in Kingsbridge. Aren't they good Christians? See how they work hard all week in their fields and workshops, and then spend all day Sunday building me a new cathedral. Tell me they're not good people, if you can!' And Satan said: ‘They're good because they're doing well. You've given them good harvests, and fine weather, and customers for their shops, and protection from evil earls. But take all that away from them, and they'll come over to my side.' So God said: ‘What do you want to do?' And Satan said: ‘Burn the town.' So God said: ‘All right, burn it, and see what happens.' So Satan sent William Hamleigh to set fire to our fleece fair.”

Philip took great consolation from the story of Job. Like Job, Philip had worked hard all his life to do God's will to the best of his ability; and, like Job, he had been rewarded with bad luck, failure and ignominy. But the purpose of the sermon was to lift the spirits of the townspeople, and Philip could see that it was not working. However, the story was not yet over.

“And then God said to Satan: ‘Look now! You've burned that whole town to the ground, and they're
still
building me a new cathedral.
Now
tell me they're not good people!' But Satan said: ‘I was too easy on them. Most of them escaped that fire. And they soon rebuilt their little wooden houses. Let me send a real disaster, then see what happens.' And God sighed, and said: ‘What do you want to do now, then?' And Satan said: ‘I'm going to bring the roof of that new church down on their heads.' And he did—as we all know.”

Looking around the congregation, Philip saw very few people who had not lost a relative in that awful collapse. There was Widow Meg, who had had a good husband and three strapping sons, all of whom had died; she had not spoken a word since, and her hair was white. Others had been mutilated. Peter Pony's right leg had been crushed, and he walked with a limp: he had been a horse catcher before, but now he worked for his brother, making saddles. There was hardly a family in town that had escaped. Sitting on the floor down at the front was a man who had lost the use of his legs. Philip frowned: who was he? He had not been injured in the roof collapse—Philip had never seen him before. Then he recalled being told that there was a cripple begging in the town and sleeping in the ruins of the cathedral. Philip had ordered that he be given a bed in the guesthouse.

His mind was wandering again. He returned to his sermon. “Now, what did Job do? His wife said to him: ‘Curse God, and die.' But did he? He did not. Did he lose his faith? He did not. Satan was disappointed in Job. And I tell you”—Philip raised his hand dramatically, to emphasize the point—” I tell you, Satan is going to be disappointed in the people of Kingsbridge! For we continue to worship the true God, just as Job did in all his tribulations.”

He paused again, to let them digest that, but he could tell he had failed to move them. The faces that looked up at him were interested, but not inspired. In truth he was not an inspirational preacher. He was a down-to-earth man. He could not captivate a congregation by the force of his personality. People did become intensely loyal to him, it was true, but not instantly: it happened slowly, over time, as they came to understand how he lived and what he achieved. His work sometimes inspired people—or it had, in the old days—but never his words.

However, the best part of the story was to come. “What happened to Job, after Satan had done his worst? Well, God gave him more than he had in the first place—twice as much! Where he had grazed seven thousand sheep, he now had fourteen thousand. The three thousand camels he had lost were replaced by six thousand. And he fathered seven more sons and three more daughters.”

They looked indifferent. Philip plowed on. “And Kingsbridge will prosper again, one day. The widows shall marry again, and the widowers find wives; and those whose children died shall conceive again; and our streets will be full of people, and our shops stocked with bread and wine, leather and brass, buckles and shoes; and one day we will rebuild our cathedral.”

The trouble was, he was not sure he believed it himself; and so he could not say it with conviction. No wonder the congregation was unmoved.

He looked down at the heavy book in front of him, and translated the Latin into English. “And Job lived a hundred and forty years more, and saw his sons, and his grandsons, and his great-grandsons. And then he died, being old and full of days.” He closed the book.

There was a disturbance at the back of the little church. Philip looked up irritably. He was aware that his sermon had not had the effect he hoped for, but nevertheless he wanted a few moments of silence at the end of it. The church door was open, and all those at the back were looking out. Philip could see quite a crowd outside—it must contain everyone in Kingsbridge who was not in the church, he thought. What was going on?

Several possibilities went through his mind—there had been a fight, a fire, someone was dying, a large troop of horsemen was approaching—but he was completely unprepared for what actually happened. First, two priests came in carrying a statue of a woman on a board draped with an embroidered altar cloth. The solemnity of their demeanor suggested that the statue represented a saint, presumably the Virgin. Behind the priests walked two more people, and they provided the bigger surprise: one was Aliena, and the other was Jack.

Philip regarded Jack with affection mingled with exasperation. That boy, he thought: on the day he first came here the old cathedral burned down, and since then nothing connected with him has been normal. But Philip was more pleased than annoyed by Jack's entrance. Despite all the trouble the boy caused, he made life interesting. Boy? Philip looked at him again. Jack was no longer a boy. He had been away two years but he had aged ten, and his eyes were weary and knowing. Where had he been? And how had Aliena found him?

The procession moved up the middle of the church. Philip decided to do nothing and see what happened. A buzz of excitement went around as people recognized Jack and Aliena. Then there was a new sound, rather like a murmur of awe, and someone said: “She weeps!”

Others repeated it like a litany: “She weeps! She weeps!” Philip peered at the statue. Sure enough, there was water coming from the eyes. He suddenly remembered the archbishop's mysterious letter about the miraculous Weeping Madonna. So this was it. As to whether the weeping was a miracle, Philip would suspend judgment. He could see that the eyes appeared to be made of stone, or perhaps some kind of crystal, whereas the rest of the statue was wooden: that might have something to do with it.

The priests turned around and put the board down on the floor so that the Madonna was facing the congregation. Then Jack began to speak.

“The Weeping Madonna came to me in a far, far country,” he began. Philip resented his taking over the service but he decided not to act precipitately: he would let Jack have his say. Anyway, he was intrigued. “A baptized Saracen gave her to me,” Jack went on. The congregation murmured in surprise: Saracens were usually the barbaric black-faced enemy in such stories, and few people knew that some of them were actually Christians. “At first I wondered why she had been given to me. Nevertheless, I carried her for many miles.” Jack had the congregation spellbound. He's a better preacher of sermons than I am, Philip thought ruefully; I can feel the tension building already. “At last I began to realize that she wanted to go home. But where was her home? Finally it came to me: she wanted to go to Kingsbridge.”

The congregation broke into a hubbub of amazement. Philip was skeptical. There was a difference between the way God worked and the way Jack worked, and this had the hallmark of Jack. But Philip remained silent.

“But then I thought: What am I taking her to? What shrine will she have at Kingsbridge? In what church will she find her rest?” He looked around at the plain whitewashed interior of the parish church, as if to say: This obviously will not do. “And it was as if she spoke aloud, and said to me: ‘You, Jack Jackson, shall make me a shrine, and build me a church.'”

Philip began to see what Jack was up to. The Madonna was to be the spark that reignited the people's enthusiasm for building a new cathedral. It would do what Philip's sermon about Job had failed to do. But still Philip had to ask himself: Is this God's will, or just Jack's?

“So I asked her: ‘With what? I have no money.' And she said: ‘I will provide the money.' Well, we set off, with the blessing of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury.” Jack glanced up at Philip as he named the archbishop. He's telling me something, Philip thought: he's saying that he's got powerful backing for this.

Jack swung his gaze back to the congregation. “And along the road, from Paris, across Normandy, over the sea, and all the way to Kingsbridge, devout Christians have given money for the building of the shrine of the Weeping Madonna.” With that, Jack beckoned to someone outside.

A moment later two beturbaned Saracens marched solemnly into the church, carrying on their shoulders an ironbound chest.

The villagers cowered back from them in fear. Even Philip was astonished. He knew, in theory, that Saracens had brown skin, but he had never seen one, and the reality was amazing. Their swirling, brightly colored robes were equally striking. They strode through the awestruck congregation and knelt before the Madonna, placing the chest reverently on the floor.

There was a breathless silence as Jack unlocked the chest with a huge key and lifted the lid. People craned their necks to look. Suddenly Jack tipped the chest over.

There was a noise like a waterfall, and a stream of silver pennies poured out of the chest, hundreds of them, thousands. People crowded around to stare: none of them had ever seen so much money.

Jack raised his voice to be heard over their exclamations. “I have brought her home, and now I give her to the building of the new cathedral.” Then he turned, looked Philip in the eye, and inclined his head in a little bow, as if to say: Over to you.