Epic Historial Collection (147 page)

She looked around for a weapon. Her eyes lit on the pile of firewood beside the hearth. She snatched up a heavy log.

Alfred lunged at Richard again. Richard dodged; then, when Alfred's arm was at full stretch, Richard grabbed his wrist and pulled. Alfred staggered forward, off balance. Richard hit him several times, very fast, with both fists, punching his face and body. There was a savage grin on Richard's face, the smile of a man who is taking revenge. Alfred began to whimper, and raised his arms to protect himself again.

Richard hesitated, breathing hard. Aliena thought it would end then. But suddenly Alfred struck again, with surprising speed, and this time the point of the knife grazed Richard's cheek. Richard jumped back, stung. Alfred moved in with the knife raised high. Aliena saw that Alfred would kill Richard. She ran at Alfred, swinging the log with all her might. She missed his head but struck his right elbow. She heard the crack as wood connected with bone. The blow numbed Alfred's hand and the knife fell from his fingers.

The way it ended was dreadfully quick.

Richard bent, swept up Aliena's knife, and with the same motion brought it up under Alfred's guard and stabbed him in the chest with terrific force.

The dagger sank in up to the hilt.

Aliena stared, horrified. It was a terrible blow. Alfred screamed like a stuck pig. Richard pulled the knife out, and Alfred's blood squirted out of the hole in his chest. Alfred opened his mouth to scream again, but no sound came. His face turned white and then gray, his eyes closed, and he fell to the ground. Blood soaked into the rushes.

Aliena knelt beside him. His eyelids fluttered. He was still breathing, but his life was draining from him. She looked up at Richard, standing over them both, breathing hard. “He's dying,” she said.

Richard nodded. He was not much moved. “I've seen better men die,” he said. “I've killed men who deserved it less.”

Aliena was shocked at his harshness, but she did not say anything. She had just remembered the first time Richard killed a man. It was after William had taken over the castle, and she and Richard had been on the road to Winchester, and two thieves had attacked them. Aliena had stabbed one of the thieves, but she had forced Richard, who was only fifteen, to deliver the coup de grâce. If he's heartless, she thought guiltily, who made him so?

She looked at Alfred again. He opened his eyes and looked back at her. She almost felt ashamed of how little compassion she had for this dying man. She thought, as she looked into his eyes, that he had never been compassionate himself, nor forgiving, nor generous. He had nursed his resentments and hatreds all his life, and had taken his pleasure from acts of malice and revenge. Your life
could
have been different, Alfred, she thought. You could have been kind to your sister, and forgiven your stepbrother for being cleverer than you. You could have married for love instead of for revenge. You could have been loyal to Prior Philip. You could have been happy.

His eyes widened suddenly and he said: “God, it
hurts
.”

She wished he would just hurry up and
die
.

His eyes closed.

“That's it,” Richard said.

Alfred stopped breathing.

Aliena stood up. “I'm a widow,” she said.

 

Alfred was buried in the graveyard at Kingsbridge Priory. It was his sister Martha's wish, and she was the only surviving blood relative. She was also the only person who was sad. Alfred had never been good to her, and she had always turned to Jack, her stepbrother, for love and protection; but nevertheless she wanted him buried somewhere close so that she could visit the grave. When they lowered the coffin into the ground, only Martha cried.

Jack looked grimly relieved that Alfred was no more. Tommy, standing with Aliena, was keenly interested in everything—this was his first family funeral and the rituals of death were all new to him. Sally was white-faced and frightened, holding Martha's hand.

Richard was there. He told Aliena, during the service, that he had come to ask God's forgiveness for killing his brother-in-law. Not that he felt he had done wrong, he hastened to add: he just wanted to be safe.

Aliena, whose face was still bruised and swollen from Alfred's last punch, recalled the dead man as he had been when she first met him. He had come to Earlscastle with his father, Tom Builder, and Martha and Ellen and Jack. Already Alfred had been the bully of the family, big and strong and bovine, with a sly cunning and a streak of nastiness. If Aliena had thought then that she would end up married to him she would have been tempted to throw herself off the battlements. She had not imagined she would ever see the family again after they left the castle; but both she and they had ended up living in Kingsbridge. She and Alfred had started the parish guild which was now such an important institution in the life of the town. That was when Alfred had proposed to her. She had not dreamed that he might be motivated more by rivalry with his stepbrother than by desire for her. She had refused him then, but later he had discovered how to manipulate her, and had persuaded her to marry him by promising support for her brother. Looking back on that, she felt that Alfred had deserved the frustration and humiliation of their marriage. His motives had been heartless and his reward had been lovelessness.

Aliena could not help feeling happy. There was no question of her leaving and going to live in Winchester now, of course: she and Jack would be married immediately. She was putting on a solemn face for the funeral, and even thinking some solemn thoughts, but her heart was bursting for joy.

Philip, with his apparently limitless capacity for pardoning people who had betrayed him, consented to bury Alfred.

As the five adults and two children were standing around the open grave, Ellen arrived.

Philip was cross. Ellen had cursed a Christian wedding, and she was not welcome in the priory close; but he could hardly turn her away from her stepson's funeral. The rites were over, anyway, so Philip just walked away.

Aliena was sorry. Philip and Ellen were both good people, and it was a shame they were enemies. But they were good in different ways, and they were both intolerant of rival ethics.

Ellen was looking older, with extra lines on her face and more gray in her hair, but her golden eyes were still beautiful. She was wearing a rough-sewn leather tunic and nothing else, not even shoes. Her arms and legs were tanned and muscular. Tommy and Sally ran to kiss her. Jack followed and embraced her, hugging her hard.

Ellen lifted her cheek for Richard to kiss her, and said: “You did the right thing. Don't feel guilty.”

She stood at the edge of the grave, looking in, and said: “I was his stepmother. I wish I had known how to make him happy.”

When she turned from the grave, Aliena hugged her.

They all walked slowly away. Aliena said to Ellen: “Will you stay a while, and have dinner?”

“Gladly.” She ruffled Tommy's red hair. “I'd like to talk to my grandchildren. They grow so fast. When I first met Tom Builder, Jack was the age Tommy is now.” They were approaching the priory gate. “As you get older, the years seem to go faster. I believe—” She broke off in midsentence, and stopped walking.

“What is it?” said Aliena.

Ellen was staring at the priory gateway. The wooden gates were open. The street outside was empty but for a handful of small children on the far side, standing in a knot, staring at something out of sight.

“Richard!” Ellen said sharply. “Don't go out!”

Everyone stopped. Aliena could see what had alarmed Ellen. The children looked as if they might be watching something or someone who was waiting just outside the gate, concealed by the wall.

Richard reacted fast. “It's a trap!” he said, and without further ado he turned around and ran.

A moment later a helmeted head looked around the gatepost. It belonged to a large man-at-arms. The man saw Richard running toward the church, shouted in alarm, and dashed into the close. He was followed by three, four, five more men.

The funeral party scattered. The men-at-arms ignored them and went after Richard. Aliena was scared and mystified: who would dare to attack the earl of Shiring openly and in a priory? She held her breath as she watched them chase Richard across the close. He leaped over the low wall that the masons were building. His pursuers jumped over it behind him, unmindful that they were entering a church. The craftsmen froze in position, trowels and hammers raised, as first Richard, then his pursuers, charged by. One of the younger and more quick-thinking apprentices stuck out a shovel and tripped a man-at-arms, who went flying; but no one else intervened. Richard reached the door that led to the cloisters. The man closest behind him raised his sword above his head. For a terrible moment Aliena thought the door was locked and Richard could not get in. The man-at-arms struck at Richard with his sword. Richard got the door open and slipped inside, and the sword bit into the wood as the door slammed.

Aliena breathed again.

The men-at-arms gathered around the cloister door, then began to look about uncertainly. They seemed to realize, all of a sudden, where they were. The craftsmen gave them hostile stares and hefted their hammers and axes. There were close to a hundred builders and only five men-at-arms.

Jack said angrily: “Who the hell are those people?”

He was answered by a voice from behind. “They are the sheriff's men.”

Aliena turned around, aghast. She knew that voice horribly well. There at the gate, on a nervous black stallion, armed and wearing chain mail, was William Hamleigh. The sight of him sent a chill through her.

Jack said: “Get out of here, you loathsome insect.”

William flushed at the insult, but he did not move. “I've come to make an arrest.”

“Go ahead. Richard's men will tear you apart.”

“He won't have any men when he's in jail.”

“Who do you think you are? A sheriff can't put an earl in jail!”

“He can for murder.”

Aliena gasped. She saw immediately how William's devious mind was working. “There was no murder!” she burst out.

“There was,” William said. “Earl Richard murdered Alfred Builder. And now I must explain to Prior Philip that he is harboring a killer.”

William kicked his horse and rode past them, across the west end of the unbuilt nave, to the kitchen courtyard which was where laymen were received. Aliena watched him with incredulity. He was so evil it was hard to believe. Poor Alfred, whom they had just buried, had done much wrong through small-mindedness and weakness of character: his badness was more tragic than anything else. But William was a real servant of the devil. Aliena thought: When will we be rid of this monster?

The men-at-arms joined William in the kitchen courtyard and one of them hammered on the kitchen door with the hilt of his sword. The builders left the site and stood in a crowd, glaring at the intruders, looking dangerous with their heavy hammers and sharp chisels. Aliena told Martha to take the children home; then she and Jack stood with the builders.

Prior Philip came to the kitchen door. He was shorter than William, and in his light summer habit he appeared very small by comparison with the beefy man on horseback in chain mail; but there was a look of righteous anger on Philip's face that made him seem more formidable than William.

William said: “You are harboring a fugitive—”

Philip interrupted him with a roar. “Leave this place!”

William tried again. “There has been a murder—”

“Get out of my priory!” Philip yelled.

“I am the sheriff—”

“Not even the king may bring men of violence into the precincts of a monastery! Get out! Get out!”

The builders began to murmur angrily among themselves. The men-at-arms looked at them nervously. William said: “Even the prior of Kingsbridge must answer to the sheriff.”

“Not on these terms! Get your men off the premises. Leave your weapons in the stable. When you're ready to act like a humble sinner in the house of God, you may enter the priory; and
then
the prior will answer your questions.”

Philip stepped back inside and slammed the door.

The builders cheered.

Aliena found herself cheering too. William had been a figure of power and dread all her life, and it lifted her heart to see him defied by Prior Philip.

But William was not yet ready to concede defeat. He got off his horse. Slowly he unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to one of his men. He said a few quiet words to the men, and they retreated across the priory close, taking his sword. William watched them until they reached the gate; then he turned back and faced the kitchen door once again.

He shouted: “Open up to the sheriff!”

After a pause the kitchen door opened, and Philip came out again. He looked down at William, now standing unarmed in the courtyard; then he looked at the men-at-arms clustered around the gateway on the far side of the close; and finally he looked back at William and said: “Well?”