Epic Historial Collection (159 page)

It took a long time but the crowd remained quiet throughout. His face turned darker and darker. His agonized writhing became a mere twitching. At last his eyes rolled up into his head, his eyelids closed, he became still, and then, gruesomely, his tongue stuck out, black and swollen, between his teeth.

He was dead.

Aliena felt drained. William had changed her life—at one time she would have said he had ruined her life—and now he was dead, powerless to hurt her or anyone else ever again.

The crowd began to move away. The small boys mimicked the death throes to one another, rolling up their eyes and poking out their tongues. A man-at-arms climbed up on the scaffold and cut William down.

Aliena caught her son's eye. He looked surprised to see her. He came over immediately, and bent down to kiss her. My son, she thought; my big son. Jack's son. She remembered how terrified she had been that she might have William's child. Well, some things had turned out right.

“I thought you didn't want to come here today,” Tommy said.

“I had to,” she said. “I had to see him dead.”

He looked startled. He did not understand, not really. She was glad. She hoped he would never have to understand such things.

He put his arm around her and they walked out of the square together.

Aliena did not look back.

 

On a hot day in high summer, Jack ate dinner with Aliena and Sally in the cool of the north transept, up in the gallery, sitting on the scratched plaster of his tracing floor. The sound of the monks chanting the service of sext in the chancel was a low murmur like the rushing of a distant waterfall. They had cold lamb chops with fresh wheat bread and a stone jug of golden beer. Jack had spent the morning sketching the layout of the new chancel which he would begin building next year. Sally was looking at his drawing while she tore into a chop with her pretty white teeth. In a moment she would say something critical about it, he knew. He glanced at Aliena. She too had read Sally's face and knew what was coming. They exchanged a knowing parental look, and smiled.

“Why do you want the east end to be rounded?” Sally said.

“I based it on the design of Saint-Denis,” Jack said.

“But is there any advantage?”

“Yes. You can keep the pilgrims moving.”

“So you just have this row of little windows.”

Jack had thought windows would come up soon, for Sally was a glazier. “
Little
windows?” he said, pretending to be indignant. “Those windows are huge! When I first put windows that size into this church the people thought the whole building would fall down for lack of structural support.”

“If the chancel were square-ended, you would have an enormous flat wall,” Sally persisted. “You could put in
really
big windows.”

She had a point, Jack thought. With the round-ended layout the entire chancel had to have the same continuous elevation, divided into the traditional three layers of arcade, gallery and clerestory, all the way around. A square end offered the chance to change the design. “There might be another way to keep the pilgrims moving,” he said thoughtfully.

“And the rising sun would shine through the big windows,” Sally said.

Jack could imagine it. “There could be a row of tall lancets, like spears in a rack.”

Sally said: “Or one big round window like a rose.”

That was a stunning idea. To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color. Jack could just see it. “I wonder what theme the monks would want.”

“The Law and the Prophets,” Sally said.

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You sly vixen, you've already discussed this idea with Prior Jonathan, haven't you?”

She looked guilty, but she was saved from answering by the arrival of Peter Chisel, a young stone carver. He was a shy, awkward man with fair hair that fell over his eyes, but his carvings were beautiful, and Jack was glad to have him. “What can I do for you, Peter?” he said.

“Actually, I was looking for Sally,” Peter said.

“Well, you've found her.”

Sally was getting to her feet, brushing bread crumbs off the front of her tunic. “I'll see you later,” she said, and then she and Peter went through the low doorway and down the spiral staircase.

Jack and Aliena looked at one another.

“Was she blushing?” Jack said.

“I hope so,” said Aliena. “My goodness, it's about time she fell for someone. She's twenty-six years old!”

“Well, well. I'd given up hope. I thought she was planning to be an old maid.”

Aliena shook her head. “Not Sally. She's as lusty as anyone. She's just choosy.”

“Is she?” Jack said. “The girls of the county aren't queueing up to marry Peter Chisel.”

“The girls of the county fall for big handsome men like Tommy, who can cut a dash on horseback and have their cloaks lined with red silk. Sally's different. She wants someone clever and sensitive. Peter is just right for her.”

Jack nodded. He had never thought of it that way but he felt intuitively that Aliena was right. “She's like her grandmother,” he said. “My mother fell in love with an oddity.”

“Sally's like your mother, and Tommy is like my father,” Aliena said.

Jack smiled at her. She was more beautiful than ever. Her hair was streaked with gray, and the skin of her throat was not as marble-smooth as it used to be, but as she got older, and lost the roundness of motherhood, the fine bones of her lovely face became more prominent, and she took on a spare, almost structural beauty. Jack reached out and traced the line of her jaw. “Like my flying buttresses,” he said.

She smiled.

He ran his hand down her neck and across her bosom. Her breasts had changed, too. He remembered when they had stuck out from her chest as if they were weightless, the nipples pointing up. Then, when she was pregnant, they had become even bigger, and the nipples had grown larger. Now they were lower and softer, and they swung delightfully from side to side when she walked. He had loved them through all their changes. He wondered what they would be like when she was old. Would they become shriveled and wrinkled? I'll probably love them even then, he thought. He felt her nipple harden under his touch. He leaned forward to kiss her lips.

“Jack, you're in church,” she murmured.

“Never mind,” he said, and he ran his hand over her belly to her groin.

There was a footstep on the stair.

He pulled away guiltily.

She grinned at his discomfiture. “That's God's judgment on you,” she said irreverently.

“I'll see to you later,” he whispered in a mock-threatening tone.

The footsteps reached the top of the stair and Prior Jonathan emerged. He greeted them both solemnly. He looked grave. “There's something I want you to hear, Jack,” he said. “Will you come to the cloisters?”

“Of course.” Jack got to his feet.

Jonathan went back down the spiral staircase.

Jack paused at the doorway and pointed a threatening finger at Aliena. “Later,” he said.

“Promise?” she said with a grin.

Jack followed Jonathan down the stairs and through the church to the door in the south transept that led into the cloisters. They went along the north walk, past the schoolboys with their wax tablets, and stopped at the corner. With an inclination of his head Jonathan directed Jack's attention to a monk sitting alone on a stone ledge halfway down the west walk. The monk's hood was up, covering his face, but as they paused, the man turned, looked up, and then quickly averted his gaze.

Jack took an involuntary step back.

The monk was Waleran Bigod.

Jack said angrily: “What's that devil doing here?”

“Preparing to meet his Maker,” Jonathan said.

Jack frowned. “I don't understand.”

“He's a broken man,” Jonathan said. “He's got no position, no power and no friends. He's realized that God doesn't want him to be a great and powerful bishop. He's seen the error of his ways. He came here, on foot, and begged to be admitted as a humble monk, to spend the rest of his days asking God's forgiveness for his sins.”

“I find that hard to believe,” said Jack.

“So did I, at first,” said Jonathan. “But in the end I realized that he has always been a genuinely God-fearing man.”

Jack looked skeptical.

“I really think he was devout. He just made one crucial mistake: he believed that the end justifies the means in the service of God. That permitted him to do anything.”

“Including conspiring to murder an archbishop!”

Jonathan held up his hands in a defensive gesture. “God must punish him for that—not I.”

Jack shrugged. It was the kind of thing Philip would have said. Jack saw no reason to let Waleran live in the priory. However, that was the way of monks. “Why did you want me to see him?”

“He wants to tell you why they hanged your father.”

Jack suddenly felt cold.

Waleran was sitting as still as a stone, gazing into space. He was barefoot. The fragile white ankles of an old man were visible below the hem of his homespun habit. Jack realized that Waleran was no longer frightening. He was feeble, defeated and sad.

Jack walked slowly forward and sat down on the bench a yard away from Waleran.

“The old King Henry was too strong,” Waleran said without preamble. “Some of the barons didn't like it—they were too restricted. They wanted a weaker king next time. But Henry had a son, William.”

All this was ancient history. “That was before I was born,” Jack said.

“Your father died before you were born,” Waleran said, with just a hint of his old superciliousness.

Jack nodded. “Go on, then.”

“A group of barons decided to kill Henry's son, William. Their thinking was that if the succession was in doubt, they would have more influence over the choice of the new king.”

Jack studied Waleran's pale, thin face, searching for evidence of guile. The old man just looked weary, beaten and remorseful. If he was up to something, Jack could see no sign of it. “But William died in the wreck of the White Ship,” Jack said.

“That shipwreck was no accident,” Waleran said.

Jack was jolted. Could this be true? The heir to the throne, murdered just because a group of barons wanted a weak monarchy? But it was no more shocking than the murder of an archbishop. “Go on,” he said.

“The barons' men scuttled the ship and escaped in a boat. Everybody else drowned, except for one man who clung to a spar and floated ashore.”

“That was my father,” Jack said. He was beginning to see where this was leading.

Waleran's face was white and his lips were bloodless. He spoke without emotion, and did not meet Jack's eyes. “He was beached near a castle that belonged to one of the conspirators, and they caught him. The man had no interest in exposing them. Indeed, he never realized that the ship had been scuttled. But he had seen things which would have revealed the truth to others, if he had been allowed to go free and talk about his experience. So they kidnapped him, brought him to England, and put him in the care of some people they could trust.”

Jack felt profoundly sad. All his father had ever wanted to do was entertain people, Mother said. But there was something strange about Waleran's story. “Why didn't they kill him right away?” Jack said.

“They should have,” Waleran said unemotionally. “But he was an innocent man, a jongleur, someone who gave everyone pleasure. They couldn't bring themselves to do it.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Even the most ruthless people have some scruples, ultimately.”

“Then why did they change their minds?”

“Because eventually he became dangerous, even here. At first he threatened no one—he couldn't even speak English. But he learned, of course, and he began to make friends. So they locked him in the prison cell below the dormitory. Then people began to ask why he was locked away. He became an embarrassment. They realized they would never rest easy while he was alive. So in the end they told us to kill him.”

So easy, thought Jack. “But why did you obey them?”

“We were ambitious, all three of us,” Waleran said, and for the first time his face showed emotion, as his mouth twisted in a grimace of remorse. “Percy Hamleigh, Prior James, and me. Your mother told the truth—we all were rewarded. I became an archdeacon, and my career in the church was off to a splendid start. Percy Hamleigh became a substantial landowner. Prior James got a useful addition to the priory property.”

“And the barons?”

“After the shipwreck, Henry was attacked, in the following three years, by Fulk of Anjou, William Clito in Normandy, and the king of France. For a while he looked very vulnerable. But he defeated his enemies and ruled for another ten years. However, the anarchy the barons wanted did come in the end, when Henry died without a male heir, and Stephen came to the throne. While the civil war raged for the next two decades, the barons ruled like kings in their own territories, with no central authority to curb them.”