Epic Historial Collection (120 page)

Someone else said: “The windows are so
big
.”

“Thick walls are unnecessary,” Jack said. “They've proved that in France. It's the piers that hold the building up, especially with rib-vaulting. And the effect of the big windows is breathtaking. At Saint-Denis the abbot has put in colored glass with pictures on it. The church becomes a place of sunshine and air, instead of gloom and darkness.”

Several of the monks were nodding approval. Perhaps they were not as conservative as he had thought.

But Andrew Sacrist spoke next. “Two years ago you were a novice among us. You were disciplined for striking the prior, and you evaded that discipline and ran away. Now you come back wanting to tell us how to build our church.”

Before Jack could speak, one of the younger monks protested: “That's nothing to do with it! We're discussing the design, not Jack's past!”

Several monks tried to speak at the same time, some of them shouting. Philip made them all shut up and asked Jack to answer the question.

Jack had been expecting something like this and he was ready. “I made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela as penance for that sin, Father Andrew, and I hope my bringing the Weeping Madonna to you may count as recompense for my wrongdoing,” he said meekly. “I'm not destined to be a monk, but I hope I can serve God in a different way—as his builder.”

They seemed to accept that.

However, Andrew had not finished. “How old are you?” he said, although he surely knew the answer.

“Twenty years.”

“That's very young to be a master builder.”

“Everyone here knows me. I've lived here since I was a boy.” Since I burned down your old church, he thought guiltily. “I served my apprenticeship under the original master builder. You've seen my stonework. When I was a novice I worked with Prior Philip and Tom Builder as clerk of the works. I humbly ask the brothers to judge me by my work, not by my age.”

It was another prepared speech. He saw one of the monks grin at the word
humbly
, and realized it might have been a small error: they all knew that whatever other qualities he had he was not humble.

Andrew was quick to take advantage of his slip. “Humbly?” he said, and his face began to turn red as he feigned outrage. “It wasn't very
humble
of you to announce to the masons of Paris three months ago that you had
already
been appointed master builder here.”

Once again there was a hubbub of indignant reactions from the monks. Jack groaned inwardly. How the devil had Andrew got hold of that little tidbit? Reynold or Edward must have been indiscreet. He tried to shrug it off. “I was hoping to attract some of those craftsmen to Kingsbridge,” he said as the noise died down. “They will be useful, no matter who is appointed master here. I don't think my presumption did any harm.” He tried an engaging grin. “But I'm sorry I'm not humbler.” This did not go down very well.

Milius Bursar got him out of trouble by asking another prearranged question. “What do you propose to do about the existing chancel, which has partly collapsed?”

“I've examined it very carefully,” Jack said. “It can be repaired. If you appoint me master builder today I will have it usable again within a year. Furthermore, you can continue to use it while I'm building the transepts and the nave to the new design. Finally, when the nave is finished, I propose demolishing the chancel and building a new one to match the rest of the new church.”

Andrew said: “But how do we know the old chancel won't fall down again?”

“The collapse was caused by Alfred's stone vault, which was not in the original plans. The walls weren't strong enough to hold it up. I propose to revert to Tom's design and build a timber ceiling.”

There was a murmur of surprise. The question of why the roof had fallen in had been a matter of controversy. Andrew said: “But Alfred increased the size of the buttresses to support the extra weight.”

This had puzzled Jack, too, but he thought he had found the answer. “They still weren't strong enough, particularly at the top. If you study the ruins you can see that the part of the structure that gave way was the clerestory. There was very little reinforcement at that level.”

They seemed satisfied with that. Jack felt that his ability to give a confident answer had enhanced his status as a master builder.

Remigius stood up. Jack had been wondering when he would make his contribution. “I should like to read a verse of the Holy Scriptures to the brethren in chapter,” he said, rather theatrically. He looked at Philip, who nodded consent.

Remigius walked to the lectern and opened the huge Bible. Jack studied the man. His thin mouth was nervously mobile, and his watery blue eyes bulged a little, giving him a permanent expression of indignation. He was a picture of resentment. Years ago he had come to believe that he was destined to be a leader of men, but in truth he was too weak a character, and now he was doomed to live out his life in disappointment, making trouble for better men. “The Book of Exodus,” he intoned as he turned the parchment pages. “Chapter Twenty. Verse Fourteen.” Jack wondered what on earth was coming. Remigius read: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” He closed the book with a bang and returned to his seat.

In a tone of mild exasperation, Philip said: “Perhaps you would tell us, Brother Remigius, why you chose to read that short verse in the middle of our discussion of building plans?”

Remigius pointed an accusing finger at Jack. “Because the man who wants to be our master builder is living in a state of sin!” he thundered.

Jack could hardly believe he was serious. He said indignantly: “It's true that our union has not been blessed by the Church, because of special circumstances, but we'll get married as soon as you like.”

“You can't,” Remigius said triumphantly. “Aliena is already married.”

“But that union was never consummated.”

“Nevertheless, the couple were wed in church.”

“But if you won't let me marry her, how can I avoid committing adultery?” Jack said angrily.

“That's enough!” The voice was Philip's. Jack looked at him. He seemed furious. He said: “Jack, are you living in sin with your brother's wife?”

Jack was flabbergasted. “Didn't you know?”

“Of course I didn't!” Philip roared. “Do you think I could have remained silent about it if I had?”

There was a silence. It was unusual for Philip to shout. Jack saw that he was in real trouble. His offense was a technicality, of course, but monks were supposed to be strict about such things. Unfortunately, the fact that Philip had not known that he was living with Aliena made matters much worse. It had enabled Remigius to take Philip by surprise and make a fool of him. Now Philip would have to be firm, to prove that he was strict.

Jack said miserably: “But you can't build the wrong sort of church just to punish me.”

Remigius said with relish: “You'll have to leave the woman.”

“Piss off, Remigius,” Jack said. “She has my child—he's a year old!”

Remigius sat back with a look of satisfaction.

Philip said: “Jack, if you speak like that in chapter you'll have to leave.”

Jack knew he should calm down but he could not. “But it's ludicrous!” he said. “You're telling me to abandon my woman and our child! This isn't morality, it's hairsplitting.”

Philip's anger abated somewhat, and Jack saw the more familiar light of sympathy in his clear blue eyes. He said: “Jack, you may take a pragmatic approach to God's laws but we prefer to be rigid—that's why we're monks. And we cannot have you as builder while you're living in a state of adultery.”

Jack remembered a line of Scripture. “Jesus said: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.'”

Philip said: “Yes, but Jesus said to the adulteress: ‘Go, and sin no more.'” He turned to Remigius. “I take it you would withdraw your opposition if the adultery ceased.”

“Of course!” said Remigius.

Despite his anger and misery, Jack noticed that Philip had outmaneuvered Remigius neatly. He had made the adultery the decisive question, thereby sidestepping the whole issue of the new design. But Jack was not ready to go along with that. He said: “I'm not going to leave her!”

Philip said: “It might not be for long.”

Jack paused. That had taken him by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“You could marry Aliena if her first marriage was annulled.”

“Can that be done?”

“It should be automatic, if, as you say, the marriage was never consummated.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Apply to an ecclesiastical court. Normally it would be Bishop Waleran's court, but in this case you probably should go straight to the archbishop of Canterbury.”

“And is the archbishop bound to agree?”

“In justice, yes.”

That was not a totally unequivocal answer, Jack noted. “But we would have to live apart meanwhile?”

“If you want to be appointed master builder of Kingsbridge Cathedral—yes.”

Jack said: “You're asking me to choose between the two things I love most in all the world.”

Philip said: “Not for long.”

His voice made Jack look up sharply: there was real compassion in it. Jack realized Philip was genuinely sorry to have to do this. That made him less angry and more sad. He said: “How long?”

“It could be as much as a year.”

“A year!”

“You don't have to live in different towns,” Philip said. “You can still see Aliena and the child.”

“Do you know she went to Spain to look for me?” Jack said. “Can you imagine that?” But the monks had no conception of what love was about. He said bitterly: “Now I must tell her we've got to live apart.”

Philip stood up and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. “The time will go by faster than you think, I promise you,” he said. “And you'll be busy—building the new cathedral.”

II

The forest had grown and changed in eight years. Jack had thought he could never get lost in territory he had once known like the back of his hand, but he had been wrong. Old trails were overgrown, new ones had been trodden in the undergrowth by the deer and the boar and the wild ponies, streamlets had altered course, old trees had fallen and young ones were taller. Everything was diminished: distances seemed less and hills not so steep. Most striking of all, he felt a stranger here. When a young deer gazed at him, startled, across a glade, Jack could not guess which family the deer belonged to or where its dam was. When a flight of ducks took off, he did not instantly know what stretch of water they had risen from and why. And he was nervous, for he had no idea where the outlaws were.

He had ridden most of the way here from Kingsbridge, but he had to dismount as soon as he left the main road, for the trees grew too low over the trail to permit him to ride. Returning to the haunts of his boyhood made him feel irrationally sad. He had never appreciated, because he had never realized, how simple life had been then. His greatest passion had been for strawberries, and he had known that every summer, for a few days, there would be as many as he could eat, growing on the forest floor. Nowadays everything was problematical: his combative friendship with Prior Philip; his frustrated love for Aliena; his towering ambition to build the most beautiful cathedral in the world; his burning need to find out the truth about his father.

He wondered how much his mother had changed in the two years he had been away. He was looking forward eagerly to seeing her again. He had coped perfectly well on his own, of course, but it was very reassuring to have someone in your life who was always ready to fight for you, and he had missed that comforting feeling.

It had taken him all day to reach the part of the forest where he and she had used to live. Now the short winter afternoon was darkening rapidly. Soon he would have to give up the search for their old cave, and concentrate on finding a sheltered place in which to spend the night. It would be cold. Why am I worried? he thought. I used to spend every night in the forest.

In the end she found him.

He was on the point of giving up. A narrow, almost invisible track through the vegetation, probably used only by badgers and foxes, petered out in a thicket. There was nothing to do but retrace his steps. He turned his horse around and almost walked into her.

“You've forgotten how to move quietly in the forest,” she said. “I could hear you crashing around a mile away.”

Jack smiled. She had not changed. “Hello, Mother,” he said. He kissed her cheek, then, in a rush of affection, he hugged her.

She touched his face. “You're thinner than ever.”

He looked at her. She was brown and healthy, her hair still thick and dark, without any gray. Her eyes were the same golden color, and they still seemed to see right through Jack. He said: “You're just the same.”