Epic Historial Collection (322 page)

He tore himself away and cantered back to the village; then he succumbed again to curiosity and sentiment, and sent Nate to find Sam and bring him to the manor house.

He was not sure what he intended to do with the boy: talk to him, tease him, invite him to join them for dinner, or what. He might have foreseen that Gwenda would not leave him free to choose. She showed up with Nate and Sam, and Wulfric and Davey followed them in. “What do you want with my son?” she demanded, speaking to Ralph as if he were an equal rather than her overlord.

Ralph spoke without forethought. “Sam was not born to be a serf tilling the fields,” he said. He saw Alan Fernhill look at him in surprise.

Gwenda looked puzzled. “Only God knows what we are born for,” she said, playing for time.

“When I want to know about God, I'll ask a priest, not you,” Ralph said to her. “Your son has something of the mettle of a fighting man. I don't need to pray to see that—it's obvious to me, as it would be to any veteran of the wars.”

“Well, he's not a fighting man, he's a peasant, and the son of a peasant, and his destiny is to grow crops and raise livestock like his father.”

“Never mind his father.” Ralph remembered what Gwenda had said to him in the sheriff's castle at Shiring, when she had persuaded him to pardon Sam. “Sam has the killer instinct,” he said. “It's dangerous in a peasant, but priceless in a soldier.”

Gwenda looked scared as she began to divine Ralph's purpose. “What are you getting at?”

Ralph realized where this chain of logic was leading him. “Let Sam be useful, rather than dangerous. Let him learn the arts of war.”

“Ridiculous, he's too old.”

“He's twenty-two. It's late, but he's fit and strong. He can do it.”

“I don't see how.”

Gwenda was pretending to find practical objections, but he could see through her simulation, and knew that she hated the idea with all her heart. That made him all the more determined. With a smile of triumph he said: “Easily enough. He can be a squire. He can come and live at Earlscastle.”

Gwenda looked as if she had been stabbed. Her eyes closed for a moment, and her olive-skinned face paled. She mouthed the word “No,” but no sound came out.

“He's been with you for twenty-two years,” Ralph said. “That's long enough.” Now it's my turn, he thought, but instead he said: “Now he's a man.”

Because Gwenda was temporarily silent, Wulfric spoke up. “We won't permit it,” he said. “We are his parents, and we do not consent to this.”

“I didn't ask for your consent,” Ralph said contemptuously. “I'm your earl, and you are my serfs. I don't request, I command.”

Nate Reeve put in: “Besides, Sam is over the age of twenty-one, so the decision is his, not his father's.”

Suddenly they all turned and looked at Sam.

Ralph was not sure what to expect. Becoming a squire was something many young men of all classes dreamed about, but he did not know whether Sam was one of them. Life in the castle was luxurious and exciting, by comparison with breaking your back in the fields; but, on the other hand, men-at-arms died young, or—worse than that—came home crippled, to live the rest of their miserable days begging outside taverns.

However, as soon as Ralph saw Sam's face he knew the truth. Sam was smiling broadly, and his eyes gleamed with eagerness. He could hardly wait to go.

Gwenda found her voice. “Don't do it, Sam!” she said. “Don't be tempted. Don't let your mother see you blinded by an arrow, or mutilated by the swords of French knights, or crippled by the hooves of their warhorses!”

Wulfric said: “Don't go, son. Stay in Wigleigh and live a long life.”

Sam began to look doubtful.

Ralph said: “All right, lad. You've listened to your mother, and to the peasant father who raised you. But the decision is yours. What will you do? Live out your life here in Wigleigh, tilling the fields alongside your brother? Or escape?”

Sam paused only for a moment. He looked guiltily at Wulfric and Gwenda, then turned to Ralph. “I'll do it,” he said. “I'll be a squire, and thank you, my lord!”

“Good lad,” Ralph said.

Gwenda began to cry. Wulfric put his arm around her. Looking up at Ralph, he said: “When shall he go?”

“Today,” Ralph said. “He can ride back to Earlscastle with me and Alan after dinner.”

“Not so soon!” Gwenda cried.

No one took any notice of her.

Ralph said to Sam: “Go home and fetch anything you want to bring with you. Have dinner with your mother. Come back and wait for me in the stables. Meanwhile, Nate can requisition a mount to carry you to Earlscastle.” He turned away, having finished with Sam and his family. “Now, where's my dinner?”

Wulfric and Gwenda went out with Sam, but Davey stayed behind. Had he already found out that that his crop had been trampled? Or was it something else? “What do you want?” Ralph said.

“Lord, I have a boon to ask.”

This was almost too good to be true. The insolent peasant who had planted madder in the woods without permission was now a supplicant. What a satisfying day this was turning out to be. “You can't be a squire, you've got your mother's build,” Ralph told him, and Alan laughed.

“I want to marry Amabel, the daughter of Annet,” said the young man.

“That won't please your mother.”

“I will be of age in less than a year.”

Ralph knew all about Annet, of course. He had nearly been hanged for her sake. His history was entwined with hers almost as much as with Gwenda's. He recalled that all her family had died in the plague. “Annet still has some of the lands her father held.”

“Yes, lord, and she is willing for them to be transferred to me when I marry her daughter.”

Such a request would not normally have been refused, although all lords would charge a tax, called an entry fee, on the transfer. However, there was no obligation on a lord to consent. The right of lords to refuse such requests on a whim, and blight the course of a serf's life, was one of the peasants' greatest gripes. But it provided the ruler with a means of discipline that could be extraordinarily effective.

“No,” said Ralph. “I will not transfer the land to you.” He grinned. “You and your bride can eat madder.”

87

C
aris had to prevent Philemon becoming bishop. This was his boldest move yet, but he had made his preparations carefully, and he had a chance. If he succeeded, he would have control of the hospital again, giving him the power to destroy her life's work. But he could do worse than that. He would revive the blind orthodoxy of the past. He would appoint hard-hearted priests like himself in the villages, close schools for girls, and preach sermons against dancing.

She had no say in the choice of a bishop, but there were ways to exert pressure.

She began with Bishop Henri.

She and Merthin traveled to Shiring to see the bishop in his palace. On the way, Merthin stared at every dark-haired girl that came into view, and when there was no one he scanned the woods at the side of the road. He was looking for Lolla, but they reached Shiring without seeing any sign of her.

The bishop's palace was on the main square, opposite the church and beside the Wool Exchange. It was not a market day, so the square was clear but for the scaffold that stood there permanently, a stark warning to villains of what the people of the county did to those who broke the law.

The palace was an unpretentious stone building with a hall and chapel on the ground floor and a series of offices and private apartments upstairs. Bishop Henri had imposed upon the place a style that Caris thought was probably French. Each room looked like a painting. The place was not decorated extravagantly, like Philemon's palace in Kingsbridge, where the profusion of rugs and jewels suggested a robber's cave. However, there was something pleasantly artful about everything in Henri's house: a silver candlestick placed to catch the light from a window; the polished gleam of an ancient oak table; spring flowers in the cold fireplace; a small tapestry of David and Jonathan on the wall.

Bishop Henri was not an enemy, but he was not quite an ally either, Caris thought nervously as they waited for him in the hall. He would probably say that he tried to rise above Kingsbridge quarrels. She, more cynically, thought that whatever decision he had to make, he remained unshakably focused on his own interests. He disliked Philemon, but he might not allow that to affect his judgment.

Henri came in followed, as always, by Canon Claude. The two of them did not seem to age. Henri was a little older than Caris, and Claude perhaps ten years younger, but they both looked like boys. Caris had noticed that clergy often aged well, better than aristocrats. She suspected it was because most priests—with some notorious exceptions—led lives of moderation. Their regime of fasting obliged them to eat fish and vegetables on Fridays and saints' days and all through Lent, and in theory they were never allowed to get drunk. By contrast, noblemen and their wives indulged in orgies of meat-eating and heroic wine-drinking. That might be why their faces became lined, their skin flaky, and their bodies bent, while clerics stayed fit and spry later into their quiet, austere lives.

Merthin congratulated Henri on having been nominated archbishop of Monmouth, then got straight to the point. “Prior Philemon has stopped work on the tower.”

Henri said with studied neutrality: “Any reason?”

“There's a pretext, and a reason,” Merthin said. “The pretext is a fault in the design.”

“And what is the alleged fault?”

“He says an octagonal spire can't be built without formwork. It is generally true, but I've found a way around it.”

“Which is…?”

“Rather simple. I will build a round spire, which will need no formwork, then give its exterior a cladding of thin stones and mortar in the shape of an octagon. Visually, it will be an octagonal spire, but structurally it will be a cone.”

“Have you told Philemon this?”

“No. If I do, he'll find another pretext.”

“What is his real reason?”

“He wants to build a Lady chapel instead.”

“Ah.”

“It's part of a campaign to ingratiate himself with senior clergy. He preached a sermon against dissection when Archdeacon Reginald was there. And he has told the king's advisors that he will not campaign against taxation of the clergy.”

“What is he up to?”

“He wants to be bishop of Shiring.”

Henri raised his eyebrows. “Philemon always had nerve, I'll give him that.”

Claude spoke for the first time. “How do you know?”

“Gregory Longfellow told me.”

Claude looked at Henri and said: “Gregory would know if anyone does.”

Caris could tell that Henri and Claude had not anticipated that Philemon would be so ambitious. To make sure they did not overlook the significance of the revelation, she said: “If Philemon gets his wish, you as archbishop of Monmouth will have endless work adjudicating disputes between Bishop Philemon and the townspeople of Kingsbridge. You know how much friction there has been in the past.”

Claude said: “We certainly do.”

“I'm glad we're in agreement,” Merthin said.

Thinking aloud, Claude said: “We must put forward an alternative candidate.”

That was what Caris had hoped he would say. “We have someone in mind,” she said.

Claude said: “Who?”

“You.”

There was a silence. Caris could tell that Claude liked the idea. She guessed he might be quietly envious of Henri's promotion, and wondering whether it was his destiny always to be a kind of assistant to Henri. He could easily cope with the post of bishop. He knew the diocese well and handled most of the practical administration already.

However, both men were now surely thinking about their personal lives. She had no doubt they were all but husband and wife: she had seen them kissing. But they were decades past the first flush of romance, and her intuition told her they could tolerate a part-time separation.

She said: “You would still be working together a good deal.”

Claude said: “The archbishop will have many reasons to visit Kingsbridge and Shiring.”

Henri said: “And the bishop of Kingsbridge will need to come to Monmouth often.”

Claude said: “It would be a great honor to be bishop.” With a twinkle in his eye he added: “Especially under you, archbishop.”

Henri looked away, pretending not to notice the double meaning. “I think it's a splendid idea,” he said.

Merthin said: “The Kingsbridge guild will back Claude—I can guarantee that. But you, Archbishop Henri, will have to put the suggestion to the king.”

“Of course.”