The Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett

  They both froze. Their glade was some distance from the road, and concealed in a thicket: they were never interrupted except by the occasional unwary deer or bold fox. They held their breaths and listened. The voice came again, and was followed by a different one. As they strained their hearing they picked up an undertone of rustling, as if a large group of men was moving through the forest.

  Jack found his boots, which were lying on the ground. Moving silently, he stepped smartly to the stream a few paces away, filled a boot with water, and emptied it on the fire. The flames went out with a hiss and a wisp of smoke. Jack moved noiselessly into the undergrowth, crouching low, and disappeared.

  Aliena put on her undershirt, tunic and boots, then wrapped her cloak around her again.

  Jack returned as silently as he had left. "Outlaws," he said.

  "How many?" she whispered.

  "A lot. I couldn't see them all."

  "Where are they going?"

  "Kingsbridge." He held up a hand. "Listen."

  Aliena cocked her head. In the far distance she could hear the bell of Kingsbridge Priory tolling fast and incessantly, warning of danger. Her heart missed a beat. "Oh, Jack--the children!"

  "We can get back ahead of the outlaws if we cross Muddy Bottom and wade the river by the chestnut wood."

  "Let's go quickly, then!"

  Jack put a restraining hand on her arm and listened for a moment. He could always hear things she could not, in the forest. It came of having been brought up in the wild. She waited. At last he said: "I think they've all gone by."

  They left the glade. After a few moments they came to the road. There was no one in sight. They crossed the road and cut through the woods, following a barely perceptible track. Aliena had left Tommy and Sally with Martha, playing nine-men's morris in front of a cheerful fire. She was not quite sure what the danger was but she was terrified that something might happen before she reached her children. They ran when they could, but to Aliena's frustration the ground was too rough for most of the way, and the best she could do was jog-trot, while Jack walked with a long-legged stride. This route was harder going than the road, which was why they did not normally use it, but it was much quicker.

  They slithered down the steep slope that led to Muddy Bottom. Unwary strangers were occasionally killed in this bog, but there was no danger to those who knew their way across. Nevertheless the waterlogged mud seemed to grasp Aliena's feet, slowing her down, keeping her from Tommy and Sally. At the far side of Muddy Bottom was a ford across the river. The cold water came up to Aliena's knees and washed the mud from her feet.

  From there the route was straightforward. The alarm bell sounded louder as they approached the town. Whatever danger the town faced from the outlaws, at least they had somehow been forewarned, Aliena thought, trying to keep her spirits up. As she and Jack emerged from the forest into the meadow across the river from Kingsbridge, twenty or thirty youngsters who had been playing football in a nearby village arrived at the same time, shouting raucously and perspiring despite the cold.

  They hurried across the bridge. The gate was already closed, but the people on the battlements had seen and recognized them, and as they approached, a small sally port was opened. Jack pulled rank and made the boys let him and Aliena in first. They ducked their heads and went through the small doorway. Aliena was deeply relieved to have got back to the town before the outlaws.

  Panting with their exertions, they hurried up the main street. The townspeople were taking to the walls with spears, bows, and piles of stones to throw. The children were being rounded up and taken to the priory. Martha would have gone there already with Tommy and Sally, Aliena decided. She and Jack went straight to the priory close.

  In the kitchen courtyard Aliena saw--to her astonishment Jack's mother, Ellen, as lean and brown as ever, but with gray in her long hair and wrinkles around her forty-four-year-old eyes. She was talking animatedly to Richard. Prior Philip was some distance away, directing children into the chapter house. He did not seem to have seen Ellen.

  Standing nearby was Martha with Tommy and Sally. Aliena gasped with relief and hugged the two children.

  Jack said: "Mother! Why are you here?"

  "I came to warn you that a gang of outlaws is on the way. They're going to raid the town."

  "We saw them in the forest," Jack said.

  Richard's ears pricked up. "You saw them? How many men?"

  "I can't be sure, but it sounded like a lot, at least a hundred, maybe more."

  "What sort of weapons?"

  "Clubs. Knives. A hatchet or two. Mostly clubs."

  "What direction?"

  "North of here."

  "Thanks! I'm going to take a look from the walls."

  Aliena said: "Martha, take the children into the chapter house." She followed Richard, as did Jack and Ellen.

  As they hurried through the streets, people kept saying to Richard: "What is it?"

  "Outlaws," he would say succinctly, without breaking his stride.

  Richard was at his best like this, Aliena thought. Ask him to go out and earn his daily bread and he was helpless; but in a military emergency he was cool, level-headed and competent.

  They reached the north wall of the city and climbed the ladder to the parapet. There were heaps of stones, for throwing down on attackers, placed at regular intervals. Townsmen with bows and arrows were already taking up positions on the battlements. Some time ago, Richard had persuaded the town guild to hold emergency drills once a year. There had been a lot of resistance to the idea at first, but it had become a ritual, like the midsummer play, and everyone enjoyed it. Now its real benefits were showing as the townspeople reacted quickly and confidently to the sound of the alarm.

  Aliena looked fearfully across the fields to the forest. She could see nothing.

  Richard said: "You must have got here well ahead of them."

  Aliena said: "Why are they coming here?"

  Ellen said: "The priory storehouses. This is the only place for miles around where there's any food."

  "Of course." The outlaws were hungry people, dispossessed of their land by William, with no way to live but theft. In the undefended villages there was little or nothing to steal: the peasants were not much better off than the outlaws. Only in the barns of landowners was there food in quantity.

  As she was thinking this, she saw them.

  They emerged from the edge of the forest like rats from a burning hayrick. They swarmed across the field toward the town, twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred of them, a small army. They had probably hoped to catch the town unawares and get in through the gates, but when they heard the bell ringing the alarm they realized they had been forestalled. Nevertheless they came on, with the desperation of the starving. One or two bowmen loosed off premature arrows, and Richard yelled: "Wait! Don't waste your shafts!"

  Last time Kingsbridge was attacked, Tommy had been eighteen months old and Aliena was pregnant with Sally. She had taken refuge in the priory then, with the elderly and the children. This time she would stay on the battlements and help to fight off the danger. Most of the other women felt the same way: there were almost as many women as men on the walls.

  All the same, Aliena felt torn as the outlaws came closer. She was near the priory, but it was possible that the attackers could break through at some other point and reach the priory before she could get there. Or she might be injured in the fighting and unable to help the children. Jack was here, and so was Ellen: if they should be killed, only Martha would be left to take care of Tommy and Sally. Aliena hesitated, undecided.

  The outlaws were almost at the walls. A shower of arrows fell on them, and this time Richard did not tell the archers to wait. The outlaws were decimated. They had no armor to protect them. There was also no organization. No one had planned the attack. They were like stampeding animals, rushing headlong at a blank wall. When they got there they did not know what to do. The townspeople bombarded them with stones from the battlements. Se
veral outlaws attacked the north gate with clubs. Aliena knew the thickness of that ironbound oak door: it would take all night to break through. Meanwhile, Alf Butcher and Arthur Saddler were maneuvering a cauldron of boiling water from someone's kitchen up onto the wall over the gate.

  Directly below Aliena, a group of outlaws started to form a human pyramid. Jack and Richard immediately started to throw stones at them. Thinking of her children, Aliena did the same, and Ellen joined in too. The desperate outlaws withstood the hail of rocks for a while, then someone was hit on the head, the pyramid collapsed, and they gave up.

  There were screams of pain from the north gate a moment later, as the boiling water poured on the heads of the men attacking the door.

  Then some of the outlaws realized that their dead and wounded comrades were easy prey, and they started to strip the bodies. Fights broke out with those who were not so badly wounded, and rival looters quarreled over the possessions of the dead. It was a shambles, Aliena thought; a disgusting, degrading shambles. The townspeople stopped throwing stones as the attack petered out and the attackers fought among themselves like dogs over a bone.

  Aliena turned to Richard. "They're too disorganized to be a real threat," she said.

  He nodded. "With a little help they could be quite dangerous, because they're desperate. But as it is they've no leadership."

  Aliena was struck by a thought. "An army waiting for a leader," she said. Richard did not react, but she was excited by the idea. Richard was a good leader who had no army. The outlaws were an army without a leader. And the earldom was falling apart....

  Some of the townspeople continued to throw stones and shoot arrows at the outlaws, and more of the scavengers fell. This was the final discouragement, and they began to retreat, like a pack of dogs with their tails between their legs, looking back over their shoulders regretfully. Then someone opened the north gate, and a crowd of young men charged out, brandishing swords and axes, and went after the stragglers. The outlaws fled, but some were caught and butchered.

  Ellen turned away in disgust and said to Richard: "You should have stopped those boys from giving chase."

  "Young men need to see some blood, after a set-to such as this," he said. "Besides, the more we kill this time, the fewer we'll have to fight next time."

  It was a soldier's philosophy, Aliena thought. In the time when she had felt her life threatened every day she would probably have been like the young men, and chased after outlaws to slaughter them. Now she wanted to wipe out the causes of outlawry, not the outlaws themselves. Besides, she had thought of a way to use those outlaws.

  Richard told someone to sound the all-clear on the priory bell and gave instructions for a double watch for the night, with patrolling guards as well as sentries. Aliena went to the priory and collected Martha and the children. They all met again at Jack's house.

  It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and--

  She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family.

  Jack drew a jug of ale from the barrel and poured it into large cups. Everyone felt tense and excited after the danger. Ellen built up the fire and Martha sliced turnips into a pot, beginning to make a broth for supper. Once upon a time they would have put half a pig on the fire on a day such as this.

  Richard drank his ale in one long swallow, wiped his mouth, and said: "We're going to see more of this kind of thing before the winter's out."

  Jack said: "They should attack Earl William's storehouses, not Prior Philip's. It's William who has made most of these people destitute."

  "They won't have any more success against William than they did against us, unless they improve their tactics. They're like a pack of dogs."

  Aliena said: "They need a leader."

  Jack said: "Pray they never get one! They would really be dangerous then."

  Aliena said: "A leader might direct them to attack William's property instead of ours."

  "I don't follow you," Jack said. "Would a leader do that?"

  "He would if he was Richard."

  They all went quiet.

  The idea had grown in Aliena's mind, and she was now convinced it could work. They could fulfill their vows, Richard could destroy William and become the earl, and the county could be restored to peace and prosperity.... The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. She said: "There were more than a hundred men in that rabble today." She turned to Ellen. "How many more are there in the forest?"

  "Countless," Ellen said. "Hundreds. Thousands."

  Aliena leaned across the kitchen table and locked eyes with Richard. "Be their leader," she said forcefully. "Organize them. Teach them how to fight. Devise plans of attack. Then send them into action--against William."

  As she spoke, she realized that she was telling him to put his life in danger, and she was filled with trepidation. Instead of winning back the earldom he could be killed.

  But he had no such qualms. "By God, Allie, you could be right," he said. "I could have an army of my own, and lead it against William."

  Aliena saw in his face the flush of a hatred long nurtured, and she noticed again the scar on his left ear, where the lobe had been sliced off. She pushed down the vile memory that threatened to surface.

  Richard was warming to his theme. "I could raid William's herds," he said with relish. "Steal his sheep, poach his deer, break open his barns, rob his mills. My God, I could make that vermin suffer, if I had an army."

  He had always been a soldier, Aliena thought; it was his fate. Despite her fear for his safety, she was thrilled by the prospect that he might have another chance to fulfill his destiny.

  He thought of a snag. "But how can I find the outlaws?" he said. "They always hide"

  "I can answer that," said Ellen. "Branching off the Winchester road is an overgrown track that leads to a disused quarry. That's their hideout. It used to be known as Sally's Quarry."

  Seven-year-old Sally said: "But I haven't got a quarry!"

  Everyone laughed.

  Then they went quiet again.

  Richard looked exuberant and determined. "Very well," he said tightly. "Sally's Quarry."

  "We'd been working hard all morning, uprooting a massive tree stump up the hill," said Philip. "When we came back, my brother, Francis, was standing right there, in the goat pen, holding you in his arms. You were a day old."

  Jonathan looked grave. This was a solemn moment for him.

  Philip surveyed the cell of St-John-in-the-Forest. There was not much forest in sight now: over the years the monks had cleared many acres, and the monastery was surrounded by fields. There were more stone buildings--a chapter house, a refectory and a dormitory--plus a host of smaller wooden barns and dairies. It hardly looked like the place he had left seventeen years ago. The people were different, too. Several of those young monks now occupied positions of responsibility at Kingsbridge. William Beauvis, who had caused trouble by flicking hot candle wax at the novice-master's bald head all those years ago, was now prior here. Some had gone: that troublemaker Peter of Wareham was in Canterbury, working for an ambitious young archdeacon called Thomas Becket.

  "I wonder what they were like," said Jonathan. "I mean my parents."

  Philip felt a twinge of pain for him. Philip himself had lost his parents, but not until he was six years old, and he could remember them both quite well: his mother calm and loving, his father tall and black-bearded and--to Philip, anyway--brave and strong. Jonathan did not even have that. All he knew about his parents was that they had not wanted him.

  "We can guess a lot about them," Philip said.

  "Really?" Jonathan said eagerly. "What?"

  "They were poor," Philip said. "Wealthy people have no reason to abandon their children. T
hey were friendless: friends know when you're expecting a baby, and ask questions if a child disappears. They were desperate. Only desperate people can bear to lose a child."

  Jonathan's face was taut with unshed tears. Philip wanted to weep for him, this boy who--everyone said--was so much like Philip himself. Philip wished he could give him some consolation, tell him something warm and heartening about his parents; but how could he pretend that they had loved the boy, when they had left him to die?

  Jonathan said: "But why does God do such things?"

  Philip saw his opportunity. "Once you start asking that question, you can end up in confusion. But in this case I think the answer is clear. God wanted you for himself."

  "Do you really think so?"

  "Have I never told you that before? I've always believed it. I said so to the monks here, on the day you were found. I told them that God had sent you here for a purpose of his own, and it was our duty to raise you in God's service so that you would be fit to perform the task he has assigned you."

  "I wonder if my mother knows that."

  "If she's with the angels, she does."

  "What do you think my task might be?"

  "God needs monks to be writers, illuminators, musicians, and farmers. He needs men to take on the demanding jobs, such as cellarer, prior and bishop. He needs men who can trade in wool, heal the sick, educate the schoolboys and build churches."

  "It's hard to imagine that he has a role cut out for me."

  "I can't think he would have gone to this much trouble with you if he didn't," Philip said with a smile. "However, it might not be a grand or prominent role in worldly terms. He might want you to become one of the quiet monks, a humble man who devotes his life to prayer and contemplation."

  Jonathan's face fell. "I suppose he might."

  Philip laughed. "But I don't think so. God wouldn't make a knife out of wood, or a lady's chemise of shoe leather. You aren't the right material for a life of quietude, and God knows it. My guess is that he wants you to fight for him, not sing to him."

  "I certainly hope so."

  "But right now I think he wants you to go and see Brother Leo and find out how many cheeses he has for the cellar at Kingsbridge."