Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [287]
To which the architect had replied with a smile: “You forget the words of Our Lord, my son: God the Father sees even the sparrows – and the sparrows, my young friend, have eyes themselves.” He tapped him on the shoulder. “Not dust, young mason: a sparrow – who uses his eyes.” And Elias de Dereham passed on.
Then for a moment Osmund knew an ecstasy of happiness he had never known before. And he had almost forgotten the deadly sins.
It was nearly the middle of the night.
In the market place, the brightly-coloured awnings on the stalls were folded tight; the sheep and cattle pens were empty; the streets were silent.
Or almost so. For along the edge of the cheesemarket, where the trestle tables were stacked in piles, neatly chained beside the walls of the squat parish church of St Thomas, a single figure, dressed in a grey cloak with the long capuchon hood pulled over his head, was moving unsteadily through the shadows. There was only starlight to see by that night, but the stars were very bright. The figure moved along the western edge of the market, detached itself from the shadows, and moved up the centre of the street that led north past Blue Boar Row.
Peter Shockley was drunk.
Slowly he made his way up Castle Street.
Only when he reached the tall, severe house of Le Portier the aulnager did he stop, look for a stone in the road and finally begin to cast it up at the topmost window of the house’s pale, blank front.
Alicia was in there. It was her last night in her father’s house.
At the third attempt, he succeeded in hitting her window and a few moments later it opened and her face appeared, staring down into the starlit street.
He pulled back his hood. Her hair was a little longer than before. He could make it out, falling to her shoulders, and see her white nightshirt beneath. It seemed to him that, even from that distance, he could sense the warmth and even the scent of her body beneath.
“Alicia.”
She sighed. It was the third visit that week.
“Go home Peter, I can’t see you.”
He did not move.
“Come down,” he whispered urgently.
“No.”
Three times he had begged her to run away with him. “And then what would you do?” she demanded.
“Something,” he replied defiantly.
It was absurd. She was beginning to find him ridiculous. And yet – because she was almost tempted, because she was angry with herself for giving way to her father, because she knew that it was useless and because she was trying to make herself believe that she was going to be happy with the pleasant, middle-aged knight from Winchester who was such a fine catch for her – she treated Peter with scorn.
“Go away and forget about me,” she hissed into the darkness.
“Will you forget me?” he cried aloud.
“I already have. I’m in love with Geoffrey de Whiteheath.” She withdrew her head and he saw the window close.
He did not leave. He threw the stone up again, and again, but she did not appear. He threw it harder; and then a little too hard. He heard a pane of glass break. But still he did not move away.
A moment later the door of the house opened and the tall thin form of Alan Le Portier strode out of his house. He was carrying a stick.
“Go home at once, young man,” he ordered angrily. “You’ll pay for my window tomorrow.” He glared at him contemptuously as though he was a child. Peter felt his resentment rising.
“You’ve sold her,” he shouted, “you’ve sold her to a knight!” As his words echoed down the street, several heads appeared at other windows.
Le Portier stiffened. The charge was quite untrue, but it infuriated him to have such insults thrown at him.
“You brat.”
In the darkness and his fuddled state, Peter did not see him