Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [352]
But now the great cathedral was completed. He knew its wonders, every stone.
And as he stared at his work, done so long ago, he experienced for the first time in his life the fierce, overwhelming exultation that, had old Canon Portehors still been alive, the priest would have told him at once, with a terrible admonition, was the greatest of all the seven deadly sins.
For suddenly, overcome with emotion, the old man had grabbed his son by the arm, and cried:
“I did those. I carved them all. And there’s been nothing better in the cathedral. Nothing better in all England.”
“They are excellent,” Edward agreed quietly.
“Excellent?” He laughed, so loudly that it echoed round the stillness of the cloisters outside. “Excellent? There’s no mason living,” he shouted, “there’s been none at Sarum since the cathedral was started who could do what I have done.” He walked over to the little scene of Adam and Eve, stood on the canon’s seat beside it and ran his hand over the carving. Then, turning to his family in triumph, he reminded them:
“I made this. I made it all.”
And so at last, in his eightieth year, Osmund the Mason fell easily into the most deadly sin of pride.
As they returned through the cloisters, the old man seemed flushed with exultation. He seemed to forget his age as he almost skipped along. And when they entered the shadowy nave again, his keen eyes could still pick out in the half light a dozen reminders of his craftsmanship. The tomb of Bishop Gyles, a boss here, a capital there, even the stern face of Canon Portehors peeping down from the vaulting far above. The whole cathedral suddenly seemed to belong to him. What fools those masons had been, he remembered savagely, who had sent him ignominiously down from the tower. What were they? Fools and knaves, he almost shouted aloud: knaves like the worthless Bartholomew.
And in this mood of elation, just before the choir entered, he had turned to his horrified son and announced:
“Tomorrow morning we shall visit the tower,” and then added: “And I shall climb the spire.”
It was an unusual morning for December – both warm and clear.
The two men stood at the parapet: the old man eager and excited, the younger somewhat anxious and ill at ease.
It had been useless to argue with Osmund.
“If I prevent him going to the tower today,” Edward had told his wife, “he’ll only find some way of sneaking off another day. It’s better I go and keep an eye on him.”
“He’ll never get up the stairs anyway,” she had remarked.
Edward was less sanguine. And now he had been astonished by the way his ancient father had mounted them: slowly, to be sure, but steadily, stopping only at the clerestory level and once again at the first of the two landings in the great tower.
“The old man’s like an ant,” he muttered. “He just won’t be beaten.” And tiresome as the business was, he could not help admiring the old fellow’s incredible persistence.
As for Osmund, as he went up the familiar spiral staircase in the tower, he never remembered feeling better in his long life. Perhaps it was because he felt like a part of the building itself that the climb seemed easy; perhaps because his mind was fixed on the objective ahead. When at last he came out into the open air at the top of the tower his head was singing and he had to steady himself for a moment; but soon his face relaxed and he began to walk slowly round the parapet, beneath the huge sloping walls of the octagonal base of the spire.
He seemed to have forgotten his insane idea of the day before. Indeed, to Edward’s relief, he scarcely, glanced at the spire. He seemed to have forgotten Edward too as he paced about, staring out at the view, examining the masonry and muttering to himself. He went round several times. Twice, on the northern