Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [373]
The little family must have sneaked into the cathedral during the night. They were standing now, five of them, with long candles in their hands by the tomb of Bishop Osmund. Obviously they had carried their father in with them; for now they had laid him, stripped entirely naked, on the tomb.
There had been many claims of miraculous cures from people touching or standing near the revered bishop’s tomb. The priests, still hoping that one day the pope would be persuaded to canonise Osmund, did nothing to discourage these claims. Now silently, hopefully, a middle-aged woman and her two sons and two daughters gazed at the wretched figure before them.
It was an eerie and terrible sight. He was in the last stages of the disease. The buboes had spread all over his chest, and the poor fellow, hardly knowing what was happening, was shaking uncontrollably on the cool, hard slab.
Nicholas turned quickly and hurried away. He continued to shiver until he was well out of the city.
At the sheep house, the family appeared calm. He offered to bring them more food, but they refused.
“We have enough grain,” Agnes told him. “That and water – it’s all we need.”
But the strain of their isolation was obviously taking its toll.
John seemed sullen, though after his description of what was taking place below, he showed no inclination to move from their sanctuary. The children were silent and withdrawn. Agnes too looked tired.
After standing for several minutes and giving them what words of encouragement he could from outside the circle of stones, he left them.
He was installed in the tower again early that evening with a fresh supply of food when the extraordinary movements in the cathedral’s structure began.
At first he thought he must have been mistaken – the whole thing just a trick of the eye.
There was a light, refreshing breeze that was sending small white clouds drifting across the evening sky. It was just as he lay back and watched them pass overhead, that it suddenly seemed to him that the top of the spire had moved.
It must have been the motion of the clouds. He waited until the sky was clear again and looked up once more. There was the cross, high above.
And again it moved.
Not very much, to be sure. He sat up. But as he did so, he felt the building below him shift, so that he fell back against the edge of the parapet. Then he sat very still. A feeling of sickness and panic came over him. Was the cathedral settling on its foundations yet again? Could it be that, after all, the bending pillars below were at last going to break and the whole mighty structure come tumbling down in a colossal ruin? He stared up at the spire again, in dread.
He started to get to his feet. And now he could feel the whole structure shifting – so much that he had to steady himself. A bead of perspiration broke out on his brow, which suddenly felt very hot. Glancing up he saw with horror that the spire was swaying wildly; the stone floor under his feet was tilting. Dear God, the cathedral was coming down! The floor tilted violently as he fell face down upon it.
Several minutes later, he came to. Strangely, the spire, the parapet, the masonry were all in place. In the west, the sky was glowing a deep magenta red and in the sky above, the first stars were starting to appear.
He put his hand to his forehead. It was burning. A momentary giddiness and nausea enveloped him.
Now he realised. The cathedral had not moved at all.
He was shaken by several spasms of trembling that night. In the bright starlight, he found that his eyes were swimming. Several times not only the spire but the constellations: Orion, Cassiopeia, the Bear, joined in a wild dance around the sky after which, each time, he was sick.
In the morning, he felt the boils in his armpits.
At dawn he prayed:
“Mother of God, save your servant.”
He had served the cathedral all his life. They said that people could survive the buboes. Surely the Blessed