The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [156]
He was wrong about that, he soon learned.
He tried to break the news gradually. First he said: “They know we’re not married.”
“Who told them?” she said angrily. “Some troublemaker?”
“Alfred. Don’t blame him—that sly monk Remigius got it out of him. Anyway, we never told the children to keep it secret.”
“I don’t blame the boy,” she said more calmly. “So what do they say?”
He leaned across the table and spoke in a low voice. “They say you’re a fornicator,” he said, hoping no one else would hear.
“A fornicator?” she said loudly. “What about you? Don’t these monks know that it takes two to fornicate?”
The people sitting nearby started to laugh.
“Hush,” Tom said. “They say we have to get married.”
She looked at him hard. “If that was all, you wouldn’t be looking so hangdog, Tom Builder. Tell me the rest.”
“They want you to confess your sin.”
“Hypocritical perverts,” she said disgustedly. “They spend all night up one another’s arseholes and then they have the nerve to call what we’re doing a sin.”
There was more laughter at that. People stopped their own conversations to listen to Ellen.
“Just talk quietly,” Tom pleaded.
“I suppose they want me to do penance, too. Humiliation is all part of it. What do they want me to do? Come on, tell the truth, you can’t lie to a witch.”
“Don’t say that!” Tom hissed. “It makes things worse.”
“Then tell me.”
“We have to live apart for a year, and you have to remain chaste—”
“Piss on that!” Ellen shouted.
Now everyone was looking.
“Piss on you, Tom Builder!” she said. She realized she had an audience. “Piss on all of you, too,” she said. Most people grinned. It was hard to take offense, perhaps because she looked so lovely with her face flushed red and her golden eyes wide. She stood up. “Piss on Kingsbridge Priory!” She jumped up on to the table, and there was a burst of applause. She walked along the board. The diners snatched their bowls of soup and mugs of ale out of her way and sat back, laughing. “Piss on the prior!” she said. “Piss on the sub-prior, and the sacrist, and the cantor and the treasurer, and all their deeds and charters, and their chests full of silver pennies!” She reached the end of the table. Beyond it was another, smaller table where someone would sit and read aloud during the monks’ dinner. There was an open book on the table. Ellen jumped from the dining table to the reading table.
Suddenly Tom knew what she was going to do. “Ellen!” he called. “Don’t, please—”
“Piss on the Rule of Saint Benedict!” she yelled at the top of her voice. Then she hitched up her skirt, bent her knees, and urinated on the open book.
The men roared with laughter, banged on the tables, hooted and whistled and cheered. Tom was not sure whether they shared Ellen’s contempt for the Rule or they just enjoyed seeing a beautiful woman expose herself. There was something erotic about her shameless vulgarity, but it was also exciting to see someone openly abuse the book that the monks were so tediously solemn about. Whatever the reason, they loved it.
She jumped off the table and, amid a thunder of applause, ran out of the door.
Everyone began to talk at the same time. No one had ever seen anything quite like that before. Tom was horrified and embarrassed: the consequences would be dire, he knew. Yet a part of him was thinking: What a woman!
Jack got up after a moment and followed his mother out, with the trace of a grin on his swollen face.
Tom looked at Alfred and Martha. Alfred had a bewildered air but Martha was giggling. “Come on, you two,” Tom said, and the three of them left the refectory.
When they got outside Ellen was nowhere to be seen. They went across the green to the guesthouse and found her there. She was sitting in the chair waiting for him. She was wearing her cloak, and holding her big leather satchel. She looked cool, calm and collected. Tom’s heart went cold when he saw the bag, but he pretended not to have noticed it. “There’s going to be hell to pay,” he said.
“I don’t believe in hell,” she said.
“I hope they’ll let