The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [171]
They went into the hall. There were rushes on the floor, a few seats recessed into the stone walls, some wooden benches and a fireplace. In a corner two men-at-arms guarded a staircase, set into the wall, leading up. One of the men met Bishop Henry’s eye immediately. He nodded and went up the stairs, presumably to tell the king that his brother was waiting.
Philip felt nauseated with anxiety. In the next few minutes his whole future might be decided. He wished he felt better about his allies. He wished he had spent the early morning hours praying for success instead of wandering around Winchester. He wished he had worn a clean robe.
There were twenty or thirty other people in the room, nearly all of them men. They seemed to be a mixture of knights, priests and prosperous townspeople. Suddenly Philip started, surprised: over by the fire, talking to a woman and a young man, was Percy Hamleigh. What was he doing here? The two people with him were his ugly wife and his brutish son. They had been Waleran’s collaborators, as it were, in the downfall of Bartholomew: it could hardly be a coincidence that they were here today. Philip wondered whether Waleran had expected them.
Philip said to Waleran: “Do you see—”
“I see them,” Waleran snapped, visibly displeased.
Philip felt their presence here was ominous, though he could not have said just why. He studied them. The father and son were alike: big, beefy men with yellow hair and sullen faces. The wife looked like the kind of demon that tortured sinners in paintings of hell. She touched the sores on her face constantly, her skeletal hands moving restlessly. She wore a yellow gown that made her look even uglier. She shifted from one foot to another, darting glances around the room all the time. She met Philip’s eyes, and he looked away quickly.
Bishop Henry was moving around, greeting the people he knew and blessing those he did not, but he must have been keeping an eye on the stairs, for as soon as the sentry came down again, Henry looked across at him, saw the man nod, and abandoned his conversation in midsentence.
Waleran followed Henry up the stairs and Philip brought up the rear with his heart in his mouth.
The upstairs room was the same size and shape as the entrance hall, but it felt completely different. There were tapestries on the walls and sheepskin rugs on the scrubbed floorboards. The fire blazed strongly and the room was brightly lit by dozens of candles. Near the door was an oak table with pens, ink and a stack of vellum sheets for letters, and a cleric sat waiting to take the king’s dictation. Near the fireplace, in a big wooden chair covered with fur, sat the king.
The first thing Philip noticed was that he was not wearing a crown. He had on a purple tunic over leather leggings, as if he were about to go out on horseback. Two big hunting dogs lay at his feet like favored courtiers. He resembled his brother Bishop Henry, but Stephen’s features were a little finer, making him more handsome, and he had a lot of tawny hair. However, there was the same look of intelligence about the eyes. He sat back in his big chair—Philip supposed it was a throne—looking relaxed, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his elbows on the arms of the seat, but despite his posture there was an air of tension in the room. The king was the only one at ease.
As the bishops and Philip entered, a big man in expensive clothes was leaving. He nodded in a familiar way to Bishop Henry and ignored Waleran. He was probably a powerful baron, Philip thought.
Bishop Henry approached the king, bowed, and said: “Good morning, Stephen.”
“I still haven’t seen that bastard Ranulf,” said King Stephen. “If he doesn’t show up soon I’m going to cut his fingers off.”
Henry said: “He’ll be here any