The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [175]
It was a gloomy, gray morning with drizzling rain. William set a brisk pace for the first few miles, then slowed to a walk to rest the horses. After a while he said: “So, monk, you want to take the earldom away from me.”
Philip was taken aback by his hostile tone: he had done nothing to deserve it, and he resented it. Consequently his reply was sharp. “From you?” he said. “You aren’t going to get it, boy. I might get it, or your father might, or Bishop Waleran might. But nobody has asked the king to give it to you. The very idea is a joke.”
“I shall inherit it.”
“We’ll see.” Philip decided there was no point in quarreling with William. “I don’t mean you any harm,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I just want to build a new cathedral.”
“Then take someone else’s earldom,” William said. “Why do people always pick on us?”
There was a lot of bitterness in the boy’s voice, Philip noted. He said: “Do people always pick on you?”
“You’d think they’d learn a lesson from what happened to Bartholomew. He insulted our family, and look where he is now.”
“I thought it was his daughter who was responsible for the insult.”
“The bitch is as proud and arrogant as her father. But she’ll suffer, too. They’ll all kneel to us in the end, you’ll see.”
These were not the usual emotions of a twenty-year-old, Philip thought. William sounded more like an envious and venomous middle-aged woman. Philip was not enjoying the conversation. Most people would dress up their naked hatred in reasonable clothes, but William was too naive to do that. Philip said: “Revenge is best left until the Day of Judgment.”
“Why don’t you wait until the Day of Judgment to build your church?”
“Because by then it will be too late to save the souls of sinners from the torments of hell.”
“Don’t start on about that!” William said, and there was a note of hysteria in his voice. “Save it for your sermons.”
Philip was tempted to make another sharp retort, but he bit it back. There was something very odd about this boy. Philip had the feeling that William could fly into an uncontrollable rage at any moment, and that when enraged he would be lethally violent. Philip was not afraid of him. He had no fear of violent men, perhaps because as a child he had seen the worst they could do and survived it. But there was nothing to be gained by infuriating William with reprimands, so he said gently: “Heaven and hell is what I deal in. Virtue and sin, forgiveness and punishment, good and evil. I’m afraid I can’t shut up about them.”
“Then talk to yourself,” William said, and he spurred his horse into a trot and pulled ahead.
When he was forty or fifty yards in front he slowed down again. Philip wondered whether the boy would relent and return to ride side by side, but he did not, and for the rest of the morning they traveled apart.
Philip felt anxious and somewhat depressed. He had lost control of his destiny. He had let Waleran Bigod take charge in Winchester, and now he was letting William Hamleigh take him on a mystery journey. They’re all trying to manipulate me, he thought; why am I letting them? It’s time I started to take the initiative. But there was nothing he could do, right away, except turn around and go back to Winchester, and that seemed like a futile gesture, so he continued to follow William, staring gloomily at William’s horse’s rear end as they jogged along.
A little before noon they reached the valley where the bishop’s palace was. Philip recalled coming here at the beginning of the year, full