The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [231]
It was William’s turn next.
He thought he could probably kill the cat if he was careful. In order to tire it a little more he yelled at it, making it run faster for a moment; then he feinted a throw, with the same effect. If one of the others had delayed like this he would have been booed, but William was the earl’s son, so they waited patiently. The cat slowed down, obviously in pain. It approached the door hopefully. William drew back his arm. Unexpectedly the cat stopped against the wall beside the door. William began to throw. Before the stone left his hand the door was flung open, and a priest in black stood there. William threw, but the cat sprang like an arrow from a bow, howling triumphantly. The priest in the doorway gave a frightened, high-pitched shriek, and clutched at the skirts of his robes. The young men burst out laughing. The cat cannoned into the priest’s legs, then landed on its feet and shot out through the door. The priest stood frozen in an attitude of fright, like an old woman scared by a mouse, and the young men roared with laughter.
William recognized the priest. It was Bishop Waleran.
He laughed all the more. The fact that the womanish priest who had been frightened by a cat was also a rival of the family made it even better.
The bishop recovered his composure very quickly. He flushed red, pointed an accusing finger at William, and said in a grating voice: “You’ll suffer eternal torment in the lowest depths of hell.”
William’s laughter turned to terror in a flash. His mother had given him nightmares, when he was small, by telling him what the devils did to people in hell, burning them in the flames and poking their eyes out and cutting off their private parts with sharp knives, and ever since then he hated to hear talk of it. “Shut up!” he screamed at the bishop. The room fell silent. William drew his knife and walked toward Waleran. “Don’t you come here preaching, you snake!” Waleran did not look frightened at all, just intrigued, as if he was interested to have discovered William’s weakness; and that made William angrier still. “I’ll swing for you, so help me—”
He was mad enough to knife the bishop, but he was stopped by a voice from the staircase behind him. “William! Enough!”
It was his father.
William stopped and, after a moment, sheathed his knife.
Waleran came into the hall. Another priest followed him and shut the door behind him: Dean Baldwin.
Father said: “I’m surprised to see you, Bishop.”
“Because last time we met, you induced the prior of Kingsbridge to double-cross me? Yes, I suppose you would be surprised. I’m not normally a forgiving man.” He turned his icy gaze on William again for a moment, then looked back at Father. “But I don’t bear a grudge when it’s against my interest. We need to talk.”
Father nodded thoughtfully. “You’d better come upstairs. You too, William.”
Bishop Waleran and Dean Baldwin climbed the stairs to the earl’s quarters, and William followed. He felt let down because the cat had escaped. On the other hand, he realized that he too had had a lucky escape: if he had touched the bishop he probably would have been hanged for it. But there was something about Waleran’s delicacy, his precious-ness, that William hated.
They went into Father’s chamber, the room where William had raped Aliena. He remembered that scene every time he was here: her lush white body, the fear on her face, the way she had screamed, the twisted expression on her little brother’s face as he had been forced to look on, and then—William’s masterstroke—the way he had let Walter enjoy her afterward. He wished he had kept her here, a prisoner, so that he could have her anytime he wanted.
He had thought about her obsessively ever since. He had even tried to track her down.