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By Root 1776 0

A verderer had been caught trying to sell William’s war-horse in Shiring, and had confessed, under torture, that he had stolen it from a girl answering to the description of Aliena. William had learned from the Winchester jailer that she had visited her father before he died. And his friend Mistress Kate, the owner of a brothel he frequented, had told him she had offered Aliena a place in her house. But the trail had petered out. “Don’t let her prey on your mind, Willy-boy,” Kate had said sympathetically. “You want big tits and long hair? We’ve got it. Take Betty and Millie together, tonight, four big breasts all to yourself, why don’t you?” But Betty and Millie had not been innocent, and white-skinned, and frightened half to death; and they had not pleased him. In fact, he had not achieved real satisfaction with a woman since that night with Aliena here in the earl’s chamber.

He put the thought of her out of his mind. Bishop Waleran was speaking to Mother. “I suppose you know that the prior of Kingsbridge has taken possession of your quarry?”

They did not know. William was astonished, and Mother was furious. “What?” she said. “How?”

“Apparently your men-at-arms succeeded in turning away the quarrymen, but the next day when they woke up they found the quarry overrun with monks singing hymns, and they were afraid to lay hands on men of God. Prior Philip then hired your quarrymen, and now they’re all working together in perfect harmony. I’m surprised the men-at-arms didn’t come back to you to report.”

“Where are they, the cowards?” Mother screeched. She was red in the face. “I’ll see to them—I’ll make them cut off their own balls—”

“I see why they didn’t come back,” Waleran said.

“Never mind the men-at-arms,” Father said. “They’re just soldiers. That sly prior is the one responsible. I never imagined he could pull a trick like this. He’s outwitted us, that’s all.”

“Exactly,” said Waleran. “For all his air of saintly innocence, he’s got the cunning of a house rat.”

William thought that Waleran, too, was like a rat, a black one with a pointed snout and sleek black hair, sitting in a corner with a crust in its paws, darting wary glances around the room as it nibbled its dinner. Why was he interested in who occupied the quarry? He was as cunning as Prior Philip: he, too, was plotting something.

Mother said: “We can’t let him get away with this. The Hamleighs must not be seen to be defeated. That prior must be humiliated.”

Father was not so sure. “It’s only a quarry,” he said. “And the king did—”

“It’s not just the quarry, it’s the family’s honor,” Mother interrupted. “Never mind what the king said.”

William agreed with Mother. Philip of Kingsbridge had defied the Hamleighs, and he had to be crushed. If people were not afraid of you, you had nothing. But he did not see what the problem was. “Why don’t we go in with some men and just throw the prior’s quarrymen out?”

Father shook his head. “It’s one thing to obstruct the king’s wishes passively, as we did by working the quarry ourselves; but quite another to send armed men to expel workmen who are there by express permission of the king. I could lose the earldom for that.”

William reluctantly saw his point of view. Father was always cautious, but he was usually justified.

Bishop Waleran said: “I have a suggestion.” William had felt sure he had something up his embroidered black sleeve. “I believe this cathedral should not be built at Kingsbridge.”

William was mystified by this remark. He did not see its relevance. Nor did Father. But Mother’s eyes widened, she stopped scratching her face for a moment, and she said thoughtfully: “That’s an interesting idea.”

“In the old days most cathedrals were in villages such as Kingsbridge,” Waleran went on. “Many of them were moved to towns sixty or seventy years ago, during the time of the first King William. Kingsbridge is a small village in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing there but a run-down monastery that isn’t rich enough to maintain a cathedral, let alone build one.”

Mother said: “And where would you wish it built?