The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [239]
There was something else Tom needed to tell them, something important but subtle, and he was searching for the right words. Monks could be arrogant, and might alienate the volunteers. Tom wanted today’s operation to be easygoing and cheerful. “I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to ... not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.”
He caught Philip’s eye and saw that the prior was suppressing a smile, as if he knew what misgivings underlay Tom’s honeyed words. “A good point,” Philip said. “If we handle them right, these people will feel happy and uplifted, and that will create a good atmosphere, which will make a positive impression on Bishop Henry.” He looked around at the assembled monks. “If there are no more questions, let’s begin.”
Aliena had enjoyed a year of security and prosperity under the wing of Prior Philip.
All her plans had worked. She and Richard had toured the countryside buying fleeces from peasants all last spring and summer, selling to Philip every time they had a standard woolsack. They had ended the season with five pounds of silver.
Father had died just a few days after they saw him, although Aliena did not find out until Christmas. She had located his grave, after spending much hard-earned silver on bribes, in a pauper’s cemetery in Winchester. She cried hard, not just for him but for the life they had lived together, secure and carefree, the life that would never come back. In a way she had said goodbye to him before he died: when she left the jail she knew she would never see him again. In another way he was still with her, for she was bound by the oath he had made her swear, and she was resigned to spending her life doing his will.
During the winter she and Richard lived in a small house up against the wall of Kingsbridge Priory. They had built a cart, buying the wheels from the Kingsbridge cartwright, and in the spring they had bought a young ox to pull it. The shearing season was now in full swing and already they had made more than the cost of the ox and the new cart. Next year, perhaps she would employ a man to help her, and find Richard a place as a page in the household of a minor noble, so that he could begin his knightly training.
But it was all dependent on Prior Philip.
As an eighteen-year-old girl on her own, she was still considered fair game by every thief and many legitimate traders. She had tried to sell a sack of wool to merchants in Shiring and Gloucester, just to see what would happen, and both times she had been offered half price. There was never more than one merchant in a town so they knew she had no alternative. Eventually she would have her own storehouse, and sell her entire stock to the Flemish buyers; but that time was a long way off. Meanwhile she was dependent on Philip.
And Philip’s position had suddenly become precarious.
She was constantly alert to danger from outlaws and thieves, but it had come as a great shock to her, when everything was going smoothly, to have her whole livelihood threatened in such an unexpected way.
Richard had not wanted to work on the cathedral building site on Whitsunday—he was nothing if not ungrateful—but Aliena had bullied him into agreeing, and the two of them walked the few yards to the priory close soon after sunrise. Almost the whole village had turned out: thirty or forty men, some of them with their wives and children. Aliena was surprised, until she reflected that Prior Philip was their lord, and when your lord asked for volunteers it was probably unwise to refuse. In the past year she had gained a startling new perspective on the lives of ordinary people.
Tom Builder was giving the villagers their assignments.