The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [241]
He lifted his gaze to the rest of the building site. It was so big that eighty men and women and a few children were lost in it. They were working away cheerfully in the sunshine, but they were so few that it seemed to him there was an air of futility about their efforts. He had originally hoped for a hundred people, but now he saw that even that would not have been enough.
Another little group came through the gateway, and Philip forced himself to go to greet them with a smile. There was no need for them to know that their efforts would be wasted. They would gain forgiveness for their sins, anyway.
It was a large group, he saw as he approached them. He counted twelve, and then two more came in. Perhaps after all he would have a hundred people by midday, when the bishop was expected. “God bless you all,” he said to them. He was about to tell them where to start digging when he was interrupted by a loud shout. “Philip!”
He frowned disapprovingly. The voice belonged to Brother Milius. Even Milius was supposed to call Philip “Father” in public. Philip looked in the direction from which the voice came. Milius was balancing on the priory wall in a somewhat undignified stance. In a calm but carrying voice, Philip said: “Brother Milius, get off the wall.”
To his astonishment Milius stayed there and shouted: “Come and look at this!”
The new arrivals were getting a poor impression of monastic obedience, Philip thought, but he could not help wondering what it was that had got Milius so excited that he had forgotten all his manners. “Come here and tell me about it, Milius,” he said in a voice he normally reserved for noisy novices.
“You must look!” Milius yelled.
He’d better have a very good reason for this, Philip thought crossly; but since he did not want to give his closest colleague a telling-off in front of all these strangers, he was obliged to smile and do as Milius asked. Feeling irritated to the point of anger, he walked across the muddy ground in front of the stable and jumped up onto the low wall. “What is the meaning of this behavior?” he hissed.
“Just look!” Milius said, pointing.
Following his gesture, Philip looked out, over the roofs of the village, past the river, to the road that followed the rise and fall of the land to the west. At first he could not believe his eyes. Between the fields of green crops, the undulating road was a solid mass of people, hundreds of them, all walking toward Kingsbridge. “What is it?” he said uncomprehendingly. “An army?” And then he realized that, of course, they were his volunteers. His heart leaped for joy. “Look at them!” he shouted. “There must be five hundred—a thousand—more!”
“That’s right!” Milius said happily. “They came, after all!”
“We’re saved.” Philip was too thrilled to remember why he was supposed to be angry with Milius. The mass of people filled the road all the way to the bridge, and the line wound through the village all the way to the priory gate. The people he had greeted were the head of a phalanx. They were pouring through the gate now, and milling about at the western end of the building site, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. “Hallelujah!” he yelled recklessly.
It was not enough to rejoice—he had to use these people. He jumped down off the