The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [246]
William sat quietly fuming until Bishop Henry got to his feet and said he was ready to hold the service. Prior Philip gestured to a novice, who went running from the room, and a few moments later a bell began to ring.
They all left the house, Bishop Henry first, Bishop Waleran second, then Prior Philip, then the lay people. All the monks were waiting outside, and they fell into line behind Philip, forming a procession. The Hamleighs had to bring up the rear.
The volunteers filled the entire western half of the priory close, sitting on walls and roofs. Henry mounted a platform in the middle of the building site. The monks formed up in rows behind him, where the quire of the new cathedral would be. The Hamleighs and the other lay members of the bishop’s entourage made their way to what would become the nave.
As they took their places, William saw Aliena.
She looked very different. She wore rough, cheap clothing and wooden clogs, and the mass of curls that framed her head was damp with sweat. But it was definitely Aliena, and she was still so beautiful that his throat went dry and he stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away, while the service began and the priory close filled with the sound of a thousand voices saying the Our Father.
She seemed to feel his intense look, for she appeared troubled, shifting from foot to foot and then glancing around as if searching. Finally she met his eyes. An expression of horror and fear came over her face, and she shrank back, although she was already ten yards or more away and separated from him by dozens of people. Her fear made her all the more desirable to him, and he felt his body respond in a way it had not done for a year. His lust for her was mingled with resentment because of the spell she had cast over him. She flushed and dropped her gaze, as if she were ashamed. She spoke briefly to a boy next to her—that was the brother, of course, William thought, recalling the face in a flash of erotic memory—and then she turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
William felt let down. He was tempted to follow her, but of course he could not, not in the middle of a service, in front of his parents, two bishops, forty monks and a thousand worshipers. So he turned back to face the front, disappointed. He had lost his chance to find out where she lived.
Although she had gone, she still filled his mind. He wondered if it was a sin to have an erection in church.
He noticed that Father was looking agitated. “Look!” he was saying to Mother. “Look at that woman!”
At first William thought Father must be talking about Aliena. But she was nowhere in sight, and when he followed his father’s stare, he saw a woman nearer to thirty years of age, not as voluptuous as Aliena but with an agile, untamed look that made her interesting. She was standing some distance away with Tom, the master builder, and William thought it was probably the builder’s wife, the woman he had tried to buy in the forest one day a year or so ago. But why would his father know her?
“Is it her?” Father said.
The woman turned her head, almost as if she had heard them, and looked straight at them, and William saw again her pale, penetrating golden eyes.
“It is her, by God,” Mother hissed.
The woman’s stare shook Father. His red face paled and his hands trembled. “Jesus Christ preserve us,” he said. “I thought she was dead.”
And William thought: Now what the devil is that all about?
Jack had been dreading this.
For a whole year he had known that his mother missed Tom Builder. She was less even-tempered than she used to be; she often had a dreamy, faraway look; and in the night she sometimes made the panting noises, as if she were dreaming or imagining that she was making love to Tom. Jack had known, all along, that she would come back. And now she had agreed to stay.
He hated the idea.
The two of them had always been happy together. He loved his mother and his mother loved