The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [249]
After a moment, they got to their feet. William still felt excited. “Why don’t you two do her?” he said to Gervase and Hugh. He liked the idea of watching a repeat performance.
However, they were not keen. “I’ve got a little darling waiting,” said Hugh, and Gervase said: “Me, too.”
The whore stood up and rearranged her dress. Her face was unreadable. William said to her: “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
She stood in front of him and stared at him for a moment, then she pursed her lips and spat. He felt his face covered with a warm, sticky fluid: she had retained Walter’s semen in her mouth. The stuff blurred his vision. Angry, he raised a hand to strike her, but she ducked out between the screens. Walter and the other knights burst out laughing. William did not think it was funny, but he could not chase after the girl with semen all over his face, and he realized that the only way to retain his dignity was to pretend not to care, so he laughed too.
Ugly Gervase said: “Well, lord, I hope you don’t have Walter’s baby, now!” and they roared. Even William thought that was funny. They all walked out of the little booth together, leaning on one another and wiping their eyes. The other girls were staring at them, looking anxious: they had heard William’s whore scream and were afraid of trouble. One or two customers peeped out curiously from the other booths. Walter said: “First time I ever saw that stuff spurt out of a girl!” and they started laughing again.
One of William’s squires was standing by the door, looking anxious. He was only a lad and he had probably never been inside a brothel before. He smiled nervously, not sure whether he was entitled to join in the hilarity. William said to him: “What are you doing here, you po-faced idiot?”
“There’s a message come for you, lord,” the squire said.
“Well, don’t waste time, tell me what it is!”
“I’m very sorry, lord,” said the boy. He looked so frightened that William thought he was going to turn around and run out of the house.
“What are you sorry for, you turd?” William roared. “Give me the message!”
“Your father’s dead, lord,” the boy blurted out, and he burst into tears.
William stared, dumbstruck. Dead? he thought. Dead? “But he’s in perfectly good health!” he shouted stupidly. It was true that Father was not able to fight on the battlefield anymore, but that was not surprising in a man almost fifty years old. The squire continued to cry. William recalled the way Father had looked last time he saw him: stout, red-faced, hearty and choleric, as full of life as a man could be, and that was only ... He realized, with a small shock, that it was nearly a year since he had seen his father. “What happened?” he said to the squire. “What happened to him?”
“He had a seizure, lord,” the squire sobbed.
A seizure. The news began to sink in. Father was dead. That big, strong, blustering, irascible man was lying helpless and cold on a stone slab somewhere—
“I’ll have to go home,” William said suddenly.
Walter said gently: “You must first ask the king to release you.”
“Yes, that’s right,” William said vaguely. “I must ask permission.” His mind was in a turmoil.
“Shall I tip the brothel keeper?” said Walter.
“Yes.” William handed Walter his purse. Someone put William’s cloak over his shoulders. Walter murmured something to the woman who ran the whorehouse and gave her some money. Hugh Axe opened the door for William. They all went out.
They walked through the streets of the small town in silence. William felt peculiarly detached, as if he were watching everything from above. He could not take in the fact that his father no longer existed. As they approached headquarters he tried to pull himself