The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [260]
Philip advanced on him, pointing his finger and shouting: “On your knees!”
William backed his horse. He looked around desperately. The crowd hemmed him in. His knights were behind him, looking bemused: they could not decide how to cope with a spiritual threat from an unarmed monk. William could not take any more humiliation. After Aliena, this was too much. He pulled on the reins, making his massive war-horse rear dangerously. The crowd parted in front of its mighty hooves. When its forefeet hit the ground again he kicked it hard, and it lunged forward. The onlookers scattered. He kicked it again, and it broke into a canter. Burning with shame, he fled out through the priory gate, with his knights following, like a pack of snarling dogs chased off by an old woman with a broom.
William confessed his sins, in fear and trembling, on the cold stone floor of the little chapel at the bishop’s palace. Bishop Waleran listened in silence, his face a mask of distaste, as William catalogued the killings, the beatings and the rapes he was guilty of. Even while he confessed, William was filled with loathing for the supercilious bishop, with his clean white hands folded over his heart, and his translucent white nostrils slightly flared, as if there were a bad smell in the dusty air. It tormented William to beg Waleran for absolution, but his sins were so heavy that no ordinary priest could forgive them. So he knelt, possessed by fear, while Waleran commanded him to light a candle in perpetuity in the chapel at Earlscastle, and then told him his sins were absolved.
The fear lifted slowly, like a fog.
They came out of the chapel into the smoky atmosphere of the great hall and sat by the fire. Autumn was turning to winter and it was cold in the big stone house. A kitchen hand brought hot spiced bread made with honey and ginger. William began to feel all right at last.
Then he remembered his other problems. Bartholomew’s son Richard was making a bid for the earldom, and William was too poor to raise an army big enough to impress the king. He had raked in considerable cash in the past month, but it was still not sufficient. He sighed, and said: “That damned monk is drinking the blood of the Shiring earldom.”
Waleran took some bread with a pale, long-fingered hand like a claw. “I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to reach that conclusion.”
Of course, Waleran would have worked it all out long before William. He was so superior. William would rather not talk to him. But he wanted the bishop’s opinion on a legal point. “The king has never licensed a market in Kingsbridge, has he?”
“To my certain knowledge, no.”
“Then Philip is breaking the law.”
Waleran shrugged his bony, black-draped shoulders. “For what it’s worth, yes.”
Waleran seemed uninterested but William plowed on. “He ought to be stopped.”
Waleran gave a fastidious smile. “You can’t deal with him the way you deal with a serf who’s married off his daughter without permission.”
William reddened: Waleran was referring to one of the sins he had just confessed. “How can you deal with him, then?”
Waleran considered. “Markets are the king’s prerogative. In more peaceful times he would probably handle this himself.”
William gave a scornful laugh. For all his cleverness, Waleran did not know the king as well as William did. “Even in peacetime he wouldn’t thank me for complaining to him about an unlicensed market.”
“Well, then, his deputy, to deal with local matters, is the sheriff of Shiring.”
“What can he do?”
“He could bring a writ against the priory in the county court.”
William shook his head. “That’s the last thing I want. The court would impose a fine, the