The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [293]
Aliena said: “It will make a big difference to Shiring. You and I are the biggest sellers of wool in the county, and if we both withdraw, the Shiring fair will be less than half its usual size.”
Francis said: “William Hamleigh will lose money. He’ll be as mad as a bull.”
Philip could not help a shudder of revulsion. A mad bull was just what William was like.
“So what?” said Aliena. “If Maud has given us permission, we can go ahead. There’s nothing William can do about it, is there?”
“I hope not,” Philip said fervently. “I certainly hope not.”
Chapter 10
WORK STOPPED AT NOON on Saint Augustine’s Day. Most of the builders greeted the midday bell with a sigh of relief. They normally worked from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, so they needed the rest they got on holy days. However, Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell.
He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes out of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to carve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch, but Tom would not let him. Most of all he wanted to carve scenes from stories, Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, and the Day of Judgment, with monsters and devils and naked people, but he did not dare to ask.
Eventually Tom made him stop work. “It’s a holiday, lad,” he said. “Besides, you’re still my apprentice, and I want you to help me clear up. All tools must be locked away before dinner.”
Jack put away his hammer and chisels, and carefully deposited the stone on which he had been working in Tom’s shed; then he went around the site with Tom. The other apprentices were tidying up and sweeping away the stone chips, sand, lumps of dried mortar and wood shavings that littered the site. Tom picked up his compasses and level while Jack collected his yardsticks and plumb lines, and they took everything to the shed.
In the shed Tom kept his poles. These were long iron rods, square in cross-section and dead straight, all exactly the same length. They were kept in a special wooden rack which was locked. They were measuring sticks.
As they continued around the site, picking up mortar-boards and shovels, Jack was thinking about the poles. “How long is a pole?” he asked.
Some of the masons heard him and laughed. They often found his questions amusing. Edward Short, a diminutive old mason with leathery skin and a twisted nose, said: “A pole is a pole,” and they laughed again.
They enjoyed teasing the apprentices, especially if it gave them a chance to show off their superior knowledge. Jack hated to be laughed at for his ignorance but he put up with it because he was so curious. “I don’t understand,” he said patiently.
“An inch is an inch, a foot is a foot, and a pole is a pole,” said Edward.
A pole was a unit of measurement, then. “So how many feet are there in a pole?”
“Aha! That depends. Eighteen, in Lincoln. Sixteen in East Anglia.”
Tom interrupted to give a sensible answer. “On this site there are fifteen feet to a pole.”
A middle-aged woman mason said: “In Paris they don’t use the pole at all—just the yardstick.”
Tom said to Jack: “The whole plan of the church is based on poles. Fetch me one and I’ll show you. It’s time you understood these things.” He gave Jack a key.
Jack went to the shed and took a pole from the rack. It was quite heavy. Tom liked to explain things, and Jack loved to listen. The organization of the building