The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [298]
The monks had set up tables on the grass at the western end of the priory close. Kitchen hands were already carrying steaming cauldrons across the courtyard. The prior was lord of the manor, so it was his responsibility to provide a feast for his tenants on important holidays. Philip’s policy was to be generous with food and mean with drink, so he served weak beer and no wine. Nevertheless there were five or six incorrigibles who managed to drink themselves insensible every feast day.
The leading citizens of Kingsbridge sat at Philip’s table: Tom Builder and his family; the senior master craftsmen, including Tom’s elder son, Alfred; and the merchants, including Aliena but not Malachi the Jew, who would join in the festivities later, after the service.
Philip called for silence and said grace; then he handed the how-many loaf to Tom. As the years went by, Philip valued Tom more and more. There were not many people who said what they meant and did what they said. Tom reacted to surprises, crises and disasters by calmly weighing up the consequences, assessing the damage and planning the best response. Philip looked at him fondly. Tom was very different today from the man who had walked into the priory five years ago begging for work. Then he had been exhausted, haggard, and so thin that his bones seemed to be on the point of poking through his weatherbeaten skin. In the intervening years he had filled out, especially since his woman came back. He was not fat, but there was flesh on his big frame, and the desperate look had long gone from his eyes. He was expensively dressed, in a tunic of Lincoln green, and soft leather shoes, and a belt with a silver buckle.
Philip had to ask the question that would be answered by the how-many bread. He said: “How many years will it take to finish the cathedral?”
Tom took a bite of the bread. It was baked with small, hard seeds, and as Tom spat the seeds into his hand, everyone counted aloud. Sometimes when this game was played, and someone got a big mouthful of seeds, it was found that nobody around the table could count high enough; but there was no danger of that today, with all the merchants and craftsmen present. The answer came to thirty. Philip pretended to be dismayed. Tom said: “I should live so long!” and everyone laughed.
Tom passed the bread to his wife, Ellen. Philip was very wary of this woman. Like the Empress Maud, she had power over men, a kind of power Philip could not compete with. The day Ellen was thrown out of the priory, she had done an appalling thing, a thing Philip could still hardly bring himself to think about. He had assumed she would never be seen again, but to his horror she had returned, and Tom had begged Philip to forgive her. Cleverly, Tom had argued that if God could forgive her sin, then Philip had no right to refuse. Philip suspected the woman was not very repentant. But Tom had asked on the day the volunteers had come and saved the cathedral, and Philip had found himself granting Tom’s wish against all his instincts. They had been married in the parish church, a small wooden building in the village that had been there longer than the priory. Since then Ellen had behaved herself, and had not given Philip reason to regret his decision. Nevertheless she made him uneasy.
Tom asked her: “How many men love you?”
She took a tiny bite of the bread, which made everyone laugh again. In this game the questions tended to be mildly suggestive. Philip knew that if he had not been present they would have been downright ribald.
Ellen counted three seeds. Tom pretended to be outraged. “I shall tell you who my three lovers are,” said Ellen. Philip hoped she was not going to say anything offensive. “The first is Tom. The second is Jack. And the third is Alfred.”
There was a round of applause for her wit, and the bread went on around the table. Next it was the turn of Tom’s daughter, Martha. She was about twelve years old, and shy.