The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [299]
Martha passed the bread to Jack, and as she did so Philip saw a light of adoration in her eyes, and realized that she hero-worshiped her stepbrother.
Jack intrigued Philip. He had been an ugly child, with his carrot-colored hair and pale skin and bulging blue eyes, but now that he was a young man his features had composed themselves, as it were, and his face was so strikingly attractive that strangers would turn and stare. But in temperament he was as wild as his mother. He had very little discipline and he had no concept of obedience. As a stonemason’s laborer he had been almost useless, for instead of providing a steady stream of mortar and stones he would try to pile up a whole day’s supply, then go off and do something else. He was always disappearing. One day he had decided that none of the stones on the site suited the particular carving he had to do, so without telling anyone he had gone all the way to the quarry and picked out a stone he liked. He had brought it back on a borrowed pony two days later. But people forgave him his transgressions, partly because he was a truly exceptional stone carver, and partly because he was so likable—a trait he definitely had not inherited from his mother, in Philip’s opinion. Philip had given some thought to what Jack would do with his life. If he went into the Church he could easily end up a bishop.
Martha asked Jack: “How many years before you marry?”
Jack took a small bite: apparently he was keen to wed. Philip wondered if he had anyone in mind. To Jack’s evident dismay he got a mouthful of seeds, and as they were counted his face was a picture of indignation. The total came to thirty-one. “I’ll be forty-eight years old!” he protested. They all thought that was hilarious, except for Philip, who worked out the calculation, found it correct, and marveled that Jack had been able to figure it out so fast. Even Milius the bursar could not do that.
Jack was sitting next to Aliena. Philip realized he had seen those two together several times this summer. It was probably because they were both so bright. There were not many people in Kingsbridge who could talk to Aliena on her own level; and Jack, for all his ungovernable ways, was more mature than the other apprentices. Still Philip was intrigued by their friendship, for at their age five years was a big difference.
Jack passed the bread to Aliena and asked her the question he had been asked: “How many years until you marry?”
Everyone groaned, for it was too easy to ask the same question again. The game was supposed to be an exercise in wit and raillery. But Aliena, who was famous for the number of suitors she had turned down, made them laugh by taking a huge bite of bread, indicating that she did not want to marry. But her ploy was unsuccessful: she spat out only one seed.
If she was going to marry next year, Philip thought, the groom had not appeared on the scene yet. Of course he did not believe in the predictive power of the bread. The probability was that she would die an old maid—except that she was not a maiden, according to rumor, for she had been seduced, or raped, by William Hamleigh, people said.
Aliena passed the bread to her brother, Richard, but Philip did not hear what she asked him. He was still thinking about Aliena. Unexpectedly, both Aliena and Philip had failed to sell all their wool this year. The surplus was not great—less than a tenth of Philip’s stock, and an even smaller proportion for Aliena—but it was somewhat discouraging. After that, Philip had worried that Aliena would back out of the deal for next year’s wool, but she had stuck by her bargain, and paid him a hundred and seven pounds.
The big news of the Shiring Fleece Fair had been Philip’s announcement that next year Kingsbridge would be holding its own fair. Most people had welcomed the idea, for the rents and tolls charged by William Hamleigh at the Shiring fair were extortionate, and Philip was planning to set much lower rates. So far, Earl William had not