The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [309]
Meanwhile, Ellen had woven a bale of cloth from Aliena’s surplus wool. It was coarse and colorless, but it was good enough for monks’ robes, and the priory cellarer, Cuthbert Whitehead, had bought it. The price was cheap, but it was still double the cost of the original wool, and even after paying Ellen a penny a day Aliena was better off by half a pound. Cuthbert was keen to buy more cloth at that price, so Aliena bought Philip’s surplus wool to add to her own stock, and found a dozen more people, mostly women, to weave it. Ellen agreed to make another bale, but she would not felt it, for she said the work was too hard; and most of the others said the same.
Aliena sympathized. Felting, or fulling, was heavy work. She remembered how she and Richard had gone to a master fuller in Winchester and asked him to employ them. The fuller had had two men pounding cloth with bats in a trough while a woman poured water in. The woman had shown Aliena her raw, red hands, and when the men had put a bale of wet cloth on Richard’s shoulder it had brought him to his knees. Most people could manage to felt a small amount, enough to make clothes for themselves and their families, but only strong men could do it all day. Aliena told her weavers to go ahead and make loose-woven cloth, and she would hire men to felt it, or sell it to a master fuller in Winchester.
The guild dinner was held in the wooden church. Aliena organized the food. She parceled out the cooking among the members, most of whom had at least one domestic servant. Alfred and his men constructed a long table made of trestles and boards. They bought strong ale and a barrel of wine.
They sat at either side of the table, with nobody at the head or foot, for all were to be equal within the guild. Aliena wore a deep-red silk dress ornamented by a gold brooch with rubies in it, and a dark gray pelisse with fashionably wide sleeves. The parish priest said grace: he of course was delighted by the idea of the guild, for a new church would increase his prestige and multiply his income.
Alfred presented a budget and timetable for the building of the new church. He spoke as if this were all his own work, but Aliena knew that Tom had done most of it. The building would take two years and cost ninety pounds, and Alfred proposed that the guild’s forty members should each pay sixpence a week. It was a little more than some of them had reckoned on, Aliena could tell by their faces. They all agreed to pay it, but Aliena thought the guild could expect one or two to default.
She herself could pay it easily. Looking around the table, she realized she was probably the richest person there. She was in a small minority of women: the only others were a brewster with a reputation for good strong ale, a tailor who employed two seamstresses and some apprentices, and the widow of a shoemaker, who managed the business her husband had left. Aliena was the youngest woman there, and younger than any of the men except Alfred, who was a year or two younger than she.
Aliena missed Jack. She had not yet heard the second installment of the story of the young squire. Today was a holiday, and she would have liked to meet him in the glade. Perhaps she still could, later on.
The talk around the table was of the civil war. Stephen’s wife, Queen Matilda, had put up more of a fight than anyone expected: she had recently taken the city of Winchester and captured Robert of Gloucester. Robert was the brother of the Empress Maud and the commander in chief of her military forces. Some people said Maud was only a figurehead, and Robert was the true leader of the rebellion. In any event, the capture of Robert was almost as bad for Maud as the capture of Stephen had been for the loyalists, and everyone had an opinion on what direction the war would take next.
The drink at this feast was stronger than that provided by Prior Philip, and as the meal progressed, the revelers became quite raucous. The parish priest failed to act as a restraining influence, probably because he was drinking as much as anyone else. Alfred, who