The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [323]
“But why?”
“So that you would have work. Otherwise my mother would have died in the forest.”
“She wouldn’t—”
“Your first wife did, though, didn’t she?”
Tom turned white. Suddenly he looked older. Jack realized that he had wounded Tom profoundly. He had won the argument, but he had probably lost a friend. He felt sour and sad.
Tom whispered: “Get out of here.”
Jack left.
He walked away from the towering walls of the cathedral, close to tears. His life had been devastated in a few moments. It was incredible that he was going away from this church forever. He turned at the priory gate and looked back. There were so many things he had been planning. He wanted to carve a whole doorway all by himself; he wanted to persuade Tom to have stone angels in the clerestory; he had an innovative design for blind arcading in the transepts which he had not even shown to anyone yet. Now he would never do any of these things. It was so unfair. His eyes filled with tears.
He made his way home, seeing through a blur. Mother and Martha were sitting at the kitchen table. Mother was teaching Martha to write with a sharp stone and a slate. They were surprised to see him. Martha said: “It can’t be dinnertime already.”
Mother read Jack’s face. “What is it?” she said anxiously. “I had a fight with Alfred and got expelled from the site,” he said grimly.
“Wasn’t Alfred expelled?” said Martha.
Jack shook his head.
“That’s not fair!” Martha said.
Mother said wearily: “What did you fight about this time?”
Jack said: “Was my father hanged at Shiring for thieving?”
Martha gasped.
Mother looked sad. “He wasn’t a thief,” she said. “But yes, he was hanged at Shiring.”
Jack was fed up with enigmatic statements about his father. He said brutally: “Why will you never tell me the truth?”
“Because it makes me so sad!” Mother burst out, and to Jack’s horror she began to cry.
He had never seen her cry. She was always so strong. He was close to breaking down himself. He swallowed hard and persisted. “If he wasn’t a thief, why was he hanged?”
“I don’t know!” Mother cried. “I never knew. He never knew either. They said he stole a jeweled cup.”
“From whom?”
“From here—from Kingsbridge Priory.”
“Kingsbridge! Did Prior Philip accuse him?”
“No, no, it was long before the time of Philip.” She looked at Jack through her tears. “Don’t start asking me who accused him and why. Don’t get caught in that trap. You could spend the rest of your life trying to put right a wrong done before you were born. I didn’t raise you so that you could take revenge. Don’t make that your life.”
Jack vowed he would learn more sometime, despite what she said; but right now he wanted her to stop crying. He sat beside her on the bench and put his arm around her. “Well, it looks as if the cathedral won’t be my life, now.”
Martha said: “What will you do, Jack?”
“I don’t know. I can’t live in Kingsbridge, can I?” Martha was distraught. “But why not?”
“Alfred tried to kill me and Tom expelled me from the site. I’m not going to live with them. Anyway, I’m a man. I should leave my mother.”
“But what will you do?”
Jack shrugged. “The only thing I know about is building.”
“You could work on another church.”
“I might come to love another cathedral as much as I love this one, I suppose,” he said despondently. He was thinking: But I’ll never love another woman the way I love Aliena.
Mother said: “How could Tom do this to you?”
Jack sighed. “I don’t think he really wanted to. Prior Philip said he wouldn’t have me and Alfred both working on the site.”
“So that damned monk is at the bottom of this!” Mother said angrily. “I swear—”
“He was very upset about the damage we did.”
“I wonder if he could be made to see reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“God is supposed to be merciful—perhaps monks should be too.”
“You think I should plead with Philip?” Jack asked, somewhat surprised at the direction of Mother’s thinking.
“I was thinking I might talk to him,” she said.
“You!” That was even