The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [38]
In the back of his mind he conceived the idea that he was dead. Heaven was not supposed to be like this, he knew, but he hardly cared. His critical faculties had been disengaged for hours. What little capacity he had left for rational thought vanished, and he let his body take charge. He strained upward, pressing his body against hers, drawing strength from her heat and her nakedness. She opened her mouth and thrust her tongue inside his mouth, seeking his tongue, and he responded eagerly.
She pulled away from him briefly, raising her body off his. He watched, dazed, as she pushed up the skirt of his undertunic until it was around his waist, then she straddled his hips. She looked into his eyes, with her all-seeing gaze, as she lowered herself. There was a tantalizing moment when their bodies touched, and she hesitated; then he felt himself enter her. The sensation was so thrilling he felt he might burst with pleasure. She moved her hips, smiling at him and kissing his face.
After a while she closed her eyes and started to pant, and he understood that she was losing control. He watched in delighted fascination. She uttered small rhythmic cries, moving faster and faster, and her ecstasy moved Tom to the depths of his wounded soul, so that he did not know whether he wanted to weep with despair or shout for joy or laugh hysterically; and then an explosion of delight shook them both like trees in a gale, again and again; until at last their passion subsided, and she slumped on his chest.
They lay like that for a long time. The heat of her body warmed him right through. He drifted into a kind of light sleep. It seemed short, and more like daydreaming than real sleep; but when he opened his eyes his mind was clear.
He looked at the beautiful young woman lying on top of him, and he knew immediately that she was not an angel, but the outlaw woman Ellen, whom he had met in this part of the forest on the day the pig was stolen. She felt him stir and opened her eyes, regarding him with an expression of mingled affection and anxiety. He suddenly thought of his children. He rolled Ellen off him gently and sat up. Alfred and Martha lay on the leaves, wrapped in their cloaks, with the sun shining on their sleeping faces. Then the events of the night came back to him in a rush of horror, and he remembered that Agnes was dead, and the baby—his son! —was gone; and he buried his face in his hands.
He heard Ellen give a strange two-tone whistle. He looked up. A figure emerged from the forest, and Tom recognized her peculiar-looking son, Jack, with his dead-white skin and orange hair and bright bird-like blue eyes. Tom got up, rearranging his clothing, and Ellen stood and closed up her cloak.
The boy was carrying something, and he brought it across and showed it to Tom. Tom recognized it. It was the half of his cloak in which he had wrapped the baby before placing it on Agnes’s grave.
Uncomprehending, Tom stared at the boy and then at Ellen. She took his hands in hers, looked into his eyes, and said: “Your baby is alive.”
Tom did not dare to believe her. It would be too wonderful, too happy for this world. “He can’t be,” he said.
“He is.’
Tom began to hope. “Truly?” he said. “Truly?”
She nodded. “Truly. I will take you to him.”
Tom realized she meant it. A flood of relief and happiness washed over him. He fell to his knees on the ground; and then, at last, like the opening of a floodgate, he wept.
V
“Jack heard the baby cry,” Ellen explained. “He was on his way to the river, to a place north of here where you can kill ducks with stones, if you’re a good shot. He didn’t know what to do, so he ran home to fetch me. But while we were on our way back to the spot, we saw a priest, riding a palfrey, carrying the baby.”
Tom said: “I must