The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [429]
Townspeople and monks crowded around the two of them, all wanting to congratulate Jack and each other.
“Have they gone for good?” Jack said.
“Oh, yes,” Richard replied. “They won’t come back, now that they’ve discovered we’re determined to defend the walls. William knows that you can’t take a walled town if the people are resolved to resist you; not without a vast army and a six-month siege.”
“So it’s over,” Jack said stupidly.
Aliena came pushing through the crowd with Tommy in her arms. Jack embraced her gratefully. They were alive and they were together, and he was thankful.
He suddenly felt the effect of his two days without sleep, and he wanted to lie down. But it was not to be. Two young masons grabbed him and lifted him on to their shoulders. A cheer went up. They moved off, taking the crowd with them. Jack wanted to tell them that it was not he who had saved them, they had done it themselves; but he knew they would not listen, for they wanted a hero. As the news spread, and the whole town realized they had won, the cheering became thunderous. They’ve been living in fear of William for years, Jack thought, but today they’ve won their freedom. He was carried around the town in a triumphal procession, waving and smiling, and longing for the moment when he could lay his head down and close his eyes in blissful sleep.
III
The Shiring Fleece Fair was bigger and better than ever. The square in front of the parish church, where they held markets and executions as well as the annual fair, was crammed with stalls and people. Wool was the main commodity, but there were also displays of everything else that could be bought and sold in England: gleaming new swords, decoratively carved saddles, fat piglets, red boots, ginger cakes and straw hats. As William strolled around the square with Bishop Waleran, he calculated that the market was going to make more money for him than ever before. Yet it gave him no pleasure.
He was still sick with humiliation after his defeat at Kingsbridge. He had expected to charge in unopposed and burn the town, but in the event he had lost men and horses and had been turned back without achieving anything. Worst of all, he knew that the building of the wall had been organized by Jack Jackson, the lover of Aliena, the very man he had wanted to kill.
He had failed to kill Jack, but was still determined to take his revenge.
Waleran was also thinking about Kingsbridge, and he said: “I still don’t know how they built the wall so quickly.”
“It probably wasn’t much of a wall,” William said. Waleran nodded. “But I’m sure Prior Philip is already busy improving it. If I were he, I’d make the wall stronger and higher, build a barbican, and appoint a night watchman. Your days of raiding Kingsbridge are over.”
William agreed, but he pretended not to. “I can still besiege the town.”
“That’s a different affair. A quick raid may be overlooked by the king. A prolonged siege, during which the townspeople can send a message to the king begging him to protect them ... It can be awkward.”
“Stephen won’t move against me,” William said. “He needs me.” He was not arguing out of conviction, however. In the end he planned to concede the bishop’s point. But he wanted to make Waleran work hard for it, so that he would feel under a small obligation to William. Then William would make the request that was so heavily on his mind.
A thin, ugly woman stepped out, pushing in front of her a pretty girl of about thirteen years, presumably her daughter. The mother pulled aside the top of the girl’s flimsy dress to show her small, immature breasts. “Sixty pence,” the mother hissed. William felt a stirring in his loins, but he shook his head in refusal and brushed past.
The child-whore made him think of Aliena. She had been little more than a child when he had ravished her. That was almost a decade ago, but he could not forget her. Perhaps he would never have her