The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [457]
He spent the rest of the day thinking about how to handle this task, and the question he asked himself again and again was: What would Philip do?
On the following day he felt ready to confront Philip.
It was a cold, wet day. Jack lurked around the deserted building site in the early afternoon, with the hood of his cloak pulled over his head to keep him dry, pretending to study the cracks in the clerestory (a problem that was still unsolved), and waited until he saw Philip hurry across to his own house from the cloisters. When Philip was inside, Jack followed.
Philip’s door was always open. Jack tapped on it and went in. Philip was on his knees in front of the small altar in the corner. You’d think he’d get enough praying done, in church most of the day and half the night, without doing it at home too, Jack thought. There was no fire: Philip was economizing. Jack waited silently until Philip rose and turned around. Then Jack said: “This has got to come to an end.”
Philip’s normally amiable face was set in hard lines. “I see no difficulty about that,” he said coldly. “They can come back to work as soon as they like.”
“On your terms.”
Philip just looked at him.
Jack said: “They won’t come back on your terms, and they won’t wait forever for you to see reason.” He added hastily: “Or what they think is reason.”
“Won’t wait forever?” Philip said. “Where will they go when they get tired of waiting? They won’t find work elsewhere. Do they think this is the only place that is suffering from the famine? It’s all over England. Every building site is having to cut back.”
“So you’re going to wait for them to come crawling back to you, begging forgiveness,” Jack said.
Philip looked away. “I won’t make anyone crawl,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever given you reason to expect such behavior from me.”
“No, and that’s why I’ve come to see you,” Jack said. “I know you don’t really want to humiliate these men-it’s not in your nature. And besides, if they returned feeling beaten and resentful, they’d work badly for years to come. So from my point of view as well as yours, we must let them save face. And that means making concessions.”
Jack held his breath. That had been his big speech, and this was his make-or-break moment. If Philip remained unmoved now, the future looked bleak.
Philip looked hard at Jack for a long moment. Jack could see reason struggling with emotion in the prior’s face. Then at last his expression softened and he said: “We’d better sit down.”
Jack suppressed a sigh of relief as he took a seat. He had planned what he was going to say next; he was not going to repeat the spontaneous tactlessness he had shown with the builders. “There’s no need to modify your freeze on purchase of supplies,” he began. “Similarly, the moratorium on new hiring can stand—no one objects to that. I also think they can be persuaded to accept that there will be no work on saints’ days, if they gain concessions in other areas.” He paused to let that sink in. So far he was giving everything and asking for nothing.
Philip nodded. “All right. What concessions?”
Jack took a deep breath. “They were highly offended by the proposal to ban promotions. They think you’re trying to usurp the ancient prerogative of the lodge.”
“I explained to you that that was not my intention,” Philip said in an exasperated tone.
“I know, I know,” Jack said hastily. “Of course you did. And I believed you, but they didn’t.” An injured look came over Philip’s face. How could anyone disbelieve him? Hastily, Jack said: “But that’s in the past. I’m going to propose a compromise that won’t cost you anything.”
Philip looked interested.
Jack went on: “Let them continue to approve applications for promotion, but postpone