The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [505]
Aliena said: “We must appeal to Duke Henry to intervene.”
It was Richard who looked dubious now. “I wouldn’t like to rely on him. He’s in Normandy. He might write a letter of protest, but what else could he do? Conceivably he could cross the channel with an army, but then he would be in breach of the peace pact, and I don’t think he’d risk that for me.”
Aliena felt miserable and frightened. “Oh, Richard, you’re caught in a terrible web, and it’s all because you saved me.”
He gave her his most charming grin. “I’d do it again, too, Allie.”
“I know.” He meant it. For all his faults, he was brave. It seemed unfair that he should be confronted with such an intractable problem so soon after he succeeded to the earldom. As earl he was a disappointment to Aliena—a terrible disappointment—but he did not deserve this.
“Well, what a choice,” he said. “I can stay here in the priory until Duke Henry becomes king, or hang for murder. I’d become a monk if you monks didn’t eat so much fish.”
“There might be another way out,” said Philip.
Aliena looked at him eagerly. She had suspected that he was hatching a plot, and she would be grateful to him if he could resolve Richard’s dilemma.
“You could do penance for the killing,” Philip went on.
“Would it involve eating fish?” Richard said flippantly.
“I’m thinking about the Holy Land,” Philip said.
They all went quiet. Palestine was ruled by the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, a Christian of French origin. It was constantly under attack by neighboring Muslim countries, especially Egypt to the south and Damascus to the east. To go there, a journey of six months or a year, and join the armies fighting to defend the Christian kingdom, was indeed the kind of penance a man might do to purge his soul of a killing. Aliena felt a qualm of anxiety: not everybody came back from the Holy Land. But she had been worrying about Richard in wars for years, and the Holy Land was probably no more dangerous than England. She would just have to fret. She was used to it.
“The king of Jerusalem always needs men,” Richard said. Every few years emissaries from the pope would tour the country, telling tales of battle and glory in the defense of Christendom, trying to inspire young men to go and fight in the Holy Land. “But I’ve only just come into my earldom,” he said. “And who would be in charge of my lands while I was away?”
“Aliena,” said Philip.
Aliena suddenly felt breathless. Philip was proposing that she should take the place of the earl, and rule as her father had done.... The proposal stunned her for a moment, but as soon as she recovered her senses she knew it was right. When a man went to the Holy Land his domains were normally looked after by his wife. There was no reason why a sister should not fulfill the same role for an unmarried earl. And she would run the earldom the way she had always known it ought to be run, with justice and vision and imagination. She would do all the things Richard had so dismally failed to do. Her heart raced as she thought the idea through. She would try out new ideas, plowing with horses instead of oxen, and planting spring crops of oats and peas on fallow land. She would clear new lands for planting, establish new markets, and open the quarry to Philip after all this time—
He had thought of that, of course. Of all the clever schemes Philip had dreamed up over the years, this was probably the most ingenious. At one stroke he solved three problems: he got Richard off the hook, he put a competent ruler in charge of the earldom, and he got his quarry at last.
Philip said: “I’ve no doubt that King