The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [52]
“You’ve all broken your vows,” Philip said, letting his contempt show. “You’re blasphemers, every one.” He looked around, meeting their eyes. “Your repentance begins now,” he said finally.
Slowly they knelt, one by one, until only the sacrist was left standing. He was a fleshy, sleepy-eyed man about twenty years older than Philip. Philip approached him, stepping around the kneeling monks. “Give me the book,” he said.
The sacrist stared defiantly back and said nothing.
Philip reached out and lightly grasped the big volume. The sacrist tightened his grip. Philip hesitated. He had spent two days deciding to be cautious and move slowly, yet here he was, with the dust of the road still on his feet, risking everything in a stand-up confrontation with a man he knew nothing about. “Give me the book, and get down on your knees,” he repeated.
There was the hint of a sneer on the sacrist’s face. “Who are you?” he said.
Philip hesitated again. It was obvious that he was a monk, from his robes and his haircut; and they all must have guessed, from his behavior, that he was in a position of authority; but it was not yet clear whether his rank placed him over the sacrist. All he had to say was I am your new prior, but he did not want to. Suddenly it seemed very important that he should prevail by sheer weight of moral authority.
The sacrist sensed his uncertainty and took advantage of it. “Tell us all, please,” he said with mock courtesy. “Who is it that commands us to kneel in his presence?”
All hesitation left Philip in a rush, and he thought: God is with me, so what am I afraid of? He took a deep breath, and his words came out in a roar that echoed from the paved floor to the stone-vaulted ceiling. “It is God who commands you to kneel in his presence!” he thundered.
The sacrist looked a fraction less confident. Philip seized his chance and snatched the book. The sacrist had lost all authority now, and at last, reluctantly, he knelt.
Hiding his relief, Philip looked around at them all and said: “I am your new prior.”
He made them remain kneeling while he read the service. It took a long time, because he made them repeat the responses again and again until they could speak them in perfect unison. Then he led them in silence out of the chapel and across the clearing to the refectory. He sent the roast pork back to the kitchen and ordered bread and weak beer, and he nominated a monk to read aloud while they ate. As soon as they had finished he led them, still in silence, to the dormitory.
He ordered the prior’s bedding brought in from the separate prior’s house: he would sleep in the same room as the monks. It was the simplest and most effective way to prevent sins of impurity.
He did not sleep at all the first night, but sat up with a candle, praying silently, until it was midnight and time to wake the monks for matins. He went through that service quickly, to let them know he was not completely merciless. They went back to bed, but Philip did not sleep.
He went out at dawn, before they woke, and looked around, thinking about the day ahead. One of the fields had recently been reclaimed from the forest, and right in the middle of it was the huge stump of what must have been a massive oak tree. That gave him an idea.
After the service of prime, and breakfast, he took them all out into the field with ropes and axes, and they spent the morning uprooting the enormous stump, half of them heaving on the ropes while the other half attacked the roots with axes, all saying “He-eeeave” together. When the stump finally came up, Philip gave them all beer, bread, and a slice of the pork he had denied them at supper.
That was not the end of the problems, but it was the beginning of solutions. From the start he refused to ask the mother house for anything but grain for bread and candles for the chapel. The knowledge that they would get no meat other than what they raised or trapped themselves turned the monks into meticulous livestock husbandmen and birdsnarers; and whereas they had previously looked upon the services as