The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [65]
He was in an unforgiving mood as he guided his pony through the spaces between the hovels to the priory gate. The priory was a rectangular enclosure with the church in the middle. The buildings were laid out so that everything to the north and west of the church was public, worldly, secular and practical, whereas what was to the south and east was private, spiritual and holy.
The entrance to the close was therefore at the northwest corner of the rectangle. The gate stood open, and the young monk in the gatehouse waved as Philip trotted through. Just inside the gate, up against the west wall of the enclosure, was the stable, a stout wooden structure rather better built than some of the dwellings for people on the other side of the wall. Two stable hands sat inside on bales of straw. They were not monks, but employees of the priory. They got reluctantly to their feet as if they resented a visitor coming to cause them extra work. The acrid air stung Philip’s nostrils, and he could see that the stalls had not been mucked out for three or four weeks. He was not disposed to overlook the negligence of stable lads today. As he handed over the reins he said: “Before you stable my pony you can clean out one of the stalls and put down fresh straw. Then do the same for the other horses. If their litter becomes permanently wet, they get hoof rot. You don’t have so much to do that you can’t keep this stable clean.” They both looked sullen, so he added: “Do as I say, or I’ll make sure you both lose a day’s pay for idleness.” He was about to leave when he remembered something. “There’s a cheese in my saddlebag. Take it to the kitchen and give it to Brother Milius.”
He went out without waiting for a reply. The priory had sixty employees to look after its forty-five monks, a shameful excess of servants in Philip’s opinion. People who did not have enough to do could easily become so lazy that they skimped what little work they did have, as had clearly happened to the two stable hands. It was just another example of Prior James’s slackness.
Philip walked along the west wall of the priory close, past the guesthouse, curious to see whether the priory had any visitors. But the big one-room building was cold and disused, with a windblown drift of last year’s dead leaves covering its threshold. He turned left and started across the broad expanse of sparse grass that separated the guesthouse—which sometimes lodged ungodly people and even women—from the church. He approached the west end of the church, the public entrance. The broken stones of the collapsed tower lay where they had fallen, in a big heap twice the height of a man.
Like most churches, Kingsbridge Cathedral was built in the shape of a cross. The west end opened into the nave, which formed the long stem of the cross. The crosspiece consisted of the two transepts which stuck out to the north and south either side of the altar. Beyond the crossing, the east end of the church was called the chancel, and was mainly reserved for the monks. At the farthest extremity of the east end was the tomb of Saint Adolphus, which still attracted occasional pilgrims.
Philip stepped into the nave and looked down the avenue of round arches and mighty columns. The sight further depressed his mood. It was a dank, gloomy building, and it had deteriorated since he last saw it. The windows in the low aisles either side of the nave were like narrow tunnels in the immensely thick walls. Up in the roof, the larger windows of the clerestory illuminated the painted timber ceiling only to show how badly it was fading, the apostles and saints and prophets growing dim and blending inexorably with their background. Despite the cold air blowing in—for