The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [71]
“The obedientaries should manage their property carefully,” Philip said as he finished the last pear.
Cuthbert drew a cup of wine from a barrel. “They should, but they have other things on their minds. Anyway, what does the novice-master know about farming? Why should the infirmarer be a capable estate manager? Of course, a strong prior will force them to husband their resources, to some extent. But we’ve had a weak prior for thirteen years, and now we have no money to repair the cathedral church, and we eat salt fish six days a week, and the school is almost empty of novices, and no one comes to the guesthouse.”
Philip sipped his wine in gloomy silence. He found it difficult to think coolly about such appalling dissipation of God’s assets. He wanted to get hold of whoever was responsible and shake him until he saw sense. But in this case the person responsible was lying in a coffin behind the altar. There, at least, was a glimmer of hope. “Soon we’ll have a new prior,” Philip said. “He ought to put things right.”
Cuthbert shot him a peculiar look. “Remigius? Put things right?”
Philip was not sure what Cuthbert meant. “Remigius isn’t going to be the new prior, is he?”
“It’s likely.”
Philip was dismayed. “But he’s no better than Prior James! Why would the brothers vote for him?”
“Well, they’re suspicious of strangers, so they won’t vote for anyone they don’t know. That means it has to be one of us. And Remigius is the sub-prior, the most senior monk here.”
“But there’s no rule that says we have to choose the most senior monk,” Philip protested. “It could be another one of the obedientaries. It could be you.”
Cuthbert nodded. “I’ve already been asked. I refused.”
“But why?”
“I’m getting old, Philip. The job I have now would defeat me, except that I’m so used to it I can do it automatically. Any more responsibility would be too much. I certainly haven’t got the energy to take a slack monastery and reform it. In the end I’d be no better than Remigius.”
Philip still could not believe it. “There are others—the sacrist, the circuitor, the novice-master ...”
“The novice-master is old and more tired than I am. The guest-master is a glutton and a drunkard. And the sacrist and the circuitor are pledged to vote for Remigius. Why? I don’t know, but I’ll guess. I’d say Remigius has promised to promote the sacrist to sub-prior and make the circuitor the sacrist, as a reward for their support.”
Philip slumped back on the sacks of flour that formed his seat. “You’re telling me that Remigius already has the election sewn up.”
Cuthbert did not reply immediately. He stood up and went to the other side of the storeroom, where he had arranged in line a wooden bath full of live eels, a bucket of clean water, and a barrel one-third full of brine. “Help me with this,” he said. He took out a knife. He selected an eel from the bath, banged its head on the stone floor, then gutted it with the knife. He handed the fish, still feebly wriggling, to Philip. “Wash it in the bucket, then drop it in the barrel,” he said. “These will deaden our appetites during Lent.”
Philip rinsed the half-dead eel as carefully as he could in the bucket, then tossed it into the salt water.
Cuthbert gutted another eel and said: “There is one other possibility: a candidate who would be a good reforming prior and whose rank, although below that of the sub-prior, is the same as that of the sacrist or the cellarer.”
Philip plunged the eel into the bucket. “Who?”
“You.”
“Me!” Philip was so surprised he dropped the eel on the floor. He did, technically, rank as an obedientary of the priory, but he never thought of himself as being equal to the sacrist and the others because they were all so