The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [72]
“Think about it,” Cuthbert said. “You’ve spent your whole life in monasteries. You were a cellarer at the age of twenty-one. You’ve been prior of a small place for four or five years—and you’ve reformed it. It’s clear to everyone that the hand of God is on you.”
Philip retrieved the escaped eel and dropped it into the barrel of brine. “The hand of God is on us all,” he said noncommittally. He was somewhat stunned by Cuthbert’s suggestion. He wanted an energetic new prior for Kingsbridge but he had not thought of himself for the job. “It’s true that I’d make a better prior than Remigius,” he said thoughtfully.
Cuthbert looked satisfied. “If you have a fault, Philip, it’s your innocence.”
Philip did not think of himself as innocent. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t look for base motives in people. Most of us do. For example, the whole monastery already assumes that you’re a candidate and that you’ve come here to solicit their votes.”
Philip was indignant. “On what grounds do they say that?” “Try to look at your own behavior the way a low suspicious mind would see it. You’ve arrived within days of the death of Prior James, as if you had someone here primed to send you a secret message.”
“But how do they imagine I organized that?”
“They don’t know—but they believe you’re cleverer than they are.” Cuthbert resumed disemboweling eels. “And look how you’ve behaved today. You walked in and ordered the stables mucked out. Then you dealt with that horseplay during high mass. You talked of transferring young William Beauvis to another house, when everyone knows that transferring monks from one place to another is a prior’s privilege. You implicitly criticized Remigius by taking a hot stone out to Brother Paul on the bridge. And finally you brought a delicious cheese to the kitchen, and we all had a morsel after dinner—and although nobody said where it came from, not one of us could mistake the flavor of a cheese from St-John-in-the-Forest.”
Philip was embarrassed to think that his actions had been so misinterpreted. “Anybody might have done those things.”
“Any senior monk might have done one of them. Nobody else would have done them all. You walked in and took charge! You’ve already started reforming the place. And, of course, Remigius’s cronies are already fighting back. That’s why Andrew Sacrist berated you in the cloisters.”
“So that’s the explanation! I wondered what had got into him.” Philip rinsed an eel thoughtfully. “And I suppose that when the circuitor made me forgo my dinner, that was for the same reason.”
“Exactly. A way to humiliate you in front of the monks. I suspect that both moves backfired, by the way: neither reproof was justified, yet you accepted both gracefully. In fact you managed to look quite saintly.”
“I didn’t do it for effect.”
“Nor did the saints. There goes the bell for nones. You’d better leave the rest of the eels to me. After the service it’s study hour, and discussion is permitted in the cloisters. A lot of brothers will want to talk to you.”
“Not so fast!” Philip said anxiously. “Just because people assume I want to be prior doesn’t mean I’m going to stand for election.” He was daunted by the prospect of an electoral contest and not at all sure that he wanted to abandon his well-organized forest cell and take on the formidable problems of Kingsbridge Priory. “I need time to think,” he pleaded.
“I know.” Cuthbert drew himself upright and looked Philip in the eye. “When you’re thinking, please remember this: excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”
Philip nodded. “I’ll remember. Thank you.”
He left the storeroom and hurried to the cloisters. His mind was in a turmoil as he joined the other monks and filed into the church. He was violently excited at the prospect of becoming prior of Kingsbridge, he realized. He had been angry for years about the disgraceful way the priory was run, and now he had a chance to set all those things right himself. Suddenly he was not sure he could.