Page 131 of The Pillars of the Earth

“Gone,” the priest whispered.

She knelt by his head and put her knife to his face. “Gone where?”

“I spent it,” he confessed in a voice hoarse with fear.

Aliena wanted to stab him, or beat him, or throw him into a river; but none of it would do any good. He was telling the truth. She looked at the overturned barrel: a drinking man could get through a great deal of beer. She felt as if she might explode with frustration. “I’d cut off your ear if I could sell it for a penny,” she hissed at him. He looked as if he thought she might cut it off anyway.

Richard said anxiously: “He’s spent the money. Let’s take what we’ve got and go.”

He was right, Aliena realized reluctantly. Her anger began to evaporate, leaving behind a residue of bitterness. There was nothing to be gained by frightening the priest any more, and the longer they stayed, the more chance there was that someone would come in and cause trouble. She stood up. “All right,” she said. She put the gold coins back in the belt and buckled it around her waist beneath her cloak. She pointed a finger at the priest. “I may come back one day and kill you,” she spat.

She went out.

She strode away along the narrow street. Richard caught up with her hurrying. “You were wonderful, Allie!” he said excitedly. “You scared him half to death—and you got the money!”

She nodded. “Yes, I did,” she said sourly. She was still tense, but now that her fury had abated she felt deflated and unhappy.

“What shall we buy?” he said eagerly.

“Just a little food for our journey.”

“Shan’t we buy horses?”

“Not with a pound.”

“Still, we could get you some boots.”

She considered that. The clogs tortured her but the ground was too cold for bare feet. However, boots were expensive and she was reluctant to spend the money so quickly. “No,” she decided. “I’ll live a few more days without boots. We’ll keep the money for now.”

He was disappointed, but he did not dispute her authority. “What food shall we get?”

“Horsebread, hard cheese and wine.”

“Let’s get some pies.”

“They cost too much.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a moment, then he said: “You’re awfully grumpy, Allie.”

Aliena sighed. “I know.” She thought: Why do I feel this way? I should be proud. I brought us here from the castle, I defended my brother, I found my father, I got our money.

Yes, and I stuck a knife into a fat man’s belly, and made my brother kill him, and I held a burning stick to a priest’s face, and I was ready to put his eyes out.

“Is it because of Father?” said Richard sympathetically.

“No, it’s not,” Aliena replied. “It’s because of me.”

Aliena regretted not buying the boots.

On the road to Gloucester she wore the clogs until they made her feet bleed, then she walked barefoot until she could no longer stand the cold, whereupon she put the clogs on again. She found it helped not to look at her feet: they hurt more when she could see the sores and the blood.

In the hill country there were a lot of poor smallholdings where peasants grew an acre or so of oats or rye and kept a few scrawny animals. Aliena stopped on the outskirts of a village, when she thought they must be near Huntleigh, to speak to a peasant who was shearing a sheep in a fenced yard next to a low, wattle-and-daub farmhouse. He had the sheep’s head trapped in a wooden fixture like a stocks, and was cutting its wool with a long-bladed knife. Two more sheep waited uneasily nearby, and one that was already shorn was grazing in the field, looking naked in the cold air.

“It’s early for shearing,” Aliena said.

The peasant looked up at her and grinned good-humoredly. He was a young man with red hair and freckles, and his sleeves were rolled up, showing hairy arms. “Ah, but I need the money. Better the sheep go cold than I go hungry.”

“How much do you get?”