Page 349 of The Pillars of the Earth

Jack felt profoundly sad. All his father had ever wanted to do was entertain people, Mother said. But there was something strange about Waleran’s story. “Why didn’t they kill him right away?” Jack said.

“They should have,” Waleran said unemotionally. “But he was an innocent man, a jongleur, someone who gave everyone pleasure. They couldn’t bring themselves to do it.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Even the most ruthless people have some scruples, ultimately.”

“Then why did they change their minds?”

“Because eventually he became dangerous, even here. At first he threatened no one—he couldn’t even speak English. But he learned, of course, and he began to make friends. So they locked him in the prison cell below the dormitory. Then people began to ask why he was locked away. He became an embarrassment. They realized they would never rest easy while he was alive. So in the end they told us to kill him.”

So easy, thought Jack. “But why did you obey them?”

“We were ambitious, all three of us,” Waleran said, and for the first time his face showed emotion, as his mouth twisted in a grimace of remorse. “Percy Hamleigh, Prior James, and me. Your mother told the truth—we all were rewarded. I became an archdeacon, and my career in the church was off to a splendid start. Percy Hamleigh became a substantial landowner. Prior James got a useful addition to the priory property.”

“And the barons?”

“After the shipwreck, Henry was attacked, in the following three years, by Fulk of Anjou, William Clito in Normandy, and the king of France. For a while he looked very vulnerable. But he defeated his enemies and ruled for another ten years. However, the anarchy the barons wanted did come in the end, when Henry died without a male heir, and Stephen came to the throne. While the civil war raged for the next two decades, the barons ruled like kings in their own territories, with no central authority to curb them.”

“And my father died for that.”

“Even that turned sour. Most of those barons died in the fighting, and some of their sons did too. And the little lies we had told in this part of the country, to get your father killed, eventually came back to haunt us. Your mother cursed us, after the hanging, and she cursed us well. Prior James was destroyed by the knowledge of what he had done, as Remigius said at the nepotism trial. Percy Hamleigh died before the truth came out, but his son was hanged. And look at me: my act of perjury was thrown back at me almost fifty years later, and it ended my career.” Waleran was looking gray-faced and exhausted, as if his rigid self-control was a terrible strain. “We were all afraid of your mother, because we weren’t sure what she knew. In the end it wasn’t much at all, but it was enough.”

Jack felt as drained as Waleran appeared. At last he had learned the truth about his father, something he had wanted all his life. Now he could not feel angry or vengeful. He had never known his real father, but he had had Tom, who had given him the love of buildings which had been the second greatest passion of his life.

Jack stood up. The events were all too far in the past to make him weep. So much had happened since then, and most of it had been good.

He looked down at the old, sorry man sitting on the bench. Ironically, it was Waleran who was now suffering the bitterness of regret. Jack pitied him. How terrible, Jack thought, to be old and know that your life has been wasted. Waleran looked up, and their eyes met for the first time. Waleran flinched and turned away, as if his face had been slapped. For a moment Jack could read the other man’s mind, and he realized that Waleran had seen the pity in his eyes.

And for Waleran, the pity of his enemies was the worst humiliation of all.

IV

Philip stood at the West Gate of the ancient Christian city of Canterbury, wearing the full, gorgeously-colored regalia of an English bishop, and carrying a jeweled crozier worth a king’s ransom. It was pouring with rain.

He was sixty-six years of age, and the rain chilled his old bones. This was the last time he would venture so far from home. But he would not have missed this day for all the world. In a way, today’s ceremony would crown his life’s work.

It was three and a half years after the historic murder of Archbishop Thomas. In that short span of time the mystical cult of Thomas Becket had swept the world. Philip had had no idea of what he was starting when he led that small candlelit procession through the streets of Canterbury. The pope had made Thomas a saint with almost indecent speed. There was even a new order of monk-knights in the Holy Land called the Knights of Saint Thomas of Acre. King Henry had not been able to fight such a powerful popular movement. It was far too strong for any one individual to withstand.

For Philip, the importance of the whole phenomenon lay in what it demonstrated about the power of the State. The death of Thomas had shown that, in a conflict between the Church and the Crown, the monarch could always prevail by the use of brute force. But the cult of Saint Thomas proved that such a victory would always be a hollow one. The power of a king was not absolute, after all: it could be restrained by the will of the people. This change had taken place within Philip’s lifetime. He had not merely witnessed it, he had helped to bring it about. And today’s ceremony would commemorate that.

A stocky man with a large head was walking toward the city out of the mist of rain. He wore no boots or hat. At some distance behind him followed a large group of people on horseback.

The man was King Henry.

The crowd was as quiet as a funeral while the rain-drenched king walked through the mud to the city gate.

Philip stepped into the road, according to the prearranged plan, and walked in front of the barefoot king, leading the way to the cathedral. Henry followed with head bowed, his normally jaunty gait rigidly controlled, his posture a picture of penitence. Awestruck townspeople gazed on in silence as the king of England humbled himself before their eyes. The king’s entourage followed at a distance.

Philip led him slowly through the cathedral gate. The mighty doors of the splendid church were open wide. They went in, a solemn procession of two people that was the culmination of the political crisis of the century. The nave was packed. The crowd parted to let them through. People spoke in whispers, stunned by the sight of the proudest king in Christendom, soaking wet, walking into church like a beggar.

They went slowly along the nave and down the steps into the crypt. There, beside the new tomb of the martyr, the monks of Canterbury were waiting, along with the greatest and most powerful bishops and abbots of the realm.

The king knelt on the floor.

His courtiers came into the crypt behind him. In front of everyone, Henry of England, second of that name, confessed his sins, and said he had been the unwitting cause of the murder of Saint Thomas.

When he had confessed he took off his cloak. Beneath it he wore a green tunic and a hair shirt. He knelt down again, bending his back.

The bishop of London flexed a cane.

The king was to be whipped.

He would get five strokes from each priest and three from each monk present. The strokes, would be symbolic, of course: since there were eighty monks present a real beating from each of them would have killed him.

The bishop of London touched the king’s back five times lightly with the cane. Then he turned and handed the cane to Philip, bishop of Kingsbridge.

Philip stepped forward to whip the king. He was glad he had lived to see this. After today, he thought, the world will never be quite the same.

THE END.