Page 113 of The Pillars of the Earth
Aliena groaned in despair.
Suddenly he shoved inside her roughly, pushing as hard and far as he could. He felt the resistance of her maidenhead—a real virgin!—and he shoved again, brutally. It hurt him but it hurt her more. She screamed. He shoved once more, harder still, and he felt it break. Aliena’s face turned white, her head slumped to one side, and she fell into a faint; then at last William spurted his seed inside her, laughing and laughing with triumph and pleasure until he was drained dry.
The storm raged for most of the night, then toward dawn it stopped. The sudden quiet woke Tom Builder. As he lay in the dark, listening to the heavy breathing of Alfred beside him and the quieter sound of Martha on his other side, he calculated that it might be a clear morning, which would mean he could see the sun rise for the first time in two or three cloudy weeks. He had been waiting for this.
He got up and opened the door. It was still dark: there was plenty of time. He prodded his son with a foot. “Alfred! Wake up! There’s going to be a sunrise.”
Alfred groaned and sat upright. Martha turned over without waking. Tom went to the table and took the lid off a pottery crock. He removed a half-eaten loaf and cut off two thick slices, one for himself and one for Alfred. They sat down on the bench and ate breakfast.
There was ale in the jug. Tom took a long swallow and passed it to Alfred. Agnes would have made them use cups, and so would Ellen, but there was no woman in the house now. When Alfred had drunk his fill from the jug they left the house.
The sky was turning from black to gray as they crossed the priory close. Tom had intended to go to the prior’s house and wake Philip. However, Philip’s thoughts had followed the same lines as Tom’s, and he was already there in the ruins of the cathedral, wearing a heavy cloak, kneeling on the wet ground, saying prayers.
Their task was to establish an accurate east-west line, which would form the axis around which the new cathedral would be built.
Tom had prepared everything some time ago. In the ground at the east end he had planted an iron spike with a small loop in its top like the eye of a needle. The spike was almost as tall as Tom, so that its “eye” was at the level of Tom’s eyes. He had fixed it in place with a mixture of rubble and mortar, so that it could not be shifted accidentally. This morning he would plant another such spike, dead west of the first one, at the opposite end of the site.
“Mix up some mortar, Alfred,” he said.
Alfred went to fetch sand and lime. Tom went to his tool shed near the cloisters and got a small mallet and the second spike. Then he went to the west end of the site and stood waiting for the sun to rise. Philip finished his prayers and joined him, while Alfred mixed sand and lime with water on a mortarboard.
The sky grew brighter. The three men became tense. They were all watching the east wall of the priory close. At last the red disk of the sun showed over the top of the wall.
Tom shifted his position until he could see the edge of the sun through the small loop in the spike at the far end. Then, as Philip began to pray aloud in Latin, Tom held the second spike in front of him so that it blocked his view of the sun. Steadily, he lowered it to the ground and pressed its pointed end into the damp earth, always keeping it precisely between his eye and the sun. He drew the mallet from his belt and carefully tapped the spike into the ground until its “eye” was level with his eyes. Now, if he had done the job properly, and if his hands had not trembled, the sun should shine through the eyes of both spikes.
He closed one eye and looked through the near spike at the far one. The sun still shone into his eye through the two loops. The two spikes lay on a perfect east-west line. That line would provide the orientation of the new cathedral.
He had explained this to Philip, and he now stood aside and let the prior look through the loops himself, to check.
“Perfect,” Philip said.
Tom nodded. “It is.”
“Do you know what day it is?” Philip said.
“Friday.”
“It’s also the day of the martyrdom of Saint Adolphus. God sent us a sunrise so that we could orient the church on our patron’s day. Isn’t that a good sign?”
Tom smiled. In his experience good workmanship was more important than good omens in the building industry. But he was happy for Philip. “Yes, indeed,” he said. “It’s a very good sign.”
