Page 272 of The Pillars of the Earth
“Well, I hired him anyway,” he said.
“Jack!” Aliena screamed. “How could you? You can’t let him come back to Kingsbridge—that devil!”
Sally began to cry. Tommy stared wide-eyed at his mother. Jack said: “Alfred isn’t a devil. He’s hungry and penniless. I saved him, for the sake of his father’s memory.”
“You wouldn’t feel sorry for him if he’d forced you to sleep on the floor at the foot of his bed like a dog for nine months.”
“He’s done worse things to me—ask Martha.”
Martha said: “And to me.”
Jack said: “I just decided that seeing him like that was enough revenge for me.”
“Well it’s not enough for me!” Aliena stormed. “By Christ, you’re a damned fool, Jack Jackson. Sometimes I thank God I’m not married to you.”
That hurt. Jack looked away. He knew she did not mean it, but it was bad enough that she should say it, even in anger. He picked up his spoon and started to eat. It was hard to swallow.
Aliena patted Sally’s head and put a piece of carrot into her mouth. Sally stopped crying.
Jack looked at Tommy, who was still staring at Aliena with a frightened face. “Eat, Tommy,” said Jack. “It’s good.”
They finished their dinner in silence.
In the spring of the year that the transepts were finished, Prior Philip made a tour of the monastery’s property in the south. After three bad years he needed a good harvest, and he wanted to check what state the farms were in.
He took Jonathan with him. The priory orphan was now a tall, awkward, intelligent sixteen-year-old. Like Philip at that age, he did not seem to suffer a moment’s doubt about what he wanted to do with his life: he had completed his novitiate and taken his vows, and he was now Brother Jonathan. Also like Philip, he was interested in the material side of God’s service, and he worked as deputy to Cuthbert Whitehead, the aging cellarer. Philip was proud of the boy: he was devout, hardworking, and well liked.
Their escort was Richard, the brother of Aliena. Richard had at last found his niche in Kingsbridge. After they built the town wall, Philip had suggested to the parish guild that they appoint Richard as Head of the Watch, responsible for the town’s security. He organized the night watchmen and arranged for the maintenance and improvement of the town walls, and on market days and holy days he was empowered to arrest troublemakers and drunks. These tasks, which had become essential as the village had grown into a town, were all things a monk was not supposed to do; so the parish guild, which Philip had at first seen as a threat to his authority, had turned out to be useful after all. And Richard was happy. He was about thirty years old now, but the active life he led kept him looking young.
Philip wished Richard’s sister could be as settled. If ever a person had been failed by the Church it was Aliena. Jack was the man she loved and the father of her children, but the Church insisted that she was married to Alfred, even though she had never had carnal knowledge of him; and she was unable to get an annulment because of the ill will of the bishop. It was shameful, and Philip felt guilty, even though he was not responsible.
Toward the end of the trip, when they were riding home through the forest on a bright spring morning, young Jonathan said: “I wonder why God makes people starve.”
It was a question every young monk asked sooner or later, and there were lots of answers to it. Philip said: “Don’t blame this famine on God.”
“But God made the weather that caused the bad harvests.”
“The famine is not just due to bad harvests,” Philip said. “There are always bad harvests, every few years, but people don’t starve. What’s special about this crisis is that it comes after so many years of civil war.”
“Why does that make a difference?” Jonathan asked.
Richard, the soldier, answered him. “War is bad for farming,” he said. “Livestock get slaughtered to feed the armies, crops are burned to deny them to the enemy, and farms are neglected while knights go to war.”
Philip added: “And when the future is uncertain, people are not willing to invest time and energy clearing new ground, increasing herds, digging ditches and building barns.”
“We haven’t stopped doing that sort of work,” Jonathan said.
“Monasteries are different. But most ordinary farmers let their farms run down during the fighting, so that when the bad weather came they were not in good shape to ride it out. Monks take a longer view. But we have another problem. The price of wool has slumped because of the famine.”
“I don’t see the connection,” Jonathan said.
“I suppose it’s because starving people don’t buy clothes.” It was the first time in Philip’s memory that the price of wool had failed to go up annually. He had been forced to slow the pace of cathedral building, stop taking new novices, and eliminate wine and meat from the monks’ diet. “Unfortunately, it means that we’re economizing just when more and more destitute people are coming to Kingsbridge looking for work.”
Jonathan said: “And so they end up queuing at the priory gate for free horsebread and pottage.”
Philip nodded grimly. It broke his heart to see strong men reduced to begging for bread because they could find no work. “But remember, it’s caused by war, not bad weather,” he said.
With youthful passion Jonathan said: “I hope there’s a special place in hell for the earls and kings who cause such misery.”
