Page 324 of The Pillars of the Earth
Waleran looked thoughtful. “The priory orphan. Remind me of the details.”
“When Philip came here he brought a baby with him.”
Waleran’s face cleared as he remembered. “By the cross, yes! I’d forgotten Philip’s baby. How could I have let something like that slip my mind?”
“It is thirty years. And who cares?”
Waleran gave William the scornful look that William hated so much, the look that saidYou dumb ox, can’t you figure out something that simple?Pain stabbed his foot, and he shifted his weight in a vain attempt to ease it. Waleran said: “Well, where did the baby come from?”
William swallowed his resentment. “It was found abandoned near his old cell in the forest, if I remember rightly.”
“Better and better,” Waleran said eagerly.
William still did not see what he was getting at. “So what?” he said sullenly.
“Would you say that Philip has brought the child up as if it was his own son?”
“Yes.”
“And now he’s made him sub-prior.”
“He was elected by the monks, presumably. I believe he’s very popular.”
“Anyone who is sub-prior at thirty-five must be in line for the post of prior eventually.”
William was not going to saySo what?again so he just waited, feeling like a stupid schoolboy, for Waleran to explain.
At last Waleran said: “Jonathan is obviously Philip’s own child.”
William burst out laughing. He had been expecting a profound thought, and Waleran had come up with a notion that was totally ludicrous. To William’s satisfaction, his scorn brought a slight flush to Waleran’s waxy complexion. William said: “No one who knows Philip would believe such a thing. He was born a dried-up old stick. The idea!” He laughed again. Waleran might think he was ever so clever, but this time he had lost his sense of reality.
Waleran’s hauteur was icy. “I say Philip used to have a mistress, when he ran that little priory out in the forest. Then he became prior of Kingsbridge and had to leave the woman behind. She didn’t want the baby if she couldn’t have the father, so she dumped the child on him. Philip, being a sentimental soul, felt obliged to take care of it, so he passed it off as a foundling.”
William shook his head. “Unbelievable. Anyone else, yes. Philip, no.”
Waleran persisted: “If the baby was abandoned, how can he prove where it came from?”
“He can’t,” William acknowledged. He looked across the south transept to where Philip and Jonathan stood together, talking to the bishop of Hereford. “But they don’t even look alike.”
“You don’t look like your mother,” Waleran said. “Thank God.”
“What good is all this?” William said. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Accuse him before an ecclesiastical court,” Waleran replied.
That made a difference. No one who knew Philip would credit Waleran’s accusation for a moment, but a judge who was a stranger to Kingsbridge might find it more plausible. William saw reluctantly that Waleran’s idea was not so stupid after all. As usual, Waleran was shrewder than William. Waleran was looking irritatingly smug, of course. But William was enthused by the prospect of bringing Philip down. “By God,” he said eagerly. “Do you think it could be done?”
“It depends who the judge is. But I may be able to arrange something there. I wonder ...”
William looked across the transept at Philip, triumphant and smiling, with his tall protégé beside him. The vast stained-glass windows threw an enchanted light over them, and they were like figures in a dream. “Fornication and nepotism,” William said gleefully. “My God.”
“If we can make it stick,” Waleran said with relish, “it will be the finish of that damned prior.”
No reasonable judge could possibly find Philip guilty.
The truth was that he had never had to try very hard to resist the temptation of fornication. He knew, from hearing confession, that some monks struggled desperately with fleshly lust, but he was not like that. There had been a time, at the age of about eighteen, when he had suffered impure dreams, but that phase had not lasted long. For most of his life chastity had come easily to him. He had never performed the sexual act and he was now probably too old for it.
However, the Church was taking the accusation very seriously. Philip was to be tried by an ecclesiastical court. An archdeacon from Canterbury would be present. Waleran had wanted the trial to be held at Shiring, but Philip had fought against that, successfully, and it would now be held at Kingsbridge, which was, after all, the cathedral city. Now Philip was clearing his personal possessions out of the prior’s house to make way for the archdeacon, who would be staying here.
