The first casualty of a civil war was justice, Philip had realized.

Then the sheriff had told him that William had made a formal complaint about the Kingsbridge market.

It was ludicrous, of course, that William could get away with murder and at the same time charge Philip on a technicality; but Philip felt helpless. It was true that he did not have permission to hold a market, and he was in the wrong, strictly speaking. But he could not remain in the wrong. He was the prior of Kingsbridge. All he had was his moral authority. William could call up an army of knights; Bishop Waleran could use his contacts in high places; the sheriff could claim royal authority; but all Philip could do was to say this is right and that is wrong; and if he were to forfeit that position he really would be helpless. So he had ordered the market to cease.

That left him in a truly desperate position.

The priory’s finances had improved dramatically, thanks to stricter controls on the one hand, and on the other, ever-rising earnings from the market and from sheep farming; but Philip always spent every penny on the building, and he had borrowed heavily from the Jews of Winchester, a loan he had yet to repay. Now, at a stroke, he had lost his supply of cost-free stone, his income from the market had dried up, and his volunteer laborers-many of whom came mainly for the market-were likely to dwindle. He would have to lay off half the builders, and abandon hope of finishing the cathedral in his own lifetime. He was not prepared to do that.

He wondered if the crisis was his own fault. Had he been too confident, too ambitious? Sheriff Eustace had said as much. “You’re too big for your boots, Philip,” he had said angrily. “You run a little monastery, and you’re a little prior, but you want to rule the bishop and the earl and the sheriff. Well, you can’t. We’re too powerful for you. All you do is cause trouble.” Eustace was an ugly man with uneven teeth and a cast in one eye, and he was wearing a dirty yellow robe; but unimpressive though he was, his words had stabbed Philip’s heart. He was painfully aware that the quarrymen would not have died if he had not made an enemy of William Hamleigh. But he could not do other than be William’s enemy. If he gave up, even more people would suffer, people such as the miller William had killed and the serfs daughter he and his knights had raped. Philip had to fight on.

And that meant he had to go to see the king.

He hated the idea. He had approached the king once before, at Winchester four years ago, and although he had got what he wanted, he had been dreadfully ill-at-ease at the royal court. The king was surrounded by wily and unscrupulous people jostling for his attention and squabbling over his favors, and Philip found such people contemptible. They were trying to acquire wealth and position they did not merit. He did not really understand the game they were playing: in his world, the best way to get something was to deserve it, not to toady to the giver. But now he had no alternative but to enter their world and play their game. Only the king could grant Philip permission to hold a market. Only the king could now save the cathedral.

He finished his prayers and left the crypt. The sun was coming up, and there was a pink flush on the gray stone walls of the rising cathedral. The builders, who worked from sunrise to sunset, were just beginning, opening their lodges and sharpening their tools and mixing up the first batch of mortar. The loss of the quarry had not yet affected the building: they had always quarried stone faster than they could use it, from the beginning, and now they had a stockpile that would last many months.

It was time for Philip to leave. All the arrangements were made. The king was at Lincoln. Philip would have a traveling companion: Richard, the brother of Aliena. After fighting for a year as a squire, Richard had been knighted by the king. He had come home to re-equip himself and was now going to rejoin the royal army.

Aliena had done astonishingly well as a wool merchant. She no longer sold her wool to Philip, but dealt directly with the Flemish buyers herself. Indeed, this year she had wanted to buy the entire fleece production of the priory. She would have paid less than the Flemish, but Philip would have got the money earlier. He had turned her down. However, it was a measure of her success that she could even make the offer.

She was at the stable with her brother now, Philip saw as he walked across. A crowd had gathered to say goodbye to the travelers. Richard was sitting on a chestnut war-horse that must have cost Aliena twenty pounds. He had grown into a handsome, broad-shouldered young man, his regular features marred only by an angry scar on his right ear: the earlobe had been cut off, no doubt in some fencing accident. He was splendidly dressed in red and green and outfitted with a new sword, lance, battle-ax and dagger. His baggage was carried by a second horse which he had on a leading-rein. With him were two men-at-arms on coursers and a squire on a cob.

Aliena was in tears, although Philip could not tell whether she was sorry to see her brother go, proud that he looked so fine, or frightened that he might never come back. All three, perhaps. Some of the villagers had come to say goodbye, including most of the young men and boys. No doubt Richard was their hero. All the monks were here, too, to wish their prior a safe journey.

The stable hands brought out two horses, a palfrey saddled ready for Philip and a cob loaded with his modest baggage-mainly food for the journey. The builders put down their tools and came over, led by bearded Tom and his redheaded stepson, Jack.

Philip formally embraced Remigius, his sub-prior, and took a warmer farewell of Milius and Cuthbert, then mounted the palfrey. He would be sitting in this hard saddle a long time, he realized grimly. From his raised position he blessed them all. The monks, builders and villagers waved and called out their goodbyes as he and Richard rode side by side through the priory gates.

They went down the narrow street through the village, waving to people who looked out of their doorways, then clattered across the wooden bridge and onto the road through the fields. A little later, Philip glanced back over his shoulder, and saw the rising sun shining through the window space in the half-built east end of the new cathedral. If he failed in his mission, it might never be finished. After all he had been through to get this far, he could not bear to contemplate the idea of defeat now. He turned back and concentrated on the road ahead.

Lincoln was a city on a hill. Philip and Richard approached it from the south, on an ancient and busy road called Ermine Street. Even from a distance they could see, at the top of the hill, the towers of the cathedral and the battlements of the castle. But they were still three or four miles away when, to Philip’s astonishment, they came to a city gate. The suburbs must be vast, he thought; the population must run to thousands.

At Christmas the city had been seized by Ranulf of Chester, the most powerful man in the north of England and a relative of the Empress Maud. King Stephen had since retaken the city, but Ranulf’s forces still held the castle. Now, Philip and Richard had learned as they drew nearer, Lincoln was in the peculiar position of having two rival armies camped within its walls.

Philip had not warmed to Richard in their four weeks together. Aliena’s brother was an angry youth, who hated the Hamleighs and was set on revenge; and he talked as if Philip felt the same. But there was a difference. Philip hated the Hamleighs for what they did to their subjects: getting rid of them would make the world a better place. Richard could not feel good about himself until he had defeated the Hamleighs: his motive was entirely selfish.