“Even that may not be possible.”

“I want to try, Mother!”

She sighed. “The monk was the prior of Kingsbridge.”

“Philip!”

“No, not Philip. This was before Philip’s time. It was his predecessor, James.”

“But he’s dead.”

“I told you it might not be possible to question them.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Who were the others?”

“The knight was Percy Hamleigh, the earl of Shiring.”

“William’s father!”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead, too!”

“Yes.”

Jack had a terrible feeling that all three would turn out to be dead men, and the secret buried with their bones. “Who was the priest?” he said urgently.

“His name was Waleran Bigod. He’s now the bishop of Kingsbridge.”

Jack gave a sigh of profound satisfaction. “And he’s still alive,” he said.

Bishop Waleran’s castle was finished at Christmas. William Hamleigh and his mother rode to it on a fine morning early in the new year. They saw it from a distance, across the valley. It was at the highest point of the opposite ridge, overlooking the surrounding countryside with a forbidding regard.

As they crossed the valley they passed the old palace. It was now used as a storehouse for fleeces. Income from wool was paying for much of the new castle.

They trotted up the gentle slope on the far side of the valley and followed the road through a gap in the earth ramparts and across a deep dry moat to a gateway in a stone wall. With ramparts, a moat and a stone wall, this was a highly secure castle, superior to William’s own and to many of the king’s.

The inner courtyard was dominated by a massive square keep three stories high which dwarfed the stone church that stood alongside it. William helped his mother dismount. They left their knights to stable the horses and mounted the steps that led to the hall.

It was midday, and in the hall Waleran’s servants were preparing the table. Some of his archdeacons, deans, employees and hangers-on were standing around waiting for dinner. William and Regan waited while a steward went up to the bishop’s private quarters to announce their arrival.

William was burning inside with a fierce, agonizing jealousy. Aliena was in love, and the whole county knew it. She had given birth to a love child, and her husband had thrown her out of his house. With her baby in her arms, she had gone off to look for the man she loved, and had found him after searching half of Christendom. The story was being told and retold all over southern England. It made William sick with hatred every time he heard it. But he had thought of a way to get revenge.

They were taken up the stairs and shown into Waleran’s chamber. They found him sitting at a table with Baldwin, who was now an archdeacon. The two clerics were counting money on a checkered cloth, building the silver pennies into piles of twelve and moving them from black squares to white. Baldwin stood up and bowed to Lady Regan, then quickly put away the cloth and the coins.

Waleran got up from the table and went to the chair by the fire. He moved quickly, like a spider, and William felt the old familiar loathing. Nevertheless he resolved to be unctuous. He had heard recently of the dreadful death of the earl of Hereford, who had quarreled with the bishop of Hereford and died in a state of excommunication. His body had been buried in unconsecrated ground. When William imagined his own body lying in undefended earth, vulnerable to all the imps and monsters that inhabited the underworld, he shook with fright. He would never quarrel with his bishop.

Waleran was as pale and thin as ever, and his black robes hung on him like laundry drying on a tree. He never seemed to change. William knew that he himself had changed. Food and wine were his principal pleasures, and each year he grew a little stouter, despite the active life he led, so that the expensive chain mail that had been made for him when he turned twenty-one had been replaced twice over in the succeeding seven years.

Waleran was just back from York. He had been away for almost half a year, and William politely asked him: “Did you have a successful trip?”

“No,” he replied. “Bishop Henry sent me there to attempt to resolve a four-year-old dispute over who is to be archbishop of York. I failed. The row goes on.”

The less said about that the better, William thought. He said: “While you’ve been away, there have been a lot of changes here. Especially at Kingsbridge.”

“At Kingsbridge?” Waleran was surprised. “I thought that problem had been solved once and for all.”

William shook his head. “They’ve got the Weeping Madonna.”

Waleran looked irritated. “What the devil are you talking about?”

William’s mother answered. “It’s a wooden statue of the Virgin that they use in processions. At certain times, water comes from its eyes. The people think it’s miraculous.”

“It is miraculous!” William said. “A statue that weeps!”

Waleran gave him a scornful look.

Regan said: “Miraculous or not, thousands of people have been to see it in the last few months. Meanwhile, Prior Philip has recommenced building. They’re repairing the chancel and putting a new timber ceiling on it, and they’ve started on the rest of the church. The foundations for the crossing have been dug, and some new stonemasons have arrived from Paris.”

“Paris?” Waleran said.

Regan said: “The church is now going to be built in the style of Saint-Denis, whatever that is.”

Waleran nodded. “Pointed arches. I heard talk of it at York.”

William did not care what style Kingsbridge Cathedral would be. He said: “The point is, young men off my farms are moving to Kingsbridge to work as laborers, the Kingsbridge market is open again every Sunday, taking business away from Shiring… It’s the same old story!” He glanced uneasily at the other two, wondering whether either of them suspected that he had an ulterior motive; but neither looked suspicious.

Waleran said: “The worst mistake I ever made was to help Philip become prior.”

“They’re going to have to learn that they just can’t do this,” William said.

Waleran looked at him thoughtfully. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m going to sack the town again.” And when I do, I’ll kill Aliena and her lover, he thought; and he looked into the fire, so that his mother should not meet his eyes and read his thoughts.

“I’m not sure you can,” Waleran said.

“I’ve done it before-why shouldn’t I do it again?”

“Last time you had a good reason: the fleece fair.”

“This time it’s the market. They’ve never had King Stephen’s permission for that either.”

“It’s not quite the same. Philip was pushing his luck by holding a fleece fair, and you attacked it immediately. The Sunday market has been going on at Kingsbridge for six years now, and anyway, it’s twenty miles from Shiring so it ought to be licensed.”

William suppressed his anger. He wanted to tell Waleran to stop being such a feeble old woman; but that would never do.

While he was swallowing his protest a steward came into the room and stood silently by the door. Waleran said: “What is it?”

“There’s a man here who insists on seeing you, my lord bishop. Name of Jack Jackson. A builder, from Kingsbridge. Shall I send him away?”

William’s heart raced. It was Aliena’s lover. How had the man happened to come here just when William was plotting his death? Perhaps he had supernatural powers. William was possessed by dread.

“From Kingsbridge?” Waleran said with interest.

Regan said: “He’s the new master builder there, the one who brought the Weeping Madonna from Spain.”

“Interesting,” said Waleran. “Let’s have a look at him.” He said to the steward: “Send him in.”

William stared at the door with superstitious terror. He expected a tall, fearsome man in a black cloak to stride in and point directly at him with an accusing finger. But when Jack came through the door, William was shocked by his youth. Jack could not have been much past twenty. He had red hair and alert blue eyes which flickered over William, paused on Regan-whose frightful facial sores arrested the glance of anyone who was not used to them-and came to rest on Waleran. The builder was not much intimidated by finding himself in the presence of the two most powerful men in the county, but apart from that surprising nonchalance he did not seem very fearsome.