Like William, Waleran sensed the young builder’s insubordinate attitude, and reacted with a coldly haughty voice. “Well, lad, what’s your business with me?”

“The truth,” Jack said. “How many men have you seen hang?”

William caught his breath. It was a shocking and insolent question. He looked at the others. His mother was leaning forward, frowning intently at Jack, as if she might have seen him before and was trying to place him. Waleran was looking coldly amused.

Waleran said: “Is this a riddle? I’ve seen more men hang than I care to count, and there will be another if you don’t speak respectfully.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord bishop,” Jack said, but he still did not sound frightened. “Do you remember all of them?”

“I think so,” Waleran said, and he sounded intrigued despite himself. “I suppose there is a particular one that you’re interested in.”

“Twenty-two years ago, at Shiring, you watched the hanging of a man called Jack Shareburg.”

William heard his mother give a muffled gasp.

“He was a jongleur,” Jack continued. “Do you recall him?”

William felt the atmosphere in the room become tense all of a sudden. There was something unnaturally frightful about Jack Jackson; there had to be, for him to have this effect on Waleran and Mother. “I think perhaps I do remember,” Waleran said, and William heard in his voice the strain of self-control. What was going on here?

“I imagine you do,” Jack said, and now he was sounding insolent again. “The man was convicted on the testimony of three people. Two of them are now dead. You were the third.”

Waleran nodded. “He had stolen something from Kingsbridge Priory-a jeweled chalice.”

A flinty look came into Jack’s blue eyes. “He had done nothing of the kind.”

“I caught him myself, with the chalice on him.”

“You lied.”

There was a pause. When Waleran spoke again his tone was mild but his face was as hard as iron. “I may have your tongue ripped out for that,” he said.

“I just want to know why you did it,” Jack said as if he had not heard the grisly threat. “You can be candid here. William is no threat to you, and his mother seems to know all about it already.”

William looked at his mother. It was true, she did have a knowing air. William himself was now completely mystified. It seemed-he hardly dared to hope-that Jack’s visit actually had nothing to do with William and his secret plans to kill Aliena’s lover.

Regan said to Jack: “You’re accusing the bishop of perjury!”

“I shan’t repeat the charge in public,” Jack said coolly. “I’ve got no proof, and anyway I’m not interested in revenge. I would just like to understand why you hanged an innocent man.”

“Get out of here,” Waleran said icily.

Jack nodded as if he had expected no more. Although he had not got answers to his questions, there was a look of satisfaction on his face, as if his suspicions had somehow been confirmed.

William was still baffled by the whole exchange. On impulse, he said: “Wait a moment.”

Jack turned at the door and looked at him with those mocking blue eyes.

“What…” William swallowed and got his voice under control. “What’s your interest in this? Why did you come here and ask these questions?”

“Because the man they hanged was my father,” Jack said, and he went out.

There was a silence in the room. So Aliena’s lover, the master builder at Kingsbridge, was the son of a thief who had been hanged at Shiring, William thought: so what? But Mother seemed anxious, and Waleran actually looked shaken.

Eventually Waleran said bitterly: “That woman has dogged me for twenty years.” He was normally so guarded that William was shocked to see him letting his feelings show.

“She disappeared after the cathedral fell down,” Regan said. “I thought we’d seen the last of her.”

“Now her son has come to haunt us.” There was something like real fear in Waleran’s voice.

William said: “Why don’t you slap him in irons for accusing you of perjury?”

Waleran threw him a look of scorn, then said: “Your boy’s a damn fool, Regan.”

William realized the charge of perjury must be true. And if he was able to figure that out, so could Jack. “Does anyone else know?”

Regan said: “Prior James confessed his perjury, before he died, to the sub-prior, Remigius. But Remigius has always been on our side against Philip, so he’s no danger. Jack’s mother knows some of it, but not all; otherwise she would have used the information by now. But Jack has traveled around-he may have picked up something his mother didn’t know.”

William saw that this strange story from the past could be used to his advantage. As if it had just occurred to him, he said: “Then let’s kill Jack Jackson.”

Waleran just shook his head contemptuously.

Regan said: “That would serve to draw attention to him and his charges.”

William was disappointed. It had seemed almost providential. He thought about it, while the silence in the room dragged out. Then a new thought came to him, and he said: “Not necessarily.”

They both looked at him skeptically.

“Jack might be killed without drawing attention to him,” William said doggedly.

“All right, tell us how,” Waleran said.

“He could be killed in an attack on Kingsbridge,” William said, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the same look of startled respect on both their faces.

Jack walked around the building site with Prior Philip late in the afternoon. The ruins of the chancel had been cleared, and the rubble formed two huge heaps on the north side of the priory close. New scaffolding was up, and the masons were rebuilding the fallen walls. Alongside the infirmary was a large stockpile of timber.

“You’re moving along quickly,” Philip said.

“Not as fast as I’d like,” Jack replied.

They inspected the foundations of the transepts. Forty or fifty laborers were down in the deep holes, shoveling mud into buckets, while others at ground level operated the winches that lifted the buckets out of the holes. Huge rough-cut stone blocks for the foundations were stacked nearby.

Jack took Philip into his own workshop. It was much bigger than Tom’s shed had been. One side was completely open, for better light. Half the ground area was occupied by his tracing floor. He had laid planks over the earth, put a wooden border a couple of inches high around the planks, then poured plaster onto the wood until it filled the frame and threatened to overflow the border. When the plaster set, it was hard enough to walk on, but drawings could be scratched on it with a short length of iron wire sharpened to a point. This was where Jack designed the details. He used compasses, a straightedge and a set square. The scratch marks were white and clear when first made, but they faded to gray quite quickly, which meant that new drawings could be made on top of old ones without confusion. It was an idea he had picked up in France.

Most of the rest of the hut was taken up by the bench on which Jack was working in wood, making the templates that would show the masons how to carve the stones. The light was fading: he would do no more woodwork today. He began to put his tools away.

Philip picked up a template. “What’s this for?”

“The plinth at the base of a pier.”

“You prepare things well in advance.”

“I just can’t wait to start building properly.”

These days all their conversations were terse and factual.

Philip put down the template. “I must go in to compline.” He turned away.

“And I shall go and visit my family,” Jack said acidly.

Philip paused, turned as if he was going to speak, looked sad, and left.

Jack locked his toolbox. That had been a foolish remark. He had accepted the job on Philip’s terms and it was pointless to complain about it now. But he felt constantly angry with Philip, and he could not always keep it in.