the wall, the carnage would be appalling. Jack looked at Aliena and Tommy, and thought of the new child growing inside Aliena. "Is there a middle course?" he said. "We could evacuate the women and children, and the men could stay and defend the walls."
"No, thank you," Aliena said firmly. "That's the worst of both worlds. We would have no town walls and no menfolk to fight for us either."
She was right, Jack realized. Town walls were no good without people to defend them, and the women and children could not be left unguarded in the forest: William might leave the town alone and kill the women.
Philip said: "Jack, you're the builder. Can we put up a town wall in one day?"
"I've never built a town wall," Jack said. "There's no question of drawing plans, of course. We'd have to assign a craftsman to each section and let him use his judgment. The mortar will hardly be set by Sunday morning. It will be the worst-built wall in England. But yes, we can do it."
Philip turned to Richard. "You've seen battles. If we build a wall, can we hold William off?"
"Certainly," Richard said. "He will come prepared for a lightning raid, not a siege. If he finds a fortified town here there will be nothing he can do."
Finally Philip looked at Aliena. "You're one of the vulnerable people, with a child to protect. What do you think?
Should we run to the forest, and hope William doesn't come after us, or stay here and build a wall to keep him out?"
Jack held his breath.
"It's not just a question of safety," Aliena said after a pause. "Philip, you've dedicated your life to this priory. Jack, the cathedral is your dream. If we run away, you'll lose everything you've lived for. And as for me... Well, I have a special reason for wanting to see William Hamleigh's power curbed. I say we stay."
"All right," Philip said. "We build a wall."
As night fell, Jack, Richard and Philip walked the boundaries of the town with lanterns, deciding where the wall should go. The town was built on a low hill, and the river wound around two sides of it. The riverbanks were too soft to hold a stone wall without good foundations, so Jack proposed a wooden fence there. Richard was quite satisfied with that. The enemy could not attack the fence except from the river, which was almost impossible.
On the other two sides, some stretches of wall would be simple earth ramparts with a ditch. Richard declared that this would be effective where the ground was sloping and the enemy was forced to attack uphill. However, where the ground was level a stone wall would be needed.
Jack then went around the village gathering his builders together, getting them out of their homes-out of their beds, in some cases-and out of the alehouse. He explained the emergency and how the town was going to deal with it; then he walked around the boundaries with them and assigned a section of wall to each man: wooden fencing to carpenters, stone wall to masons, and ramparts to apprentices and laborers. He asked each man to mark out his own section with stakes and string before going to bed, and to give some thought, as he went to sleep, to how he would build it. Soon the perimeter of the town was marked by a dotted line of twinkling lights as the craftsmen did their laying out by lanternshine. The blacksmith lit his fire and settled down to spend the rest of the night making spades. The unusual after-dark activity disturbed the bedtime rituals of most of the townspeople, and the craftsmen spent a good deal of time explaining what they were doing to drowsy inquirers. Only the monks, who had gone to bed at nightfall, slept on in blissful ignorance.
But at midnight, when the craftsmen were finishing their preparations and most of the townspeople had retired-if only to discuss the news in hushed excitement under the blankets-the monks were awakened. Their services were cut short, and they were given bread and ale in the refectory while Philip briefed them. They were to be tomorrow's organizers. They were divided into teams, each team working for one builder. They would take orders from him and supervise the digging, lifting, fetching and carrying. Their first priority, Philip emphasized in his talk, was to make sure that the builder had a never-failing supply of the raw materials he needed: stones and