The Pillars Of The Earth Page 0,47

else. Born within sight of a monastery, orphaned at six, raised by monks, made cellarer at twenty-one-God does not take that much trouble over the formation of a man who is going to spend his life in a small monastery on a bleak hilltop in a remote mountain principality. There isn't enough scope for you here. You must leave this place."

Philip was stunned by this, but before leaving the abbot a question occurred to him, and he blurted it out. "If this monastery is so unimportant, why did God put you here?"

Abbot Peter smiled. "Perhaps to take care of you."

Later that year the abbot went to Canterbury to pay his respects to the archbishop, and when he came back he said to Philip: "I have given you to the prior of Kingsbridge."

Philip was daunted. Kingsbridge Priory was one of the biggest and most important monasteries in the land. It was a cathedral priory: its church was a cathedral church, the seat of a bishop, and the bishop was technically the abbot of the monastery, although in practice it was ruled by its prior.

"Prior James is an old friend," Abbot Peter told Philip. "In the last few years he has become rather dispirited, I don't know why. Anyway, Kingsbridge needs young blood. In particular, James is having trouble with one of his cells, a little place in the forest, and he desperately needs a completely reliable man to take over the cell and set it back on the path of godliness."

"So I'm to be prior of the cell?" Philip said in surprise.

The abbot nodded. "And if we're right in thinking that God has much work for you to do, we can expect that he will help you to resolve whatever problems this cell has."

"And if we're wrong?"

"You can always come back here and be my cellarer. But we're not wrong, my son; you'll see."

His farewells were tearful. He had spent seventeen years here, and the monks were his family, more real to him now than the parents who had been savagely taken from him. He would probably never see these monks again, and he was sad.

Kingsbridge overawed him at first. The walled monastery was bigger than many villages; the cathedral church was a vast, gloomy cavern; the prior's house a small palace. But once he got used to its sheer size he saw the signs of that dispiritedness that Abbot Peter had noted in his old friend the prior. The church was visibly in need of major repairs; the prayers were gabbled hastily; the rules of silence were breached constantly; and there were too many servants, more servants than monks. Philip quickly got over being awed and became angry. He wanted to take Prior James by the throat and shake him and say: "How dare you do this? How dare you give hasty prayers to God? How dare you allow novices to play at dice and monks to keep pet dogs? How dare you live in a palace, surrounded by servants, while God's church is falling into ruin?" He said nothing of the kind, of course. He had a brief, formal interview with Prior James, a tall, thin, stooped man who seemed to have the weight of the world's troubles on his rounded shoulders. Then he talked to the sub-prior, Remigius. At the start of the conversation Philip hinted that he thought the priory might be overdue for some changes, expecting that its deputy leader would agree wholeheartedly; but Remigius looked down his nose at Philip, as if to say Who do you think you are?, and changed the subject.

Remigius said that the cell of St-John-in-the-Forest had been established three years earlier with some land and property, and it should have been self-supporting by now, but in fact it was still dependent on supplies from the mother house. There were other problems: a deacon who happened to spend the night there had criticized the conduct of services; travelers alleged they had been robbed by monks in that area; there were rumors of impurity... The fact that Remigius was unable or unwilling to give exact details was just another sign of the indolent way the whole organization was being run. Philip left trembling with rage. A monastery was supposed to glorify God. If it failed to do that, it was nothing. Kingsbridge Priory was worse than nothing. It shamed God by its slothfulness. But Philip could do nothing about it. The best he could hope for was to reform one of Kingsbridge's