The Pillars Of The Earth Page 0,89

loathe you. And that's why I won't marry you!"

The knights cheered and applauded. William cringed inside. Their laughter made him feel small, weak and helpless, like a little boy, and when he was a little boy he had been frightened all the time. He turned away from Aliena, fighting to control his facial expression and hide his feelings. He crossed the room as fast as he could without running, while the laughter grew louder. At last he reached the door, flung it open, and stumbled out. He slammed it behind him and ran down the stairs, choking with shame; and the fading sound of their derisive laughter rang in his ears all the way across the muddy courtyard to the gate.

The path from Earlscastle to Shiring crossed a main road after about a mile. At the crossroads a traveler could turn north, for Gloucester and the Welsh border, or south, for Winchester and the coast. William and Walter turned south.

William's anguish had turned to rage. He was too furious to speak. He wanted to hurt Aliena and kill all those knights. He would have liked to thrust his sword into each laughing mouth and drive it down each throat. And he had thought of a way to avenge himself on at least one of them. If it worked, he would get the proof he needed at the same time. The prospect gave him savage consolation.

First he had to catch one of them. As soon as the road ran into woodland, William dismounted and began to walk, leading his horse. Walter followed in silence, respecting his mood. William came to a narrower stretch of track and stopped. He turned to Walter and said: "Who's better with a knife, you or me?"

"Fighting at close quarters, I'm better," Walter said guardedly. "But you throw more accurately, lord." They all called him lord when he was angry.

"I suppose you can trip a bolting horse, and make him fall?" William said.

"Yes, with a good stout pole."

"Go and find a small tree, then, and pull it up and trim it; then you'll have a good stout pole."

Walter went off.

William led the two horses through the woods and tied them up in a clearing a good way from the road. He took off their saddles and removed some of the cords and straps from the tack-enough to bind a man hand and foot, with a little over. His plan was crude, but there was no time to devise something more elaborate, so he would have to hope for the best.

On his way back to the road he found a stout piece of oak deadfall, dry and hard, to use as a club.

Walter was waiting with his pole. William selected the place where the groom would lie in wait, behind the broad trunk of a beech tree that grew close to the path. "Don't shove the pole out too soon, or the horse will jump over it," he cautioned. "But don't leave it too late, because you can't trip him by his back legs. The ideal is to push it between his forelegs. And try to stick the end into the ground so he doesn't kick it aside."

Walter nodded. "I've seen this done before."

William walked about thirty yards back toward Earlscastle. His role would be to make sure the horse bolted, so that it would be going too fast to avoid Walter's pole. He hid himself as close to the road as he could. Sooner or later one of Earl Bartholomew's messengers would come along. William hoped it would be soon. He was anxious about whether this was going to work, and he was impatient to get it over with.

Those knights had no idea, while they were laughing at me, that I was spying on them, he thought, and it soothed him a little. But one of them is about to find out. And then he'll be sorry he laughed. Then he'll wish he had gone down on his knees and kissed my boots, instead of laughing. He's going to weep and beg and plead with me to forgive him, and I'm just going to hurt him all the more.

He had other consolations. If his plan worked out, it might ultimately bring about the downfall of Earl Bartholomew and the resurrection of the Hamleighs. Then all those who had snickered at the canceled wedding would tremble in fear, and some of them would suffer more than fear.

The downfall of Bartholomew would also be the downfall of Aliena, and