“You won’t even protect me from that mindless brute you call your son!”
“I tried—”
“You wouldn’t even have this job if I hadn’t burned the old cathedral down!”
“What did you say?”
“Yes, I burned the old cathedral.”
Tom went pale. “That was lightning—”
“There was no lightning. It was a fine night. And no one had made a fire in the church, either. I set light to the roof.”
“But why?”
“So that you would have work. Otherwise my mother would have died in the forest.”
“She wouldn’t—”
“Your first wife did, though, didn’t she?”
Tom turned white. Suddenly he looked older. Jack realized that he had wounded Tom profoundly. He had won the argument, but he had probably lost a friend. He felt sour and sad.
Tom whispered: “Get out of here.”
Jack left.
He walked away from the towering walls of the cathedral, close to tears. His life had been devastated in a few moments. It was incredible that he was going away from this church forever. He turned at the priory gate and looked back. There were so many things he had been planning. He wanted to carve a whole doorway all by himself; he wanted to persuade Tom to have stone angels in the clerestory; he had an innovative design for blind arcading in the transepts which he had not even shown to anyone yet. Now he would never do any of these things. It was so unfair. His eyes filled with tears.
He made his way home, seeing through a blur. Mother and Martha were sitting at the kitchen table. Mother was teaching Martha to write with a sharp stone and a slate. They were surprised to see him. Martha said: “It can’t be dinnertime already.”
Mother read Jack’s face. “What is it?” she said anxiously.
“I had a fight with Alfred and got expelled from the site,” he said grimly.
“Wasn’t Alfred expelled?” said Martha.
Jack shook his head.
“That’s not fair!” Martha said.
Mother said wearily: “What did you fight about this time?”
Jack said: “Was my father hanged at Shiring for thieving?”
Martha gasped.
Mother looked sad. “He wasn’t a thief,” she said. “But yes, he was hanged at Shiring.”
Jack was fed up with enigmatic statements about his father. He said brutally: “Why will you never tell me the truth?”
“Because it makes me so sad!” Mother burst out, and to Jack’s horror she began to cry.
He had never seen her cry. She was always so strong. He was close to breaking down himself. He swallowed hard and persisted. “If he wasn’t a thief, why was he hanged?”
“I don’t know!” Mother cried. “I never knew. He never knew either. They said he stole a jeweled cup.”
“From whom?”
