There was the hint of a sneer on the sacrist’s face. “Who are you?” he said.

Philip hesitated again. It was obvious that he was a monk, from his robes and his haircut; and they all must have guessed, from his behavior, that he was in a position of authority; but it was not yet clear whether his rank placed him over the sacrist. All he had to say was I am your new prior, but he did not want to. Suddenly it seemed very important that he should prevail by sheer weight of moral authority.

The sacrist sensed his uncertainty and took advantage of it. “Tell us all, please,” he said with mock courtesy. “Who is it that commands us to kneel in his presence?”

All hesitation left Philip in a rush, and he thought: God is with me, so what am I afraid of? He took a deep breath, and his words came out in a roar that echoed from the paved floor to the stone-vaulted ceiling. “It is God who commands you to kneel in his presence!” he thundered.

The sacrist looked a fraction less confident. Philip seized his chance and snatched the book. The sacrist had lost all authority now, and at last, reluctantly, he knelt.

Hiding his relief, Philip looked around at them all and said: “I am your new prior.”

He made them remain kneeling while he read the service. It took a long time, because he made them repeat the responses again and again until they could speak them in perfect unison. Then he led them in silence out of the chapel and across the clearing to the refectory. He sent the roast pork back to the kitchen and ordered bread and weak beer, and he nominated a monk to read aloud while they ate. As soon as they had finished he led them, still in silence, to the dormitory.

He ordered the prior’s bedding brought in from the separate prior’s house: he would sleep in the same room as the monks. It was the simplest and most effective way to prevent sins of impurity.

He did not sleep at all the first night, but sat up with a candle, praying silently, until it was midnight and time to wake the monks for matins. He went through that service quickly, to let them know he was not completely merciless. They went back to bed, but Philip did not sleep.

He went out at dawn, before they woke, and looked around, thinking about the day ahead. One of the fields had recently been reclaimed from the forest, and right in the middle of it was the huge stump of what must have been a massive oak tree. That gave him an idea.

After the service of prime, and breakfast, he took them all out into the field with ropes and axes, and they spent the morning uprooting the enormous stump, half of them heaving on the ropes while the other half attacked the roots with axes, all saying “He-eeeave” together. When the stump finally came up, Philip gave them all beer, bread, and a slice of the pork he had denied them at supper.

That was not the end of the problems, but it was the beginning of solutions. From the start he refused to ask the mother house for anything but grain for bread and candles for the chapel. The knowledge that they would get no meat other than what they raised or trapped themselves turned the monks into meticulous livestock husbandmen and bird-snarers; and whereas they had previously looked upon the services as a way of escaping work, they now were glad when Philip cut down the hours spent in chapel so that they could have more time in the fields.

After two years they were self-sufficient, and after another two they were supplying Kingsbridge Priory with meat, game, and a cheese made from goat’s milk which became a coveted delicacy. The cell prospered, the services were irreproachable, and the brothers were healthy and happy.

Philip would have been content-but the mother house, Kingsbridge Priory, was going from bad to worse.

It should have been one of the leading religious centers in the kingdom, bustling with activity, its library visited by foreign scholars, its prior consulted by barons, its shrines attracting pilgrims from all over the country, its hospitality renowned by the nobility, its charity famous among the poor. But the church was crumbling, half the monastic buildings were empty, and the priory was in debt to moneylenders. Philip went to Kingsbridge at least once a year, and each time he came back seething with anger at the way in which wealth, which had been given by devout worshipers and increased by dedicated monks, was being dissipated carelessly like the inheritance of the prodigal son.

Part of the problem was the location of the priory. Kingsbridge was a small village on a back road that led nowhere. Since the time of the first King William-who had been called the Conqueror, or the Bastard, depending on who was speaking-most cathedrals had been transferred to large towns; but Kingsbridge had escaped this shake-up. However, that was not an insuperable problem, in Philip’s view: a busy monastery with a cathedral church should be a town in itself.

The real trouble was the lethargy of old Prior James. With a limp hand on the tiller, the ship was blown about at hazard and went nowhere.

And, to Philip’s bitter regret, Kingsbridge Priory would continue to decline while Prior James was still alive.

They wrapped the baby in clean linen and laid him in a large breadbasket for a cradle. With his tiny belly full of goat’s milk he fell asleep. Philip put Johnny Eightpence in charge of him, for despite being somewhat half-witted, Johnny had a gentle touch with creatures that were small and frail.

Philip was agog to know what had brought Francis to the monastery. He dropped hints during dinner, but Francis did not respond, and Philip had to suppress his curiosity.

After dinner it was study hour. They had no proper cloisters here, but the monks could sit in the porch of the chapel and read, or walk up and down the clearing. They were allowed to go into the kitchen from time to time to warm themselves by the fire, as was the custom. Philip and Francis walked around the edge of the clearing, side by side, as they had often walked in the cloisters at the monastery in Wales; and Francis began to speak.

“King Henry has always treated the Church as if it were a subordinate part of his kingdom,” he began. “He has issued orders to bishops, imposed taxes, and prevented the direct exercise of papal authority.”

“I know,” Philip said. “So what?”

“King Henry is dead.”

Philip stopped in his tracks. He had not expected that.

Francis went on: “He died at his hunting lodge at Lyons-la-Forêt, in Normandy, after a meal of lampreys, which he loved, although they always disagreed with him.”

“When?”

“Today is the first day of the year, so it was a month ago exactly.”

Philip was quite shocked. Henry had been king since before Philip was born. He had never lived through the death of a king, but he knew it meant trouble, and possibly war. “What happens now?” he said anxiously.

They resumed walking. Francis said: “The problem is that the king’s heir was killed at sea, many years ago-you may remember it.”

“I do.” Philip had been twelve years old. It was the first event of national importance to penetrate his boyish consciousness, and it had made him aware of the world outside the monastery. The king’s son had died in the wreck of a vessel called the White Ship, just off Cherbourg. Abbot Peter, who told young Philip all this, had been worried that war and anarchy would follow the death of the heir; but in the event, King Henry kept control, and life went on undisturbed for Philip and Francis.

“The king had many other children, of course,” Francis went on. “At least twenty of them, including my own lord, Earl Robert of Gloucester; but as you know, they are all bastards. Despite his rampant fecundity he managed to father only one other legitimate child-and that was a girl, Maud. A bastard can’t inherit the throne, but a woman is almost as bad.”