Crowning the spire was the capstone – a series of stones in fact, laid in four courses and welded together with cramps of iron. And over the capstone was set the great iron cross.
The cross of Salisbury Cathedral was not only a necessary ornament. A rod from its centre passed directly through the capstone, like a root, and down to the wooden framework inside the spire, to which it was connected with a tightening mechanism. By this means the ingenious masons ensured that the interior stress of the cone could be adjusted.
One other item had been needed: and though it was not a structural feature, there was no question that it was as important to the safety of the building as anything the clever builders conceived. Inside the capstone they had reverently placed a small circular casket lined with lead which contained a little piece of cloth. It was a fragment of the Blessed Virgin’s robe.
When this was done, the capstone sealed, and the great cross tightened to the framework, almost a century after it had been begun the cathedral church of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Sarum was at last complete.
It was soon after this completion, on a darkening afternoon in late December, that Edward Mason found himself in the nave of the great cathedral – and staring at the old man in disbelief.
“Impossible.”
But Osmund was obdurate, and nothing Edward could say would make him listen to reason.
For on the eve of Holy Innocents Day, also called Childermas – that is, on December 27 – in the year of Our Lord 1310, Osmund the Mason in the eightieth year of his life, had fallen into the last and greatest of all the seven deadly sins.
Worse. He seemed to have decided to destroy himself.
Childermas eve was an important day in the year: for on that day, in Sarum, a curious and delightful event took place: the festival of the boy bishop.
The nave of the great church was crowded. The ceremony was about to begin. They had come from all over Sarum to witness it. The merchant Shockleys had come; Mary Shockley, now grey-haired, had stomped in from the farm to join them. From Avonsford, Roger de Godefroi had brought his son Gilbert, and although neither John nor Cristina had chosen to come, young Walter Wilson had even deserted his eel traps in the river to slouch across the fields that afternoon to see the fun.
It was an extraordinary, and good-humoured business, begun some time in the century before. On this day, in the best tradition of topsy-turveydom, the boy choristers were allowed to take over the cathedral and the priests take second place. Not only this: the boys had elected their own boy bishop who would rule the cathedral for the festival.
Despite the completion of its lovely spire, the cathedral and its priests had not always been popular with the people of Sarum of late. There had been, first, a spirited dispute between the mayor and the bishop over the bishop’s feudal right to tax the town. The bishop had won. Then there were always the vicars’ choral – a mass of junior and penniless fellows ranging from former choirboys who rang the bells to ordained young men without benefices – who were generally a rowdy nuisance and whom the townspeople complained about. And then there had been, despite Bishop Simon of Ghent’s best efforts, a general decline in standards in the close. It was partly caused by the number of its canons who were absentee Italians, granted these rich benefices by the pope; but whatever the reason the once scholarly precincts, despite the extraordinary cathedral in their centre, were regarded with less respect than they had been before.
Today however, it seemed that all these grudges were forgotten as the people came to witness the charming ceremony.
“Perhaps,” Edward thought as the congregation hushed, “the old man will forget this madness.” He could only hope so.
They had been allowed a good place by the crowd, out of reverence for Osmund – for it was generally believed, and could have been true, that he was the oldest man in Sarum.
The ceremony began with the choristers solemnly dressed in copes and holding lighted tapers, leading the boy bishop to the altar of the Blessed Trinity and All Saints. There the lesson for Innocents Day, from the Book of Revelation, was recited, before the choirboys sang the verses:
The music echoed softly through the great church.
As Osmund listened, he smiled contentedly. He was so very old. His big, round head was completely bald, except for the few fine wisps of white hair just behind his ears. The limbs of his once squat body were now so thin they seemed almost reduced to the bone. Yet he was still sprightly and he had all his faculties; and when he took Edward’s arm to walk, he did so because it pleased him and not because he really needed to.
He had come to the cathedral with his family that afternoon to admire the newly completed spire and make his annual tour of the building before the boy bishop’s service. He enjoyed doing this: pointing out a statue here, a capital there, even a distant boss in the vaulting, describing each in intricate detail to his patient son and grandchildren, and telling them the name of some long dead mason who had carved it. For only he could remember their names now, and after him, these anonymous artists would be forgotten. This, he knew, was as it should be.
“A mason does not need a name,” he used to say. “He lives on in the stone.”
The boy bishop was fuming the altar – swinging the heavy silver censer to and fro vigorously and sending up clouds of white smoke. The rich scent of the incense wafted towards Osmund and he sniffed it with pleasure. The last light of the December afternoon was fading from the coloured windows.
It had only been after a particularly thorough inspection of the nave and choir an hour before that the indefatigable old man had led his family into the cloisters. From there they had entered the chapter house.
And it was in the chapter house that he had committed his sin.
Now the choristers were making their procession through the church. The boy bishop, a fair-haired lad with a mischievous face, was striding boldly up to the great bishop’s throne. In his hand he held the bishop’s staff with its elaborate, curling handle. It was twice his height, which added to the comic aspect of the ceremony. He turned and, in plain chant, blessed the people. Despite his mischievous face, Osmund noticed he had a sweet voice. Then he sat on the throne and the choir began to chant the lovely evening service, the compline.
Sometimes on these days, the boy bishop would preach a sermon, usually admonishing the choirboys, singly and by name, for their sins while the congregation tried not to laugh. And then, when the service was over, he and all his fellow choristers would be given a prodigious feast by the canons. For this one day in the year, they too would be allowed to gorge themselves on veal, mutton, duck, sausage, woodcocks, plovers – all the rich and varied foods with which the five valleys and the high ground supplied the fortunate canons of Sarum.
The boys were looking forward to their feast: the congregation was in good humour. But Osmund’s thoughts had returned to the chapter house.
He had not entered the place for months. The dull afternoon light had been falling softly from the eight huge windows onto the walls. Silently he had stood, just apart from the others, and slowly turning he had let his eyes travel round the spaces between the arches of the canons’ tall seats.
There they were: the sixty low reliefs – from the Creation to Moses receiving the Law: his sculptures. And as he gazed at them, he knew they were perfect.
Whatever his faults, he had been a humble man. He had known satisfaction in his work; he had known delight when he caught the spirit of some animal or man he had wanted to depict; he had known pleasure when his work was praised, and a modest sense of self-respect when he was certain that a piece was well-executed.
But now the great cathedral was completed. He knew its wonders, every stone.
And as he stared at his work, done so long ago, he experienced for the first time in his life the fierce, overwhelming exultation that, had old Canon Portehors still been alive, the priest would have told him at once, with a terrible admonition, was the greatest of all the seven deadly sins.
For suddenly, overcome with emotion, the old man had grabbed his son by the arm, and cried:
“I did those. I carved them all. And there’s been nothing better in the cathedral. Nothing better in all England.”
“They are excellent,” Edward agreed quietly.
“Excellent?” He laughed, so loudly that it echoed round the stillness of the cloisters outside. “Excellent? There’s no mason living,” he shouted, “there’s been none at Sarum since the cathedral was started who could do what I have done.” He walked over to the little scene of Adam and Eve, stood on the canon’s seat beside it and ran his hand over the carving. Then, turning to his family in triumph, he reminded them:
“I made this. I made it all.”
And so at last, in his eightieth year, Osmund the Mason fell easily into the most deadly sin of pride.
As they returned through the cloisters, the old man seemed flushed with exultation. He seemed to forget his age as he almost skipped along. And when they entered the shadowy nave again, his keen eyes could still pick out in the half light a dozen reminders of his craftsmanship. The tomb of Bishop Gyles, a boss here, a capital there, even the stern face of Canon Portehors peeping down from the vaulting far above. The whole cathedral suddenly seemed to belong to him. What fools those masons had been, he remembered savagely, who had sent him ignominiously down from the tower. What were they? Fools and knaves, he almost shouted aloud: knaves like the worthless Bartholomew.
And in this mood of elation, just before the choir entered, he had turned to his horrified son and announced:
“Tomorrow morning we shall visit the tower,” and then added: “And I shall climb the spire.”
It was an unusual morning for December – both warm and clear.
The two men stood at the parapet: the old man eager and excited, the younger somewhat anxious and ill at ease.
It had been useless to argue with Osmund.
“If I prevent him going to the tower today,” Edward had told his wife, “he’ll only find some way of sneaking off another day. It’s better I go and keep an eye on him.”
“He’ll never get up the stairs anyway,” she had remarked.
Edward was less sanguine. And now he had been astonished by the way his ancient father had mounted them: slowly, to be sure, but steadily, stopping only at the clerestory level and once again at the first of the two landings in the great tower.
“The old man’s like an ant,” he muttered. “He just won’t be beaten.” And tiresome as the business was, he could not help admiring the old fellow’s incredible persistence.
As for Osmund, as he went up the familiar spiral staircase in the tower, he never remembered feeling better in his long life. Perhaps it was because he felt like a part of the building itself that the climb seemed easy; perhaps because his mind was fixed on the objective ahead. When at last he came out into the open air at the top of the tower his head was singing and he had to steady himself for a moment; but soon his face relaxed and he began to walk slowly round the parapet, beneath the huge sloping walls of the octagonal base of the spire.
He seemed to have forgotten his insane idea of the day before. Indeed, to Edward’s relief, he scarcely, glanced at the spire. He seemed to have forgotten Edward too as he paced about, staring out at the view, examining the masonry and muttering to himself. He went round several times. Twice, on the northern side, he leaned out and inspected a tiny stone figure, buried in a niche, with a curious, primitive little woman’s face that stared out over the town. It seemed to give him a special satisfaction, though Edward could not imagine why.
After a time, since Osmund appeared to be circulating the place indefinitely, Edward sat on the parapet to let him go about his business. The morning sun was surprisingly warm.
And it was only after several minutes on one of Osmund’s slow circuits that Edward realised he had disappeared. Assuming the old man must have started to descend, he inspected the four staircases, but found his father on none of them. Only then did he run round the base of the great octagonal spire and look up.
The iron rings were set a little further apart than Osmund would have liked. They stretched in a straight, but dizzying line from the base to the cross nearly two hundred feet above. But by treating each ring as a small individual obstacle, he was able to mount slowly, resting his feet on one ring and pulling his body up to the next with both his small hands together clutching one of the rings above. Gently, calmly, he mounted the steep, sheer face of the cone, pausing frequently. Twenty feet, thirty feet: he was already thirty feet up when Edward saw him.
Edward gazed up at his father. What should he do? His first thought was to hurry up the daunting spire after him; but then he considered – if the old man were to slip, could he really hope to catch him?
Then he shrugged. If his father was determined, in his eightieth year, to break his neck in this spectacular way, why should he stop him? With a rueful grin he watched the determined little figure make his solitary way towards his objective. His instinct told him that, despite his age, the mason would not fall. He hoped his instinct was right.