Epic Historial Collection by Ken Follett

tried it.
    He thought again of Ellen, the outlaw woman. There was something intriguing about her, too. She was powerfully attractive, but those deep-set, intense eyes were intimidating. An invitation from a whore made Tom feel discontented for a few moments, but the spell cast by Ellen had not yet worn off, and he had a sudden foolish desire to run back into the forest and find her and fall on her.
    He arrived at the cathedral close without seeing the outlaw. He looked at the plumbers nailing the lead to the triangular timber roof over the nave. They had not yet begun to cover the lean-to roofs on the side aisles of the church, and it was still possible to see the supporting half-arches which connected the outside edge of the aisle with the main nave wall, propping up the top half of the church. He pointed them out to Alfred. “Without those supports, the nave wall would bow outward and buckle, because of the weight of the stone vaults inside,” he explained. “See how the half-arches line up with the buttresses in the aisle wall? They also line up with the pillars of the nave arcade inside. And the aisle windows line up with the arches of the arcade. Strong lines up with strong, and weak with weak.” Alfred looked baffled and resentful. Tom sighed.
    He saw Agnes coming from the opposite side, and his mind returned to his immediate problem. Agnes’s hood concealed her face, but he recognized her chin-forward, sure-footed walk. Broad-shouldered laborers stepped aside to let her pass. If she were to run into the outlaw, and there was a fight, he thought grimly, it would be a fairly even match.
    â€œDid you see him?” she said.
    â€œNo. Obviously you didn’t either.” Tom hoped the thief had not left the town already. Surely he would not go without spending some of his pennies? Money was no use in the forest.
    Agnes was thinking the same. “He’s here somewhere. Let’s keep looking.”
    â€œWe’ll go back by different streets and meet again in the marketplace.”
    Tom and Alfred retraced their steps across the close and went out through the gateway. The rain was soaking through their cloaks now, and Tom thought fleetingly of a pot of beer and a bowl of beef broth beside an alehouse fire. Then he thought how hard he had worked to buy the pig, and he saw again the man with no lips swinging his club at Martha’s innocent head, and his anger warmed him.
    It was difficult to search systematically because there was no order to the streets. They wandered here and there, according to where people had built houses, and there were many sharp turns and blind alleys. The only straight street was the one that led from the east gate to the castle drawbridge. On his first sweep Tom had stayed close to the ramparts of the castle. Now he searched the outskirts, zigzagging to the town wall and back into the interior. These were the poorer quarters, with the most ramshackle buildings, the noisiest alehouses and the oldest whores. The edge of the town was downhill from the center, so the refuse from the wealthier neighborhood was washed down the streets to lodge beneath the walls. Something similar seemed to happen to the people, for this district had more than its share of cripples and beggars, hungry children and bruised women and helpless drunks.
    But the man with no lips was nowhere to be seen.
    Twice Tom spotted a man of about the right build and general appearance, and took a closer look, only to see that the man’s face was normal.
    He ended his search at the marketplace, and there was Agnes waiting for him impatiently, her body tense and her eyes gleaming. “I’ve found him!” she hissed.
    Tom felt a surge of excitement mingled with apprehension. “Where?”
    â€œHe went into a cookshop down by the east gate.”
    â€œLead me there.”
    They circled the castle to the drawbridge, went down the straight street to the east gate, then turned into a