Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [292]
“There’s plenty of wealth,” he told his son, “but no money.” And in this he was typical of many of the nobility.
The two men reviewed every option, even that of approaching the Cahorsin merchants. “But they’ll rob us blind,” Shockley complained. And it was only after some time that Godefroi suddenly gave way to the outburst that so surprised young Peter.
“This is all the doing of the king,” he raged. “The king with his damned foreign schemes and his damned foreign family. He’ll ruin us all.”
In his innocence, Peter had always assumed that the knight was a loyal follower of the king. But Godefroi’s next words, though they were spoken in anger, made his mouth fall open.
“I tell you, Shockley, the man’s a child; the only good government we’ve had was when he was a child, and there were regents to govern in his name. We’re English. We don’t need his foreigners; we don’t need his extravagance and frankly, except as a figurehead, I sometimes think we don’t need him.”
Astonished as Peter was by such sacrilege against the pious monarch, Godefroi’s view was widely shared amongst the gentry, and among the magnates too. The king might not have forgotten his lost lands, but most of his feudal subjects had. The magnates disliked the foreign favourites who were given key positions at court; the knights disliked the scutages that the king levied on the magnates and which the magnates in turn passed on to them. Several times when the king had made demands for money which his barons thought unreasonable, they had reminded him of his father’s Magna Carta which limited his powers; and though he did not tell Shockley, Godefroi had heard a rumour that several of the magnates were planning to try to force a council of four on the king which would effectively administer the realm in his name.
These were heady ideas for a provincial merchant’s son; he did not know what to think. But one thing he did know: the king had spent too much money and had damaged his family’s business; and at some point, he was sure, something must be done. It was the most important political lesson he ever learned.
Two months dragged by. The oak already felled to make the mill machinery lay on the ground. By the empty site, two cartloads of stones lay in undisturbed heaps. And then at last Aaron of Wilton called for a meeting at the manor house.
“Gentlemen,” he told them. “I have raised the money.” He paused and Edward Shockley noticed the new lines of pain and worry that had collected around his eyes. “But I tell you this,” he went on, “if the king tallages us like that again, it will be the last loan I shall be able to make.”
“And the interest rate?” Godefroi knew very well that the Jews would be forced to increase their rates to stay in business.
“I agreed a rate,” Aaron replied with aloofness. “It remains the same.”
It was then that Jocelin de Godefroi disappeared for a few moments into the garderobe chamber where he kept his most valuable possessions and returned with a little leather-bound book which he placed in Aaron’s hands. It was Geoffrey of Monmouth’s little history, translated into French, that had belonged to his great-grandfather.
“To remember this day,” he said solemnly, and he was glad to see that, for once, the Jew flushed with pleasure.
Two days later a messenger arrived at the manor and was ushered into the knight’s presence. With a low bow he declared that he came from Aaron of Wilton and handed Godefroi a small package.
In the package was another small book.
It was a little set of stories called The Fox Fables, written by a Jew of Oxford called, in French, Benedict le Pointur, and known to the Jews as Berechiah ha Nakdan. Godefroi had heard of it, for the fables were one of the classics of the great renaissance of Jewish writing that had taken place in England the previous century, before the sporadic persecutions had begun. It, too, was translated into French and charmingly illustrated. The knight smiled. “The fellow’s too proud to take a gift without giving one in return,” he muttered. But he was pleased with the book, and