Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [335]
“Godefroi is my friend,” he muttered. But the seed of distrust had been sown.
The fate of John Wilson and his wife was decided by circumstances that had nothing to do with the Shockley farm.
It was a thoughtful young courtier who had been involved in the Scottish negotiations who decided the issue. He had studied the pair carefully that morning; while King Edward was sitting at his meal in the evening he came to the king’s side and quietly made the ingenious suggestion as a result of which, a little later, John and Cristina found themselves led into the room.
They had spent an anxious and unpleasant day. The bare hut in which they had been kept had a leaking roof. It had been used as a kennels some time before and it smelt musty. By evening the place had become cold, and by nightfall their teeth were chattering. They had been given no food. Now, suddenly, they were blinking in the bright light of the king’s sumptuous apartments, faced by Edward and his companions, and listening to the remarkable proposition that the young courtier was putting to them so coolly.
His logic was impeccable. The Scottish negotiations had been progressing well, but in the last week the final completion had dragged unnecessarily over some minor details, and the cause, he had discovered, was the secretary to one of the commissioners, who was against the business and had influence with his master.
“The only way to keep him happy is to amuse him,” the young man explained to the king. “Then he lets things go along, even if he doesn’t really approve. If he isn’t amused, he just invents trivial obstacles all the time.”
“How do you amuse him?”
“Women, Your Majesty. His appetite’s insatiable. We’ve given him three local wenches already, but he got bored with them.” He grinned. “But did you notice the merchant’s wife this morning? She’s extraordinary.”
Edward gazed at the young fellow with a mixture of admiration for his cunning, and contempt for his methods. His devotion to his own Spanish wife was well known. He even used to take the queen with him on campaign.
“You want to send her to the Scot – as a price for their release?” He shook his head in disgust. “I won’t do it.”
“No sire, there’s no need,” the courtier responded. “They’ll both do it of their free will.” And briefly he outlined his simple plan. “Have I your permission?”
Edward grimaced.
“I suppose so.”
When John Wilson heard the smiling young man make his proposal, he recapitulated it carefully:
“You’re going to set me free with no trial?”
The courtier nodded:
“The king is considering it, despite your impertinent fraud.”
“And when I’m free, you’ll grant me a farm?”
“Precisely. Your own farm.”
“But my wife has to lie for a week with the Scot?”
“If you want the farm, yes. You will be doing the king a useful service,” he added with a smile.
John Wilson paused, without looking at his wife.
“If the Scot wants her for longer,” he said thoughtfully, “do I get more?”
Even the courtier’s bland smile faltered for an instant at the coolness of the question; but he recovered quickly.
“Perhaps.”
Only then did John turn to Cristina. Neither spoke, but between them there passed a look of perfect complicity.
“She’ll do it,” he said cheerfully.
The young courtier smiled; the king, with his drooping eyelid, watched unblinking. And an hour later a small charter granting John Wilson and his heirs tenancy of a farmstead consisting of one virgate of land with a messuage thereon was dropped contemptuously into his hands. The messuage in question was a small cottage; the land was mediocre. But it was enough to satisfy his modest aspirations. It lay next door to the Shockley farm.
The agreement between the Scots and English commissioners for the government of Scotland during the minority of