Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [337]
“It seems God wishes me to see more of the world before I die,” he said wryly, and took his leave of the Godefrois and the Shockleys with surprising cheerfulness.
It was during this final journey from Sarum to the coast that Mary Shockley tried to convert him.
All day before the journey, Mary had pondered. Since her father had ordered her to take Aaron in the cart, she supposed that she must, and since she was taking him to banishment, it seemed to her that she was doing God’s work. But she was not happy with the task. She was a bluff, good-hearted girl, perfectly formed to farm and fight like her Saxon ancestors before her. She knew that the Jews would suffer hellfire if they did not convert, and the question of how to deal with them had always seemed simple to her. “Why doesn’t the king just order them to convert and kill them if they don’t?” she had once asked as a child. It was how Roman had converted Saxon and Saxon Dane, in better, simpler times. But now she was to be forced to sit for two days in the cart with an old infidel close to death; and the more she considered it, the more she realised that it must be her duty to convert him if she could. So as soon as they rattled over the Ayleswade bridge and set off on the road south, she told Aaron that this was her intention.
To his amusement, the elderly, sophisticated Jew sat in the creaking cart beside the almost illiterate and forthright young woman who had earnestly told him to repent even before they reached Britford or the cathedral tower was out of sight. She pleaded with him all the way to Fordingbridge, explaining the folly of Judaism and the greater authority of her church.
He did not argue much, but she could see that she was making little headway. She was not discouraged, though.
“Don’t worry old Jew; we’ll save your soul yet,” she told him cheerfully.
After they had crossed the river at Fordingbridge, she warned him of the danger of hellfire; she told him he must do penance for the crime of the Jews in sending Christ to the cross; she explained to him that those who, like him, saw the Saviour but closed their eyes would not be forgiven on the Day of Judgement. The old man answered her patiently, more amused than irritated by her persistence, as he explained that he had no wish to desert the God who had made His covenant with his ancestors.
They stopped at Ringwood for the night.
The second day, sensing that she had been defeated on the main issue, Mary changed her line of attack.
“Why do your practise usury,” she demanded, “when the Bible and the Church say usury is a sin?”
“I do not practise usury,” he replied.
She frowned.
“You lend money at interest.”
“Yes, but what the Bible calls usury is excessive interest, which is different,” he responded calmly. “All money must carry some interest, otherwise no one has any reason to lend.”
She shook her head. How ignorant the old man was.
“You’re not supposed to charge any interest,” she corrected. “The priests say so.”
Aaron sighed. The profound ignorance of simple finance that this invented doctrine showed was something he could only grieve over.
“Do you deny it?” she insisted.
He gazed at her and thought what a splendid creature she was, with her frank, violet eyes, her mass of long, yellow hair and her athletic figure. He bore her no ill will and wished now that she would stop arguing with him since he was tired. But his passion for accuracy made him reply:
“I do deny that it is wrong whatever the priests say. Excessive interest is a crime, and a destructive one, but there must be some interest.”
She could see he was sincere, and her face puckered in puzzlement as the old