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By Root 4253 0

strict differentiation. Elias was a work horse. He was half as big again as his father, and though he had the same long hands and close-set eyes, it was as if some supernatural force had first flattened and then twisted his body: his face was broad and usually wore a look of blank stupidity; his shoulders were hunched; his walk was ungainly. “His mother must ‘a looked at the moon before he was born,” Walter remarked cheerfully. But he was strong, and he was anxious to please. “The idiot loves me,” Walter explained. “He’ll make my fortune.” And indeed, though he would curse and even whip the young man as he went about his work, he could often find local farmers prepared to give him the incredible sum of two pence a day for Elias’s services because he was so willing and so strong.

But Edward was let off lightly. He worked, as Walter did, but reasonable, regular hours. And often his father would take him with him on his busy trips around Sarum.

“Don’t talk. Just listen,” he was always told curtly. And that is what he did.

It was a year after he had first rented the farm from Stephen that Walter came home one evening with a broad grin on his face. He nodded to his son:

“Young Shockley’s in trouble.”

It was hardly surprising. Though nature had made him slight, where his father had always tended towards corpulence, he resembled William Shockley in many ways, not least in having a shrewd business brain. But though he was a capable, intelligent boy, and the abrupt death of his family had made him mature for his seventeen years, the sheer weight of the Shockley businesses had swamped him. When Walter had paid him a visit, he had found the boy showing every sign of being harassed, constantly pushing his thin flaxen hair back over his head in a nervous gesture, his pale blue eyes unable to conceal the fact that he was worried.

Fundamentally, there was nothing wrong with his affairs. The store and the fulling mill were both excellent businesses. But he was still learning how to manage them at a time of crisis which would have tested even an experienced merchant. And he had run out of cash.

The next day they went to visit him; and once again his father astonished him. For Walter was courteous, even generous.

“You’re already running two businesses,” he remarked pleasantly; “no man can do more than that. I want to make you an offer.” He paused. “Let me take over the tenancy from the Abbey and I’ll give you three years’ rent for it. Fifteen pounds.”

As he watched, Edward could not tell which one of them was more surprised – himself or young Shockley. It was more than a fair offer, and a substantial sum of money. Though he could not read or write, he could reckon with lightning speed, and he knew that, with the whole profit from their sales, together with the money saved from hiring out the family, Walter could not have produced such an amount. He must have stolen it, he thought to himself.

“You have that?” Stephen queried.

“An inheritance,” Walter said coolly.

The youth considered. He was loath to give up the farm which had been in the family so long, but such a sum, in his hands now, would tide over the Shockley business where he knew his own future lay.

He nodded.

“Yes. I’ll take it.”

And with those words, the farm which King Alfred had given his Saxon forebears nearly five centuries before, and which had given him his name, passed for ever out of the family’s hands.

The next day, the former villein and new tenant of Shockley had a brief interview with the steward at Wilton Abbey. Edward was not asked to come. He never discovered how his father had done it, but the rent on the farm was lowered again.

“Now we’ve kicked those damn Shockleys out,” his father told him. “And this is only the start.”

“What’s next?” Edward asked. But Walter did not say.

The next year, 1350, was a bad harvest; but they managed to salvage some of their corn and sold it at a handsome profit.

During this time, a subtle change began to take place in their relationship. For although his father would still occasionally strike him and frequently