Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [392]
It was while he was studying the design for the new clock – a large, cumbersome mechanism driven by weights hung from ropes and regulated not, as yet, by a pendulum but by a less accurate set of drums and wheels – that he was interrupted by an excited and scandalised Portehors with the news of Martin Shockley’s conduct in the market place.
To Portehors’s disappointment he did not rise from his chair in a towering rage; he only stared down at the picture of ropes, flywheels and gears and waved the young priest away. But if Portehors had looked more closely, he would have seen that the bishop’s face had set like a mask.
The next week they brought Stephen Shockley the news.
The bishop was going to excommunicate the Shockley family; and he was going to repossess the mill.
It was a terrible punishment, but the death of the archbishop and the fear of the revolt was causing a reign of harsh repression all over the country. The so-called Lollards who followed Wyclif’s teachings were heretics and their possessions could be forfeited.
“The bishop is my landlord,” Stephen reminded his son. “Now we’ll lose the mill through your folly.”
Yet even under this threat, Martin was unrepentant.
“John of Gaunt supports Wyclif,” he reminded his father. “So does the Earl of Salisbury himself, and other magnates, too.”
“The bishop can’t reach as high as Gaunt,” Shockley replied, “but he can crush us.”
His fears were well-founded: Erghum proved himself to be so strong that he even forced the great Earl of Salisbury to appear at Sarum and do penance for his Lollard sympathies in the cathedral. The Shockley family could be dealt with summarily and easily.
In the late summer of 1381, Stephen Shockley was about to lose his most valuable possession.
Edward Wilson used to laugh out loud when he remembered the events of the next few days. It was a story he loved to tell his children.
Stephen Shockley had been distraught.
“And then,” Edward would relate with a grin, “he came to me for advice.” He used to chuckle before he went on. “I told him not to worry.”
His business with Stephen Shockley had gone well; he had no wish to see his partner ruined, or to strengthen the hand of the bishop who as the feudal overlord of the town, interfered in its affairs too much. He also had one piece of information which Shockley did not possess.
This was that young Portehors was not, as he seemed, a paragon of virtue. For over a year, in fact, he had been having an affair with the wife of an ironmonger in the town. She was a large woman, far from good-looking, and it had always amused Edward Wilson to think of the pale, thin priest in her company. The young priest had been discreet, but not cautious enough, and several people in the city knew about his visits to her.
It was this weakness that gave Edward Wilson his idea. He said nothing more to Shockley.
Three evenings later, a remarkable set of circumstances took place, all by chance.
By chance Stephen Shockley was detained by a merchant until late in the evening on the other side of the town; by chance also, the Shockley children were out of the house, and by chance, therefore, Cecilia Shockley found herself alone in the house in the High Street.
It was an hour after dark, and she had already retired to bed when she heard the noise. Thinking it must be one of her family, she called out. There was no reply.
Puzzled she turned to one side, where she knew there was a candle, but before she could even find it, the door of the chamber swung open, and a tall, thin figure entered the room.
Cecilia Shockley was a plump, good-looking woman with a soft, gentle face; her normal expression was one of happy submissiveness to her husband. But she was not a nervous woman, nor physically weak.
And so she fought long and hard, and screamed loudly as the thin young man, whose face was covered by a hood, threw himself upon her and tore away the nightshirt she was wearing. She could not get the hood off his face, but she managed to kick him soundly, disregarding the oaths he muttered