Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [393]
It was the shouts in the street outside that saved her. For suddenly, when she herself was near the end of her resistance, he heard them, panicked and fled, leaving her shaking and hardly able to move.
It was by chance that Edward Wilson should have been passing the house at that time with two of his apprentices, who heard her screams.
Just as it was also chance, no doubt, that young Portehors should have received a mysterious and urgent message from his lover to meet her at the corner of the market place after dusk that evening so that, when she failed to arrive for the appointment, he should have been seen loitering there, not far from the scene of the crime. It was bad luck for him that Wilson and his apprentices should have chased the thin figure down the street and then lost him, only to see Portehors a few moments later.
But it was no chance that Edward Wilson should have requested a private interview with Bishop Erghum himself the next morning.
As always, he was deferential.
“You’ve heard that someone tried to rape Shockley’s wife last night, Your Grace.”
Erghum nodded. The family was disgraced, but he had no sympathy for crimes of this kind. “Bad business,” he said bleakly.
“Your Grace, I saw the man who did it.”
Erghum looked surprised.
“Then tell my bailiff at once, man. He’ll lock him up.”
Wilson looked at the floor carefully while he paused.
“I should prefer not.”
Erghum scowled at him. What was the fellow up to?
“Why?”
“It might be unwise, Your Grace. In these troubled times.” He paused again. “It was Portehors, Your Grace: your chaplain.”
Erghum glowered at him.
“Nonsense. He has an irreproachable character”
Wilson shook his head.
“Not quite.” And he outlined, in meticulous detail, what was known of Portehors’s affair with the ironmonger’s wife. “Of course, he’s a young man . . .” he suggested indulgently.
The bishop eyed him warily. His instinct told him that part of the story might be true.
“And you identified him running out of Shockley’s house?”
“I fear so,” Edward bowed respectfully.
“Anyone else see his face?”
“My two apprentices. But I have told them to say nothing. After all, we surprised him before the worst . . .’
“Yes. Yes.”
Erghum now saw what he was driving at, but he waited for Wilson to make the next move.
“The city is very disturbed at present,” Wilson went on calmly. “No harm was actually done. But if after Your Grace’s known anger with the Shockleys an affair of this kind were to come to court, I thought . . . the townspeople . . .” he trailed off and waited in an attitude of apparent obedience for the bishop’s instructions.
Though Bishop Erghum knew that he could never be sure exactly what Wilson had done, he thought he could guess most of it; and he admired the rogue’s cunning. It was also true that there had been troubles between some of the rowdier elements in the town and his bailiff recently; with the tense situation in the whole country at present, it was madness to tempt them to fury over a crime by his chaplain real or supposed.
He’s caught me nicely, he thought, and aloud he said: “So you want me to leave the Shockleys alone?”
Wilson said nothing.
“Control their boy,” Erghum growled. “I’ll have no Lollards here. You understand?”
Wilson bowed deeply, and the bishop waved him away.
Stephen Shockley was delighted when Wilson suggested that Martin go to Calais to conduct some business for him that autumn. It took the young man several months. And during this time, the bishop seemed to have forgotten about the mill. Cecilia Shockley’s assailant was never found.
And in later years, when Edward Wilson looked back on his long life, he never had reason to alter his favourite opinion, but could only laugh when he remarked:
“Most men are fools.”
THE ROSE
1456
There was an air of excitement in the town. Already, many of the narrow gabled houses were sporting decorations of flowers