Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [399]
But Eustace was optimistic. No doubt the boy would do well. As for his lovely daughter, who could resist her?
All that was needed was money – for his own resources were dwindling. And that meant marriage. Indeed in the last year the need had become urgent, but now Eustace Godfrey thought he had found the right candidates – merchants, to be sure, but rich.
Confident that he was going about the matter in a sensible way, as he set out on his mission that evening, Eustace was smiling.
He was also comforted by another thought.
For once his children were settled, he would be relieved of his chief responsibility. There would be nothing further that he had to do in his life. It was a pleasant prospect. He knew in his heart – perhaps he had always known – that he was doomed to be a failure in the busy world of Salisbury. His real vocation, he felt sure, was as a religious man and a scholar. He was always to be seen in the cathedral when a mass was being celebrated. Sometimes he would even attend all seven of the canonical hours. There was nothing he enjoyed more than to waylay the learned priests in the close and discuss with them the writings of the great mystics of the time like Thomas à Kempis or that remarkable woman hermit from East Anglia, Julian of Norwich; or to dispute with them the merits of the popular theory, which he stoutly maintained, that the people of England descended from none other than the displaced inhabitants of ancient Troy. He had even given a small volume on this preposterous subject to the new library that the dean and chapter had recently built overlooking the cathedral cloisters.
Yes, when the children were settled, he would be able to devote his time to these more agreeable pursuits; and it was with this happy prospect in mind that he went on his way.
His first call would be on John Wilson.
Michael Shockley was confident too, but he had good reason to be.
The house he left that evening was appropriate to his status in the city: it was a big, double-fronted, ponderous building with heavy oak beams forming the frame, thin wood coated with plaster between, and upper storeys which jutted out, overhanging the street. It lay in the northern Market ward of the city, in the Three Swans chequer, and it fronted on to the northern section of the old High Street which, since it seemed so long, had been given the new and delightful name of Endless Street. The house was solid and sensible, like Shockley himself.
He wore a short tunic, gathered tightly at the waist to exaggerate his broad chest and a tightly fitting hose that displayed to advantage his muscular calves. His object that evening was simple and straightforward: he was going to make certain that he was elected to the forty-eight.
There were, to be precise, seventy-two notable citizens who ruled the town of Salisbury: the twenty-four seniors, headed by the mayor and containing the aldermen of the town’s four wards, and below them the body of forty-eight who took some of the more junior posts and who elected the seniors. The previous month, one of the forty-eight had died and his place was to be filled the next day.
“It’s time I was chosen,” he told his wife, “and I’ve got the support.”
He was thirty-nine and he had many friends, partly because he was a good-hearted, easygoing fellow, but also because he had earned them.
The Shockleys had prospered, never dramatically, but steadily. The fulling mill was kept busy, especially with the heavy undyed broadcloth that sold so well, but Michael had also set up a small business producing the lighter worsted cloth that could still be fulled by manpower rather than by machine. It was a tactful move, for as well as producing a modest extra profit, this activity made him popular with the small craftsmen who were the backbone of the town. The expanding Shockley enterprises employed a number of fullers, dyers, and weavers and Michael never failed to make contributions to their trade guilds and social fraternities. His own son Reginald had also been enrolled