Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [404]
She was thinking about this very subject as she tripped along.
They attacked her at the corner of Parson’s chequer.
It was done so suddenly that she did not even have time to scream before they held her; there were six of them. Hustling her across the street they pulled her to a doorway; she felt one of them holding her hands, then she felt the rope. Moments later she was bound securely.
And then she knew what was happening and with a sigh of relief she smiled. She gazed round their faces.
“How much?” she asked.
There were many ways of raising money for the parish church or for charity. The most usual were the scotale evenings when beer was sold at rowdy parties by the church, but more amusing was the practice of roping, when groups of youths carrying a rope held women and girls to ransom in the street and threatened to tie them up if they did not pay a fine. This practice was reserved for Hocktide, however, soon after Easter, which was why, as an afterthought, Lizzie cried:
“Tisn’t Hocktide anyway. I’ll pay you nothing.”
She knew them all now: Reginald Shockley was the eldest, a pleasant-faced boy of her own age; the youngest was little Tom Mason, the bellfounder’s son, who was staring at her with enormous admiring eyes.
“A penny,” they cried.
“Nothing,” she protested.
“A ha’penny then or stay there,” Shockley suggested.
She shook her head laughing.
“You’ll get nothing, I tell you.”
They considered.
“A kiss then,” one of them cried, and there was applause.
“Never,” she tossed her head.
“Why not?”
“I’ll kiss the man I marry,” she assured them. This was a tactical mistake.
“I’ll marry you,” each of them offered.
“You’re none of you good enough,” she answered.
“Tell us who you’ll marry then,” one of them suggested, “and we’ll untie you.” To which she agreed.
So they untied her and she told them:
“I want a knight with a castle – who’ll do as I say.”
And though the words were spoken in jest, there was enough truth in them to make Reginald Shockley look sad, which she noticed with interest.
She liked him; although they had never been particular friends. But as the roping party moved away, she called him back, and to his astonishment gave him a kiss before running away, leaving him blushing happily in the middle of the street.
Apart from the welcome interruption by Benedict Mason, Godfrey had passed an irritating two hours. When he first arrived at Wilson’s house, they told him that the merchant had just gone out. Three times he went back, each time without any luck and the confidence he had felt when he began the evening was beginning to ebb away.
The streets were nearly empty now. Many of the craft guilds had feasts – some of them repeated for several nights – before the great day, so that most of the folk seemed to be indoors.
It had been annoying, too, seeing Michael Shockley: doubly so because the merchant he had insulted ten years ago was now certainly richer than he was.
The clock in the belfry was striking eight when he returned for the fourth time to be told that Wilson was now at home.
He wished, as he entered, that he could recover the confidence he had felt when he began.
John Wilson’s house occupied a corner tenement so that it was, in effect, two houses. The entrance was through a handsome stone arch over which there was a solar chamber. It led into a walled courtyard and beyond that, there was a pleasant garden. The buildings formed an L-shape round the courtyard and were partly wooden and partly stone. Everything about the place confirmed the impression that, whatever the real extent of Wilson’s fortune might be, he was certainly rich.
Moments later, Godfrey was ushered into the main hall.
John Wilson sat at a large oak table. He did not get up when Eustace entered, but motioned him to a chair opposite him. To his surprise, he saw that the merchant was not alone: for standing in the corner, he recognised the silent figure