Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [406]
He had brought himself to say the last words in a tone that suggested he was prepared to regard the lowly Wilson family on a par with his own; he was proud of this piece of diplomacy.
Now he looked at them both expectantly.
The small, hard man in the chair appeared to be thinking, but he did not speak. What of Robert himself though, Godfrey wondered – what did the young man for whom he had proposed this fine alliance make of it all?
Like his father, Robert was thin and sallow, but his face was a little broader and more oval-shaped. He wore his hair in the fashionable manner, covering only the top of his head and cut in a circular fringe above the ears, below which his head and face were immaculately clean shaven. He did not move from the corner but, in the half shadow, his face seemed to be expressionless.
Robert Wilson seldom spoke. Though he was twenty-one, he might have been twice that age; there was no hint of youth about him. Even as a boy, he had always held himself severely and, some suspected scornfully, apart from the other children. No one had ever seen him indulge in any amusement. Indeed, Eustace suddenly realised, he knew very little about the young man except that he was reputed to be a highly respected businessman already and that, as John Wilson’s heir, he must have a large fortune. If he spoke little, his dark brown eyes took in everything, and if his face never gave any hint of what he was thinking, John Wilson was obviously impressed with his ability, for he now trusted him with the Southampton business entirely.
For a moment, in the rather disconcerting silence, Godfrey wondered whether he had done the right thing. But he put the thought from him. The boy could not be so bad. Times were changing. His lovely Isabella must have a rich husband and there was an end to it.
Since no one spoke, and the fact he could not see Robert properly was beginning to irritate him, Godfrey suddenly called out:
“Well, Master Robert, what do you think?” It was an attempt at heartiness that sounded, he realised, rather forced.
In reply, Robert moved forward into the light so that Eustace could see his face. But instead of speaking, he only looked at his father inquiringly.
And now at last John Wilson was ready to give his opinion. He laid down his fork carefully on the table and pushed the plate away from him, resting his arms in the space it had occupied. When he spoke his voice was very quiet so that Godfrey had to lean forward slightly to hear it, but his soft words seemed to cut into the space between them like a knife.
“When the city of Salisbury lent the king money on the security of the customs dues of Southampton, the Bishop of Winchester tried to embezzle the dues and leave us out of pocket. Why should I have wanted his friendship?”
There had been some accusations of this kind in the past, Godfrey knew, but it seemed to him beside the point.
“He was on the king’s council,” he reminded the merchant. But Wilson seemed not to hear him.
“You talk of Parliament.” He spat a raisin seed from his mouth. “Parliament is useless. It only exists to vote taxes for the king, who should live off the revenues of his own estates. I’ve no interest in the king, his Council, or his Parliament.” At these words Godfrey was speechless. Still Wilson went on, in little more than a whisper now. “As for the Bishop of Sarum,” he remarked contemptuously, “all I know is that his servants start riots in the town and kill chickens.” Two years before, it was true, one of the bishop’s rent collectors had apparently had a fit of insanity and run through the townspeople’s gardens killing some poultry with a sword. It was an isolated incident, but Wilson went on with scorn: “The bishop’s servants are vipers and the bishop himself is a nuisance. I wish he’d get out. We don’t want him.”
It was the longest speech the merchant had taken the trouble to make for years. It exactly expressed the attitude of John Halle and many other merchants in the city, but it shocked Eustace Godfrey profoundly to hear the words so savagely spoken