Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [498]
“So that you burn.”
She nodded.
“And then you’ll truly be head of the family,” she answered.
But it was no word spoken by Obadiah that day that hurt her, nor the fact that the Godfreys and the farmworkers were suddenly silent and awkward if she came close to them. It was the fact that, as they got into the cart to go to Avonsford, young Samuel sat as far away as possible and that at the manor, he had gazed at her once, with fear and doubt in his eyes, before leaving without a word of farewell. And in that, she had to confess, Obadiah had won, since he had taken away from her the love of her only child.
Aaron was not satisfied. He had spent a lifetime in business with all kinds of men and, although he had no idea of the reason, he knew that Forest was going to conceal what he had told him.
And now he was in a quandary. For even if he had the courage to raise the matter himself, what would the word of a Jew count against a powerful Presbyterian? He would do nothing but invite persecution for himself or any other Jews who passed that way.
Then he saw the boy in Wilton. He was sitting in Sir Henry Forest’s carriage, but the merchant he had been speaking to pointed Samuel out and told him, “That’s the Shockley boy.” He remembered him vaguely from the day in the water meadows.
There could be no doubt. It was a sign from God.
It did not take Aaron long to tell Samuel what he had seen. He did not say that he had told Forest, but he explained:
“I cannot testify. It will do you no good. Yet, for the love of God,” he urged, “Do something. Watch the sheep house.”
But his heart sank when he looked into the boy’s eyes, and saw they were disbelieving.
There were four days before Margaret was due to appear before the magistrate.
That night, another sheep was found dead.
Yet Samuel Shockley was not unmoved. He was confused. Was he to believe that the men of the party of his hero Cromwell, the stern Presbyters of Sarum, were frauds? Or was he to believe, as he already half did, that his sister was a witch?
He no longer even knew what he wanted to think.
Alone in the big manor house with Sir Henry Forest, of whom he was rather afraid, he plucked up courage to ask him what would happen to Margaret and the baronet had told him:
“She must come before me and I hear the charges. If I think there’s a case to answer, then I send her to gaol until she can be properly tried by judge and jury at the Assizes.”
“And will you send her for trial?”
“Probably,” Forest told him frankly. “Unless she can refute the charges.” He thought of the Jew.
“How can she refute them, sir?”
“Evidence. Reliable witnesses who will stand up in court and prove she did not do what she is accused of.”
A Jew would be useless.
He wondered whether to tell Forest about the sheep house but decided against it. What if he wanted to get up befor dawn to watch it and the dark, severe man opposite him forbade it? What would the magistrate think of the word of a Jew anyway? No, he must make sure for himself. He would have to act alone.
“And if there is no evidence to save her?”
Forest did not answer. The boy had seen the trial of Ann Bodenham.
Samuel noticed that there was an increasing awkwardness about the baronet’s answers; he supposed it was because of the likely outcome.
He slept badly that night. The Jew’s story came back to him again and again.
Just before dawn he got up and slipped out of the house. But though he wandered about near the sheep pens until the sun was well up, he saw nothing.
The next two nights the same thing occurred.
No doubt the Jew had lied. Probably he hated God’s ministers.
But the last night before the session, when he thought of Margaret, and all that she meant to him through his childhood, he was overcome with grief.
“I will save her somehow,” he vowed. Then he cried himself to sleep.
It was almost dawn when he woke. The big stone manor house was silent. Quickly he slipped on his clothes and hurried out.
In the valley, it was cold and silent. He waited.
The first hint of light was coming over the ridges.