Forest nodded in agreement.
“Then there’s Cathay. Frobisher is trying to reach it by going north west. Even the queen has invested. And now there’s to be another attempt to get there by travelling the other way, over the top of Russia. Mercator and Hackluyt are advising them. Whichever gets there, we could take part in the new trade in the future.
“There’s a new company being formed to trade with the Levant too. Luxury trade.”
He looked from one man to the other. Then, a huge grin spread over his face.
“Of course, there’s another kind of trade too.” He paused. “And here I have news for you. Drake’s back.”
Everyone knew that Francis Drake, the adventurer from Plymouth, had set off three years before to circumnavigate the globe. Those traditionalists who still refused to believe the earth was round claimed he would fall off the edge. Others who accepted the idea of the globe, still did not expect to see him again. Even the queen, who had invested money with the gallant half explorer half pirate had done so with misgivings.
“Well, he arrived yesterday,” Wilson announced coolly. “He’s raided Spanish lands and Spanish galleons on the way and,” he paused again for effect, “his cargo includes one and a half million pound sterling’s worth of gold bullion!”
Both men were silent. It was a stupefying sum.
Wilson now moved swiftly to his demands.
“I have three fine sons. I want joint stock companies for three fine ships. I want investors from Sarum, Master Shockley; and we can all make a fortune.”
In a way, Shockley agreed with the suggestion. It was also true that since the great days in the last century of men like Halle and William Swayne, the merchants of Salisbury had not been as adventurous as they should. These new opportunities were dazzling.
One thing puzzled him.
“Are you suggesting piracy as well as trade when you speak of Drake?” he asked.
“Yes,” Wilson told him frankly. “And the queen herself would be glad to hear of it, so long as we raid the Spanish.”
This was true. Long ago the pope had granted all the New World trade to faithful Catholic Spain. “Though what right he has to do it I do not know,” Wilson maintained. The English merchants and their queen certainly wanted a share of it. Then there was the deeper political question. The Spanish king had long ago given up hope of bringing England back to the Catholic fold by persuading her wily virgin queen. He had made peace with England over the Netherlands and the renewed trade with Antwerp had been good for English merchants, but he had not forgiven the obstinate Protestant islanders. Sooner or later, he would invade, and anything English adventurers could do to weaken Spain’s shipping or deprive her of bullion was to he encouraged.
“I shall do what I can,” Shockley agreed.
But still he suspected that this was not all he was there for.
It was just before he left that Forest confirmed this suspicion, when he drew him apart and asked him:
“Would you yourself like to invest in this venture?”
“Yes. But . . .” Shockley grinned, “it could only be a modest sum . . .”
Forest looked at him carefully.
“A token from you would be enough. But if you would give your support, then I shall see to it that a part of the profits are yours.” He paused to see Shockley’s reaction.
Edward kept calm. His face gave away nothing.
“A twentieth,” Forest said softly.
A twentieth! It could be a huge amount. Shockley’s eyebrows rose; but still he made no comment. Forest was certainly making the offer for a reason. He waited to hear it.
“I ask in return one thing,” Forest went on.
Shockley nodded. “Ask it.”
“My son. Let him accompany you about your business in Salisbury. Let him converse with the merchants there.” He smiled. “He knows Oxford – perhaps too well. But of trade he knows nothing.”
Shockley had no objection to this at all. Forest went on.
“There is more.” He grimaced wryly. “Unlike his father, he cares for the poor. Let him know what should be done for them.” He bowed, as though this admission had cost him something. “Whatever our differences in the past, Edward Shockley, I value your counsel highly.”
Shockley looked across at where the elegant young man was standing, with some surprise. A Forest concerned with the poor?
However, he readily agreed to do as Forest asked.
Why was it though, as he left, that he felt so certain that this was not all that Forest wanted?
He was a pleasant young man; indeed, it sometimes seemed to Edward that the dark, good-looking Giles Forest had been designed chiefly to please. He expressed great interest in the poor and investigated the workhouse minutely. He smiled charmingly at the inmates and talked to them so that, by the time he left, there was not one of them who did not believe that if young Giles Forest were only able to do so, he would certainly improve their lot.
Shockley took him round the market and the fulling mill and introduced him to Moody and the weavers. And every one of those he met, even old Moody, believed he was their friend.
He stood at the street corner. It was exactly the place where he had stood before, on that day he had returned early from Downton.
Indeed, until that moment he had forgotten the previous incident entirely.
It was dusk.
But there could be no mistaking the fact that a figure had just slipped unobtrusively out of his house. Was it the similarity of the incident, or was it also the figure himself that had brought that earlier occasion back to his mind so sharply? He could not be sure, but this time he thought it was another man – perhaps it was the darkness, but it seemed a taller, thinner figure who had furtively come out: a figure, he could not help the thought, similar to Thomas Forest.
He hurried forward, but the mysterious figure slipped away, and although this time he followed quickly, his quarry somehow eluded him in the alleys near St Thomas’s Church.
He went back to the house, puzzled.
It was quiet inside. Perhaps his wife and her maidservant had gone out for some reason. Could the strange figure have been a thief?
Slowly he mounted the stairs.
Katherine had not heard him. She was standing in one corner of the big front chamber where there was a chest in which she kept her valuables. The chest was open. He saw her carefully count back a handful of gold coins into a small pouch – a pouch he recognised and in which he knew she normally kept the considerable sum of ten pounds. Even from where he stood, he could see the pouch was almost empty.
She closed the lid and turned the key in the lock. Then she stood, gazing meditatively through the shutters.
When he stepped into the room, she started violently.
“Who was here?”
“Here? Nobody?”
He frowned.
“I saw someone leave.”
“Not this house.”
He paused, trying to make sense of it. Had she been younger, he would have supposed such a stranger might have been a lover. Was it possible? Could it be Forest?
“Where are the servants?”
“They went to the cathedral.”
He remembered now that he had heard there was a special service that evening; even so, it was strange that his wife should have been left alone in the house.
He looked at her suspiciously, surprised that she seemed so self-possessed. Then he decided to say no more, and went heavily down the stairs again.
He would unravel the mystery in due course, but one thought in particular occupied his mind: whatever was going on – and he could hardly believe she was unfaithful – in all their years of married life, it had never occurred to him that she could lie.
There were other important matters to occupy his mind though. For the long-awaited council meeting was held two days later.
It was a source of frustration to him, which sometimes almost bordered upon rage, that although in certain matters he could usually command support among the seniors, on this, which was closest to his heart, he could get none.
He pleaded. He thundered. The message was as simple as it was obvious:
“We must prepare for war with Spain. We must set aside funds and vote supplies.” And most recently he had sometimes added menacingly: “It will look ill if we do not support the queen and her Church.”
Each month the situation became more serious. There was an air of unrest in several parts of the country.
For once, under the threat of Spanish-inspired insurgency, Elizabeth had been forced to take stern religious measures, subjecting Catholics who refused to conform outwardly to enormous fines; and the secret agents of her servant Walsingham were everywhere.
And in Sarum, no one would listen.
He made a powerful speech that day. He saw nods of approval, and believed that, for once, he had got through.
Until a stout burgess rose.
“Wars are expensive, Edward Shockley. Let us hear no more about them here.”
“But if the Spanish come . . .” he protested.
“There is an arms store.”
A collection of pikes and antiquated swords.
He had failed again.
But in another sense, his words had struck home more than he knew, and in unexpected ways. For it was only three days later that a small deputation from Wilton came to see him. They greeted him respectfully, then came straight to their point.
“Edward Shockley, we are the neighbours of John Moody. You must tell him to leave your business. We no longer want him and his family amongst us.”
“Why?”
“They are Catholics.”
“But they conform,” he protested.
It had been a struggle. Though the Moodys were deeply concerned by the messages the Jesuits brought – that the comfortable assumption that Catholics might attend the Church of England services was false – he had after many hours persuaded John Moody to sacrifice his conscience, at least for the time being.
“Catholics are traitors. They think treacherous thoughts.”
He glared at them. Treachery was one thing: religious faith another. This was the whole point of the Elizabethan settlement.
“Moody will work for me as long as he pleases,” he stormed. The next day he told Moody about it, so that he should be on his guard. “But they’ll have to prove treason against you,” he assured him, “before I cease to be your friend.”
It was with an unquiet mind that he faced the winter.
There was one unexpected interlude of pure pleasure however, that took place shortly afterwards.
For as part of his plan – whatever it was – young Giles Forest invited him to accompany him, one fine day, to the great house at Wilton.
It was a large party, gathered to watch one of the companies of actors who came frequently to Lord Pembroke’s splendid estate, and though he knew there must be an ulterior motive, Edward was delighted to go.
He had never been inside Wilton House before.
It proved to be a noble building.
“Though it is smaller, it has features like the queen’s great palace of Nonesuch,” Giles told him. “They say that Holbein himself designed it for Lord Pembroke,” he added.
It had a long, grey façade with a splendid square tower at its centre, an elaborate formal garden at one side and a peaceful view over the river Nadder that flowed softly just a few hundred yards from its door. It was, Shockley thought appreciatively, a place to linger.
Shockley had met Lord Pembroke before a few times in the town, but never on terms of any intimacy, and he was curious to see him in his own home.
“He’s not at all like his father,” Giles said. “He’s a scholar.”
It was widely believed that the first earl, though he was one of the shrewdest men in the kingdom, could neither read nor write. Not so his son.
“As for his new wife . . .” Giles had murmured, “the poets write for her to read.”
For after wisely failing to consummate his marriage to the politically dangerous sister of Lady Jane Grey, he married first one of the mighty Talbot family, and then, after she died, the extraordinary Mary Sidney.
“He was over forty and she was only sixteen, but it’s a brilliant marriage,” Giles remarked. “They live like princes.”
They did indeed. It was believed Lord Pembroke kept over two hundred personal retainers who wore his livery. His wife, though not rich, was a niece of the queen’s favourite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Her brother was the brilliant courtier, soldier and author, Sir Philip Sidney. And, as young Forest remarked, half the playwrights and poets of the kingdom came to Wilton as to a great renaissance court.
It was a day to remember. There were many ladies and gentlemen there, names like Thynne of Longleat, Hungerford, or Gorges, who was building a grand new house called Longford Castle by Clarendon Forest – gentry whom he seldom met. There was pleasant talk, too: of the poet Spenser who had dedicated his delightful
Shepherd’s Calendar
to Philip Sidney, and of Philip Sidney himself.