Testament, p.29
Testament, page 29
‘Damia Miller,’ she repeated, trying to avoid speaking in a way that could be construed as antagonistic, ‘Marketing and Development Manager for the college. That —’ she nodded towards the envelope in his hand — ‘is a press release.’
‘Ha! Writing my copy for me? How very kind.’
Damia watched while he ripped open the envelope and swiftly scanned the single, printed sheet.
‘Brief, to the point —’
‘Thank you.’
‘And a load of shit.’ He crumpled the page theatrically, opened his fist and dropped it on the floor at Damia’s feet, his eyes never leaving hers, waiting for a reaction. When she failed to oblige, he said, ‘You’re just trying to screw these people. You just want to sell their land to developers. Everybody knows there’s five thousand new homes needed in the exact location of one of your estates in the next ten years. I bet you’re just wetting yourselves thinking of all the money you could make.’
‘Hmm, what an entertaining vision.’ Damia threw caution to the winds. ‘But no, as a matter of fact, we are not incontinent with joy at the fact that we may — under extreme financial pressure — be forced to sell college land at some time in the future. It’s something we’ll do everything we can to avoid. But, if it becomes unavoidable, we cannot be dictated to as to how we sell that land and to whom.’
‘So —’ the journalist barked, raising his nose to the scent of victory — ‘you are going to sell the land to developers.’
‘No, not at the moment.’
‘Can you assure me in words of one syllable,’ he said, shoving his microphone almost under her chin to emphasise the fact that he was recording her answer, ‘that the college does not have any plans to sell any of its estate lands and that it is not negotiating with housing developers to do so?’
‘Absolutely. No plans, no negotiations.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Damia saw Rob Hadstowe’s twisted smile directed right at her.
Forty-four
Salster, 1393
In the weeks after the deaths of John Daker and Toby, Simon awaited a decision from Richard Daker as to the future of the college.
‘It has cost us our only sons,’ Simon entreated. ‘It cannot remain unbuilt, something good must come of it!’
‘It has cost us our sons, is that not enough?’ had been Richard’s heavy reply.
A month went by during which no month-mind was observed, no paupers walked with candles through the streets, no chantry priests were paid to sing masses for the soul of either boy. Mutterings were heard about Lollard heresies but, despite the whispers of suspicion which had crept abroad since the King had taken control of his country and deprived John of Gaunt — a Wyclif patron — of his power, no canon courts had been convened, no charges brought.
The same month saw Simon’s masons — half-pay or not — begin to drift away to the other works in Salster. Those who remained did not know whether to continue to prepare the stones in anticipation of their laying or to sit in idle expectation.
Another month and the weather began to show more autumnal. Winds blew in with a breath of the north and of winter; the spate of pilgrims in the city dwindled towards its short-day trickle. Masonry began to be impossible as sharp and early frosts crept in and men drifted away from the college site: the rough and ready dwellings where the labourers and their families had lived now all but deserted as folk returned to their villages to sit out the winter and see what decision spring should bring from Richard Daker.
The darkening days shortened as Advent drew near and Daker, in an increasingly rare interview with Simon, told him that he would be in London for the Christmas festivities.
Standing before his patron, Simon allowed himself to acknowledge how grief and the death of future hopes had aged Daker, sapped him of that vitality which had made him younger than his years. His lean face was lined now and his eyes, those intense, dark blue eyes, had lost their fire.
‘You shall have my answer with the new year, Simon,’ he promised, his gaze meeting his master mason’s fleetingly, as if merely to look upon Simon pained him. ‘I shall take stock while I am away, and you shall have my answer.’
Simon had bowed and left, not knowing whether it was better to live in hope against hope or to know, once and for all, that his dream was at an end, dead with his son.
He and Gwyneth observed the Christmas holy days at Henry and Alysoun’s home and the presence of their foster-children’s growing family diverted their sadness for a while. But always, at the root of everything, was a pain which would not ease, a pain that woke Gwyneth in the night, calling Toby’s name; that took Simon almost daily to the college site outside the city wall.
Nicholas Brygge had asked him whether he wished to place a memorial stone over Toby’s grave in his chapel, but Simon had replied that he would have a more visible and lasting memorial by and by, when the college was completed. In the meantime, needing something to stand sentinel for his son in this place, Simon had taken a young tree from his garden and planted it on the edge of the site, a hawthorn destined to be as bent and twisted as his poor boy but which would withstand the blasts and heats of life as well as he had done, and be generous in its sudden yield of pure white blossom in spring.
At the Christmas morning mass it was all Simon could do not to weep openly at the thought of a helpless child, born to live reviled and rejected by those around him and to give his life for those not worthy of his love. He was almost brought, in his grief and self-hatred, to believe that to be denied the chance to build the college would be a fitting penance for his son’s death. But, in the depths of his soul, he rebelled against the thought. Toby and the college had come to him almost in the same breath, and Toby had died for its continued existence. It could not be right that he should give it up. His son’s willing death must not prove futile as so many attempted actions in his struggling life had been, it must be seen as the one perfect thing he had been able to do. The world must see him for what he was; all those who had flinched from him in life must marvel at him in death and think the poorer of themselves for seeing no further than disordered limbs and a gurning face.
The hawthorn tree, though uprooted and made to grow in a place it had not chosen, did not wilt and sag, as Simon had feared it might, but grew cheerfully on, as if its new place suited it as well or better than the old. In truth it was a better place, for it had taken root in a shaded, stony part of Simon and Gwyneth’s garden where it had held fast to life beyond the better-favoured apple trees and tilled earth of the kitchen garden. Here, in the sun of the city’s southern edge, it was revelling in warmth and deep earth which were already nourishing it into a new, more vigorous life.
On the morning of Twelfth Night, Simon had sat in vigil with the tree as the darkness of midwinter slowly seeped away and the sun rose for its few brief hours, low across the land. As greyness gave way to light, Simon hung ribbons of green in the leafless twigs of the small tree.
‘Spring will come,’ he said softly, ‘and I will build our college, my son.’
But the end of the Christmas season brought neither word nor sight of Daker. Simon fretted and paced but there was nobody he could take his frustration to — the whole household had removed to London, including Piers Mottis and his wife. There was nobody who might give him word of when Daker was expected back in Salster.
And then, abruptly, at the end of January when the weather had released its iron grip for a spell, Ralph Daker appeared in the city.
As soon as he heard the news, Simon presented himself at the Daker house and asked for an audience with Ralph. To his surprise it was granted at once.
Ralph did not rise to greet him as Simon was shown into the solar, barely looking up from the papers he was studying. Simon stifled the urge to ask where Richard was, but could not stifle wonder at Ralph’s assumption of his uncle’s place. He watched the tall man, noticing that he was moving now from youth to middle age — his frame thickening and jowls beginning to hang from his jawline. Did Anne still welcome him in her bed, or had the shine of youth and novelty gone off him?
‘Master Kineton,’ Ralph said, looking up at Simon, ‘thank you for your prompt attendance.’
Simon’s blood rose at the implication of Ralph’s words but he held his peace; his business was with the uncle not the nephew.
‘I am here not on my uncle’s behalf,’ Ralph said, as if Simon’s thoughts were obvious, ‘but on my own. I have to tell you that my uncle died this Christmas of a seizure and that his business is now become mine.’
Simon felt suddenly cold, despite the blood beating heavily in his veins.
‘My uncle had nothing to say about his further ambitions for the college he had proposed, before he died, and I am therefore free to take my own decision. As I do not have his interest in wresting learning from the Church and giving it to other men, I have no use for a college. There will be no more building.’
Rage coursed through Simon in a livid thrill. ‘It is not your college to decide upon, Master Daker,’ he said abruptly. ‘It is its own entity, with endowments made to ensure its completion and continuance.’
‘You forget, Master Kineton, that those endowments were put in doubt by John’s death. My uncle’s wishes as to the college were never made clear. But I am making mine quite clear. There will be no more building.’
Later that same day, Piers Mottis found his way to the Kinetons’ house. He deflected Simon’s frosty greeting by making it clear that he had come upon his own initiative, not Ralph’s.
‘Can he do this?’ Simon demanded when the lawyer had been seated and furnished with food and drink.
‘No. I have in my possession the papers of endowment that Master Daker drew up to ensure the college’s building against the vagaries of his business.’
Simon waved an irritable hand. ‘But surely Ralph will contest that, say that his uncle had changed his mind?’
Mottis smiled slightly. ‘Forgive me for saying so, Master Kineton, but you are better versed in building than you are in the law. Ralph Daker may say what he likes, but what his uncle had written and put his name to is what stands in law until it is rescinded by another written statement. We must go to court, but I think that Ralph will find he has bitten off too big a lump if he tries to deny us these endowments.’
‘Us?’
‘Richard Daker was my friend as well as my employer,’ Mottis said, evenly. ‘Although his grief made it impossible for him — for many months — to think with pleasure of his college, he had planned it and dreamed of its influence for many years. I do not wish the fact that he died before he could finish mourning his son to thwart the ambition of half a lifetime.’
‘You will fight for the college then?’
‘I will.’
‘And who will employ you when Ralph Daker throws you out of his employ?’
The little lawyer smiled a crooked, rueful smile. ‘I have already been dismissed. Ralph wishes to surround himself with his own men. Out with the old —’ he smiled again, slightly — ‘and in with the new.’
‘Then will you work with us on the college? If my wife is to be master carpenter we shall need a new clerk to the works.’ Simon stopped as suddenly as he had rushed in. ‘I am sorry, I did not wish to insult you. I am sure there are many men who would employ you —’
‘Doubtless there are,’ Mottis said, with the unconcerned air of a man who knows his own worth and sits lightly upon it, ‘but I would see the college built if I can. My house is mine — a gift from Richard to me and my wife many years ago — and we would rather live simply and honestly than go whoring around for riches.’
Simon looked at him steadily. ‘So what must we do?’
‘First I must make application to the court for the case to be heard. And then,’ he said simply, ‘the fight begins.’
Forty-five
From the Salster Times online.
COLLEGE SPLIT ON SALE OF LAND
The Kineton and Dacre College tenants’ rent strike has taken a dramatic turn this week. The strikers have raised the stakes and moved from the pavement outside the college into the holy of holies, the Octagon Yard of Kineton and Dacre College itself. Having given up their silent protest, they are now employing more vocal persuasions and are winning the hearts and minds of the college’s undergraduates with details of their shabby treatment at the hands of Kineton and Dacre’s mandarins.
One undergraduate, who did not wish to be named, told the Salster Times ‘There seems to be a developing consensus amongst the students here that we need to do something to help the tenants.’
The first step would be for twenty-four undergraduates to sign a petition asking for an emergency meeting of the Junior Common Room (JCR) which would then send a censure motion to the governing body. This would put pressure on Dr Edmund Norris, Regent Master of Kineton and Dacre College, to perform a U-turn and to give the tenants assurances that their holdings are secure.
The tenants feel that such assurances are necessary because rumour has been rife for months that negotiations have begun with a construction firm to build high-end housing on land owned by the college. Young professionals are being drawn to the area by the booming development of Market Lenton — the fastest-growing town in the UK — causing a housing shortage and a need for premium building land.
Kineton and Dacre College has always maintained that no such negotiations are taking place.
On Tuesday of this week, this was the line taken by the college’s Marketing & Development Manager, Ms Damia Miller. Asked to confirm that no such negotiations were being entered into and that no plans to sell were being made, she stated, ‘No plans. No negotiations.’ But a source close to the Regent Master told The Salster Times this week that negotiations have been in progress for months with the construction firm Newton Kerry.
Sir Ian Baird, entrepreneur, businessman and, for the last five years, Principal of Northgate College, had this to say: ‘When I took my college out of the archaic system of association which advantages tradition and disadvantages innovation, even I didn’t know what a mess the leadership of Kineton and Dacre College had got itself into.’
Is there a conspiracy of silence and denial at Kineton and Dacre College, or does the left hand simply not know what the right is playing at? Either way, it doesn’t look like good news for the long-suffering tenants.
(Don’t forget you can have your say on this matter on the Salster Times forum, just click here.)
Within two days the truth was known by the newest kitchen-staffer and the least networked undergraduate. Charles Northrop had, without the knowledge or consent of the rest of the governing body, been pursuing negotiations with the construction company Newton Kerry.
Amongst those of the Toby CAP Committee who had been able to attend an emergency meeting, Damia noted a distinct division of opinion. On one side, signs of fatalism were developing: a tendency to accept the negotiations and continue with them since they were clearly so well advanced. On the other, there was outrage at Northrop’s high-handedness and a demand for the immediate cessation of all negotiations, along with Northrop’s resignation as dean.
Northrop himself was unrepentant.
‘For God’s sake! I thought this committee had been convened to make sure the college survived? What the hell would have been the point of suspending negotiations with Newton Kerry until I’d persuaded a quorum of you to agree? They’d have gone after land elsewhere and our one chance to save the college would have slipped from our grasp.’
‘What do you mean “our one chance”?’ The bursar, Keith McKie — as stalwart an advocate of the CAP Committee as Northrop was a denigrator — was quick to challenge him.
‘Just that! If you seriously imagine that all this touchy-feely stuff dreamed up by Ms Miller is going to provide the wherewithal to keep you busy, Keith, you’re not the realist I always took you for. This college community idea is unprofessional and impractical — it’s going to make a laughing stock of us.’ His tone slipped into a lisping, breathy parody of a young girl’s: ‘The good ship Toby, pushed along by all her friends!’
Lesley Cochrane was rapidly heading for incandescence. ‘So you took it upon yourself to ignore the wishes not only of everybody else on this committee but the governing body too?’
‘Yes!’ Northrop exploded. ‘In just the same way that Edmund did when he sold what we can only refer to as the “unspecified document”. It’s true, isn’t it, Edmund? You did sell something none of us knew about? Something found in the statue?’
Where uproar might have been expected, an absolute hush prevailed, Northrop and Norris locked, as if alone, into the staring silence that followed the dean’s accusation.
Then, in the split second before his failure to answer reached the tipping point that would force others to speak, Norris said, ‘Yes.’ He looked away from Northrop and around at the still faces. ‘As those of you on the governing body are already aware, I did sell a document that was found in the statue. As those of you not on the governing body need to be assured, I submitted a full account of the transaction and was, I am gratified to say, supported in the decision I had taken by the majority of the governing body.’
The frozen silence was broken. Uneasy sotto voce murmurs combined with the shifting of bodies and the rearrangement of limbs. Glances that clearly didn’t know what to think were exchanged between committee members.
Tommy Thomas, the domestic staff’s representative on the committee, asked the obvious question. ‘What was it?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Tommy.’ Norris turned to him with a look almost of relief. ‘The terms of the sale were quite specific on that point. But I can assure you, all of you —’ he looked around the table — ‘that the documents, though contemporaneous with the building of the college, were neither college documents nor papers relating to any of the people involved in building the college.’
