Falls the Shadow (60 page)

But none of the men gathered in the Tower that evening truly expected that the Bishops would prevail, Simon least of all. He suspected that even if he were to renounce the Provisions, it would not be enough. Edward wanted blood. So, too, did Richard, still aggrieved over the sacking of his Isleworth manor. And theirs were voices Henry would heed, if indeed he needed prodding. Simon was well aware just how much his brother-in-law now hated him.

Reaching for a wine cup at his elbow, he found himself wondering if it was all foreordained. He could not compromise. Henry could not keep faith. Mayhap this was meant to be, even as far back as his first days at the English court. But if a battlefield confrontation was inevitable, he was by no means ready to concede that it was lost, no matter the odds, and he said abruptly:

“We must hope for the best, whilst making ready for the worst. We have to assume that Henry will spurn our offer. If so, we shall be facing the King’s army within the week.”

The Earl of Gloucester shifted in his seat. His belief in the Provisions had not faltered, but sometimes he could not understand how it had ever come to this, that he should be a ringleader in rebellion against his King, while still four months shy of his twenty-first birthday. Nor did he share the others’ almost mystical faith in Simon’s battle lore. “I am not sure that we’d be wise to force a confrontation,” he confessed. “Our scouts say the King’s army numbers nigh on ten thousand, twice the size of ours. Why seek the King out when we’ll be at such a decided disadvantage?”

“What would we gain by delay? We lost the heart of our army at Northampton, can expect no reinforcements. But that is not true for the King. His Queen has hired enough Flemish mercenaries to overrun half the country. Would you have us await their arrival on English shores? Do you want to find yourself trapped in London? In my life, I’ve been both the besieged and the besieger, and I know damned well which I prefer!”

At that moment, Simon happened to catch the Bishop of Worcester’s admonitory eye, and he made a half-hearted attempt to curb his impatience. “We cannot allow Henry to regain control of the coastal ports. If I were he, I’d be laying siege to Dover even as we speak. Instead, he seems to be heading for the Earl of Surrey’s castle at Lewes, for reasons that totally escape me. The men of the Weald hold fast for us—and if Christendom boasts better bowmen, they’re to be found only in Wales. No, Henry has blundered into hostile territory, and we’d be fools not to take full advantage of it.”

“What of the Londoners, Simon?” The query came from Hugh le Despenser, but it was in every man’s mind. War, as they knew it, made no provisions for volunteers. Men rode to battle because they were bound by oaths of fealty, or because they were paid to fight. But the Londoners were neither knights nor mercenaries. Townsmen unskilled in the ways of war, they were drilling daily in Cheapside, determined to prove themselves, undaunted by Edward’s oft-quoted jeer that not a one of them would know a halberd from a hayrick in the dark. Observers could not help but be impressed by their resolve. If few of the battlewise knights believed that zeal could offset experience, those were doubts they kept to themselves. For as green and raw as these London recruits were, they were needed, each and every one.

“I’ve decided to put the Londoners under Nicholas Segrave’s command,” Simon said, earning widespread mutterings of approval, for Segrave was a seasoned soldier, respected by all. Nor was there competition for that command; too many feared the Londoners might break under their first taste of battle.

Humphrey de Bohun smothered a yawn; sleep was a stranger to them all these days. “Has there been any word from the Earl of Derby?”

Simon shook his head. “Not since Edward seized his castle at Tutbury. But if he meant to fight with us, he’d be here.”

Derby’s defection was a bitter disappointment, if not altogether unexpected; the young Earl was one for looking to his own interests. But Gloucester could not keep from suggesting sourly, “Mayhap he’d still be with us if Harry de Montfort had not antagonized him so needlessly at Gloucester. Derby is known to have been outraged when de Montfort let Edward go, and who can blame him?”

Harry flushed, half rose from his seat. But Guy was quicker. “What would you know of it? Whilst my brothers were fighting de Mortimer and his Marcher allies, you were holed up in Tonbridge. The only action you saw all spring was when you attacked the Canterbury Jews.” Adding with a sneer, “I daresay they resisted fiercely!”

Gloucester was on his feet, face mottled with rage. “The Canterbury Jewry was rife with treachery; you ought to be thankful I rooted it out in time. As for being ‘holed up’ in Tonbridge, I was keeping watch upon the coast! I then moved on Rochester, took the town, and—”

“The Devil you did!” Harry cut in hotly. “I was there, remember? It was my father who captured Rochester, by sending that burning barge against the bridge pilings—”

“Enough!” Simon could outshout anyone when he chose. “I cannot believe that you’d be fools enough to fight on a cliff’s edge. Are the odds facing us not daunting enough without shedding our own blood?”

His sons at once subsided. So, too, did Gloucester, mollified that Simon’s anger had been so indiscriminately aimed. It was the Mayor who tactfully dispelled the tension by changing the subject. Simon was coming to rely more and more upon the finesse of his London ally, a draper with all the instincts of a born diplomat. Gloucester rose, headed for the privy chamber tucked away into the north wall, and with his departure, the atmosphere lightened still further. A break was in order. As men relaxed, Simon rose stiffly, moved toward the hearth. His leg had begun to throb, a sure sign of fatigue; it was with a dull sense of surprise that he realized it was nigh on seventeen hours since he’d last seen a bed.

He was pleased when he was joined by Thomas Fitz Thomas; as unlike as the two men were, a genuine bond was developing between them. It occurred to Simon now that Fitz Thomas might be loath to relinquish command of his Londoners to Nicholas Segrave. But with his first words, the Mayor began to laugh.

“I nurse no delusions of grandeur, my lord, am no soldier. Just tell me what you would have me do.”

After dealing with unpredictable, thin-skinned personalities like Gloucester and Derby, Simon found Fitz Thomas to be a veritable godsend, and he gave the younger man a grateful grin. “Bless your good nature, Tom! But it is no easy task I ask of you. I want you to remain in London, to hold the city for us. If any man can keep the people from panicking again, you’re the one.”

“I hope to God you’re right, my lord.” Fitz Thomas was no longer smiling, for he knew the fear that seethed just beneath the surface of his city. If Simon lost… But there were fates too dire to contemplate. He was secretly relieved by Simon’s request. London was the lodestar of his life; come what may, he wanted to be with his city. “My Cecilia has kin in St Albans,” he confided quietly, “but she refuses to leave London, insists that her place is with me.”

Simon’s smile was wry. “Passing strange,” he said, “that you should say that. After Northampton fell, I wrote to my wife, told her I thought it best that she travel to Dover, take ship for France and there wait out the war, as Henry’s Queen is doing. I gave Nell no choice in the matter…and where is she now? Paris? Montfort I’Amaury? No…Kenilworth.”

Fitz Thomas laughed. He would have imagined that Simon de Montfort, of all men, was master of his own household—had he not once met Simon’s headstrong lady. They were, he thought, like twin comets, blazing across the heavens in flaming harmony, and some of his unease began to ebb. If ever a man was born to win, to triumph over all adversity, it was this man. How could he lose to the inept, feckless Henry? “My lord…have you had any word about your son?”

Simon shook his head. “All we know is that Bran is being held at Windsor Castle. But beyond that, we—”

“Beg pardon, my lord Leicester.” The guard had not ventured far from the door, instead, raised his voice, and in consequence, turned all heads his way. “There’s an old Jew at the land-gate, seeking entry. We’d have chased him off, but he insisted that you’re expecting him.”

“Damnation!” Simon had forgotten entirely about his morning encounter at St Paul’s. But when the Constable of the Tower impatiently ordered the guard to “send the Jew away,” Simon reluctantly countermanded him. “No…I did agree to see the man. Send him up.”

Under different circumstances, Benedict would have welcomed this opportunity to inspect the uppermost chamber of the White Tower, for London legend held that twenty years past, a highborn Welsh prisoner had plunged to his death from one of these windows. Now, however, it took an enormous effort of will just to cross the threshold, so overt was the hostility within.

“I feel like Daniel entering the lion’s den,” he whispered, “or one of those Christian martyrs in a Roman amphitheater.” That was too flippant for his father’s taste, though. Jacob gave him a burning glance, a silent warning to guard his tongue as if his life depended upon it, for well it might. Chastened—the last thing he’d wanted was to add to Jacob’s anxiety—Benedict followed his father into the chamber.

Benedict truly did feel as if he’d run straight into a stone wall, so oppressive was the atmosphere in the room. His father had once made a grim jest, that a Jew in England was caught between the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis. But to Benedict, the Church was always a greater enemy than the King, for it was the Church that taught its sons and daughters to hate Jews as an act of faith, it was the Church that branded them as Antichrists and heretics. It frightened him to recognize the white tunic and black cloak of a Dominican Prior, for if the Templars were the knights of Christ, the friars were His foot-soldiers, and of all the orders, the Black Friars were the most zealous. Glancing nervously about the chamber, his eyes were drawn to a large, carved crucifix high on the wall above their heads. Idolators.
Gods of silver or gods of gold, ye shall not make unto you
. He shivered suddenly. What had ever possessed Papa to come here?

“Master Jacob, is it not?” As the speaker came out of the shadows, Benedict felt a jolt of recognition. His was an embittered conviction, that there was not a Gentile alive whom a Jew dared trust—with the possible exception of this man. He owed Thomas Fitz Thomas his life, for it was the Mayor’s men who had gotten him to safety in the Tower. Fitz Thomas had gone into the Jewry himself, seeking to end the slaughter, and now the sight of him took Benedict’s breath, conjuring up a memory of disturbing vividness—Fitz Thomas’s fair hair in disarray, his face the color of chalk under the harsh glare of torch-light, mouth contorted with rage, with an emotion Benedict had not expected a Christian to feel—horror.

Simon was looking at the Mayor in surprise. “You know this man, Tom?”

“Yes, my lord, I do. I’ve dealt with him in the past, when problems arose in the Jewry,” Fitz Thomas said, and smiled at Jacob and his son, as if offering courtesy to a Jew was too commonplace to warrant comment. It was, Benedict thought, a brave thing to do under the eyes of three Bishops. But he seemed to detect a faint thawing in the chill, eloquent testimony to Fitz Thomas’s standing with his highborn allies. Simon moved forward, and after glancing at Jacob’s cane, gestured for a servant to bring forth a stool.

It was at that moment that the Earl of Gloucester emerged from the privy chamber. “God’s wrath! Why are these Jews here?”

Benedict was no less shocked than Gloucester. His greatest fear had been that Fitz John, the man his father meant to accuse, might be present at this meeting. He’d never given a thought to Gloucester. Now, confronted with the young Earl, he felt blood surging into his face, roaring in his ears, and as Gloucester strode toward them, he stepped protectively in front of his father.

“How dare you come amongst us like this, after what you’ve done?” Gloucester demanded, and Benedict began to tremble with a killing rage.

“What we’ve done?” he echoed. “The massacre was of your doing, not ours!”

“Whatever happened, you brought it upon yourselves. Had you not been plotting to betray the city to the King—”

“That is not so! We knew nothing of a plot! Why would we conspire with the King? Why would we risk our lives for a man who bleeds us white?”

“Why do you Jews do anything—for money, of course! You’d like nothing better than to stir up dissension between Christians, for no evil is beneath you. You befoul our very air with your infidel breaths, you poison England with your vile, foreign ways, you blaspheme and—”

“We are not infidels! We believe in one God as you do, the God of Israel. And we are not foreigners.” From a great distance, Benedict could hear a voice strangely like his own, slurred with fury, impossible to silence. “We came to England at the behest of William the Bastard—just as your people did. We have lived here for nigh on two hundred years. We speak Norman-French as you do. My family does not call me by my Hebrew name, Berechiah, they call me Benedict. England is our home, too!”

“Your home, by rights, should be in Hell! But we are not deceived by your guile. You are servants of Satan, dwelling in our very midst. Yet the day is coming when we shall no longer tolerate your presence amongst us, for you mock Christ’s Passion, you profane the Eucharist, you crucify Christian children in your accursed rituals—”

“Lies and more lies!” Benedict was vaguely aware of someone pulling at his sleeve. But he could not stop himself. A red haze swam before his eyes. Blood of the innocents—the shade of Gloucester’s hair. Miriam’s hair. “Those are tales told to frighten the simple, the gullible. No men of sense give them credence,” he said scornfully, “only fools!”

Gloucester gave an audible gasp. As if in slow motion, Benedict saw his fist clench, his arm swing back. But the blow never connected. Simon was suddenly between them, catching Gloucester’s wrist in mid-air.

“Would you shame me by striking a guest at my hearth?”

Gloucester wrenched free, with such force that he stumbled backward. So easy was it to transfer his fury from Benedict to Simon that the two men blurred in his mind, the French-born Earl and the foreign Jew he sought to protect. Why? What true Christian would take a Jew’s part? And as he stared at Simon, Gloucester felt a rush of fear—what if Leicester were in league with the Jews? God’s truth, but the Earl was as glib as any Jew, preached the Provisions like Holy Writ. Had he been too quick to heed Leicester’s beguilements? What if he’d allowed his passion for the Provisions to imperil his soul?