Mistress of the Art of Death (18 page)

"Protection ain't his job," Gyltha had said. "He's a safeguard."

"Reckon as they can go in, eh, Rob?" The sentry winked at the woman in the entrance to her withy hut. "All right by you, Agnes?"

Even so, the guard captain was fetched, and was satisfied that the three were not concealing weapons before they were allowed through the wicket. Acton had to be restrained from going in with them. "Kill the Jews," he was shouting, "kill the crucifiers."

The reason for precaution became apparent as they were ushered into the bailey; fifty or so Jews were taking exercise in it, enjoying the sun. The men were mainly walking and talking; women were gossiping in one corner or playing games with their children. As with all Jews in a Christian country, they were dressed like anyone else, though one or two of the men wore the conelike
Judenhut
on their heads.

But what distinguished this particular group as
the
Jews was their shabbiness. Adelia was startled by it. In Salerno there were poor Jews, just as there were poor Sicilians, Greeks, Moslems, but their poverty was disguised by the alms flowing from their richer brethren. In fact, it was held, somewhat sniffily, by the Christians of Salerno that "the Jews have no beggars." Charity was a precept of all the great religions; in Judaism,
"Give unto Him of what is His, seeing that thou and what thou hast are

His"
was law. Grace was bestowed on the giver rather than the receiver.

Adelia remembered one old man who'd driven her foster mother's sister to distraction by his refusal to say thank you for the meals he'd taken in her kitchen. "Do I eat what is yours?" he used to ask. "I eat what is God's."

The sheriff's charity to his unwanted guests, it appeared, was not so munificent. They were thin. The castle kitchen, Adelia thought, was unlikely to accord with the dietary laws, and therefore its meals would in many cases remain uneaten. The clothes in which these people had to hurry from their homes the year before were beginning to tatter.

Some of the women looked up expectantly as she and the others crossed the bailey. Their men were too deep in discussion to notice.

With the younger soldier from the gate leading the way, the three passed over the moat bridge, under the portcullis, and across another court.

The hall was cool, vast, and busy. Trestle tables stretched down its length, covered with documents, rolls, and tallies. Clerks poring over them occasionally broke off to run to the dais, where a large man sat in a large chair at another table on which other documents, rolls, and tallies were growing at a rate threatening to topple them.

Adelia was unacquainted with the role of sheriff, but Simon had said that as far as each shire was concerned, this was the man of greatest importance next to the king, the royal agent of the county who, with the diocesan bishop, wielded most of its justice and alone was responsible for the collection of its taxes, the keeping of its peace, pursuing its villains, ensuring there was no Sunday trading, seeing to it that everybody paid church tithes and the Church paid its dues to the Crown, arranging executions, appropriating the hanged one's chattels for the king, as well as that of waifs, fugitives, outlaws, ensuring that treasure trove went into the royal coffers--and twice a year delivering the resultant money and its accounting to the king's Exchequer at Winchester, where, Simon said, a penny's discrepancy could lose him his place.

"With all that, why does anyone want the job in the first place?" Adelia inquired.

"He takes a percentage," Simon said.

To judge from the quality of the clothes the Sheriff of Hertfordshire was wearing and the amount of gold and jewels adorning his fingers, the percentage was a big one, but at the moment, it was doubtful whether Sheriff Baldwin thought it enough. "Harassed" hardly described him; "distracted" did.

He stared with manic vacancy at the soldier who announced his visitors. "Can't they see I'm busy? Don't they know the justices in eyre are coming?"

A tall and bulky man, who'd been bending over some papers at the sheriff's side, straightened up. "I think, my lord, these people may be helpful in the matter of the Jews," Sir Rowley said.

He winked at Adelia. She looked back at him without favor. Another as ubiquitous as Roger of Acton. And perhaps more sinister.

Yesterday a note had arrived for Simon from Prior Geoffrey, warning him against the king's tax collector: "The man was in the town on two occasions at least when a child disappeared. May the good Lord forgive me if I cast doubt where none is deserved, but it behooves us to be circumspect until we are sure of our ground."

Simon accepted that the prior had cause for suspicion, "but no more than for anyone else." He'd liked what he had seen of the tax collector, he said. Adelia, made privy to what lay beyond the amiable exterior when Sir Rowley had forced his presence on her examination of the dead children, did not. She found him disturbing.

It appeared he had the castle in thrall. The sheriff was staring up at him for help, incapable of dealing with any but his own immediate troubles. "Don't they know there's an eyre coming?"

Rowley turned to Simon. "My lord wishes to know your business here."

Simon said, "With the lord's permission, we would speak to Yehuda Gabirol."

"No harm in that, eh, my lord? Shall I show them the way?" He was already moving.

The sheriff grabbed at him. "Don't leave me, Picot."

"Not for long, my lord, I promise."

He ushered the trio down the hall, talking all the way. "The sheriff's just been informed that the justices in eyre are intending to hold an assize in Cambridge. Coming on top of the presentment he must make to the Exchequer, that means considerable extra work, and he finds himself somewhat, shall we say, overwhelmed. So do I, of course."

He smiled chubbily down at them; a less overwhelmed man would have been difficult to find. "One is trying to discover what debts are owed to the Jews and, therefore, to the king. Chaim was the chief moneylender in this county, and all his tallies went up in the tower fire. The difficulty of recovering what is not there to speak for itself is considerable. However..."

He gave an odd little sideways bow to Adelia. "I hear Madam Doctor has been dabbling in the Cam. Not a doctorly thing to do, one would have thought, considering what pours into it. Perhaps you had your reasons, ma'am?"

Adelia said, "What is an assize?"

They had gone through an arch and were following Sir Rowley up the winding staircase of a tower, the Safeguard pattering behind them.

Over his shoulder, the tax collector said, "Ah, an assize. A judgment really, by the king's traveling justices. A Day of Judgment--and nearly as terrible as God's for those in its scales. Judgment of ale and punishment for the watering down of. Judgment of bread, ditto for the underweight of. Gaol delivery, guilt or innocence of prisoners therein. Presentments of land, ownership of, presentment of quarrels, justification for...the list goes on. Juries to be provided. Doesn't happen every year, but when it does...Mother of God help us, these steps are steep."

He was puffing as he led them up. Shafts of sun coming in through arrow slits deep in the stone lit tiny landings, each with its arched door.

"Try losing weight," Adelia told him, her eyes presented with his backside as it ascended.

"I am a man of muscle, madam."

"Fat," she said. She slowed so that he rounded the next twist ahead of her and she could hiss at Simon at her rear, "He is going to listen in to what we have to say."

Simon took his hands off the rail that had been aiding him upward and spread them. "He must know our business here already. He knows--Lord, he's right about these stairs--who you are. Where's the difference?"

The difference was that the man would draw conclusions from what was to be said to the Jews. Adelia distrusted conclusions until she had all the evidence. Also, she distrusted Sir Rowley. "But if he should be the killer?"

"Then he knows already." Simon closed his eyes and groped for the rail.

Sir Rowley was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, much put out. "You think me fat, mistress? I'd have you know that when he heard I was on the march, Nur-ad-Din would pack up his tents and steal away into the desert."

"You went on crusade?"

"The Holy Places couldn't have done without me."

He left them in a small circular room, of which the only amenities were some stools, a table, and two unglazed windows with spreading views, promising that Master Gabirol would attend them in minutes and that he'd send up his squire with refreshments.

While Simon paced and Mansur stood, a statue as usual, Adelia went to the windows, one facing west, the other east, to study the panorama afforded by each.

To the west, among the low hills, she could see battlemented roofs from which flew a standard. Even miniaturized by distance, the manor that Sir Gervase held from the priory was larger than Adelia would have expected of a knight's fee. If Sir Joscelin's, held from the nuns, to the southeast and beyond either window's view, was as big, both gentlemen appeared to have done well from their tenancies and crusading.

Two men came in. Yehuda Gabirol was young, his black earlocks cork-screwed against cheeks that were hollow and tinged with an Iberian pallor.

The uninvited guest was old and had found the climb hard. He clung to the doorpost, introducing himself to Simon in a wheeze. "Benjamin ben Rav Moshe. And if you're Simon of Naples, I knew your father. Old Eli still alive, is he?"

Simon's bow was uncharacteristically curt, as was his introduction of Adelia and Mansur, merely giving their names without explaining their presence.

The old man nodded to them, still wheezing. "Is it you occupying my house?"

Since Simon showed no sign of replying, Adelia said, "We are. I hope you don't mind."

"I should mind?" Old Benjamin said sadly. "In good shape is it?"

"Yes. Better for being occupied, I think."

"You like the hall windows?"

"Very nice. Most unusual."

Simon addressed the younger man. "Yehuda Gabirol, just before Passover a year ago, you married the daughter of Chaim ben Eliezer here in Cambridge."

"The cause of all my troubles," Yehuda said gloomily.

"The boy came all the way from Spain to do it," Benjamin said. "I arranged it. A good marriage, though, I say it myself. If it turned out unfortunate, is that the fault of the
shadchan
?"

Simon continued to ignore him, his eyes on Yehuda. "A child of this town disappeared on that day. Perhaps Master Gabirol could cast light on what happened to him."

Adelia had never seen this side of Simon; he
was
angry.

There was an outburst of Yiddish from both men. The young one's thin voice rose over Benjamin's deeper one: "Should I know? Am I the keeper of English children?"

Simon slapped him across the face.

A sparrow hawk landed on the west windowsill and took off again, disturbed by the vibration inside the room as the sound of Simon's slap reverberated round the walls. Fingermarks rose on Yehuda's cheek.

Mansur stepped forward in case of retaliation, but the young man had covered his face and was cowering. "What else could we do? What else?"

Adelia stood unnoticed by the window as the three Jews recovered themselves enough to drag three stools into the center of the room and sit down on them.
A ceremony even for this,
she thought.

Benjamin did most of the talking while young Yehuda cried and rocked.

A good wedding it had been, Old Benjamin said, an alliance between cash and culture, between a rich man's daughter and this young Spanish scholar of excellent pedigree whom Chaim intended to keep as an
eidem af kest,
a resident son-in-law to whom he would give a dowry of ten marks....

"Get on," Simon said.

A fine early spring day it was; the chuppah in the synagogue was decorated with cowslips. "I myself shattered the glass...."

"Get
on
."

So back to Chaim's house for the wedding banquet, which, such was Chaim's wealth, had been expected to go on for a week. Fife, drums, fiddle, cymbals, tables weighed with dishes, wine cups filled and refilled, enthronement of the bride under white samite, speeches--all this on the riverside lawn because the house was scarcely big enough to entertain all the guests, some of whom had traveled more than a thousand miles to get there.

"Maybe, maybe a little bit, Chaim was showing off to the town," Benjamin admitted.

Inevitably, he was,
Adelia thought. To burghers who would not invite him to their houses yet were quick enough to borrow from him? Of course he was.

"Get on." Simon was remorseless, but at that moment Mansur raised a hand and began tiptoeing to the door.

Him.
Adelia tensed. The tax collector was listening.

Mansur opened the door with a pull that took half of it off its hinges. It was not Sir Rowley who knelt on the threshold, ear at keyhole level, it was his squire. A tray with a flagon and cups was on the floor beside him.

In one flowing movement, Mansur scooped up the tray and kicked the eavesdropper down the stairs. The man--he was very young--tumbled to the turn of the stairwell which caught him so that he was doubled with his legs higher than his head. "Ow.
Ow.
" But when Mansur shifted as if to follow him down and kick him again, the boy writhed to his feet and pattered away down the steps, holding his back.

The odd thing was, Adelia thought, that the three Jews sitting on the stools paid the incident little attention, as if it was of no more moment than another bird landing on the windowsill.

Is that plump Sir Rowley the killer? What exercises him about these murdered children?

There were people--she knew because she'd encountered them--who became excited by death, who tried to bribe their way into the school's stone chamber when she was working on a corpse. Gordinus had been obliged to put a guard on his death field to shoo away men, even women, wanting to gaze on the festering carcasses of the pigs.