The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  But as the evening wore on, Nathan became aware of two voices loudly raised above the general buzz of discussion in the room. With a sick feeling gathering in his belly, he realized the two voices belonged to Aaron and Isaac. Gradually, the other conversations died away as the whole room stopped to listen. The arguments Isaac and Aaron were posing were so bizarre that several of the older men in the congregation leaped to their feet in outrage, shaking their fists and banging the tables. Finally, Rabbi Elias threw up his hands and ordered an end to the unseemly debate. Glaring furiously at his son, the rabbi dismissed everyone to their homes to let tempers cool. But even so, it wasn’t until Nathan saw the look of undisguised triumph on Aaron’s face that he realized this was exactly the outcome he and Isaac had been planning.

  Nathan squeezed past the grumbling elders and bolted out of the door. He had every intention of going to see his beloved Eleanor and trying to forget for a few brief hours that he was a Jew, that’s if her father wasn’t around to prevent it. But Nathan had not gone far along the street before his arms were seized on either side and he found himself being steered around the back of the synagogue to crouch in the darkness under the outside steps to the chamber. All four men waited, shivering in the rain, until they heard the sounds of the synagogue door being locked and footsteps shuffling away across the flagged path. Then they climbed the steps to the study chamber. Nathan knew it was useless to protest. The other three were determined to resolve the riddle of the stone, and even he was forced to admit that there could be no more fitting night on which to do so.

  Aaron barred the door between the synagogue and the study chamber in case his father should return, then, taking the stone from Nathan, placed it carefully on the table between two lighted candles. He fumbled at his waist and unfastened a piece of long red cord with which he formed a circle on the table around the stone and candles. When he was finally satisfied that the circle was as perfect as he could make it, the four of them took their places on the stools, one at each corner of the table. The room was in darkness save for the flickering twin flames. No one spoke. They all knew what to do. They concentrated simply on the rhythm of their own breathing until it slowed almost as if they were sleeping.

  Then Aaron, keeping his voice low and even, spoke from the shadows. ‘Look at the letters on the stone Hay, Shin, Mem. Stare at each letter in turn until they start to move. Watch them weave in and out of each other, growing bigger and smaller, changing their colours. Let yourself dissolve into the letters – become the letters.’

  Nathan knew the meditation well. Their former teacher had often made them practise it, but always before they had visualized words in their heads. They had never stared at letters written on anything. Nathan had never been any good at it, not even when they were students. You were supposed to breathe each word until it lost its meaning and new words and new meanings danced in your head, but the only thoughts that ever came into Nathan’s head were certainly not spiritual. Mostly he spent the time dreaming up ways of being alone with the voluptuous, flaxen-haired Eleanor without her father finding out.

  But tonight, as Nathan stared at the stone glistening in the trembling yellow candle flame, it was only too easy to see the letters moving. The letters first began twisting and undulating, then they seemed to be crawling off the stone and scuttling across the table towards him. He could hear the word stalking around him in the darkness, Ha-Sh-em, Ha-Sh-em. His three companions were breathing rhythmically in and out on the syllables of the word. Though he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the letters, Nathan was vaguely aware that the others were standing now, folding and unfolding their bodies to the rhythm of their breath, Ha-Sh-em. The word slithered through the shadows.

  The letters were changing colour. Shin was glowing red as if it had caught fire. Mem had turned ice-blue and was running like water over the table, yet where the blue water touched the ruby flame it seemed only to make the flame burn more fiercely.

  Aaron’s breathing had deepened as if he was trying to suck all the air from the room. He was chanting a different word now – Raziel, Raziel. The other two joined in, calling on the name of the angel who reveals the secrets of heaven and the knowledge of the future. Raziel, Raziel, Raziel. Nathan became aware of something growing in the corner of the room, blacker than a hangman’s shadow, deeper than the pit of Gehenna, a total absence of light so thick and heavy it was as if the very darkness from which the world had been created was reforming in that room. It was swelling up, uncoiling and reaching out . . .

  Nathan yelled in panic and dashed his hand across the table, sweeping stone, cord and candles crashing to the floor. For a moment he could see nothing while his eyes adjusted to the thin shaft of moonlight filtering in through the hole in the shutters. But Nathan didn’t need any light to tell him that whatever it was that had entered that room had vanished and the four of them were alone.

  ‘You clumsy imbecile, Nathan,’ Aaron raged at him. ‘We’d almost succeeded in summoning the spirit that would have given us knowledge of the future. Do you realize what a miracle that was? Not even the greatest mystic teachers have succeeded. Just think what power . . .’ Words failed Aaron, and he slammed his fist into the table in frustration.

  ‘But didn’t you see it?’ Nathan asked them. ‘That thing didn’t come from the light . . . Didn’t any of you see what it was?’

  It was too dark to make out the expressions on their faces, but he could sense their anger and bewilderment. But if they hadn’t seen it, how could he begin to explain?

  Nathan sank down on the stool, his hands trembling. ‘Just go. Get out of here and leave me alone.’

  He heard the door close behind them and their footsteps on the wooden staircase, but he didn’t move. He sat staring into the corner, trying to understand what he had seen. There had been nothing there, and yet that nothing had been so dense, so massive, so full of rage and hate, it felt as if that nothing had been the only solid thing in the room, and the table, the walls, even he himself had been mere wisps of smoke in its presence.

  Somewhere out in the city a dog was howling, and then he heard a single set of footsteps slowly climbing the wooden staircase outside. It must be Isaac, Benedict or Aaron come back to see if he was all right and walk him home. Nathan rose and started across the room to meet them. A finger came through the hole in the door, lifting the latch, and the door swung open.

  Friday 24 May, the sixth day of Sivan, the Festival of Shavuoth

  Judith leaped to her feet almost before she had opened her eyes, startled by the shouts and cries in the street outside. For a moment she thought she had overslept and the market was already open for the day, but then she realized the room was still dark. Isaac was standing by the tiny casement and peering out through the open shutter, shivering in the cold damp air. A thin grey light crawling up over the rooftops showed that dawn was not far off. Judith joined her brother at the casement, draping his cloak around his shoulders against the cold, though it still felt damp from the night’s rain.

  ‘What’s the noise?’ Judith asked.

  Men were spilling out of the houses on either side of the street, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Women and children leaned out of the casements trying to see what was going on.

  ‘They’re calling the hue and cry,’ Isaac sighed. ‘I’d better go and help.’ He stooped, struggling to pull on his wet shoes. They were caked in mud.

  Judith frowned. ‘Why didn’t you put those near the hearth when you came in? Anyway, when did you come in? It must have been very late. I didn’t hear you.’

  But Isaac was already halfway out of the door. Judith turned back to the window and saw her brother emerge on to the street to join the other men who were rapidly dispersing in threes and fours in different directions hunting whoever was being sought by the law. She waited until Isaac had reached the end of the street, then she could contain her curiosity no longer and, slipping into her kirtle, cloak and shoes, ran outside. By now the women, hugging thems
elves against the sharp morning air, were gathering on the street.

  ‘Been a murder in Little Orford Street,’ they told her. ‘Jew it was and no mistaking it – found him naked as the day he was born.’

  Judith felt her throat tighten. There wasn’t a Jew in Norwich she didn’t know, at least by sight. Now that they were all forced to wear the white strips, they could recognize everyone, even those who didn’t come to the synagogue. She found herself praying that it would not be one of her own friends, then reproved herself sharply; after all, it would be some poor woman’s father or brother or son. Another one of their community murdered. Where would it all end?

  She allowed herself to be swept along by the crowd into Little Orford Street, where a mass of people had gathered around a small gap between two of the houses. At first Judith couldn’t see anything, but then a man caught her arm and dragged her forward through the throng.

  ‘Here’s another of the Jews, bailiff. Go on, you look, girl, see if you know him.’

  A figure was lying stretched out on the ground on his back, his arms raised above his head. He’d been covered by someone’s cloak, but one of the men kneeling beside the corpse pulled it back far enough to allow Judith to see the face. She closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself to look. The dark brown eyes of the corpse were wide open as if in shock, and the lips were drawn back from the yellowed teeth in something approaching a snarl, but despite the contorted expression Judith was certain it was not a face she knew.

  She felt her stomach relax in relief. ‘I’ve never seen that man before. Besides, he’s not Jewish. He has no beard, and look at his hair.’

  Though the victim had dark stubble on his face, he had certainly been clean-shaven not much more than a week ago, and there was something else. A circular fuzz of new hair in the centre of his head indicated that in the not-too-distant past the man had been tonsured.

  ‘Probably trying to pass himself off as a God-fearing man,’ one man in the crowd muttered. ‘Trying to cod innocent folk into giving him alms or get into an abbey, so he could steal from them. Typical of their tricks.’ The others nodded.

  Judith pressed her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to keep her anger in check. ‘But what makes you think he is Jewish?’ she persisted.

  The men grinned at each other. With a magician’s flourish, the bailiff whipped the cloak from the naked body. A livid stab wound in the chest showed that there was no mistaking this was murder, but the bailiff was not pointing to the man’s wound. His spiteful smile deepened as he watched the hot blush spread over Judith’s face.

  ‘Good Christians don’t go around chopping the heads off their sons’ manhoods,’ he sneered.

  The bailiff was right, and there was no mistaking that the dead man was circumcised.

  Sunday 26 May, the eighth day of Sivan

  A shaft of lemon-sharp light darted into the synagogue as Judith threw back the shutters. Yesterday the synagogue had been crammed with people for the Shavuoth services, but the door and shutters had been kept firmly barred in the hope that their muffled prayers would not reach the ears of the passers-by outside, and the synagogue was still fugged with the stench of sweat, oil and tallow.

  Judith breathed in the cold morning air gratefully. As soon as the sun warmed the streets they’d be stinking of rotten vegetables, fish, dung and offal from Saturday’s markets, but for now a stiff breeze from the river carried with it the subtle scents of thyme, mint and bergamot growing in the synagogue garden below the window. Church bells from the scores of churches and chapels were pealing out over the city, calling the faithful to Mass.

  Judith pulled the star-shaped oil lamp towards her and set about scraping the sticky residue of oil and wick fragments from the five spouts before refilling the reservoir. She remembered that the lamps in the study chamber would also have been burning and, with the flask of oil already in her hand, thought that she might as well refill those before she started her sweeping. But to her annoyance she found the door between the chamber and the synagogue barred on the other side.

  Irritated by having to make the extra walk, Judith trudged out of the synagogue and climbed the back stairs that led to the separate chamber entrance. She unlatched the door and pushed it open. As in the synagogue, the shutters in the little chamber were tightly fastened, but the light from the open door was just enough for Judith to make out the figure of Nathan crouching in the corner of the room. His legs were drawn up to his chest, and his forehead rested on his knees. He didn’t look up, obviously so deeply asleep that even the sound of the door opening didn’t arouse him.

  Judith closed the door as quietly as she could and was about to tiptoe back down the stairs when she stopped. There was something about the room that was not right. She was used to the study chamber being in disarray – the tables usually heaped with untidy piles of parchment, scrolls, discarded quills and even forgotten garments – but this was different. And there was a foul smell in the room, too, more than just the stench of tallow, sweat and stale air.

  She cautiously opened the door again. Flies were buzzing against the shutters. Parchments and scrolls were strewn across the floor like autumn leaves. One of the trestles was overturned. Had Nathan thrown it over in a passion of grief?

  ‘Nathan?’ she called softly. Still he did not stir. She almost gagged, the stench was so overpowering. She had taken a step inside the room to open the shutters, when the breeze caught the door behind her and slammed it shut. She heard something thump down on to the wooden floor. She wrenched the door open again and saw that Nathan had slumped over on to his side. It was only then that Judith glimpsed the thick cord cutting deep into the flesh of his neck. What she could see of his face was purple and grotesquely swollen. His eyes were bulging wide. Nathan was dead.

  Judith ran down the steps, half slipping in her haste. Someone was standing in the shadow of one of the apple trees in the synagogue garden. She was about to shout to them when it occurred to her that the watching figure might be Nathan’s killer. She started to run back up the stairs, but she knew she couldn’t bring herself to go back into that room, whatever danger lay outside. She turned again, trying to get a better glimpse of the person under the tree, but the place where they had been standing was empty.

  Judith edged across the garden, then she picked up her skirts and ran the few streets to her home, praying that her brother would still be there. It was the Christian Sabbath, so Jews were not permitted to work in the workshops, but Isaac usually continued to sew in secret at home, for they needed the money. But when she burst in, she found the room empty. She tried to think. Where would he be? He must be with Aaron or Benedict. She hurried to the rabbi’s house, her heart still thumping so loudly in her chest she thought it would burst. But though she hammered for several minutes on his door, neither Rabbi Elias nor Aaron answered.

  ‘Judith,’ a voice called behind her. She turned to see her brother Isaac hurrying along the street towards her. Almost crying with relief, she ran to him.

  ‘Isaac . . .’ she panted. ‘You must . . . come at once. It’s Nathan . . . I’ve just found him in the synagogue . . . He’s . . . he’s dead!’

  ‘No, no, that’s not possible!’ Isaac turned and ran towards the synagogue. Judith followed more slowly. Her legs felt as weak as a newborn calf, and it was all she could do to walk, never mind run. Isaac had already raced up the stairs and was flinging open the door of the study chamber before Judith had crossed the garden.

  Almost at once he emerged again at the top of the stairs. ‘I thought you said Nathan was in here.’

  Judith pulled herself up the stairs. As she stepped cautiously inside the chamber, Isaac followed. Everything was exactly as she had left it, except for the body. Nathan’s corpse had vanished.

  ‘But . . . he was right there in the corner,’ Judith protested, turning in bewilderment to her brother.

  Isaac gently squeezed her shoulders. ‘Perhaps you only thought Nathan was dead. He may simply have fainte
d and then recovered and has taken himself home.’

  Judith closed her eyes tightly. ‘You didn’t see his face, Isaac, his eyes. There was a cord tied around his neck, cutting into his throat.’

  ‘A cord? Aaron was using a red cord two nights ago. He left it here, after Nathan . . .’ Isaac’s gaze darted around the room. ‘Are you sure you saw a cord? It’s not here now.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ Judith yelled at him. ‘And the stench. Can’t you smell it?’

  Her brother sniffed. ‘That rotten stink from the butchers’ market – everyone can smell that. Look, little sister, dead men don’t get up and walk. A corpse can’t just vanish.’

  ‘Isaac, listen to me. I thought I saw someone watching this chamber. What if it was Nathan’s murderer and he came back while I was gone and moved the body?’

  ‘But why risk discovery by moving a corpse in broad daylight when they could simply leave it here?’ Isaac suddenly clapped his hand to his mouth and began frantically to search the room, tossing parchments aside, flinging out the contents of the small chests. ‘Is there something else missing, Judith? Something you saw in the room before that isn’t there now?’

  ‘Like what?’

  But he didn’t answer her and she didn’t need an answer. She knew he was looking for the stone. And if the stone was missing . . .

  ‘Isaac, you said that Aaron had a red cord in this chamber. Is it possible that Aaron could have . . . murdered Nathan?’

  Her brother gaped at her. ‘Aaron is the rabbi’s son. We’ve all grown up together. They may have quarrelled but . . .’ Isaac hesitated. He shook his head as if trying to rid himself of the idea and said firmly, ‘No. This is nonsense. You must have imagined it. You were always seeing monsters in the corners of the room in the dark when you were a child. You probably ate too much cheese last night.’