The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  He bent over to kiss her forehead, but Judith furiously pulled away. It was the closest she had ever come to slapping him since they were children.

  ‘And what about whatever you were searching for: is that here?’ she demanded.

  Isaac gnawed at the skin of his needle-calloused finger. ‘Nathan must have taken it home with him. I’ll go to his house straight away. That’ll put your mind at rest.’ He tried to smile. ‘Nathan’s probably sitting there right now swigging his ale, and all your fears will be for nothing.’ But he didn’t sound convinced by his own words.

  Nathan was not in his house or his shop, and by the time the city gates were closed for the night and fires damped down in hearths he had still not returned. Anxious enquiries among all the Jews in the city revealed only that no one remembered seeing him since the eve of Shavuoth. There was no doubt that, dead or alive, Nathan had vanished and he was not the only one missing; Aaron likewise had disappeared.

  Monday 27 May, the ninth day of Sivan

  Isaac and Benedict came in from the yard, their hands still dripping with water from the ritual washing before meals. Judith ladled the thick bean and mutton potage into rough wooden bowls, fishing out an extra piece of mutton from the iron pot to put into Benedict’s bowl. There were more green herbs in the potage than meat or dried beans, for the stores in her kitchen were dwindling fast. Shavuoth may have been the wheat harvest festival for their ancestors in Israel, but here in the northern lands it was a time of hunger, for it would be many weeks before grain and fruit were ready to harvest.

  Judith took her own bowl and sat at the end of the table. She could see that Benedict was bursting to say something, but silence had to be kept between the washing of hands and the blessing over the meal, so he was forced to bite his tongue until Isaac had finished mumbling the prayer. Then he burst out, ‘But what if Aaron’s been murdered, too?’

  Isaac glanced uneasily at his sister. ‘We’ve no proof that Nathan is dead. Judith was probably mistaken in what she saw. It’s very dark in the study chamber.’

  ‘I know exactly what I saw,’ Judith blurted out furiously. ‘I’m not a child.’

  Benedict held up his hands. ‘We believe you, don’t we, Isaac?’ he said, kicking his friend hard under the table. ‘The point is,’ he continued hastily, ‘both Nathan and Aaron have vanished. What if they were both killed in that room and the murderer had time only to move one of the bodies before Judith arrived?’

  Isaac pushed his bowl aside. ‘Look, just suppose that my sister is right and Nathan has been killed. Then the murderer would have to be the same bastard who killed Jacob, but he’d not have been able to take the two of them. Aaron never left the house without a knife. No, most likely when Aaron got home, his father blistered his ears over that business on Erev Shavuoth and Aaron stormed off. He’s just lying low somewhere until the old man calms down.’

  Benedict shook his head. ‘I spoke to Rabbi Elias and he said he hadn’t seen Aaron since he told him to go home that night. Anyone can tell he’s worried sick about his son.’

  Judith nodded and turned to her brother. ‘If you’re so sure that Aaron isn’t dead, then he must have run off for some other reason, and why would he do that unless he’d killed Nathan?’

  Isaac sprang to his feet. ‘No, if Nathan is dead then this is the work of the Christians.’

  ‘And what would Christians want with a stone?’ Benedict asked quietly. ‘The stone is missing – or have you forgotten?’

  ‘The stone is here,’ a shaky voice whispered from the doorway.

  All three of them turned around. Aaron was standing in the low doorway, one hand clinging to the door frame as if he feared he would fall if he didn’t hold on to something. His face was pale, a dark bruise stained his cheek and one of the seams of his cloak had been ripped open, but in his right hand he held the sacred stone. Judith knew she should go to help him, but she couldn’t move.

  ‘I killed him,’ Aaron said, almost in wonder. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t let him take it . . . you understand that. He was a traitor, a blasphemer. I couldn’t let him take this stone from us, too. You would have done the same, wouldn’t you, Isaac? Benedict?’ he begged desperately.

  He staggered forward and would have fallen had Benedict not caught him in his arms and lowered him gently on to the bench.

  Judith hurried across the room to the flagon of wine they kept for the Shabbat meal on Friday evening and swiftly returned with a large measure. Benedict gently prised the stone from Aaron’s fingers and laid it on the table before clasping the man’s stiff fingers around the beaker of wine. Aaron stared at it as if he couldn’t understand what he was holding, then he lifted it and drank so fast Benedict had to pull it away from him to stop him choking.

  Isaac opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but no words came out.

  Judith could contain herself no longer. ‘What did Nathan do to betray us? He couldn’t, not Nathan. He was such a gentle, honest man.’

  Aaron turned to her, his gaze unfocused. ‘What do you mean, Nathan? Nathan’s a bloody fool at times, but he’s no traitor.’

  ‘But you said you killed him.’

  Aaron buried his head in his hands. ‘I told you, I didn’t mean it. They’ll hang me. Worse than that. Who knows what they’d do to a Jew who killed a man in holy orders. You have to help me get out of Norwich before they find me.’

  Judith knelt down on the rush-strewn floor and stroked his arm gently. She could feel his whole body shaking. ‘What happened, Aaron? Just tell us from the beginning.’

  He took another gulp of wine and sat staring at the table. ‘I . . . I went back to the study chamber on Erev Shavuoth after we parted. I wanted to try the meditation again on my own. Just as I got there, I saw someone hurrying down the stairs. I could see it wasn’t one of you. The figure was too tall, walking all hunched over, and he was wearing a long robe, though I couldn’t make out its colour in the dark. So I hid, but just as he drew level with me Nathan came staggering out of the chamber holding the side of his head. He was standing at the top of the stairs yelling, “Thief, thief.” The man took to his heels. I chased after him and managed to grab him on the corner of Little Orford Street. As soon as I turned him round, I realized he was a friar, a Black Friar, and he was trying to stuff the stone into his scrip. I told him to give it back and I’d let him go, but he just laughed. He said he’d rather destroy it than let a Jew have it. The whole story burst out of him like pus from a boil.

  ‘Apparently, the Black Friar had heard rumours about the stone in Exeter. A pedlar was spreading the word among the Jews, wanted to sell it to the highest bidder so that he could buy passage on a boat. The friar arrived just an hour too late. The pedlar told him that Jacob had already bought it and was on his way home. The friar knew that Jacob wouldn’t sell it to him, but he thought that once Jacob was home he could talk his way into his house and steal it.’

  ‘Jacob would never have allowed a friar across his threshold, not unless he had soldiers with him,’ Isaac said.

  ‘That’s what I told him, but he said Jacob would let him in if he thought he was a Jew. I laughed. That’s when the little weasel told me.

  ‘He said, “Do you think I’ve always looked like this? I was born one of you, a Jew. My fool of a father scraped a living from the leavings of the Gentiles all his life and still they spat on him in the street. You think I wanted to spend the rest of my life being kicked out of the way and treated like pigswill? I knew there was only one way out: if you can’t beat them, become one of them. So I converted to the true faith and joined the order as soon as I was twelve. They were pleased to have me at first, a convert plucked from the burning, but that didn’t last long. They were never going to let me forget I was born a Jew. But if I bring them the stone they’ll have to accept me. We’ll destroy it and then we’ll destroy the rest of you vermin. When there isn’t a Jew left in England, then they will forget I’m one of the accused tribe.” ’

&
nbsp; Aaron clenched his fists. ‘I pulled my knife. I didn’t mean to use it, just to threaten him, but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t give up. He just kept taunting me. There was a struggle. The ground was slippery from the rain. I don’t know if I pushed the knife into him or if he fell on it, but the next thing I knew he was dead.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I was about to run off when it occurred to me that if I stripped him, it might take longer for them to work out who he was and buy me a little more time. Besides,’ he added savagely, ‘I wasn’t going to let them find a Jew in a friar’s robes.’

  Tuesday 28 May, the tenth day of Sivan

  Judith stood in the doorway of their house, throwing the crumbs from the morning bread to the squabbling chickens in the yard. The pale primrose light gave promise of a fine day to come, which was as well for she needed to tend the synagogue garden. Weeds were sprouting everywhere after all the rain.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Isaac paused in the act of pulling on his worn leather shoes. ‘Promise me you’ll stay out of the study chamber today. I don’t want you going back in there until I’ve had a chance to straighten it. We don’t want you imagining any more bodies or demons, do we?’

  Judith rounded on him furiously. ‘I didn’t imagine it and Nathan is still missing, isn’t he? And his poor mother’s going out of her mind with worry.’

  Isaac raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Give me patience. You heard Aaron last night. He said Nathan was standing on the stairs yelling, “Thief.” So the Black Friar can’t have killed him when he stole the stone. And before you start accusing him again, Aaron couldn’t have done it either; he was too busy chasing after the friar. Look, little sister, I didn’t want to tell you this, but Nathan has been seeing a girl, Eleanor. He’s besotted with her, but she’s a Christian, so they have to meet in secret. Nathan’s mother would kill herself if she found out about it.’

  ‘You think they’ve run off together?’

  Isaac shrugged. ‘It’s more than possible, especially if the girl’s father got wind of it. He’d hardly give the couple his blessing, now, would he? But I can’t tell Nathan’s mother that. So be a good girl and stay out of that room. I don’t want you upset again. We’ve enough to worry about with a real body, without worrying about imaginary ones. If the authorities realize that corpse was a friar, not a Jew, they’ll turn this town upside down looking for his killer.’

  Judith swallowed hard. She hadn’t dared tell Isaac that she had drawn the bailiff’s attention to the man’s tonsure. She prayed that the bailiff would dismiss what she said, as he did all Jews.

  Beads of sweat prickled on Judith’s forehead. Although the afternoon sun was warm for May, she was hoeing with unnecessary vigour between the bushes of rosemary and hyssop in the synagogue garden to try to keep her thoughts off that study chamber. But it wasn’t working, and she kept glancing up at the casement. Isaac was right; the most likely explanation for Nathan’s disappearance was that he and this Christian girl had fled the city together.

  As a little child, Judith been too terrified to cross the yard at night, convinced that she could see a demon with glowing eyes lurking in the corner, though her father had shown her it was just the light from her own lantern glinting off a piece of metal. Even now she sometimes thought she saw her mother sitting hunched in the chair before the fire. Perhaps she had imagined Nathan’s body, too. If she could just see what it was in that room – a shadow, a piece of cloth, something that had made her think she’d seen Nathan – she could forget the whole thing.

  Judith’s heart gave a lurch of relief as she pushed open the door of the chamber. She’d half expected to see Nathan crouching there again, but the corner was empty and bare. Almost at once, relief was replaced by disappointment. Someone had already tidied the room, her brother or Benedict, no doubt, for it was a man’s hand that had tidied it, she could see that at once. Tables and benches were now upright, but not neatly aligned, and armfuls of books and parchments had been scooped up and stacked in drunken piles without any attempt to sort them or put them back in their places on the shelf. It was as if someone had straightened things just enough to create a space to work. Several sheets of parchment lay spread out on one of the tables, close to a candle stub with a quill pen and pot of black ink.

  Judith lifted one of the sheets. It was a random list of words written in Hebrew – gold, fire, citadel. Other Hebrew letters were written beside each word, but these letters didn’t make words. Judith glanced at the rest of the table, searching for the book or scroll that the person had been studying. It was the custom to take a passage from the Torah and study each word and phrase in depth, looking for the different meanings. Usually that passage would be in front of the scholar as he studied, but there were no scrolls or books on the table.

  Judith glanced up sharply as she heard footsteps pounding up the wooden steps outside, but before she could cry out the door burst open and Aaron rushed into the room. If anything, he looked paler than he had done the day before, and he was certainly trembling as much.

  He doubled over, gasping for breath. ‘Isaac . . . Benedict . . . where are they? I . . . thought they might be here. They said at the tailor’s that Isaac had gone to the warehouse at the river to fetch cloth, but I thought he might have come here.’ He glanced repeatedly at the door as if he was fearful that someone might be following him.

  ‘What is it? Has something else happened?’ Judith asked, beginning to feel as scared as he looked.

  Aaron took a deep breath. ‘I need to show you something. Come, please come.’

  ‘Where to?’

  Aaron shook his head as if he couldn’t trust himself to speak, and after an anxious glance through the half-opened door he urgently motioned her to follow him. Judith was outside before she realized she still had the pieces of parchment in her hand and quickly stuffed them in her scrip before running after Aaron.

  He strode rapidly, his hood pulled far down over his face as if he feared to be recognized. Judith had to keep breaking into a trot so as not to lose sight of him. When they reached Conesford Street, Aaron finally stopped. The breeze from the river was stronger here, and Judith was glad of it for she could feel the sweat running down her back.

  They were standing in front of Jacob’s house, a fine stone building with a heavy oak door guarding the entrance. Aaron withdrew a large iron key from under his cloak and slid it into the lock. As the door swung open, he pushed Judith through the door, locking it behind them. It was dim inside the small entrance chamber. All the shutters were closed, and the only light came from two small slits in the thick stone walls either side of the door. Judith shivered. It had been just a week since Jacob’s death, but with no fires lit in the house the air felt damp and chill.

  She rubbed her arms uneasily. ‘What are we doing here, Aaron?’

  ‘Upstairs . . . please,’ he begged her.

  He led the way up the stone steps to the upper hall. A huge fireplace occupied one wall, but the logs in it were blackened and dead. A long table stretched down the centre of the room, set about with chairs. Chests and side tables were ranged along the walls. The lower half of the walls was wainscoted with timber panels, painted green and dotted with gold stars, while the stones on the upper half were lime-washed white. At the far end of the room was a wooden partition.

  Judith hovered uneasily by the door. ‘We shouldn’t be in here. How did you get the key?’

  ‘I went to Nathan’s house to find out if there was any news of him. I saw the key on a shelf and guessed what it was. It was too big for any lock in that cottage. Nathan’s mother must have taken it home with her for safe-keeping when she dismissed Jacob’s servants after his death. I suppose the house would come to Nathan, in due course, unless Jacob bequeathed it to another relative.’

  ‘So Nathan’s mother knows you are here.’ Judith felt more comfortable knowing that.

  Aaron looked wretched. ‘I took . . . borrowed the key when she was out of the room. No, wait, p
lease, Judith,’ he pleaded. ‘Rumours are beginning to spread that the corpse was a monk. I even heard someone say he was a wealthy abbot. If the justices believe that, they won’t rest until his killer is caught. I have to get out of England. But I need money to buy a passage.

  ‘I can’t go to my father. He always puts his principles before anything, even his own son. He’d hand me over to the bailiff himself. I was sure Jacob would have something valuable in the house. I persuaded myself that Jacob didn’t need it any more and Nathan had run off with Eleanor. Who knows if he would ever come back to claim his inheritance? I wasn’t going to take much, just a few coins or something I could sell. But I couldn’t find anything small enough to carry. Nathan’s mother probably took anything of value to her own house in case of thieves breaking in.’

  ‘And it seems she was right to do so,’ Judith said pointedly, but Aaron ignored her.

  ‘Then I remembered once, when I was a child, I was playing here with Nathan and your brother and Benedict. Old Jacob was out and Nathan showed us the place where his grandfather hid his most treasured books. I thought there might still be something in the old hiding place.’

  ‘And was there?’ Judith asked.

  Aaron nodded. Without saying anything more, he led the way behind the partition. Here a large bed, draped with hangings against the cold, occupied most of the centre of the room. Aaron went to the far wall and paused in front of the wooden wainscoting. Taking a deep breath, he ran his hands over the panelling until he found what he was searching for, then lifted the section away. There, set into the stone wall, was a long, low recess lined with wood, an ideal place in which to conceal books or anything else of value.

  And it was filled with something covered in sacking, but from her position at the end of the bed Judith couldn’t make out what it was. She was aware only of a terrible stench filling the room. Her guts had turned to iced water, but she forced herself to move closer and then stifled a scream as she caught sight of what was lolling out of the top of the sack. The face was blackened now where the blood had congealed, the skin was beginning to peel, but for all that there was no mistaking that the body in the hidden recess was that of Jacob’s grandson, Nathan.