The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘Don’t be so fast to pour scorn on the idea of sky-stones. Almost a hundred years ago Gervase of Canterbury wrote an account of five eyewitnesses who saw something odd where the moon stood in the sky. They spoke of a flaming torch, and fire, hot coals and sparks. Others have seen falling stars in the sky and even claimed to have found stones such as this. I can understand why the ancients venerated them.’

  He pointed at the object now lying between them on his table. Suddenly, it seemed to both of them to have taken on a mysterious aura, which it formerly did not possess. Saphira felt a deep sense of foreboding and almost regretted bringing it to William’s attention.

  ‘Where is it?’

  Sir Thomas winced at the petulant sound of the King’s voice. He turned to face Henry, a fixed and obsequious smile on his face.

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  He feigned lack of knowledge of the matter to which Henry referred, when in reality he knew exactly what he meant. The King hobbled over to his chamberlain, leaning heavily on the stick he now needed to get about. He was sixty-five, but the years had not been kind to him. No longer robust, he surrounded himself with doctors and other quacks, who gave pronouncements on his every bowel movement. Which was not saying a great deal, as Henry, King of England, was constipated. He screwed up his face, and Sir Thomas was not sure whether it was in anger at being crossed or from trapped wind.

  ‘The stone, damn you. The stone.’

  ‘Sire, if I can draw you back to the matter in hand. We must pass judgement on these townspeople. They must be punished.’

  Henry shook his head in frustration. It was true. He had journeyed all the way to Norwich because the mob had broken into the town’s priory and burned the church to the ground. What the cause of the riot had been now seemed to be unclear in most people’s minds, but the result had been unequivocal. Property had been destroyed and precious gold items stolen. The townsfolk of Norwich had to pay the price, and Henry would make sure they did. But he had not been in the town long when he had heard tales of a strange stone. Though its reputation for attracting evil had been revived by the lightning strike on the church, he had been drawn to it by the assertion that it could cure all ills. The information fitted well with other hints he had received from abroad about a magic sky-stone. The problem was, he had been here two weeks already, and he couldn’t find the stone. He was tired of the whole business.

  ‘That bolt of lightning foretold the truth, then. Evil in the form of a riot has followed in its footsteps. Who do we have in gaol right now?’

  Dalyson fumbled among the papers that lay piled on his desk and extracted the relevant list. He made a quick calculation.

  ‘Thirty-four men and one woman, sire. They came to plead their case and were held at your pleasure.’

  ‘Then hang them all, and burn some, too. They will be the example for the others. You can extract monies from the rest to pay for their crime.’

  Dalyson nodded and picked up his quill pen to note down the King’s justice. But the King had not finished. Twisting the seal ring that adorned the finger of his right hand, he piped up petulantly.

  ‘And find me the stone.’

  Covele was furious. He had recently returned to Norwich in his usual guise of a travelling German Jew, with a pileum cornutum – a spiked straw hat – on his head, only to find that everyone was looking for the sky-stone. He had sold it to that red-headed woman in Oxford, knowing her lover was fond of curiosities. And he had made a tidy profit on it, too, bearing in mind it had then seemed worthless. Now it was said the King himself desired it. His luck seemed to have been cursed ever since crossing paths with Saphira Le Veske and William Falconer. For it now looked as though he needed to turn right around and walk all the way back to Oxford again, to find a way of wheedling the sky-stone out of those two. But first he needed to rest, and he sent out his son, Hak, to perform two errands. One was to let it be known that he had the sky-stone – a little lie, but one he would rectify soon enough. The other was to fetch some food from the widow living down the lane from his lodgings.

  Stowing his satchelful of kimiyeh and painted stones in one corner of the bare room that he and Hak shared, Covele slumped down on the creaky pallet that was the only furnishing. He tossed his spiked hat on top of the satchel and lay back exhausted. It was not long before his eyes closed, and he drifted off to sleep. His dream of untold wealth, however, was soon disturbed by a creaking sound from outside his room. He sat up, guessing that Hak had returned with some provisions. But the boy was usually boisterous, and he realized that the sound had not been followed by Hak’s normal clamour.

  ‘Hak? Is that you? Stop playing tricks on your father, boy. Bring me the food.’

  Covele fancied he heard a low sigh, but nothing more. He started to feel a prickle of fear running down his spine. Barefoot, he pattered over to the door, putting his ear to it.

  ‘Hak?’

  This time he did not call out, but only whispered his query. He didn’t really want anyone to answer. Better that the person behind the door was only in his imagination. He lifted the latch slowly.

  Hak had delayed his return to his father because he had hoped to see the King. He first passed the message about the sky-stone on to the old man, Elias, who groaned at discovering that what he sought was now a hundred miles away. The boy had told him his father would get it back within days. But the old man knew Covele could not afford a horse and would have to walk, a journey that would take at least three weeks. He cursed the old woman, Magote, who he was sure was responsible for the stone being stolen from him in the first place. Just his luck that the King should turn up wanting the stone.

  ‘The King is here now and is seeking the stone in order to cure him of his ailments. If anyone gets to know that I had it and lost it, I will be in grave trouble. And I will make sure your father shares the punishment, too.’

  He put his grey-haired head in his hands and moaned over his ill luck. Hak quietly retreated. Free of the old man’s interrogations, he scurried out into the street. He was excited. The King was in Norwich! So instead of immediately going to fetch the food his father wanted, he dawdled around the close where the cathedral stood. He knew that rich folk stayed there when they visited the town. Maybe, if he waited long enough, he would get to see King Henry himself. However, he managed to hang around only long enough for one of the black-garbed priests who wandered in and out of the big church to take note of him. Finally, the man hurried over and tried to strike him across the face.

  ‘Get away from here, Jew. Go back to your own kind.’

  Hak expertly dodged the flailing hand and ran off towards the Jewish quarter. He had lingered as long as he dared anyway without incurring his father’s wrath. On the way back, he collected a dish of warm potage from the widow woman who cooked for other Jews, exchanging it for the few coins his father had given him. She covered the dish with a greyish, thin cloth and adjured the boy to hurry home before the broth got cold. Hak carefully negotiated the muddy lane back to the tenement where he and his father lived. At one point he slipped silently down a side alley when he saw some roistering Christian boys coming his way. He knew if he was not careful they would jostle him, and the broth would be all over the ground. Fortunately, they had not spotted his evasive action and ran past the end of the dark alley laughing and shouting. Safe from their attentions, but once again delayed, Hak hurried the final distance to the crumbling house where he and his father had a room. It was easy to negotiate the front door, even with a dish in both hands. The door had not closed properly in years, and it hung half off its hinges. Hak slipped through the gap and made for the back of the house. Closest to the midden in the backyard, the room Covele rented was the cheapest of all.

  ‘Father, I am back. I am sorry it took so long. I had to wait at the widow’s for—’

  The excuse died on his lips when he saw that the door to their room was ajar. His father never left the door open under any circumstances. Covele preached safety and circums
pection to his son. They were, after all, Jews in a Christian world, with precious items worth much money. Hak nudged the door further open with his foot. It gave that familiar creak, which almost reassured him that all was well. But then he saw his father sprawled out on the bed they shared at night, blood leaking from his mouth. He gasped, and dropped the dish of stew on the dirty rush-strewn floor. The pottery bowl shattered, and the contents bled through the cloth that clung to the mess and oozed across the beaten earth. Covele’s dull, staring eyes slowly focused on his son. Hak sighed.

  ‘Father. I thought you were dead.’

  Covele seemed unable to comprehend for a while what Hak was saying. Then he saw the mess on the floor. ‘The food . . . You dropped the bowl.’

  Hak wasn’t sure if he was more scared at thinking his father dead or at finding him alive but not the same father. Covele’s normally sharp tones were dulled, and he appeared uncertain of his surroundings. He helped his father sit up, wiping the blood from his lips. He saw now that a swelling was coming on his jaw. Someone had hit his father hard in the face.

  ‘Who did this, Father? Who hit you?’

  Covele ignored his questions, glancing fearfully around him, as though his attacker could be hiding somewhere in the bare, small room. His fear was so palpable that Hak, too, found himself looking around the chamber. It was a foolish act. There was nowhere anyone could hide. The boy tried to cheer his father up by asking about Oxford.

  ‘When do we start out for Oxford again, Father? The sooner we get the sky-stone back, the better things will be for us.’

  For the first time since Hak had entered the room and found his father sprawled on the bed, Covele’s voice had a touch of its usual harshness to it.

  ‘Forget the stone. I don’t want to hear you mention it again.’

  Puzzled at the sudden about turn in his father’s attitude, Hak rose and knelt on the floor, trying to salvage what he could of the potage. He still didn’t know what had gone on in his absence, but it had clearly frightened his father. From behind him, as if reading the boy’s mind, Covele finally answered his questions about who had beaten him.

  ‘It was the Elagabal.’

  Falconer was fascinated by the sky-stone. It was late into the night, but he still burned a precious candle down in order to examine its properties. It certainly wasn’t any ordinary stone, as he had already suspected. He was used to stones he could shatter with a mason’s hammer and chisel. Some he could cut into shards that showed marks inside them; others broke into pretty crystal shapes. He had tentatively tapped the sky-stone, only to get the ringing note he had first heard hitting it with his dagger. Then he had hit it with as heavy a blow as he could, and still it refused to break. Now he was sliding a magnetized piece of iron towards it.

  He was following instructions from a document that lay at his elbow. It was in his own hand, and he had copied it from a manuscript received by his old friend Roger Bacon only months ago. The original document had been drafted by a military engineer in the service of Charles of Anjou, King of Cyprus. The man was called Peter de Maricourt, and he had some interesting ideas about magnetism. Bacon, a Franciscan monk and experimental scientist, was so taken by the work of Peter that he called him magister experimentorum – the master of experiments – which from such a man as Bacon, devoted to practical science as he was, was praise indeed. Peter, sometimes called Peregrinus – the pilgrim – had shown that a piece of magnetite, or magnetized iron, had very particular properties, always aligning north–south. And when a magnet was broken in two, both pieces preserved the north and south polarities that were in the original piece. He believed these properties came from the celestial poles, and a magnetic needle should be able to guide a traveller on his journey by land or sea. Falconer could see that the idea had possibilities, but for the time being he was concentrating on the basic properties of a magnet.

  He had placed a magnetized piece of iron some distance away from the sky-stone on the table surface. And when nothing happened, he had moved it closer. And closer. Eventually, he found the point at which the small piece of magnetic iron slid of its own accord over the table surface and clung to the sky-stone. There were definitely large quantities of iron in the stone. It amused Falconer to watch the affinity of the two items, and he repeated the experiment over and over again.

  ‘Is that black magic, or what?’

  ‘Hello, Peter. No, it’s not magic, just the natural actions of the universe.’

  Peter Bullock, the constable of Oxford, eased his old bones down on to one of the two chairs in Falconer’s solar. He was feeling his age of late, and his bent back was aching more than usual. He had broken his night patrol at his friend’s house, hoping for some distraction. He sighed over his friend’s comments.

  ‘I am too old to understand the universe, William. I leave that to God. And you, of course.’

  Falconer laughed nervously. Only in each other’s company could they safely utter such profanities. But Falconer, on more than one occasion, had been brought before the chancellor of the university for expressing heretical ideas in the hearing of his students. It was only his celebrity in the academic world, and his wily disputational skills, that had saved him to date. But it was mere months since he had been on trial for his life, and he still felt somewhat that his luck had been sorely tested to its limit. He put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Perhaps we should not speak of God and myself in the same breath, Peter. And certainly not of black magic. Who knows what ears are pressed to the door?’

  Bullock waved his hand dismissively. ‘You are becoming too cautious, old friend. When you get to my age, you care not what people think. Or of the censure of some meddling priest.’

  He pointed to the black, strangely shaped stone on the table.

  ‘I still say that looks like magic to me.’ He licked his lips. ‘Do you think it could magic up some ale?’

  Sir Thomas Dalyson was getting concerned. Not only had he failed to find the sky-stone that Henry so desired, but the King had now fallen gravely ill. Someone more mired in superstition might have linked the two and seen cause and effect in it. Dalyson was more phlegmatic. The court had left Norwich after Henry had pronounced his death sentences. He had also burdened the town with a fine of three thousand marks of silver to pay for the rebuilding of the church the citizenry had burned down. Dalyson suspected his intemperance had something to do with not finding the sky-stone he so desired. But they had only got as far as the abbey of St Edmund’s when the King complained of pains in his left arm and a weakness in his limbs. The doctors had been summoned, and the arguments had begun. Master Roger Megrim had at first prevailed, partly because he had been educated at Cambridge. Having observed the sweating fever that racked the monarch’s body, the conclusion Megrim reached was an excess of the sanguine temper. This induced a warm, wet nature, and could be remedied with bloodletting.

  As the King lay on his bed, staring apprehensively at his little group of doctors, Megrim stepped forward with a small lancet in one hand and a bowl in the other. Henry mewled like a kitten. But he meekly allowed the physician to move his left arm and push up the sleeve of his nightgown, so that the inside of his elbow was revealed. Megrim plumped the flesh as if he were testing a fowl for succulence, then pressed the small blade into the royal skin. A bead of red blood appeared and began to trickle down Henry’s forearm. Megrim placed the bowl below the flow and could not help but pontificate on his skills.

  ‘Look how the blood flows. Food turns to blood in the liver, and flows along these vessels to the heart, where it percolates from left to right by means of heart spasms. I am using the phlebotomic method of revulsion – tapping the vessel at an extremity.’

  Henry stared with evident revulsion at his life’s blood flowing out of his body, and fainted.

  It had then been several days before Henry had improved enough for him to travel back to Westminster. By the time he got there however, he had to take to his bed again. Once more the arguments r
aged between his physicians as to the cause of his malady. Dalyson didn’t know what the uncertainty was. Henry was old, and he was dying. In the meantime, it fell on Sir Thomas to continue with the day-to-day business of managing the realm, a task he carried out with relish. Towards the end of October, he also had some news for Henry that he thought might rally the King.

  As he entered the King’s bedchamber, he observed the same group of quacks hovering in one corner of the chilly room. Master Roger Megrim stood inches taller than his fellow physicians, a stature that emphasized his precedence, at least in his own eyes. Megrim’s height made it seem as though he had been stretched on the rack. His limbs were unusually long, his chest concave and his stomach protuberant. He hunched over to disguise his height, and his beak of a nose poked forward like a bird’s bill. He was once again pontificating on the causes of his patient’s illnesses.

  Brother Mark, a Dominican monk of medium height and nondescript features, had adopted his usual pose of dark disdain and half turned away from the voluble Megrim. The third member of the group, however, was hanging on to Megrim’s every word, or apparently so. Dalyson knew that John Rixe, short, fat and of a jolly aspect, fawned on whoever was in favour with Henry. He would as easily denigrate Megrim to the Dominican once out of the Cambridge master’s hearing. And vice versa, when the opportunity arose. As a mere guild apothecary, Rixe depended on the approval of the educated clerics for his very existence. But that did not mean he would defer to them in private, except in so far as they would approve his pills and potions. The fourth person in the bedchamber was seated close by the King’s bed. He was already something of a mystery to Sir Thomas.

  Pierre de Montbrun, Bishop of Narbonne, had appeared at Westminster a few days before the ailing Henry had returned from his vengeful trip to Norwich. Wandering darkly around the palace until the King and his court returned, he had then refused to reveal his business to Dalyson, hinting that it was for the ears of the King only. It now seemed he had that ear exclusively. And Henry was engrossed in whatever it was that the foreign bishop was whispering. Dalyson sidled over towards the pair, hoping to hear what it might be that so interested the King. But as soon as his shadow was cast on the bed, the bishop stopped talking and turned to see who it was had disturbed him. Not for the first time, Dalyson almost reeled from the dark pools that were Narbonne’s eyes. They were the darkest of dark brown – almost black – and held no reflection in them. Dalyson was not sure if the lack of a spark of light was due to their depth or if they were like those of a fish on a slab. The eyes of something dead. And now they held the courtier in their cold gaze.