Pillars of Light

by Jane Johnson

  Zohra wanted to cry out, but it would shame her family. She backed away till the worktop dug into her spine, and clamped her thighs shut on his invading hand, but still he kept pushing at her, his tongue between his thick lips, his black, expressionless eyes watching her.

  “Get away from me, you filthy pig!” she hissed. “You are disgusting. Disgusting!” She squirmed and fought until sweat trickled down her ribs. Had he smelled the wine on her? Was that what made him think he could treat her like a whore?

  “Zohra?”

  Tariq’s hold on her relaxed and she sprang away from him, and there was Sorgan, her big, simple brother, framed by the doorway, half stooped beneath the lintel, his face creased in consternation. He looked from his sister to Cousin Tariq, whom he disliked, and his face darkened.

  Zohra stepped to his side. “Sorgan, perfect timing!” She squeezed his arm. “You can help me carry the food through.”

  Sorgan’s gaze swept the pastries, the piled flatbreads, the dishes of olives and hummus, the spicy salads and baba ghanoush, and puzzlement dissolved to a slow grin. He held his hands out for the tray.

  “Take it to the big salon,” Zohra told him, “and ask Baba and Cousin Rachid and the uncles to take their seats.” As Sorgan’s enormous fingers closed over the sides of the tray, she added, “Cousin Tariq is coming with you to make sure you don’t eat anything before you get there.”

  Sorgan’s gaze travelled up to her, hurt. Then he said, “Your dress is dirty.”

  Zohra looked down. Tariq’s hands had left sweaty imprints, unmistakable—on her breasts, at her crotch. Sweat stains were impossible to get out of silk, and her family could not afford to replace the kaftan. She glared at Tariq with loathing. “Even if you were the last man in Akka, I would never marry you.”

  “As if you will have any say in the matter, stupid girl.” Then he pushed past her, knocking her shoulder dismissively.

  She watched him stride down the corridor, a man complacent about his own position in the world, confident in his future. She thought of Nathanael, a hundred miles away in Jerusalem, gone without a word. And then she looked around the little kitchen, at all the luxuries and care brought together for this family gathering—at the chicken steeped in expensive saffron, at the towering steamer full of qidreh, all evidence of her mother’s determination to impress her husband’s family. She thought of Jamilla’s trembling adoration for her brother, of oblivious Malek, caught up in a war waged by men, and felt as if she had stumbled upon a deep and terrible truth.

  That when it came to the world of men—with their weapons of iron and their quest for knowledge and power and gold and pleasure—the feelings of a woman weighed as light as feathers.

  4

  John Savage, cell in Bath Gaol

  NOVEMBER 1187

  I woke to find myself in prison, my head throbbing from the after-effects of my falling fit and de Glanvill’s brutality.

  Where the rest of the troupe was, I had no idea: Quickfinger, Little Ned, Hammer and Saw, Red Will, Plaguey Mary. Thinking of them made me miss them all keenly. It had all been going so well, but now it looked as if we would all hang. I sat there, tears pricking my eyes, trying not to cry.

  “John?”

  For a moment I thought I was dreaming, but when I looked up there was the Moor, alive, outside the bars of my cell! Shooting to my feet, I reached through and we clasped hands. I could feel the whole of my heart in my eyes. Then I remembered where we were.

  “For God’s sake, they’ll hang you, too!”

  The Moor laughed silently, his half-moon eyes merry with some unspoken secret. “Don’t worry about me. I am invisible.” He touched my face, suddenly solemn. His fingers were flames on my skin. “Your poor nose, habibi,” he said softly. “I am sorry, John. I tried to warn you to come away sooner.”

  “I couldn’t hear you.” It was half true.

  He pushed through the bars a flat loaf and a piece of hard yellow cheese.

  “Is this the condemned man’s last meal?” It was all too good to be true: the Moor, here, free, his hands full of gifts. Between bites I said, “Listen, here’s what I’ve been thinking—” I swallowed, coughed as the morsels went down the wrong way, and finally continued. “See here?” I pointed an inch or so above my Adam’s apple. “Give the hangman his price and tell him to place the knot just there. If he does it right it’ll choke me, but it shouldn’t kill me, not right away, won’t break the neck. Saw it happen to a man hanged in Market Jew: they cut him down after half an hour, more dead than alive, wry-necked as a half-strangled chicken and making a wretched noise, but even so, he was alive. They had to give him a royal pardon. That’s what they do here, see, if you survive a hanging.” I was gabbling with bravado, but I couldn’t stop. “Just make sure the hangman knows what he’s doing, and give him only a bit of the money up front. Show him the rest, right? To encourage him. If you’re still my friend you’ll do this one thing for me. You are still my friend, aren’t you?”

  There was a long silence. Then he began to laugh, a rich sound that filled the cell and the corridor beyond, until I was sure the guards would come running. “Ah, habibi,” he said. “I love you as a brother. More than a brother. But sometimes I think you are quite mad.”

  I found myself laughing, too. The Moor had this power, a sort of glamour that touched everything. He radiated confidence and grace. It was the utter sincerity in that dark, solemn face that made him such a fine liar—the sort of liar you loved even as he beguiled you.

  Now he said, “Do you want to save your own life, John Savage?”

  Was the question a trick? I nodded.

  The Moor’s grin widened. “I have a proposition for you.”

  I had the feeling this might be worse than a hanging.

  In the dead of night I was removed from my cell, transported across town in a covered wagon and led into a luxurious room where three men waited.

  There were tapestries on every wall, brass sconces, rich carpets, many books—it was a veritable palace. I turned to one of the three men: it was the Moor, dressed head to toe in scarlet. Gave him a sarcastic nod. “Cardinal.” Then, to the man sitting at the table, “Bishop.” Reginald de Bohun, purple robes and sheep’s-wool hair. We had met before.

  The man standing by the fire had stout shoulders and a fleshy face. The red veins of his nose spoke of too much good wine (and indeed a large goblet was in his hand), but the mouth was full and loose and generous, made for smiling rather than scowling. He was not smiling now. He regarded me with an intent interest that made me uncomfortable.

  “My cousin, Savaric de Bohun, sometimes called Fitzgoldwin,” the bishop said briskly. He motioned for me to take a seat: a wooden stool. “This gentleman tells me you are prepared to participate in our plan.”

  I stared, incredulous, at the Moor, who looked back blandly.

  Savaric took a swig of wine. “So, John Savage, time to throw the dice.” His cousin tutted, but Savaric took no notice. “I apologize for the secrecy, but for now it’s necessary. Let me get straight to the nub of the matter. Jerusalem has fallen to the heathen horde. War will be declared upon the Saracen. The heads of state across the Holy Roman Empire must act to recover what is lost. Already Prince Richard has taken the cross, and others will follow him: an army will be assembled to go to war in the Holy Land. But this is no easy thing, nor cheap, either. Soldiers must be enlisted and trained; funds must be raised. Many men; lots of funds. War is a costly business.

  “Your … exploits between Cornwall and Glastonbury interest me.”

  I could feel the Moor watching me, as enigmatic as a cat.

  “That sort of artistry and invention is just what we need in a new venture I have in mind. Between us, we can save Jerusalem and our own souls.” Savaric strode forward. “We need you to create the spectacle to end all spectacles, and take it on the road.” As he said this he thumped his goblet on the table and flung his arms wide so that the gold chain he wore bounced, the vast ruby hanging
from it flashing in the candlelight.

  “What manner of spectacle?” I asked. “And to what end, exactly?”

  “Negotium crucis, the business of the cross,” the bishop said. “Like Pope Urban’s tour in the last century. A fundraising drive for the holy cause.” His voice dropped. “I do not greatly approve of the means, but the end is undeniably just.”

  Savaric’s eyes shone. “We will carry the relics of the great King Arthur before us, symbolic of the struggle between the goodness of Christendom and the wicked heathen. With your help, word will spread. We will set up a stage in every major town. My cousin and I will preach and conduct mass. You and your players will demonstrate with action what the common folk cannot comprehend in words. We shall be trumpeted by angels, hymned by choirs, welcomed by all, and we shall leave laden with funds for the king’s war effort and the parole of thousands to take the cross.” With his hands planted on the table, he added, in a false-whisper, “And, of course, where crowds gather, there is always the potential for … shall we say … a little extra trade?”

  I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. “Thievery?” The bishop, at least, had the grace to look shame-faced, though maybe that was just a trick of the candlelight.

  “A little light-fingered byplay wouldn’t be frowned on. You and your troupe will, in addition, be paid a generous stipend for your work.”

  The Moor detached himself from the wall. “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a share of the takings.” He grinned, wolfish. “A fraction, agreed between us.” He smoothed out a sheet of vellum on the table, picked up a quill, rattled it in the inkpot on the desk and sketched a swift mathematical working. “If x represents the total sum of money taken on the day in offerings, donations, tithing … and other means, and y is the expense incurred in laying on the show—the cost of travel, servants, accommodation, repast, materials, and other sundries …”

  As they haggled, my mind drifted. This morning I had been calculating my chances of surviving a hanging; now I was being offered a part in an ecclesiastical fraud inspired by the very fakery for which I’d been arrested. It was hard to get my head around.

  “Stop!” I said abruptly, and the room fell silent. “I haven’t yet said I’ll do it.”

  They all stared at me. A walking dead man throwing away his only chance of survival?

  “This venture. It’s big, complicated, expensive … and dangerous. Why would you entrust such a thing to people like us?”

  Bishop Reginald leaned forward. “We need your expertise—”

  “The expertise of liars and thieves?” I laughed. “I’d have thought you had plenty of that on tap. What is religion, when all is said and done, but smoke and tricks?”

  The bishop looked uncomfortable. “What we do, we do for the greater good of the Church.”

  “So you would connive with one of the very Saracens against whom you would take up arms?”

  The Moor raised an eyebrow, then said, “I’ve been called many things in my time: Arab, Berber or ‘barbari,’ as the Romans termed it, and now, incorrectly, a Saracen. I am just a man, John, like any other. This is a good offer. Our paths run parallel for a time at least. We lose nothing by doing this, and could gain much.”

  I made a show of mulling it over, but really, what choice did I have? “All right, then,” I said. “I’ll be a part of your mumming-show.”

  The bones of the accord were agreed to; I left the details to the Moor and applied myself to the roast chicken that was brought to me from the kitchens. Then I pulled my stool up to the fire, took off my boots, wriggled my toes and allowed a little bliss to steal over me.

  I must have dozed, for suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder and someone was saying, “Come along, John. Time to go back now.”

  Groggy with sleep and wine, I groaned. “Back?”

  “To your cell, as if you had never been away.”

  “I’m not going back—”

  “Habibi, it’s necessary.”

  The bishop smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “I’m very much afraid, Master Savage, that you will still have to undergo the trial.” As I began to shout, he held his hand up. “Geoffrey de Glanvill and his brother are pressing for a death sentence for the entire troupe. We cannot be seen to associate our enterprise with felons. You must prove your innocence.”

  I looked to the Moor, but he wore his most inscrutable expression. “It’s true, John. You must go back and face a trial. Declare yourself the headman of the group and say that you stand for all of them, guilty or innocent.”

  Savaric’s face glowed in the mutable light of the candles. “Trial by ordeal. You’ll cite your right to claim it under the 1166 Assize of Clarendon, which states that anyone on the oath of the jury accused or notoriously suspected of robbery, theft or receiving may be put to the ordeal. Then you’ll undertake their test and walk away a free man, as will the rest of your troupe. An innocent man, whose fame precedes him. The best possible example to both believers and unbelievers. We have it all worked out, don’t we?”

  The Moor turned his shining half-moon eyes upon me. “Trust me, habibi. I have a plan.”

  5

  JANUARY 1188

  On the day after Twelfth Night I found myself on trial at the Bath Assizes.

  The witnesses shuffled past, a good-sized crowd, so keen to see me hang that many had travelled all the way from Glastonbury: burghers and millers, butchers and pardoners; a merchant in Flemish red and his wife, with a pearl necklace making deep, round indentations in her fat white neck; the blind man, with another guiding him—the wound on his forehead had almost healed, though the bruise still showed yellow.

  The business of the court was tedious and the judge’s clerk had a droning voice that stopped me from paying attention to his words. At last it was my turn to speak.

  “I am an innocent man!” I lied. “And I claim my right to trial by …” trying to recall the exact words, “ordeal. I cite my right to trial by ordeal under the 1166 Assize of Clarendon.”

  At once there was furious muttering. Geoffrey de Glanvill thumped the table, and the ring that broke my nose winked in the light. “Outrageous!” he roared. “How dare you try to escape your just punishment by such lawyer’s tricks! You are a thief, a liar and a heathen, and I shall see you swing!”

  The assize judge, having conferred with his clerk and the sheriff, leaned across to whisper into de Glanvill’s ear and there followed a furious exchange of whispers. Then de Glanvill sat back.

  “John Savage,” the judge announced, “you are entitled to trial by ordeal in answer to the charges laid against you.” He looked at de Glanville. “The baron has requested that the test be the ordeal of oil.”

  Oil? My stomach turned over. Boiling oil burns down to the bone. I had heard of murderers made to stand on burning coals until their feet were blackened ruins. The Moor had once told of an ordeal practised by the desert peoples: “A ladle is heated in the fire and then laid upon the tongue of the accused. If the man is lying, the tongue will shrivel and he will not lie again. The Bedu call this rite ‘the true light of God.’ ”

  “Christ on an ass!” I had blasphemed. “That’s barbaric.”

  The judge was speaking again. “… However, the assize decrees that the ordeal for the crimes of which you are accused should be the ordeal by water.”

  Water was surely better than oil, wasn’t it? What was the Moor’s plan? Terror flooded in again. My knees buckled and I had to be caught by the guard. I hardly registered the moment when the officials returned with the pitcher of boiling water, but suddenly there was a lot of steam in the air, and I thought, It’s January and very cold—maybe with every moment that passes the water will cool and be less likely to do me damage. Then another man pushed through the crowd and set a brazier full of glowing red coals beneath the pitcher.

  The mechanics of the trial were explained to the audience. The correct temperature of the water would be tested by lowering an egg into the liquid:
if the egg cooked, then the defendant’s right arm would be plunged into the vessel and held there for the duration of the Lord’s Prayer. If his arm scalded—my arm! a voice in my head cried—and the flesh sloughed away from the bone—my flesh, my bone!—then he was clearly guilty in the eyes of the Almighty and he would have his right foot severed and be hanged forthwith. But if at the end of the prayer the prisoner revealed to the world an unscathed limb, then not only would all charges against him be dropped, but any sin he might have committed in his time on this earth would be forgiven.

  How I wished I had stayed on the Mount and taken my beatings like a dutiful oblate.

  The egg was dropped into the pitcher. Time passed. It felt like years. I began to think about how much I liked my right arm. It had fed me and defended me. Given me enough pleasure to damn me for lustfulness. It had swept the refectory and drawn a hundred likenesses and wiped my arse. It had been very useful, my arm. I was quite attached to it.

  A bead of sweat ran down my back, the Devil’s finger tracing down my spine.

  The egg came out. Its shell was cracked. The white was boiled hard.

  “John Savage,” the judge intoned, “you are accused of running a criminal gang, of larceny and deception. Do you maintain your claim of innocence of these charges and do you stand for …” He looked at the parchment the clerk handed him, read out the names of the troupe one by one: William of Worcester, Michael and Saul Dyer, Edward Little, Enoch Pilchard, Mary White. My befuddled brain had trouble making sense of the proper names of the members of our troupe. My mouth was so dry I could not find the words. I nodded.

  “And will you now prove your word with your deeds, in the view of God Almighty and all people here gathered, and undertake this ordeal?”