When he opened the door, a hand came through throwing him back into the room, and before he could get a knee up into a groin or belly, he found himself rolled on his stomach, his eyes to the floor and tape viciously pulled around his mouth so he could not speak.
He felt his arm was breaking, as he was forced to his feet, using his head as a balance to get up. His body was slammed down into a chair, and he couldn’t believe he was being thrown around like this by someone so much lighter.
He felt his shirt cut open very carefully and very precisely. He heard the explanation of why this was being done, also softly. But the explanation explained nothing. This had no purpose. Nothing had purpose.
Avril felt the prick of the knife on his chest. Certainly it wouldn’t go farther; certainly the lesson had been learned; certainly the tape would come off and they would talk again as they had talked before.
Avril felt a horizontal cut across his chest, no wider than a stick of gum. He felt warmth dribble down his stomach. It was his own blood. All right, he knew. He understood. He didn’t need more demonstrating. Take off the tape and he would say so. He would do anything, tell anything, explain anything, promise anything. Make the pain stop and Avril Gotbaum was his. Gotbaum yelled it into the tape and his own voice slammed back into his throat.
Another cut came, vertical, down from the horizontal, and then another cut, making the top of a square on Avril’s chest, and while that hurt, it was nothing compared to when the man took the leaf of skin between his fingers, and pulled down sharply.
KINGDOM OF TOLEDO, 1059
It had yet to be polished, but it was as long as a forefinger and as wide as a peasant’s thumb and would have made an unfortunate sixth if the merchant were foolish enough to have it polished now in the Christian city of Toledo, when, with just a little bit of discreet care, he could have the diamond worked in a Muslim city and then do it only when he had one more to make seven. It looked like hardened mud, but when a fine craftsman took it to wheel and cloth it would hold purity and clarity as no other stone. It was the water stone, the diamond, the stone of wisdom, which Emmanuel did not believe. He felt no smarter for owning six instead of five, and certainly his father became no less wise when he gave Emmanuel three.
People believed these things about stones, the way they believed in candles and omens, because life was just too powerful and frightening without them. He had known at an early age that the great and terrifying things of life were always beyond the absolute control of man. What one did was to perceive them as best as one could and then make what adjustments one could, and that was the most of it. Knowing this had made Emmanuel, a Jew, at twenty-six, advisor to His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Toledo, an exalted post he viewed with more caution than pride. To be a Jew meant one had enemies. To be the court Jew meant one had more enemies, even among some Jews. But even to be a human being meant one had enemies, so one might as well ride a good horse through the trials of life as trudge behind it like a slave.
This day he could not bargain as hard for the rough diamond because he was needed at the palace. They had captured a Muslim officer from Cordoba and were prepared to burn him and sell off his woman for a slave, but before they did so, they wanted to torture information from him. They had people who could work iron and tongs, but there was no one like Emmanuel for talking to Muslims. And this after all was not only a Muslim officer but the commander of the walls of Cordoba. Perhaps Emmanuel could glean the secrets of the walls and make possible the capture of the richest prize in the Iberian peninsula.
The knight who had captured the officer, a crude man of more muscle and anger than judgment, was eager to do the burning.
“And did you ask him what he was doing away from the walls of Cordoba?”
“He had committed a crime. He had the arrogance to ask to speak to the king. I told him the king did not speak to Muslims, much less criminals. I have the right to burn him myself. He is my capture.”
Emmanuel found the Muslim officer sitting proudly on a crude wooden stool in a coarse stone room with a heavy lock. A dark-skinned young woman sat beside him on the floor, covering her face with her hands. The officer’s clothes were as fine as Emmanuel’s, much finer than the Spanish knight’s, yet his hands showed they were familiar with the sword. Emmanuel’s hands were pale with delicate blue veins, hands that had touched neither sword nor plow. The Muslim had to know what was in store for him, yet he showed no fear.
At the officer’s feet was an uneaten meal and a flagon of untouched wine. There were dark clotted blood marks on his forehead where he had been struck.
“Would your woman like chador?” asked Emmanuel in Arabic.
The Muslim, a fine-featured man with elegant bearing and an obvious sense of himself, nodded.
“Would you like food you can eat and drink that is not proscribed?” asked Emmanuel.
“For my woman, thank you.”
“What makes you leave Cordoba?” said Emmanuel.
“I have come to speak to your king, not his servants.”
“I am afraid you must speak to me first,” said Emmanuel.
“How does your king rule without speaking to people?” asked the Muslim. Emmanuel smiled. It was an extremely logical question. Unfortunately, this was not Cordoba, where the Hajib, or chamberlain, held open court like the desert Arabs where anyone could bring a matter of dispute before him. Of Cordoba Emmanuel knew that it was so wealthy even streets were lit at night, and its grand mosque was such a thing of awesome beauty and size it could both swallow and shame the finest churches in all the Christian kingdoms. And there was something else about Cordoba the merchant Emmanuel knew from his trading. The Hajib, off on a pilgrimage to Mecca, was due back shortly. He had landed at Cadiz, and already his stately entourage was at Alhama. And the woman at the officer’s side was quite beautiful and young.
“Our king speaks through people, even Jews,” said Emmanuel.
“Don’t they burn Jews?”
“And Muslims, and on occasion Christians,” said Emmanuel. “They are going to burn you.”
“That is stupid,” said the officer without fear, but his woman gasped.
“Granted, but stupidity has never been an affliction dreaded by rulers. Wise or stupid, His Majesty will not speak to you, but will speak to me. Can you give me something to tell him?”
“I could, but your knight who felt that blows were a way to talk to people took a gift I had brought for your king.”
“Ah. I felt he was a bit quick for burning even for so brave a knight.”
“It is what we call ‘lesson.’ It was the property of the Muslims of Cordoba.”
“What does it look like?”
“It is a vessel covered with silver and has a Christian saint in a stone of the sea on it.”
“And he took it from you?”
“After he beat me, yes. One of his blows fell on it, and he wanted to see what hurt his hand.”
The chador arrived, and Emmanuel made sure the food that came was from his own kitchen, one in which pork had never been cooked. To the Toledan knight, Emmanuel was quite cautious and discreet. The last thing he would do would be to accuse him of stealing. So he said, “His Majesty wishes to thank you for capturing the silver vessel for him.”
“It’s my prize by right of capture,” said the knight.
“And so the king will adjudicate once he sees it,” said Emmanuel.
“You’re not going to believe the word of a Muslim, are you?”
“I am just the king’s servant,” said Emmanuel, “but I will most assuredly stress how you gave it to me immediately for the king’s judgment.”
“It is a powerful stone and goodly silver, Jew. See that it gets to Our Lord,” said the knight.
It was a funny bowl, in design one Emmanuel had never seen, and he had seen old vessels from Rome and Greece, even from Africa, and from the wild Hunnish nations to the northeast. It was definitely not an Arab bowl. It lacked the grace and sophistication o
f their craftsmen.
It was a lump of clay with a dark splotch of lacquer at the bottom, encased in silver, with a large engraved sapphire set into it. He couldn’t imagine why the Arabs would call it a lesson. More importantly, he couldn’t imagine why the commander of the walls of Cordoba, which had so much treasure, would take this alone.
His woman was eating, but the officer, whose name, like so many Muslims, was Muhammed, still refused to eat, even though Emmanuel had made sure they ate off silver. His silver. With Muhammed’s permission, he asked if he could move the woman to another room so they could talk more freely.
“I would be most appreciative of that,” said Muhammed.
And when it was done, when the woman, whose name was Jihan, had been assured she would not be disrobed or raped, Emmanuel sat down on a crude wooden chair across from the stone bench of this cell of a room, and asked, “So what brings you to us barbarians, Muhammed?”
Muhammed nodded to the strange bowl.
“This brings you?” Emmanuel held up the bowl before Muhammed’s eyes.
“It is a gift for your king. It is a Christian treasure.”
Emmanuel turned the bowl in his hands. “I am sorry to say I think not,” he said.
“But that is a Christian saint in the blue stone. Your king worships such images.”
“Not this,” said Emmanuel.
“You lie,” said Muhammed.
“What for?” asked Emmanuel.
“That is a great Christian treasure. We captured it from your masters generations back. We know that. We use it to show what Christians worship.”
“Not this,” said Emmanuel.
“How could you know such a thing?” asked Muhammed, and Emmanuel detected the first loss of composure. Muhammed’s voice rattled with anger, and his black eyes seemed to steam contempt. Obviously Muhammed had been counting on a grand reception for this thing.
“See this spear with the three prongs,” said Emanuel. “This is the pagan god of the sea, Neptune for the Romans or Poseidon for the Greeks, but nothing for the Christians.”
“It is a Christian thing. We know it. That is the bowl Christ used last.”
“At the Last Supper?”
“I think. I don’t know Christian things. They said last. A most valuable relic. More than the skull of Peter. Christ drank from it, and it was important in your ceremonies. Omar himself captured it when he took Jerusalem.”
“Omar the Great?”
“The one.”
Now Emmanuel’s voice cracked, and his eyes widened.
“Why did you call it the lesson?”
“Because it proved how foolish Christianity was in worshiping the drinking utensils of a prophet instead of Allah, Himself. That was the lesson, and why we kept it.”
“Never repeat that to anyone, or what this is. I may be able to save your life, as well as my own. It may gladden your heart, but that knight who struck you will probably die.”
“It is a great relic then?”
“If I told you, you would have to die. Do you understand that, Muhammed?”
“It makes no sense,” said Muhammed.
“Never again, Arab, speak to me of sense and religion.”
Emmanuel, the Jew, did not return for many hours. And Muhammed did not know how close to death he had come in that time. Emmanuel begged for an immediate private meeting with the king at any cost, and before he spoke, he set the bowl before His Majesty and said quite simply, in a tone belying his tension, that there was good evidence that this might be the chalice of all chalices, the cup of the last covenant of Christ, the Holy Grail. And then he said nothing else.
He did not have to say they now had in their possession the most valuable relic in all Christendom, that for which songs were written among the Franks and the Germans and the Britons.
More valuable than pieces of the true cross, of which His Majesty had three. More valuable than the straw from the manger of Christ, which His Majesty kept in an alabaster box, more powerful than the finger of St. Paul, enshrined in the great cathedral. This was the cup of the new covenant, that which said on the seder night of the Last Supper that there would be a new religion, a new faith coming from the old. This was what true Christian knights sought, and what everyone knew could conquer the world once it was found.
The king held it in his hands and turned it around several times.
“It is Christianity itself,” said the king.
“No, that it is not, Your Majesty, but if it is what it might be, then it is the Grail itself.”
“And we should build a great cathedral for it, greater than the mosque in Cordoba. We will show our power.”
“And what about the power of Cordoba?” asked Emmanuel. He knew this was dangerous ground, even though the king had agreed to see him in his most private of rooms, the one without windows and with only one door. The walls were bare but for a wood crucifix, and only the inlaid ivory table might distinguish this from the cell in which the Muslim waited.
“It will die; it will become like Toledo is now, a Christian city. It will be ours,” said the king.
But Emmanuel pointed out to His Majesty that Cordoba had lost the Grail, that its power was not enough to keep it. Neither its walls nor its magnificent warriors could keep this relic, and Cordoba certainly was much more powerful than Toledo or many Toledos.
“Be straight, Jew,” said His Majesty.
“If it is the Grail, and if it has these powers bestowed on its owner, certainly they are not the powers to be free of theft.”
“You have made that clear even to your lord,” said His Majesty.
Emmanuel smiled. The king could be astute.
“This was only stolen because this Muslim thought that it was the Grail and that it would be valuable to any Christian king. Who would not trade a ship of gold for this, and if they were to trade a ship of gold, why not pay a quarter-ship of gold for the army to take it?”
“You are saying we are not strong enough to hold it now.”
“Not against those who would want it, Your Majesty.”
“I will not give it up.”
“Of course not. If it has the powers it is supposed to have, there will be a day you can, if you wish, display it in any one of your many cities. Of course, great power did not help Cordoba keep it.”
“Out with it now,” said His Majesty, pointing a finger to Emmanuel, the Jew who dressed like a grand señor, and had access to this highest council, whom men talked about behind his back, and whose very brilliance stirred jealousy in the base minds of those who could not understand that brilliance.
“It should be hidden not in some walled chamber that can be broken into, or behind some locked door to which some thief may manufacture a key, or even behind guards whose loyalty just once in a hundred years has to waver. But put it there before the people with a reason to protect it heavily but not so much a reason that the most powerful would try to steal it.”
“How?”
“A gold chalice. You have a right to protect a gold chalice with a jewel, the king’s chalice, for the king’s mass. These are not left on street corners, but rather quite reasonably most protected.”
“And we silence the Muslim who brought it. We must. It is not an unfairness I like, but it is my crown and it is my kingdom, and he knows what we have. And damn you, Jew. He’s a Muslim.”
Emmanuel knew the king meant an execution, and to argue for justice, a cause the king often respected, would be useless in a matter of survival. For what justice was there ever in war, when the town that lost gave up its women for rape, its children for slavery, and all fighting men for death. And the king did delight in his wars as did all the Christian kings of the Iberian peninsula. But Emmanuel, who knew that to kill a Muslim would not be that far a step from killing a Jew, even the court Jew, had expected this, and said: “Our Muslim already knows to keep his tongue. His life depends on it. It is the tongues that will ask why we kill him and his woman that worry me. They will ask, wa
s he the one who brought the gift? And was it not shortly thereafter that His Majesty had himself made a large gold chalice?”
“He brought a woman?”
“It is undoubtedly why he left Cordoba. The Hajib is returning soon, and the Hajib, an old man, had many young women in his harem. I would venture this one was one of his. The Muslim is handsome, the woman is beautiful, and the Hajib is coming home.”
“Did he say that?”
“Need we ask?” said Emmanuel, and the king laughed. Of course, there was the problem of the knight who knew about a bowl and had tried to keep it for himself. That knight would be the only one whose voice could, unfortunately, not be trusted.
“Jew, you have me killing my good Christian knights and letting Muslims live content in my kingdom.”
“Not me, Your Majesty, but your wisdom,” said Emmanuel, who did not need to mention he had to keep his own tongue about the Grail because the first whisper of it in the streets of Toledo would mean his head.
Emmanuel was right about the Muslim’s motives. But he was not right in his estimate of the peculiarity of the relic, that it was just another physical thing men put foolish hope in. He watched with horror as, in the following year, Christian kings found the weaknesses in Muslim defenses and took Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, Aragon, and Saragossa, and in every city, the people were given a choice: accept Christ or die.
And Emmanuel, the Jew, knew that if they did this to the Muslims, certainly there would be the day they would do this to the Jews. He told his son the great secret of the king’s chalice. And that son told his son, and on the day Seville itself fell to the Christians, there were the first rumblings of what would be the Inquisition. It was a day in which the great family Cota, descendants of Emmanuel of Toledo, celebrated. For they had purchased in this city, now under the Spanish king, the seventh diamond now polished clear, said to hold all the wisdom in the world, although the great Maimonides had proven along with other rabbis that this was foolishness.
But the very fact that he and others had mentioned the Seven Eyes of Seville made them even more fashionable to own. And if there was one thing the family Cota was in this new and powerful Spanish Empire, it was fashionable.
Quest Page 26
