“Modeh ani l’fanecha Melech chai v’kayam, she’heh’chezarta bi nishmati b’chemia. Raba emuna’techa.” I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me, with compassion. Abundant is Your faithfulness. Isaac silently recited the prayer on waking. The closest thing to speaking God’s name out loud is breathing, Reb David had told him. Isaac was not always grateful for his life each day. Breathing did not always feel like prayer. Right now it felt like a burden, but a burden borne becomes a blessing, according to the rabbi’s teachings. No better time to remind himself of that than lying on a cart beside a corpse.
He grimaced at the ironic turn of his thoughts, and opened his eyes.
Luc had half-turned on the seat and was looking down at him. “I thought you were asleep.”
“You mistake me for my friend here. It happens.”
Luc blinked, not expecting humor from Isaac, but Tomas gave a hearty laugh.
It was not easy to dislike someone who appreciated your humor. The crusader’s red cross was not visible on the back of Tomas’s white tunic; Isaac had to remind himself that it was there on the front, still.
It was easier to remember when they faced him around the campfire they had built to cook their evening meal when they stopped beside the road for the night. Tomas had killed two rabbits and Luc had found some wild greens and an onion, and three carrots Isaac suspected had come from the innkeeper’s garden that morning. The vegetables simmered in a pot of water from a nearby stream while the rabbits sizzled on a spit over the fire. Isaac sat across from the crusaders. The dancing flames lit up the bright red crosses against the white backgrounds of their tunics. The smell of blood and ripped-open bodies on the night of the raid came back to him, overwhelming the savory scents of their evening meal. He looked away into the darkening woods, trying to dispel the memory. He must eat to keep up his strength. He thought of Reb David’s words and breathed in deeply—receive the gift of life—and out slowly—return the gift with a well-lived life. When he looked back Philippe and Tomas were only men. Perhaps they had done wicked things; perhaps not. He was not their judge. He himself was not without blame.
“How long have you been away on crusade?” Luc asked Philippe, licking the fat from his fingers after finishing his share of the rabbits.
Philippe dug his knife into the pot and speared a carrot. “Five years now,” he said.
“A long time. You must be eager to get home. Do you have a family waiting for you?”
“My mother and father, I hope. And a sister who is probably married with a child already. She will have sixteen years by now.”
“No family of your own? A wife you long to see?”
Philippe grinned. “There is a girl waiting. I will marry her when I get home.”
Luc laughed. “Are you so sure the maid will be waiting after five years?”
“If she is not a maid she will be a widow soon enough. Either way I will have her. I told her as much when I left.” Philippe laughed. After a moment Luc joined in, but Isaac looked into the big man’s eyes and suppressed a shiver.
“You have made your fortune in the Holy Land, then, if you are returning home to marry.”
Philippe sobered. He eyed Luc for a moment. “Perhaps,” he said.
Luc kept his smile and turned at once to the other crusader. “And you, Tomas. Is there a girl waiting for you?”
Tomas did not smile as he shook his head.
“No girl, or one who would not wait?” Luc pressed, still grinning.
Tomas shrugged and shook his head again.
Luc gave up and turned to Isaac. “And you, friend Jean, do you have a girl waiting for you somewhere?”
Isaac smiled easily. “It is as they say: a sailor has a girl in every port.”
Luc and Philippe laughed. Tomas, Isaac noted, did not laugh but gave him a companionable look. He would have liked this man in other circumstances.
“But there must be someone special waiting for you in Saint-Gilles,” Luc pressed.
Isaac groaned inwardly. The man would not let go. He had begun to wonder if there was not something behind Luc’s constant banter. “If there were, she would be sorely disappointed on seeing me,” he said, maintaining his smile with difficulty. “But there is no one. I have been away a long time.”
“More than four years?”
“More years than I can remember. I left as a boy.” He had hoped to throw Luc off the trail, but realized he had only made himself mysterious. Before Luc could ask more questions, he quickly invented a past for Jean. “I went to sea as a youth. My parents died while I was on the seas.” He raised his hands a little, palms up: no story here.
“Then why are you going back now?”
“It is a place to start.” He pointed disparagingly to his leg. “Perhaps someone will remember my father and give me a job.”
“Come man, enough questions for others,” Philippe broke in. “What do you expect when you get home?”
“I expect a fine welcome,” Luc said. “My parents will have heard of the shipwreck and be afraid for my life.” He grinned jovially at Philippe, but Isaac sensed a tension in him. Had he not told Isaac a day ago that his father would be angry at the lost fortune?
“What? You have not written them to say you are well and on your way home?”
“They will find out soon enough, and be all the happier for their worry,” Luc replied.
Philippe nodded. He speared the last chunk of carrot and chewed it slowly. Tomas, Isaac noted, was watching Luc with a speculative expression. As soon as Luc looked his way it disappeared.
“Next time, kill three rabbits,” Philippe grumbled, looking gloomily into the empty pot.
Tomas reached for his pack and rummaged in it until he pulled out a small wooden flute, roughly carved. He put it to his lips and began to play, a simple tune but merry. There was something familiar about it, and yet Isaac could not place it; as though Tomas had taught himself to play a song he knew by memory and not got it quite right. A man who could not speak so he taught himself to make music, Isaac thought.
The little flute filled the night with a cheerful melody. After two more tunes they were all content to stretch out on the ground beside the dying embers of the fire, leaving Tomas to take first watch while they drifted off to sleep on his quiet tunes.
***
By their third day of travel, the road was becoming busier. They were nearing Naples, the largest city in the Kingdom of Sicily, and had to share the road with caravans of merchants bringing their goods to the Neapolitan market. It was mid-afternoon, these were latecomers, traveling from farther away for the afternoon market. Isaac could only imagine how crowded the road must have been at dawn.
Philippe appeared more and more anxious as the crowd around them grew. He rode close to the wagon with one hand on the hilt of his sword as if thieves would dare jump out of the woods with all these people around.
“We should look for an inn as soon as we pass through the city,” he muttered.
“What? You don’t mean for us to stop and have a look at Naples?” Luc protested.
“We are not travelling at leisure,” Philippe snapped. “I must get my Lord’s body home. And the inns within the city will already be full.”
“Well, I want to see a bit of the city. What about you, friend Jean?”
“I told you, we ride straight through,” Philippe repeated.
“I am sure you will both be well paid for bringing your Lord’s body home to his kin. But we are under no such obligation. Perhaps we will find a merchant willing to have us share his wagon in return for helping him to protect it, when we are ready to leave.”
A clever man, Luc, for all his youth. Isaac kept his expression neutral and watched to see how this would play out.
Philippe glared at Luc, but he was also keeping an eye on the press of people around him. “I will pay you two silver coins when we get safely to Marseilles.”
“Each,” Luc said, off
ering his cheerful smile. “And you pay for our lodging and meals along the way.”
“You expect a lot. You are neither of you fighters, nor even armed, and that one there is a cripple.”
“He handles his staff well, I have seen him fight with it. And I am young and strong. I know how to use a sword. If you have a spare one I will show you. Mine was lost in the shipwreck. Besides, you would have to pay much more for trained soldiers, and you would have to take the time to find some who were willing to go to France with you.”
Luc had not seen him fight. Was anything else he claimed true? If Isaac spoke up now he could be rid of these crusaders. But would he find someone else to travel to France with? At first his brother had only been an excuse he gave himself to succumb to this terrible need that drew him back to France, but now he had spent some time with the idea and he had decided he would like to learn if his brother was still alive. And if they paid his way there... He had only four coins sewn into his hem now, he had had to use one at the inn in Vibo Valentia.
“You are a good fighter, are you? Very well,” Philippe said. “When we stop at an inn, you will fight with me. Then I will pay you what I think you are worth.”
“You are a battle-tested chevalier,” Luc pointed out. “I fight well enough to defend your horses and cart from thieves.”
“We shall see.”
Tomas glanced back at Isaac. He could not tell whether it was a pitying look or an encouraging one. He had not yet decided whether to take up the challenge, so he met the look without a response. Tomas was a crusader; it was becoming difficult to remember that.
Philippe reined his horse around. “I will ride ahead to find an inn with room for us.”
“Will you fight?” Luc asked as soon as Philippe was gone.
“You are the one who set that up.”
“But I did not mean... I did not ask for much, a little food and cheap lodging. Half the time we sleep by the road. And a few coins...”
“Have you ever held a sword?”
Luc flushed. “Of course I have!”
Isaac saw Tomas’s back shaking on the seat in front of him. If the situation had not involved him as well, he would have been hard pressed not to laugh too. “Stop the cart, Tomas,” he said. “And lend us your sword.”
Tomas chuckled out loud this time, but he obligingly pulled the wagon over to the side of the road. Isaac let himself down off the back of the wagon. Luc was on the ground already, holding Tomas’s sword in his right hand. It was a hefty weapon, built for a large man, and Luc was not built large. Isaac could see the strain in his arm which he tried to hide.
“Hold it with both hands,” he suggested. Better the man have control of the blade than look cowed by it. “You are accustomed to a smaller sword, no doubt. This one is meant to be swung from the back of a warhorse, is it not, Tomas?”
Tomas nodded and Luc’s face eased. He wrapped his left hand over the right, gripping the hilt of the sword with both hands.
“Stand with your legs farther apart. Good. Now swing it a few times, get the feel of it.” Luc swung it back and forth, following Isaac’s instructions to raise it higher before the swing and lower it while he swung, driving the sword to greater speed.
The sweat was standing out on Luc’s forehead when Isaac raised his staff. “Gently, now, man. I do not want you whittling my good staff down to a fire spit.”
Luc laughed. They feinted and parried a few times as Luc got the feel of the weapon. When they were both sweating and Luc’s arms shook with weariness, Isaac called a halt. “You will do alright,” he told Luc as he took the sword and handed it back to Tomas. Tomas had a glint in his eyes as he accepted it, as though they shared a joke. Isaac did not return the look, simply thanked him for the use of his sword.
Luc climbed up onto the seat cheerfully. He would be far from “all right” but no use undermining his confidence now that he had committed to fighting Philippe. Isaac would try to talk Philippe into using his staff as though Luc was a thief attacking them rather than a chevalier, who would never attack good Christians on the road. Luc might live to walk away from the contest if Philippe agreed. Of course, Philippe might not be as much of a fighter as he claimed. Having the brawn and the weaponry was not the same as knowing how to put them to good use. There were many ways to survive the battlefield and not all of them proved a man could fight.
They were back on the road only a short while before they saw Philippe riding back to them. “There is a road up ahead a short ways, forks off from the main road, that leads to a small inn. We will sleep there and leave first thing in the morning. I am told the road passes the edge of Naples. We will not be delayed by traffic to and from the market on it. Follow me.”
The inn, when they came to it, had a dilapidated, unkempt look to it. The roof sagged and there was only one window in front; it would be dark and gloomy inside. An unpleasant odor of sour ale and rotting sewage hung about it. The stable was worse, smelling of animal dung and moldy straw left too long in the stalls. There were cracks in the walls and it looked like it might collapse at any time. Isaac did not see any stable boys about tending to the livestock and was surprised Philippe wanted to leave his carriage with his precious corpse unguarded in such a dilapidated structure, until he learned they were all going to sleep there.
“You take us to an inn and make us sleep in the stable?” Luc cried.
“Are you better than our Savior?” Philippe demanded. Apparently they were when the barn was strong and guarded for them, Isaac mused, but Luc had no ready answer. At least the landlord gave them two blankets each; one to keep them warm and the other to lay over the filthy straw. Not that the blankets appeared that much cleaner.
Philippe left Isaac and Luc to unharness the horses and rub them down, as well as his war horse, while he and Tomas went in to take their meal. As soon as they were gone, Luc left Isaac with the horses and looked around the stable. He came back with an iron pick for cleaning stones out of horse’s hooves.
“Have you been wondering,” he said, watching Isaac rub down the first horse, “why that corpse does not stink? We have been travelling four days, and it must have taken them several days before that to leave Acre and get to Vibo Valentia where we met them.”
“It is none of our business,” Isaac said, continuing to work on the horse. It snorted softly, enjoying its rub as it ate the oats he had given it.
“So you have noticed. And I say it is our business. We should know what we are guarding.”
“I have not promised to guard anything.”
“Why did you practice fighting then?”
“You practiced fighting.” Isaac looked at Luc, whose eyebrows were lowered in a puzzled frown. He sighed. “I thank you, Luc, for running off the thieves who were beating me. I thank you for the concern that made you slow your pace to walk with me, and find a way we could ride for part of our journey. But it may be time for us to part now.”
“Are you afraid?” Luc sounded surprised rather than scornful.
“I am not a fighting man.”
“You know how. You knew what you were doing, showing me how to use that battle sword.”
“I know how. But that is not who I choose to be.”
“Is it because you are a Jew?” At Isaac’s wary look he continued, “I saw the tassled shawl.”
“You are wrong. You have mistaken what you thought you saw. It is not mine, at any rate; it was a gift from someone.”
“That may be true, but I know what I saw. It is a Jewish shawl, for prayer. But put your mind at rest, Jean. I will keep your secret if you keep mine.” With that he hoisted himself up onto the wagon bed and applied the iron pick to the edge of the casket.
“Luc, Philippe is a dangerous man,” Isaac said.
“Stand at the door of the stable and watch for him, if you are worried. Or climb up and help me do this quickly.”
Isaac went to the door of the stable and peered out through a crack between the planks of wood. What had he got h
imself into? If Philippe caught them he would kill them both, or die trying.
The yard outside was empty and silent. Behind him, the sound of iron scraping against wood and nails seemed loud in the quiet of the stable. It went on far too long. He was ready to turn and insist Luc stop when Luc gave a long, slow whistle.
“I thought so,” he said.
Isaac turned to see the lid of the coffin half-raised. He opened his mouth to order Luc to nail the lid back down again. Instead he heard himself ask, “What is in it?”
“More than I dared hope.” Luc’s voice was a mixture of awe and delight. “It is filled to here—” he indicated a line about a quarter of the way up the coffin—“with coins and jewels and precious trinkets. I will not go back to my father empty-handed after all.”
“Are you a common thief, then?”
“Philippe is the thief. I am only redistributing a little of his stolen treasure.”
“How do you know it is stolen?”
Luc looked at him. “This is how.” He reached into the casket and pulled something out. It was large, Isaac saw the glint of gold before the entire object was visible. He drew in his breath sharply.
Luc held in his hand a golden menorah.
Chapter Seventeen: Sword Fight
“Give it to me.” Isaac’s voice sounded strangled to his own ears. He did not care if Luc noticed.
“It has to go back.” Luc returned the menorah to the coffin. “He would see at once it was missing if he ever checked. Even without opening the top, he would know by the change in weight if we took something that big. No, we have to take coins and jewels, small things worth a lot, but easy to hide. He will not notice a few gone, and they will not change the weight noticeably.”
Isaac stood rooted to the spot. The menorah. The golden menorah from the synagogue in Acre. All those people murdered. Men and women and children, unarmed, praying in their house of worship. The screaming, the blood.
The Lode Stone Page 14
