The Lode Stone

by Jane Ann McLachlan

  “I regret that myself.”

  Luc laughed but his eyes remained serious. “Do not stay with him long enough to regret it further.”

  Isaac nodded. “I have given him something to think about, but he is not a man to hold onto a thought. I will leave soon.”

  Chapter Eighteen: Naples

  Luc was gone when Tomas and Isaac half-carried a drunken Philippe between them into the stable. If Tomas noticed Philippe’s war horse also missing he gave no sign of it. Philippe was in no state to notice anything.

  “My horse!” Philippe roared the next morning.

  Isaac and Tomas had woken earlier and heard him from inside the inn where they were breaking their fast with a loaf of brown bread and a bowl of pottage each. A few moments later Philippe burst into the inn, swearing profusely.

  “Who is the cur who has stolen my horse?” He spied Isaac and Tomas and rushed over to them. “Where is your friend, that coward?”

  “He is no friend of mine,” Isaac said calmly. “I met him on the road the day before I met you. As for where he is, I cannot tell you. He was not in the stable when I awoke.”

  “Did you hear him when he saddled my war horse? Why did you not wake me?”

  “I went to sleep in the same state as you. The stable could have fallen down and I would not have wakened. You must not get me drunk again if you intend to hire me to guard your possessions.”

  “Why should I hire you? You let a thief steal my horse!”

  “I was not guarding you or your goods. We did not talk of employ last night; we drank. But perhaps you have nothing of value left to guard. No one will steal a corpse.” Isaac turned away and tore off another chunk of the bread.

  The innkeeper’s wife and the serving girl were listening avidly to their exchange. “Get me a bowl of the pottage! I have paid you to serve me, not gawk at my misfortune!” Philippe roared at them. “You!” he pointed at the innkeeper’s wife. “You should have a stable man guarding your customer’s goods.”

  “Yes, and then you would be accusing him of taking your horse, my good man! Better we leave the fault with you!” and she flounced off to get his pottage.

  Philippe glowered around the room. The guests who had stopped to listen turned back to their own pursuits, either finishing their meal or packing up their belongings for another day’s travel. He tore some bread from the loaf and bit into it savagely.

  “Are you not going after him?” the innkeeper asked.

  “What, you wish to see me riding bareback on a carthorse? To laugh at me? You find this amusing?” Philippe began to rise from his seat.

  “No, No. Not at all, good sir!” The innkeeper backed away quickly. “I will send someone to the stable at once to guard your wagon.”

  “Tomas!” Philippe roared. “Finish your bread in the stable! See that I do not lose anything more!”

  Tomas swallowed the last of his pottage and rose, taking his mug of ale with him.

  “Harness the horses while you are there! We will leave as soon as I have broken my fast!” Philippe yelled after him. “You! Finish up and go help him,” he said to Isaac.

  “Are you employing me then?”

  “Two silver coins when we arrive in Marseille.”

  “My price has gone up. Four silver coins. Two for the blood you drew yesterday.”

  Philippe frowned but Isaac knew he was pleased at being reminded he had wounded Isaac, regardless who won.

  “Three. Your blood is not worth two silver coins.”

  “Very well.” Isaac sighed as though he had been bested.

  Philippe’s scowl lightened somewhat. “You and Tomas will guard my Lord’s casket together. I need at least one man who can tell me what he sees. You will be paid when Lord Raimond’s widow pays me. Go and help Tomas harness the horses.”

  He would never see those three pieces of silver. There was no widow waiting for her husband’s body. But Philippe would pay his way to France, and he would find an opportunity to take the menorah. Philippe’s filthy hands would not touch it again.

  Philippe climbed aboard the wagon in a tight-lipped silence that he maintained as they travelled toward Naples. He and Tomas sat on the wagon seat while Isaac rode as before in the wagon bed beside the casket. He would have enjoyed the silence but now he could not sit beside the coffin without thinking of the golden menorah inside it. Was it from the synagogue in Acre? Did that matter? It was from some synagogue, and it had been taken in the same manner, by thieves and murderers wearing the red cross of crusaders. He should have killed Philippe, unarmed or not. And perhaps he would still do so, but first he wanted to find out where the menorah had come from.

  They took the narrower road that skirted around Naples but as soon as they came near the city Philippe turned the horses onto a road heading east toward the market. He did not offer an explanation and Isaac did not ask, but he saw Tomas’s back straighten on the seat beside Philippe as the wagon turned so he gathered Tomas was not expecting the change in plans either.

  The closer they got to the market, the slower they had to travel. Curious glances turned their way as they passed. Crusaders returning home with a dead comrade were not particularly remarkable in a port town, but they did not usually bring the casket to market with them.

  They heard the market before they came to it: first the high-pitched crowing of cocks, then the squeal of pigs and yapping dogs, then the entire cacophony, hens clucking and pigeons cooing and the shouts of merchants and tradesmen hawking their wares and the constant babble of human voices haggling over prices. By then the smells had reached them: horse and donkey dung, butchered meat and fish and over-ripe vegetables mingled with perfumes and spices. Chimney smoke from the homes and inns around the marketplace carried the enticing scents of baked goods, fresh bread, mutton stews and fish soups, making their stomachs grumble and their mouths water. They caught glimpses of the stalls and people crowded into the narrow streets as Philippe drove the wagon past the market and down to the port. He stopped when they could see the clear turquoise of the sea and hear the cries of the gulls overhead. Below them the port was filled with ships of all sizes docked in the calm waters.

  “Wait here and look sharp,” Philippe growled as he climbed down from the wagon. “Where there is a thriving market, there are thriving thieves.”

  Isaac broke his silence to ask, “You mean to sail to Marseille?”

  “I do not intend to ride on a wagon all the way to France!” Philippe snapped. “Or do you object to sailing?”

  Isaac shrugged. “There are thieves on the water as well as the land.”

  “That there are! And no one on our boat shall have my—” he stopped himself, “—reward for returning my Lord’s body to his family.”

  Tomas and Isaac watched Philippe make his way down to the pier. He approached three different men, speaking briefly to each one before heading decisively toward a large single-masted cog with its large square sail furled.

  Isaac glanced sideways at Tomas. Had he, too, participated in the slaughter and pillaging of Acre? Not every crusader had dishonored the cross he wore. The captains forbade the ransacking of synagogues and mosques and private homes. But how could he ask if Tomas was one of those who had obeyed the injunction without giving away what he knew? There was always the possibility Tomas had seen more than he let on when he came into the stable to summon Luc to a sword fight. If so, he had not given them away and likely would not now.

  Tomas looked up as if he felt Isaac’s eyes on him. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “I assume you will share in his reward when you get to Marseille.”

  Tomas shook his head firmly.

  “You have no part in this?” Isaac nodded toward the casket.

  Tomas shook his head more vehemently, a look of disgust on his face.

  “And yet you are helping him carry it away.”

  Tomas met his eyes directly, his expression pained but not apologetic. He reached into his pack and drew out his flute, a
nd began to play. Isaac recognized the tune, a French song. Tomas had played it before and Philippe and Luc had sung the French lyrics.

  “You want to go home,” Isaac said when Tomas put his flute aside.

  Tomas nodded. He pointed at Isaac.

  Isaac turned away. He was not the same as Tomas. He had not helped a murderer take stolen goods away from where they belonged. He had never agreed to participate in Philippe’s theft. He had not known, and now that he did know, he stayed only because of the menorah. He could not leave a symbol of faith and righteousness in the hands of such a man. He would kill Philippe before he would let him keep the menorah. But he could not say any of this to Tomas.

  And if he could say it, would that make it true? Was he really that different from Tomas? He could pry open the casket and take the menorah right now. Surely there was a synagogue in Naples that would accept it and hide him if Philippe came looking. Why not stay here? There was nothing and nobody waiting for him in France.

  The French tune Tomas had played still echoed in his mind, a sad melody, full of longing.

  Home.

  “Yes,” he said, looking out at the gulls soaring above the sunlit sea. “I would like to go home, too.”

  Chapter Nineteen: The Menorah

  The voyage was as unpleasant as Isaac remembered. A ship at sea was no place for a man with a wooden leg, even though the sea was calm along the coastal route. At least this time he was not hauling on ropes and swabbing the decks; instead he was sitting in the hot, stuffy cargo hold beside a casket with Tomas. Philippe rarely spoke to them except to give orders, and never left either of them alone with the casket. They pissed in a bucket, ate the food that was sent down to them, and slept in turns beside the coffin, wrapped in the blankets Philippe had given them.

  Philippe descended often from the castle at the stern of the ship into the storage hold to check that they were there and on guard, but never stayed long. He must know that Isaac could not still believe there was a body inside the coffin—Tomas had likely never thought so—but none of them brought the subject up.

  The ship docked at Genoa in the Kingdom of Italy for a day. Philippe got off to stretch his legs on solid ground but would not let them leave the hold. “I am paying you to guard my casket, not see the sights in Genoa,” he growled when Isaac asked. “How do I know you will come back?”

  “You have not paid me my three silver coins,” Isaac pointed out.

  “Nor will I if you do not do the job I hired you for! I only go ashore myself to send word to my brother that we will arrive in two days. He will meet me at the dock in Marseilles with a horse and wagon. After you load the casket onto his wagon I will pay you both and you may go wherever you wish. For now, you stay here.”

  It was a reasonable errand. Philippe had sold his wagon and horses in Naples before boarding the ship; he would need another one brought to the port. But there were too many details, from the first mention of a brother in Marseille to the lure of their pay, for a man who had barely spoken to them in two days.

  When Isaac was certain Phillippe had left the ship he stood up. “He does not mean to pay us,” he said. Tomas was already frowning, and now he nodded.

  “He knows we have guessed something of what he is transporting. He has not sent for his brother to meet us in Marseille, but for some thugs who will kill us.” The moment he said it, he knew it was true. Even aside from his fear they had guessed what was inside the casket, Philippe would want them both dead; Isaac because he was crippled and had still beaten Philippe and Tomas for witnessing his humiliation.

  Tomas touched the hilt of his sword.

  “He has fought with me, I will not catch him off guard again. And doubtless he has seen you fight.” He waited for Tomas’s nod before continuing. “Philippe is not a man to take chances. Whoever he has sent for, they will be enough to take care of us. We must assume so.”

  Tomas frowned, but after a moment he gave another curt nod.

  “Give me your sword, then.”

  When Tomas handed it over, Isaac used it to pry loose the nails on the lid of the casket. They had already been loosened when Luc opened it, and came out with little trouble. They lifted the top off together, taking care to do it quietly. Most of the seamen had gone ashore but there were still some on board, raising and lowering the gangplank for crew and passengers.

  The sight of the golden menorah lying on top of a fortune in coins and jeweled artifacts took Isaac’s breath away. It was not the menorah of Acre—it was smaller, without a ring of sapphires on its base—but it was a Jewish menorah and belonged in a synagogue.

  “I will take this for my pay,” he said. “Take what you are owed and we will nail the lid down again.” He began wrapping the menorah in his blanket.

  Tomas looked at him strangely. He mimed the size of the menorah tucked under an arm and the awkwardness it would create, but when Isaac stood firm he shrugged and scooped up four gold coins for himself. Isaac grabbed six silver coins. “These are for our trip back to France, which he agreed to pay.” He grinned at Tomas as he dropped the coins into the pouch at his belt. “We will buy two fast horses and ride to Nice. From there we can go where we will.”

  Tomas slipped his coins into his pouch and helped Isaac lift the lid to set it back onto the casket.

  The door burst open. Two burly seamen walked in. “You there! What are you doing?” one of them growled, pulling a long curved knife from his belt. “You are the Frenchman’s servants, are you not?”

  Tomas grabbed up his sword. Balanced on the balls of his feet ready to fight in his white crusader’s tunic, he was a formidable sight.

  Isaac bent quickly, retrieved his staff, slid his knife from his boot, and rose into a fighting stance all in one smooth motion without taking his eyes from the seamen. “We are redistributing a little of the Frenchman’s stolen goods,” he said coolly. “You are welcome to help yourselves when we are gone.”

  The seamen looked at each other. They had only their knives against two armed men.

  “Call the alarm, if you want, and we will be caught. But then you will never see any of this gold for yourselves. But if we get away,” Isaac added, “we will be blamed. No one will think to search anyone else.”

  The taller of the seamen moved aside from the door, pulling the other with him. “Godspeed,” he said with a smirk. “I have no love of the French. But see that you get away clean or we will kill you ourselves and tell the Frenchman we saw you stealing from him.”

  “If you tell him what you have seen he will kill you in Marseille, as he intended to do to us, to keep you from talking about the stolen treasure in his casket,” Isaac said as he and Tomas passed them and climbed the narrow wooden stairs up to the ship’s deck.

  After two days and nights in the hold, the unaccustomed brightness of daylight blinded him. As he stood blinking on the deck he heard Philippe call from the shore for the gangplank to be lowered for him. Grabbing Tomas’s arm Isaac ducked behind the stern castle. He crouched, holding his breath, listening to Philippe’s boots ascend the plank.

  Philippe did not linger on the deck but walked at once into the little stairwell down to the cargo hold. As soon as he was out of sight Isaac and Tomas ran silently across to the plank before it was raised again. His wooden leg thumped against the wood plank as Isaac descended to the pier quickly but carefully. One slip and he would be floundering in the water.

  The pier was no more than a hundred yards long, but while they were on it they were visible to anyone leaning over the ship’s side. Tomas was half-way to the shore, running full out, as Isaac thumped along behind him, moving faster than on the plank but still hampered by his wooden leg.

  The two seamen would not have had time to leave the hold. Would Philippe catch them with his gold in their hands, or had they, too, heard his voice as he waited to board? Would that have given them time to nail the lid back down and invent a plausible lie to explain Tomas’s and his absence? Whether he thought they had stolen from h
im or simply abandoned their post, Philippe would come after them, perhaps before Isaac reached the end of the pier.

  The pier was wet and there were cracks between the planks of wood—little risk for a man with two feet but treacherous for one with a wooden peg. Keeping an eye on the pier, Isaac dodged around seamen and merchants from a host of cogs and smaller boats tied to the docks or anchored in the bay that protected Genoa’s port. He expected at any moment to hear Philippe shout “Stop! Thieves!” behind him. But he reached the end of the pier without pursuit and leaped from the dock to race between the buildings built in a semi-circle around the bay. As soon as he was hidden from sight of the ships, Isaac felt Tomas grab his arm and pull him into an alcove. They stood bent over, panting for breath.

  “Take off your tunic,” Isaac said when he could speak. He unwrapped the blanket he carried under his arm just enough to pull out his bundle of clothes. He handed Tomas his spare tunic. “Put this on, and get that one out of sight.” Tomas’s white crusader tunic would give them away as soon as Philippe came looking for them. People would remember it. Too bad he could not hide his scar and his wooden leg as easily as Tomas could remove his tunic. They emerged and continued at a swift walk, trying to blend in with the Genoese.

  What bad luck that Philippe had not stayed ashore longer. The ship would be docked until tomorrow at dawn—plenty of time for him to find them.

  “He will pay people to look for us.”

  Tomas nodded.

  “We do not have time to find good horses and leave town. As soon as we ask around for someone with horses to sell, word of it will get back to Philippe. We must find a way to disappear.”

  Tomas looked at him, eyebrows raised in question.

  “A synagogue!” Isaac touched the blanket under his arm. “No one will look there for a crusader.”

  If Tomas heard the bitterness in his voice he did not show it. He nodded again.

  “Are you willing to play the part of a Jew?” At Tomas’s shrug of agreement Isaac continued, “We will follow this man, then.” He dipped his head in the direction of a man wearing a blue striped kaftan over a long white robe, with a wide-brimmed black hat on his head.