The Sacred stone

Act Three

Norwich, May 1241, the Jewish month of Sivan, 5001 CE

The old merchant twisted around in the saddle of his horse and glanced back uneasily down the narrow street. He couldn’t see the Black Friar behind him, but with such a throng of riders and travellers all eager to crowd into Norwich before dark, it was hard to be sure that the tall, hunched stranger was not lurking somewhere in the shadows. Jacob raked his fingers through his long white beard and tried to ignore the tightening band of pain gripping his chest. He told himself that he was imagining things. There were a hundred reasons why a man might journey from Exeter to Norwich. The Black Friar wasn’t following him: why should he? What business would a friar have with a Jew? It was mere coincidence that they had travelled the same roads.

And yet the old man still felt a prickle of fear, for each night on the journey he had turned aside to seek lodgings with Jewish families in the towns along the way, but somehow, the next morning, the cowled figure on the grey gelding always appeared on the road behind him, creeping after Jacob like his own shadow. And however slowly or rapidly Jacob had ridden, the mounted friar always kept pace with him, never overtaking him. Was that nothing more than chance? Whatever it was, the merchant knew he would not feel safe until he was inside his own house with the door stoutly barred.

On any other day Jacob would have been carefully watching each person in the crowd for signs of mischief; you didn’t reach seventy years and five without learning to keep a sharp lookout for cutpurses and thieves. But on this particular evening the old man was too preoccupied with searching for the friar to notice that someone else was taking a keen interest in his progress through the busy streets. Three youths, slouching in the shadow of the tower by Nedham Gate, had signalled to each other as soon as they spotted Jacob entering the city, and as the merchant rode past them they peeled themselves off the wall and began to weave through the crowd behind him.

In his younger days Jacob had always felt a sense of relief as soon as he was within the walls of Norwich under the protection of the royal castle guards. Jews were after all chattels of the King, and though there had been riots against them from time to time, forcing them to flee to the castle for protection, for the most part Gentiles dared not risk attacking the Jewish merchants, for to do so would be robbing the King himself and the penalties for that were enough to make even the battle-hardened shudder.

But what Jew was safe anywhere these days, even in his own city? Since the Pope had commanded all Jews to wear the badge of shame, the two white strips on their clothing over their hearts, which represented the tablets of stone, they couldn’t even hope to pass unnoticed on the road as once they did.

Last year monks had stormed into Jacob’s house and burned his books and scrolls in front of him, declaring them the work of the devil. They had even destroyed the scrolls of the Old Testament, because they were written in Hebrew, not Latin. The monks had tried to toss the old merchant on their bonfire, too, but the soldiers from the castle had at least prevented that, for now anyway. After they’d gone, Jacob had offered up prayers of gratitude that the men had not discovered his most precious books and scrolls stored in the genizah, a concealed cupboard in the upper chamber of his house, though he was at a loss to understand why the Eternal One should have spared his books when so many of his fellow Jews had lost everything.

Then, just a few weeks ago, Jacob had received word from Leo, a Jewish pedlar in Exeter, concerning a strange and wondrous stone that had come into his possession. As he read the message, the old merchant’s hands began to tremble with excitement. He found himself on his feet dancing and swaying around his chamber like a young bridegroom at a wedding. Jacob had waited his whole life for such a sign, praying for it, longing for it, without ever knowing what form it would take.

In these last few years, with old age gnawing at his bones, Jacob had begun to fear he would never see the sign in his lifetime. But as soon as he read Leo’s words he knew for certain that this stone was what he had been searching for, and he, Jacob, had been chosen to deliver it to his people. Now he understood why the Eternal One had hidden his books from the eyes of the monks. The books had been spared so that he could use them to buy that stone. And he would use them. He would give all he owned if he had to, just to bring that stone home.

It had not been an easy journey to Exeter. No honest man was safe from cutpurses and outlaws on the lonely tracks and roads that spun a tangled web through heath and forest, hamlet and marsh. Once Jacob would have joined a band of fellow travellers for such a journey, but now few Christians were willing to be seen in the company of a Jew, and he was as much in danger of having his throat cut by other merchants as from any outlaw on the road. So the old man had been forced to make the long journey alone, seeking out the hospitality of fellow Jews in towns such as Thetford to at least give him a place of safety to sleep and food that had not been spat in or worse by a surly innkeeper.

Jacob had found the pedlar waiting for him in his filthy lodging in the very worst quarter of Exeter. They were old acquaintances, but still Leo had driven a hard bargain for the stone, not that Jacob blamed him for that. Leo had once been a merchant himself with a dozen men working for him, and Jacob had done much business with him over the years, but the massive taxes against the Jews, the community fines and the ever-increasing restrictions on their trade had combined to ruin the man, so that when finally pirates seized a ship carrying his cargo to Flanders, Leo had been left with nothing but debts. Now he was forced to tramp from village to village hawking cheap buckles, thread and anything else he could sell for the price of a night’s lodgings. The man was bitter — and little wonder.

The pedlar had carefully unwrapped the stone and laid it on the rough wooden stool between them. At first Jacob could see nothing unusual about the stone except perhaps its shape, but when Leo tilted it at an angle to the candle flame, Jacob gasped in wonderment. He stared at it, not daring to touch it, suddenly aware of his unwashed hands.

‘Where did you find it?’ Jacob whispered, unable to tear his gaze away.

‘Shebbear. You’ll not have heard of it — a piss-poor village, full of lice-pickers,’ Leo said sourly. ‘I was selling door to door, or trying to, but those muck-grubbers wouldn’t part with a clipped farthing. Finally, this woman at the end of the village took pity on me and invited me in for a bite to eat. I thought the angels were smiling on me; for once you get inside a house you can usually persuade a woman to buy something just to get rid of you.

‘Anyway, that’s when I spotted the stone up on a shelf above the door lintel. Noticed it straight off, strange shape, bit like a bird if you squint at it the right way, but even so, not what you’d expect to find on a shelf. Those crofts are so small there’s scarcely room for their pots and pans. Who’d waste space on a stone? So I looked closer, and that’s when I saw the marks. I could tell the woman had no idea what they were; doubt she’d even noticed them. Those villagers can’t even read their own names. So I told her an alchemist in Exeter might pay a few pennies to melt it down for iron. It feels like iron, and those crofters will believe anything you tell them about a city.’

‘So she sold it to you?’ Jacob asked.

Leo shifted uncomfortably on his seat. ‘She wouldn’t. Said something about it bringing her and her husband together. You know what fools women can be. So I hung around until she and her daughter were busy, then I tackled the husband when I could get him alone. Men aren’t sentimental, not when they can smell money. But he was as stubborn as she was and said if his Matilda didn’t want to part with it, he wouldn’t sell it, not for a king’s ransom.’ Leo shrugged. ‘So what could I do? The next day was Easter Sunday. I knew there’d not be a soul about with all the villagers in the church, so I took my chance then, while the croft was empty. Put another stone in its place, so they’d not notice the gap straight away, especially if they came home merry after the feasting.’

‘You stole it?’ Jacob was shocked. In all his years as a merchant he had prided himself on never knowingly buying or selling anything that was stolen.

‘There was no danger,’ Leo assured him, misinterpreting Jacob’s frown. ‘She could hardly raise the hue and cry over a worthless stone, and it is worthless to them, but to us…’ He gestured towards the stone. ‘You think this should be allowed to stay in the hands of Christians? If one of their priests should chance to see and recognize the marks, they wouldn’t hesitate to defile it. They’d spit and piss on it before they smashed it to pieces. Look what they’ve done to our holy books. You think I should have left it there so that they could commit such a blasphemy?’

‘No… no,’ Jacob finally conceded. ‘You did right to rescue it. It is a sin to steal, but the rabbis tell us that the commandments may be broken to save a life, and I am certain that this stone will save not just one life but the lives of all our people. Such a kemea.. such a sacred sign has not been granted to our people since we were driven out of the land of Israel.’

For once Jacob hadn’t haggled over the price, and as soon as he felt the weight of the stone in his scrip pressing against his body a great peace seemed to wash over him. He left Exeter that same day, travelling as fast as he dared in order to reach Norwich before the feast of Shavuoth, the celebration of giving the tablets of stone to Moses on Mount Sinai.

He had arrived just in time, for the eve of Shavuoth was just two days off and what better day could there be to unveil this stone in the synagogue, a sign that the Eternal One would deliver them from the misery the Christians had imposed on them, just as He had delivered their forefathers from the Egyptians. Jacob’s gnarled old fingers reached up to cup the stone concealed beneath his cloak. If he could spend his last few months on earth meditating on those marks on that stone, his soul would truly find eternal bliss.

Smiling to himself, the old merchant dug his heels into his horse’s side, trying to urge it on apace, but the narrow alley was crammed with the stalls of bellowing bakers desperate to sell the last of their pies and bread to the housewives who elbowed each other aside to snatch a bargain. In all the commotion there was scarcely room for a beggar’s brat to squeeze between the stalls, never mind a horse. But he wasn’t far from his home now. Most of the Jews lived in Mancroft, around the synagogue and close to the castle, where they could flee if they were attacked. But Jacob’s father had been wealthy enough to build a stone house near the river in Conesford Street, where the air was fresher and goods could more easily be transported to and from the boats.

At the crossroads, Jacob glanced behind him as he had done many times over the past few days looking for the Black Friar. Satisfied that there was still no sign of him, the old man was turning his horse’s head in the direction of home when he felt the reins being torn from his fingers. Before he could even cry out, he was dragged from his horse and bundled into a courtyard. Moments later he found himself pinned against the wall with the point of a knife pricking the wrinkled skin of his throat. Three unkempt youths crowded around him.

The one holding the knife thrust his face close to Jacob. ‘Gold, Jew, that’s what we’re after. Give it to us and we might let you live.’ The lad was short and stocky, his legs so bowed he could have straddled three whores at the same time, but he could move as rapidly as a weasel.

Jacob swallowed hard, reciting a silent prayer. ‘I’ve… only a few coins — you can have them all — but… I’ve no gold.’

‘He’s lying, Gamel,’ one of the boys told Bow Legs.

‘I know that, you cod-wit!’ Gamel grabbed a handful of Jacob’s beard and wriggled the knife against his throat. ‘We know you’ve got gold. All you filthy Jews have got gold. We saw you leave days ago with a full pack, been waiting for you to return. You’ve no pack now, so what did you sell it for? How much?’

‘I didn’t sell it for money.’

‘What, then?’ Gamel demanded.

‘A… s… stone.’ Even as he stammered out the words, Jacob knew no one would believe that, but it was the truth. What else could he tell them?

The young men laughed mirthlessly. Gamel’s knife flashed upwards, its blade slicing across the old man’s mouth. Blood gushed from Jacob’s lips, staining his white beard crimson.

Gamel took a step back. ‘Search him,’ he ordered his companions. ‘He’ll have the gold ingots strapped to his chest.’

Jacob caught sight of faces peering down at them from the upper casement of a house overlooking the courtyard. He shrieked out to them that he was being robbed, but almost at once heard the sound of a door being bolted shut. It was plain the witnesses to his plight were going to stay safely locked inside and ignore the trouble until it was over.

Frustrated at finding neither discs of gold nor of silver strapped to the old merchant’s chest, Gamel punched Jacob viciously in the stomach. The old man doubled up and sank to the ground. Something muffled but heavy hit the cobbles of the courtyard. Gamel pounced and in a trice had cut the leather thongs of Jacob’s scrip. He held up the weighty leather bag in triumph.

‘Told you he had gold. Lying bastard.’ He kicked the old man in the ribs, and his two companions grinned as they heard the bones crack.

Jacob rocked on the ground in puddles of piss and muck, his arms hugging the agony of his chest, his mouth gaping like a fish as he struggled to breathe. The three youths all tried to make a grab for the scrip, fumbling with the fastenings. Finally, Gamel wriggled his hand inside and pulled out the heavy lump. For a moment the three youths gaped at the black stone in his hand.

Gamel’s two companions glanced at each other, fear gathering in their eyes. ‘If we go back with nothing,’ one muttered, ‘she’ll feed our balls to the hounds-’

‘-while we’re still wearing them,’ the other finished.

With a howl of fury Gamel hurled the stone at Jacob. It struck him on the shoulder, and though the old man cried out in pain he reached out and grasped the stone. With what little strength he had left, he lifted it to his bleeding mouth and kissed it. ‘ Shma… Yisrael,’ he breathed, but that was all he had time to whisper. For the three youths with a single shout of rage ran at Jacob, kicking and stomping on the old man as if he was an insect they wanted to obliterate.

It is hard to know exactly when the old merchant lost consciousness, but mercifully he was dead long before the youths had finished battering his head to a bloody pulp.

As the youths ran off, Gamel glanced up at the frightened faces peering down from the casement above. He paused to press his finger first to his lips and then slowly and pointedly drew it across his throat, before he followed his companions out of the yard.

As soon as he was sure the youths had gone, a tall stooped figure dressed in a Black Friar’s habit edged cautiously around the entrance to the courtyard and began to pick his way towards the crumpled figure lying in the corner. He had almost reached the body when he heard the sound of the bolts being drawn back on the door of the house. He hesitated, gazing longingly at the black stone still grasped in the dead man’s hand, but before he could reach it the door opened and a maid rushed out screaming and shouting. The friar turned and fled from the yard, empty-handed.

Judith tore through the streets, running after Nathan and her brother Isaac. Her brother yelled at her to go back, but she ignored him. As a small child, she’d been able to beat any boy of her age in a race, but now, at seventeen, she was hampered by her long skirts, and the two young men were already inside the courtyard by the time she caught up with them.

A huddle of women stood just inside the archway to the yard, clutching each other and chattering shrilly like starlings. Judith edged past them and walked over to where Isaac and Nathan stood. As she looked down, it was all she could do to keep from retching. She reached inside her kirtle and grasped the silver amulet in the form of a hand which her mother had given her for protection. She held it so tightly the metal cut into her palm, but she didn’t feel it.

The district bailiff was bending over what looked like a heap of blood-soaked rags, but when he caught sight of the white badge on Nathan’s chest he straightened up and stepped aside. ‘He’s one of yours. You know who he is?’

Nathan pressed his hand to his mouth as if he was about to vomit. ‘Zayde? Grand-pere? ’ he whispered.

He sank to his knees in the muck and began shaking the old merchant as if he was sleeping and had to be woken. Tears streamed down the young man’s face. He gently eased the black stone from the old man’s fingers and, grasping the gnarled hand, pressed it to his lips, kissing it over and over. Judith felt the tears stinging her own eyes. She grasped her brother’s arm. Startled to find her at his side, Isaac pulled her into his arms, hugging her so fiercely that Judith knew it was as much to comfort himself as her.

‘Well, who is it, then?’ the bailiff demanded gruffly. ‘His name’ll be needed for the records.’

‘The merchant… Jacob ben Meir…’ Isaac said. ‘Have you caught the bastard who did this to him?’

The bailiff grimaced. ‘Hue and cry’s been raised. There’s men out looking, but I don’t reckon we’ll find anyone, No idea who we’re looking for.’

‘Someone must have seen something,’ Isaac insisted. ‘What about the people who live here?’

The bailiff shrugged. ‘Didn’t see anything. All busy about their duties. Was a maid found the body, and by then whoever did this was long gone. I dare say he brought it on himself. Might even have been the Jew who started it. Look there.’ He nodded to the black stone in Nathan’s hand. ‘The old Jew was holding that when he was found. Could break a man’s skull, could that. Maybe he tried to hit someone from behind to rob them and they were just defending-’

Nathan gave a bellow of fury and outrage. He was on his feet in a flash, the stone raised in his hand. But the bailiff was a burly man, well used to dodging the blows of drunks and desperate men. And as Nathan struck out, the bailiff grabbed his arm, twisted it and sent him sprawling face down in the yard across the body of his grandfather.

‘Get him out of here,’ the bailiff growled at Isaac. ‘I’m only letting him get away with that ’cause I can see the lad’s upset, but if he threatens me again…’

Isaac hastily dragged Nathan upright and bundled him towards the archway. All the fight had drained out of Nathan; though he was still grasping the stone tightly, he offered no resistance. All eyes followed the sobbing young man as he stumbled over the cobbles, his grandfather’s blood dripping from his hands.

Wednesday 22 May, the fourth day of Sivan

‘At least you had the sense to stay away from my inn until morning.’ Magote scowled. ‘So the old Jew’s dead, is he? I hope for the sake of your necks there were no witnesses.’

The innkeeper’s widow glanced sharply at Gamel and his two friends, but they merely shuffled their feet and grunted. The courtyard of the Grey Goose Inn was empty, but Magote had been long enough in her game not to take any chances. She gestured the lads into the long low lean-to that served as her brewing room and followed them, taking care to leave the door open just a crack so that she could observe anyone entering the yard.

‘I asked you if there were any witnesses?’ she repeated in a dangerously quiet tone.

Gamel jerked his chin defiantly. ‘I made sure they told the bailiff they saw nothing. They know what’ll happen to them if they talk.’

‘Good lad. You’re learning.’ Magote nodded approvingly.

There was an art to handling these boys: reward and punishment, praise and terror in equal measure. The trick was to keep the lads off balance; never let them guess what was coming. Over the years, she’d worked up quite a gang of them; nearly a dozen lads under her control now. She’d lost a few from time to time — some who’d got themselves knifed, others hanged for thieving — but not one of them had ever fingered her, not even to save their own miserable skins. She was feared far more than the gallows, for even the slowest hanging was as quick as a cut-throat’s knife compared with what she could do to those who betrayed her. If the condemned lad kept his mouth shut, she’d see his family had a fat purse to comfort them for their loss and he’d have someone to pull on his thrashing legs to bring a merciful end to the slow strangulation of the rope. But if the lad was foolish enough to talk… Widow she might be, but those who had the misfortune to cross her knew her better as the widow-maker.

Magote had made good use of the inn after her whore-mongering goat of a husband abruptly and mysteriously departed this life. Innkeepers always know what travellers have in their purses, and what the pedlars and camelots will buy with no questions asked. But Magote had her rules: guests in the Grey Goose were left unmolested for just as long as they remained in her inn enjoying her hospitality. As she told her lads, only a fool plucks a bird while it’s still laying eggs, but once it’s finished laying, then it’s fair game.

Magote narrowed her eyes. The lads were too quiet, shifty. There was something they weren’t telling her. She folded her huge muscular arms across her ample breasts. ‘Well, where is it? Hand it over.’

Gamel looked in mute appeal to his friends, but they were staring fixedly at the rushes on the floor as if they’d never seen anything so fascinating before.

Gamel swallowed hard. ‘The old man, he’d nothing on him… nothing. Searched him and his horse too.’

‘What!’ Magote spat the word out with such venom that all three lads cringed. ‘Did you lose him, let him stop off somewhere in the city? Did he speak to anyone?’

‘Never out of our sight, he wasn’t, from the time he came in through the gate,’ Gamel protested.

‘Don’t lie to me, you miserable little pig’s turd. The old man left with a full pack. Rumour was he was to sell his finest books. This was to be his last trip. He’d have brought back enough gold to see him through for the rest of his days. So where is it?’ She seized a hank of Gamel’s greasy black hair, twisting it and pulling his head back until she forced him down on his knees. ‘If you’re trying to cheat me, boy…’

‘I swear there was nothing…’ he squealed. ‘Nothing except a lump of stone, that were all, a lump of black stone.’

‘Heavy?’ Magote demanded.

Gamel nodded as best he could with her fist still gripping his hair. Magote slowly raised her calloused hand. Gamel saw what was coming, but had no way of avoiding it. She struck him so hard across his cheek that it made his head ring.

‘Mutton head! Haven’t I taught you anything? These Jews cover gold in black wax or tar, even dip it in lead to disguise it from cod-wits like you. That trick’s so old, Adam was pulling it.’

Gamel’s eyes were watering with pain. ‘But it didn’t feel like-’

‘You couldn’t feel your own arse unless someone kicked it for you.’ Magote spat in disgust. ‘Now you get out there and find out who’s got that stone. You fetch it here, and I promise you’ll be living like a lord on your cut of the gold. But if you fail I’ll be taking my cut from you, and I don’t mean in coins.’

Judith peered out of the casement on the upper floor of the synagogue, checking that the garden below was empty. Few men came to study this early in the evening, especially on a weekday, which is why her brother and his friends met here. Satisfied that she would not get caught, Judith laid down her broom and tiptoed across the wooden floor towards the tiny study chamber at the far end.

Her brother and his friends had entered the study chamber from the outside staircase at the back of the building. They didn’t dare risk coming in through the main synagogue entrance in case the rabbi or one of the elders should see them. A year ago Rabbi Elias had closed the Talmudic school and forbidden the study of the Kabbalah after their teacher had been forced to flee abroad with his wife. It was dangerous to provoke the Christians, Rabbi Elias said; they were already suspicious enough of the Jews, and regarded the mystical symbols and charts of the Kabbalists as sorcery.

Besides, Rabbi Elias did not approve of these new ideas from Spain and Germany with their strange meditations, which had been known to drive young men into states of dangerous melancholy or mad ecstasy, which was almost as bad.

‘Read the Torah, pray and work hard to earn a living. That is enough to occupy any young man,’ he declared.

But Judith’s brother Isaac and his three friends, including the rabbi’s own son, Aaron, had continued to study in secret in defiance of the rabbi’s instructions. Aaron swore that he for one was not going to be intimidated by the Christians even if his father was too cowardly to stand up to them.

Judith edged her way along the wall of the chamber until she found the familiar spot where there was a small hole in the wooden partition. She hunkered down and pressed her ear to the gap. She did not need to squint through it to know who was talking. She’d been eavesdropping on this room for months, listening to their fierce debates, and by now she had learned almost as much as they had.

Her brother Isaac was speaking. ‘But Jacob must have told you why he wanted the stone. He was no fool, not when it came to business, anyway.’

‘What more can I tell you?’ Judith heard the exasperation in Nathan’s voice. ‘His old friend in Exeter sent him a message, and the next thing I knew Zayde was setting off. My mother told him it was dangerous to make such a journey at his age and with such valuable books, but he said when Moses saw the burning bush he went to it without hesitation, and where would our people be if he had not?’

‘Now you’re telling us he thought he was Moses?’ Aaron said mockingly. ‘That proves the old man was crazy.’

‘You talk to me about crazy,’ Nathan snapped. ‘Last week you were certain that a new prophet had been born that hour, because the fish you had for dinner had a glass bead in its belly.’

Judith heard the scrape of a chair as if someone had pushed it violently backward.

‘Enough!’ Benedict’s voice rang out hard and commanding. Benedict was only eighteen, two years younger than her brother Isaac, but he had a certainty about him that made others listen. ‘We’ve tried every test of the alchemist’s art on the stone. It transforms nothing, and it will not itself transform into anything but what we see.’

Benedict was already a skilled apothecary, having learned the trade from his father, but since his father had been hanged, Benedict had been forced to learn what he could from books. He could read Latin, German and French as well as Hebrew and, according to her brother, Benedict’s room beside the apothecary’s shop was stuffed with books on every subject from alchemy to brewing cordials for coughs. Not that Judith had ever seen them, of course; an unmarried girl did not visit a man in his chamber, not even her future husband.

She and Benedict had been betrothed for two years now, and Judith had not thought it possible to be more infatuated with a man than she was on that day they gave each other their pledge. But as the months passed that youthful adoration had matured into a deep and solid respect, and a love that sometimes burned so fiercely in her she thought she would be consumed by it, if they did not soon become man and wife.

‘So,’ Aaron said, ‘if Benedict is right, and the stone is not valuable, then what…’ Suddenly his voice took on a new excitement. ‘This scroll, what is its value?’

Judith put her eye to the hole in the partition and peered into the room. The rabbi’s son was brandishing a small leather scroll under the nose of Nathan.

Nathan tugged at the small wisp of hairs on his chin which was struggling to proclaim itself a beard. ‘Three, four shillings,’ he hazarded.

‘No, I mean what makes it worth three shillings? Is it the leather?’

Nathan snorted. ‘What? An old piece of leather like that? A penny or two at most. It’s what’s written on…’

He broke off as Aaron snatched up the stone from where it lay between them on the table. Trembling with excitement, Aaron pulled a candle towards a solid-glass globe to intensify the light of the flame and tilted the stone upwards. The others crowded in to peer over his shoulder. For a long time all four men stared at it.

‘Is that…’ Isaac began. ‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘Wait…’ Aaron turned the stone around. ‘There! There! Do you see it? Where the blood lies. It’s the Hebrew letter — Shin. And that mark there. It’s the letter Mem. ’ The stone was wrenched from hand to hand as each of the four young men pored over its surface.

‘And there… there’s another. Is it… could it be a Hay?’ Nathan cried out, almost dropping the stone in his excitement. ‘Shin, Mem, Hay, or is it Mem, Shin, Hay? Moses! The letters spell Moses in Hebrew.’

‘You are useless, Nathan,’ Aaron yelled, ripping the stone out of his hand. ‘That is a final letter Mem. It can only be written at the end of a word. Hay, Shin, Mem. Don’t any of you see it? The letters spell HaShem. It means The Name. That is what is written on the stone — The Name. That is what the Eternal One was called at the climax of creation when He made Adam; only when creation was complete could HaShem, The Name, be known. And it is the title that the Eternal One used of Himself when He gave us the Torah on Mount Sinai. I am HaShem that brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slaves. Don’t you see this is a sign that He is going to deliver us from those who oppress us. A sign written on stone, just as the law was written on stone. And tomorrow night Shavuoth begins, when those tablets of stone were given to Moses. It all fits.’ Aaron grasped the white strips on the front of his cloak. ‘This badge will no longer be our badge of shame; it will be our symbol of triumph.’

In the distance the church bells of Norwich began tolling for the evening service of compline. Aaron was prancing around the room holding the stone above his head like a banner.

Isaac caught his arm. ‘It’s late. Your father will be here soon, Aaron. We’d better go before he arrives for evening prayers.’

Aaron grimaced. ‘Prayers! “Have patience and pray for the Messiah to come, my son”,’ he mimicked. ‘All these centuries watching our people get slaughtered, and we are still waiting. My father will still be praying when the Gentiles are setting light to the bonfire under his feet. The Jews of Norwich will never stand up for themselves as long as my father is rabbi. We have to find a way to destroy our enemies before we all end up like poor Jacob. And this! This-’ he brandished the stone again ‘-will show us how to do it.’

‘Not if your father finds us here with it,’ Isaac warned. ‘Does your mother know about the stone, Nathan?’

Nathan nodded miserably. ‘But she won’t tell anyone. She thinks the old man was tricked into giving away his wealth for nothing. She couldn’t bear the shame of her friends and neighbours thinking her father had lost his wits.’

As he spoke, Nathan took the stone from Aaron’s hand and began to wrap it in wool.

‘What are you doing with it?’ Aaron demanded indignantly.

‘I’m taking it home,’ Nathan told him, ‘where I should be right now. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into coming here. I should be sitting with my poor mother in mourning.’

‘But you can’t take the stone,’ Aaron protested. ‘I need to spend the night studying it and meditating on the letters. I told you letters are only the sign, but there is a message hidden in them, something that will show us what to do.’

‘You don’t need the stone to meditate on the letters. You know what they are.’ Nathan thrust the stone firmly into his scrip.

‘But suppose your mother finds it and throws it out,’ Aaron said.

Nathan pressed both hands tightly against the leather scrip. ‘It belongs to me. I am Jacob’s grandson. I’ll keep it under my pillow at night and with me all day. If my zayde thought it was worth giving everything he had for it, then I won’t part with it for a king’s ransom. This stone is all I have left of him.’

Aaron’s face was flushed with fury. ‘But it’s wasted on you! Jacob would want it to go to the person who can use it. You haven’t the wit to discover the riddle in it. I’m far more advanced in the mystic path than any of you. I’m the only one who can read it.’ He tried again to wrest the scrip from Nathan’s grasp, but Nathan fought back. Isaac and Benedict stepped in to separate them.

‘It belongs to Nathan,’ Benedict said firmly. ‘It’s stained with the blood of his family. Besides, it’s safer in his house than in yours. Your father may be set in his ways, Aaron, but he is not stupid, and if he found it in your possession he wouldn’t rest until he found the letters on it. Now make haste. Let’s separate and get out of here before the elders arrive.’

Judith didn’t wait to hear what Aaron replied. She fled across the room and resumed her sweeping. Footsteps clattered down the back steps, and moments later the door connecting the study chamber to the synagogue opened and Benedict emerged alone. He stopped as he caught sight of her.

‘Cleaning at this hour, Judith? It’s very late,’ he said with a frown.

‘I was late arriving,’ Judith lied. ‘I had to walk to the far end of Fish Quay to find good herring for supper and then there was such a crowd.’

Benedict stepped closer, taking the broom from her and bringing both her hands to his lips, kissing each hand in turn.

‘You work too hard,’ he told her. ‘But as soon as we are married, all that will end, I promise. Just a few more months and I will have the money.’

Judith sighed and tried to force a smile. Marriage had been set to follow within a year of their betrothal, but a year ago, just weeks before the wedding, Benedict’s father had been hanged along with two other men. They were three of the sixteen men and women accused of the forced circumcision of a convert’s little son ten years before. The whole Jewish community had raised the money demanded to pay for a mixed jury of Jews and Christians. But the King had taken the money, then declared that Jews were barred from sitting on the jury, because they would not convict one of their own.

Judith’s own parents as well as the Kabbalah teacher had been among those accused, but they had wisely fled to Germany before the trial and could never return for they had been declared fugitives, but at least they were alive. Benedict’s father had foolishly put his faith in the King’s justice, and now he was dead and all his property forfeit to the Crown. Benedict was forced to work for a Christian master in the shop his father had once owned and rent a tiny chamber between the shop and the storeroom to sleep in.

Judith had repeatedly assured Benedict that she would gladly wed him without a penny between them, for she loved him more than her own life, but Benedict was too proud to accept that. When he could afford to marry her, he said, he would, but as Judith lay awake at night with every fibre of her body aching to be lying in his arms, she began to fear she would be wearing a shroud before a bridal gown.

They heard the sound of laboured footsteps on the wooden stairs below. Benedict grabbed Judith’s cloak and thrust it around her shoulders as Rabbi Elias shuffled into the room. The rabbi stared in puzzlement at the sight of the young couple alone in the synagogue. Judith could see the question forming on his lips.

Before the rabbi could ask it, Benedict said quickly, ‘Judith’s brother couldn’t come for her tonight. He was concerned that she shouldn’t walk home alone, so he asked me to escort her.’

The rabbi’s frown relaxed. ‘Troubled times, troubled times.’

Benedict hastily ushered Judith towards the stairs.

‘You are a close friend of the boy Nathan?’

Benedict turned. The rabbi was gazing not at him but at the closed doors of the ark where the scrolls of the Torah were kept.

Rabbi Elias continued without looking at Benedict. ‘I know that Jacob ben Meir went to Exeter to bring back some special object for this community, something he believed would protect us, give us hope. That much he confided in me before he left. Jacob said he was willing to give everything he owned for that chance for us all to live in peace. I believe that had he known what that object would really cost him, he still would not have hesitated to bring it here. Yet the universe is created in pairs. For every light there is a corresponding darkness, and what brings peace can be used to bring destruction, if it falls into the wrong hands.’

The rabbi turned and fixed Benedict and Judith with his piercing blue eyes. ‘I am only in my forty-second year, and if it pleases the Eternal One I might live for some years yet, but my son is not willing to wait until I am old to replace me as rabbi. He believes that like our forefathers, the Maccabees, who rose up against the occupying Greeks, we can rise up against our masters and overthrow them. But this is not Israel and we cannot fight the whole of Christendom! If we try, they will utterly destroy us. Our only hope is to put our faith in the Eternal One, as we have always done. Benedict, you are a man known for keeping your own counsel, so I will not ask you if you know what object Jacob brought back or where it is, but ask you this — do all in your power to ensure it does not fall into the hands of my son, Aaron, and those like him, or it will mean the end of all of us.’

Thursday 23 May, the fifth day of Sivan, the eve of the Festival of Shavuoth

The flames in the oil lamps guttered each time the synagogue door opened to admit more men and boys hurrying in from the chilling rain. The benches around the little tables were filling up fast, and Nathan found himself squashed between Benedict and a stout red-faced butcher who, though he had washed, still stank of blood and dung.

‘Have you brought the stone with you?’ Benedict whispered.

Nathan nodded reluctantly. He hadn’t had any choice but to bring it. Aaron and Isaac had both arrived on his doorstep as dusk was gathering and insisted on watching him put the stone in his scrip before escorting him like a prisoner to the synagogue.

‘I don’t see what good it will do you,’ Nathan told them. ‘We can’t discuss the meaning of the letters this evening. Every man in the community will be in the synagogue tonight.’

But Aaron had exchanged a knowing wink with Isaac, and Nathan realized at once that they were planning something. Whatever it was, he wanted no part of it. So it was much to Nathan’s relief when Aaron and Isaac left him at the synagogue door and went to join the other groups of men.

It was the tradition for the men to gather on the eve of Shavuoth to study all night, until dawn proclaimed the time for morning prayers and the main services of the festival would begin. Debates over the holy texts were always lively, as each man deliberately offered a counter-argument to that of his companions so that all possible interpretations of the verses could be explored.

But as the evening wore on, Nathan became aware of two voices loudly raised above the general buzz of discussion in the room. With a sick feeling gathering in his belly, he realized the two voices belonged to Aaron and Isaac. Gradually, the other conversations died away as the whole room stopped to listen. The arguments Isaac and Aaron were posing were so bizarre that several of the older men in the congregation leaped to their feet in outrage, shaking their fists and banging the tables. Finally, Rabbi Elias threw up his hands and ordered an end to the unseemly debate. Glaring furiously at his son, the rabbi dismissed everyone to their homes to let tempers cool. But even so, it wasn’t until Nathan saw the look of undisguised triumph on Aaron’s face that he realized this was exactly the outcome he and Isaac had been planning.

Nathan squeezed past the grumbling elders and bolted out of the door. He had every intention of going to see his beloved Eleanor and trying to forget for a few brief hours that he was a Jew, that’s if her father wasn’t around to prevent it. But Nathan had not gone far along the street before his arms were seized on either side and he found himself being steered around the back of the synagogue to crouch in the darkness under the outside steps to the chamber. All four men waited, shivering in the rain, until they heard the sounds of the synagogue door being locked and footsteps shuffling away across the flagged path. Then they climbed the steps to the study chamber. Nathan knew it was useless to protest. The other three were determined to resolve the riddle of the stone, and even he was forced to admit that there could be no more fitting night on which to do so.

Aaron barred the door between the synagogue and the study chamber in case his father should return, then, taking the stone from Nathan, placed it carefully on the table between two lighted candles. He fumbled at his waist and unfastened a piece of long red cord with which he formed a circle on the table around the stone and candles. When he was finally satisfied that the circle was as perfect as he could make it, the four of them took their places on the stools, one at each corner of the table. The room was in darkness save for the flickering twin flames. No one spoke. They all knew what to do. They concentrated simply on the rhythm of their own breathing until it slowed almost as if they were sleeping.

Then Aaron, keeping his voice low and even, spoke from the shadows. ‘Look at the letters on the stone Hay, Shin, Mem. Stare at each letter in turn until they start to move. Watch them weave in and out of each other, growing bigger and smaller, changing their colours. Let yourself dissolve into the letters — become the letters.’

Nathan knew the meditation well. Their former teacher had often made them practise it, but always before they had visualized words in their heads. They had never stared at letters written on anything. Nathan had never been any good at it, not even when they were students. You were supposed to breathe each word until it lost its meaning and new words and new meanings danced in your head, but the only thoughts that ever came into Nathan’s head were certainly not spiritual. Mostly he spent the time dreaming up ways of being alone with the voluptuous, flaxen-haired Eleanor without her father finding out.

But tonight, as Nathan stared at the stone glistening in the trembling yellow candle flame, it was only too easy to see the letters moving. The letters first began twisting and undulating, then they seemed to be crawling off the stone and scuttling across the table towards him. He could hear the word stalking around him in the darkness, Ha-Sh-em, Ha-Sh-em. His three companions were breathing rhythmically in and out on the syllables of the word. Though he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the letters, Nathan was vaguely aware that the others were standing now, folding and unfolding their bodies to the rhythm of their breath, Ha-Sh-em. The word slithered through the shadows.

The letters were changing colour. Shin was glowing red as if it had caught fire. Mem had turned ice-blue and was running like water over the table, yet where the blue water touched the ruby flame it seemed only to make the flame burn more fiercely.

Aaron’s breathing had deepened as if he was trying to suck all the air from the room. He was chanting a different word now — Raziel, Raziel. The other two joined in, calling on the name of the angel who reveals the secrets of heaven and the knowledge of the future. Raziel, Raziel, Raziel. Nathan became aware of something growing in the corner of the room, blacker than a hangman’s shadow, deeper than the pit of Gehenna, a total absence of light so thick and heavy it was as if the very darkness from which the world had been created was reforming in that room. It was swelling up, uncoiling and reaching out

…

Nathan yelled in panic and dashed his hand across the table, sweeping stone, cord and candles crashing to the floor. For a moment he could see nothing while his eyes adjusted to the thin shaft of moonlight filtering in through the hole in the shutters. But Nathan didn’t need any light to tell him that whatever it was that had entered that room had vanished and the four of them were alone.

‘You clumsy imbecile, Nathan,’ Aaron raged at him. ‘We’d almost succeeded in summoning the spirit that would have given us knowledge of the future. Do you realize what a miracle that was? Not even the greatest mystic teachers have succeeded. Just think what power…’ Words failed Aaron, and he slammed his fist into the table in frustration.

‘But didn’t you see it?’ Nathan asked them. ‘That thing didn’t come from the light… Didn’t any of you see what it was?’

It was too dark to make out the expressions on their faces, but he could sense their anger and bewilderment. But if they hadn’t seen it, how could he begin to explain?

Nathan sank down on the stool, his hands trembling. ‘Just go. Get out of here and leave me alone.’

He heard the door close behind them and their footsteps on the wooden staircase, but he didn’t move. He sat staring into the corner, trying to understand what he had seen. There had been nothing there, and yet that nothing had been so dense, so massive, so full of rage and hate, it felt as if that nothing had been the only solid thing in the room, and the table, the walls, even he himself had been mere wisps of smoke in its presence.

Somewhere out in the city a dog was howling, and then he heard a single set of footsteps slowly climbing the wooden staircase outside. It must be Isaac, Benedict or Aaron come back to see if he was all right and walk him home. Nathan rose and started across the room to meet them. A finger came through the hole in the door, lifting the latch, and the door swung open.

Friday 24 May, the sixth day of Sivan, the Festival of Shavuoth

Judith leaped to her feet almost before she had opened her eyes, startled by the shouts and cries in the street outside. For a moment she thought she had overslept and the market was already open for the day, but then she realized the room was still dark. Isaac was standing by the tiny casement and peering out through the open shutter, shivering in the cold damp air. A thin grey light crawling up over the rooftops showed that dawn was not far off. Judith joined her brother at the casement, draping his cloak around his shoulders against the cold, though it still felt damp from the night’s rain.

‘What’s the noise?’ Judith asked.

Men were spilling out of the houses on either side of the street, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Women and children leaned out of the casements trying to see what was going on.

‘They’re calling the hue and cry,’ Isaac sighed. ‘I’d better go and help.’ He stooped, struggling to pull on his wet shoes. They were caked in mud.

Judith frowned. ‘Why didn’t you put those near the hearth when you came in? Anyway, when did you come in? It must have been very late. I didn’t hear you.’

But Isaac was already halfway out of the door. Judith turned back to the window and saw her brother emerge on to the street to join the other men who were rapidly dispersing in threes and fours in different directions hunting whoever was being sought by the law. She waited until Isaac had reached the end of the street, then she could contain her curiosity no longer and, slipping into her kirtle, cloak and shoes, ran outside. By now the women, hugging themselves against the sharp morning air, were gathering on the street.

‘Been a murder in Little Orford Street,’ they told her. ‘Jew it was and no mistaking it — found him naked as the day he was born.’

Judith felt her throat tighten. There wasn’t a Jew in Norwich she didn’t know, at least by sight. Now that they were all forced to wear the white strips, they could recognize everyone, even those who didn’t come to the synagogue. She found herself praying that it would not be one of her own friends, then reproved herself sharply; after all, it would be some poor woman’s father or brother or son. Another one of their community murdered. Where would it all end?

She allowed herself to be swept along by the crowd into Little Orford Street, where a mass of people had gathered around a small gap between two of the houses. At first Judith couldn’t see anything, but then a man caught her arm and dragged her forward through the throng.

‘Here’s another of the Jews, bailiff. Go on, you look, girl, see if you know him.’

A figure was lying stretched out on the ground on his back, his arms raised above his head. He’d been covered by someone’s cloak, but one of the men kneeling beside the corpse pulled it back far enough to allow Judith to see the face. She closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself to look. The dark brown eyes of the corpse were wide open as if in shock, and the lips were drawn back from the yellowed teeth in something approaching a snarl, but despite the contorted expression Judith was certain it was not a face she knew.

She felt her stomach relax in relief. ‘I’ve never seen that man before. Besides, he’s not Jewish. He has no beard, and look at his hair.’

Though the victim had dark stubble on his face, he had certainly been clean-shaven not much more than a week ago, and there was something else. A circular fuzz of new hair in the centre of his head indicated that in the not-too-distant past the man had been tonsured.

‘Probably trying to pass himself off as a God-fearing man,’ one man in the crowd muttered. ‘Trying to cod innocent folk into giving him alms or get into an abbey, so he could steal from them. Typical of their tricks.’ The others nodded.

Judith pressed her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to keep her anger in check. ‘But what makes you think he is Jewish?’ she persisted.

The men grinned at each other. With a magician’s flourish, the bailiff whipped the cloak from the naked body. A livid stab wound in the chest showed that there was no mistaking this was murder, but the bailiff was not pointing to the man’s wound. His spiteful smile deepened as he watched the hot blush spread over Judith’s face.

‘Good Christians don’t go around chopping the heads off their sons’ manhoods,’ he sneered.

The bailiff was right, and there was no mistaking that the dead man was circumcised.

Sunday 26 May, the eighth day of Sivan

A shaft of lemon-sharp light darted into the synagogue as Judith threw back the shutters. Yesterday the synagogue had been crammed with people for the Shavuoth services, but the door and shutters had been kept firmly barred in the hope that their muffled prayers would not reach the ears of the passers-by outside, and the synagogue was still fugged with the stench of sweat, oil and tallow.

Judith breathed in the cold morning air gratefully. As soon as the sun warmed the streets they’d be stinking of rotten vegetables, fish, dung and offal from Saturday’s markets, but for now a stiff breeze from the river carried with it the subtle scents of thyme, mint and bergamot growing in the synagogue garden below the window. Church bells from the scores of churches and chapels were pealing out over the city, calling the faithful to Mass.

Judith pulled the star-shaped oil lamp towards her and set about scraping the sticky residue of oil and wick fragments from the five spouts before refilling the reservoir. She remembered that the lamps in the study chamber would also have been burning and, with the flask of oil already in her hand, thought that she might as well refill those before she started her sweeping. But to her annoyance she found the door between the chamber and the synagogue barred on the other side.

Irritated by having to make the extra walk, Judith trudged out of the synagogue and climbed the back stairs that led to the separate chamber entrance. She unlatched the door and pushed it open. As in the synagogue, the shutters in the little chamber were tightly fastened, but the light from the open door was just enough for Judith to make out the figure of Nathan crouching in the corner of the room. His legs were drawn up to his chest, and his forehead rested on his knees. He didn’t look up, obviously so deeply asleep that even the sound of the door opening didn’t arouse him.

Judith closed the door as quietly as she could and was about to tiptoe back down the stairs when she stopped. There was something about the room that was not right. She was used to the study chamber being in disarray — the tables usually heaped with untidy piles of parchment, scrolls, discarded quills and even forgotten garments — but this was different. And there was a foul smell in the room, too, more than just the stench of tallow, sweat and stale air.

She cautiously opened the door again. Flies were buzzing against the shutters. Parchments and scrolls were strewn across the floor like autumn leaves. One of the trestles was overturned. Had Nathan thrown it over in a passion of grief?

‘Nathan?’ she called softly. Still he did not stir. She almost gagged, the stench was so overpowering. She had taken a step inside the room to open the shutters, when the breeze caught the door behind her and slammed it shut. She heard something thump down on to the wooden floor. She wrenched the door open again and saw that Nathan had slumped over on to his side. It was only then that Judith glimpsed the thick cord cutting deep into the flesh of his neck. What she could see of his face was purple and grotesquely swollen. His eyes were bulging wide. Nathan was dead.

Judith ran down the steps, half slipping in her haste. Someone was standing in the shadow of one of the apple trees in the synagogue garden. She was about to shout to them when it occurred to her that the watching figure might be Nathan’s killer. She started to run back up the stairs, but she knew she couldn’t bring herself to go back into that room, whatever danger lay outside. She turned again, trying to get a better glimpse of the person under the tree, but the place where they had been standing was empty.

Judith edged across the garden, then she picked up her skirts and ran the few streets to her home, praying that her brother would still be there. It was the Christian Sabbath, so Jews were not permitted to work in the workshops, but Isaac usually continued to sew in secret at home, for they needed the money. But when she burst in, she found the room empty. She tried to think. Where would he be? He must be with Aaron or Benedict. She hurried to the rabbi’s house, her heart still thumping so loudly in her chest she thought it would burst. But though she hammered for several minutes on his door, neither Rabbi Elias nor Aaron answered.

‘Judith,’ a voice called behind her. She turned to see her brother Isaac hurrying along the street towards her. Almost crying with relief, she ran to him.

‘Isaac…’ she panted. ‘You must… come at once. It’s Nathan… I’ve just found him in the synagogue… He’s… he’s dead!’

‘No, no, that’s not possible!’ Isaac turned and ran towards the synagogue. Judith followed more slowly. Her legs felt as weak as a newborn calf, and it was all she could do to walk, never mind run. Isaac had already raced up the stairs and was flinging open the door of the study chamber before Judith had crossed the garden.

Almost at once he emerged again at the top of the stairs. ‘I thought you said Nathan was in here.’

Judith pulled herself up the stairs. As she stepped cautiously inside the chamber, Isaac followed. Everything was exactly as she had left it, except for the body. Nathan’s corpse had vanished.

‘But… he was right there in the corner,’ Judith protested, turning in bewilderment to her brother.

Isaac gently squeezed her shoulders. ‘Perhaps you only thought Nathan was dead. He may simply have fainted and then recovered and has taken himself home.’

Judith closed her eyes tightly. ‘You didn’t see his face, Isaac, his eyes. There was a cord tied around his neck, cutting into his throat.’

‘A cord? Aaron was using a red cord two nights ago. He left it here, after Nathan…’ Isaac’s gaze darted around the room. ‘Are you sure you saw a cord? It’s not here now.’

‘Of course I am,’ Judith yelled at him. ‘And the stench. Can’t you smell it?’

Her brother sniffed. ‘That rotten stink from the butchers’ market — everyone can smell that. Look, little sister, dead men don’t get up and walk. A corpse can’t just vanish.’

‘Isaac, listen to me. I thought I saw someone watching this chamber. What if it was Nathan’s murderer and he came back while I was gone and moved the body?’

‘But why risk discovery by moving a corpse in broad daylight when they could simply leave it here?’ Isaac suddenly clapped his hand to his mouth and began frantically to search the room, tossing parchments aside, flinging out the contents of the small chests. ‘Is there something else missing, Judith? Something you saw in the room before that isn’t there now?’

‘Like what?’

But he didn’t answer her and she didn’t need an answer. She knew he was looking for the stone. And if the stone was missing…

‘Isaac, you said that Aaron had a red cord in this chamber. Is it possible that Aaron could have… murdered Nathan?’

Her brother gaped at her. ‘Aaron is the rabbi’s son. We’ve all grown up together. They may have quarrelled but…’ Isaac hesitated. He shook his head as if trying to rid himself of the idea and said firmly, ‘No. This is nonsense. You must have imagined it. You were always seeing monsters in the corners of the room in the dark when you were a child. You probably ate too much cheese last night.’

He bent over to kiss her forehead, but Judith furiously pulled away. It was the closest she had ever come to slapping him since they were children.

‘And what about whatever you were searching for: is that here?’ she demanded.

Isaac gnawed at the skin of his needle-calloused finger. ‘Nathan must have taken it home with him. I’ll go to his house straight away. That’ll put your mind at rest.’ He tried to smile. ‘Nathan’s probably sitting there right now swigging his ale, and all your fears will be for nothing.’ But he didn’t sound convinced by his own words.

Nathan was not in his house or his shop, and by the time the city gates were closed for the night and fires damped down in hearths he had still not returned. Anxious enquiries among all the Jews in the city revealed only that no one remembered seeing him since the eve of Shavuoth. There was no doubt that, dead or alive, Nathan had vanished and he was not the only one missing; Aaron likewise had disappeared.

Monday 27 May, the ninth day of Sivan

Isaac and Benedict came in from the yard, their hands still dripping with water from the ritual washing before meals. Judith ladled the thick bean and mutton potage into rough wooden bowls, fishing out an extra piece of mutton from the iron pot to put into Benedict’s bowl. There were more green herbs in the potage than meat or dried beans, for the stores in her kitchen were dwindling fast. Shavuoth may have been the wheat harvest festival for their ancestors in Israel, but here in the northern lands it was a time of hunger, for it would be many weeks before grain and fruit were ready to harvest.

Judith took her own bowl and sat at the end of the table. She could see that Benedict was bursting to say something, but silence had to be kept between the washing of hands and the blessing over the meal, so he was forced to bite his tongue until Isaac had finished mumbling the prayer. Then he burst out, ‘But what if Aaron’s been murdered, too?’

Isaac glanced uneasily at his sister. ‘We’ve no proof that Nathan is dead. Judith was probably mistaken in what she saw. It’s very dark in the study chamber.’

‘I know exactly what I saw,’ Judith blurted out furiously. ‘I’m not a child.’

Benedict held up his hands. ‘We believe you, don’t we, Isaac?’ he said, kicking his friend hard under the table. ‘The point is,’ he continued hastily, ‘both Nathan and Aaron have vanished. What if they were both killed in that room and the murderer had time only to move one of the bodies before Judith arrived?’

Isaac pushed his bowl aside. ‘Look, just suppose that my sister is right and Nathan has been killed. Then the murderer would have to be the same bastard who killed Jacob, but he’d not have been able to take the two of them. Aaron never left the house without a knife. No, most likely when Aaron got home, his father blistered his ears over that business on Erev Shavuoth and Aaron stormed off. He’s just lying low somewhere until the old man calms down.’

Benedict shook his head. ‘I spoke to Rabbi Elias and he said he hadn’t seen Aaron since he told him to go home that night. Anyone can tell he’s worried sick about his son.’

Judith nodded and turned to her brother. ‘If you’re so sure that Aaron isn’t dead, then he must have run off for some other reason, and why would he do that unless he’d killed Nathan?’

Isaac sprang to his feet. ‘No, if Nathan is dead then this is the work of the Christians.’

‘And what would Christians want with a stone?’ Benedict asked quietly. ‘The stone is missing — or have you forgotten?’

‘The stone is here,’ a shaky voice whispered from the doorway.

All three of them turned around. Aaron was standing in the low doorway, one hand clinging to the door frame as if he feared he would fall if he didn’t hold on to something. His face was pale, a dark bruise stained his cheek and one of the seams of his cloak had been ripped open, but in his right hand he held the sacred stone. Judith knew she should go to help him, but she couldn’t move.

‘I killed him,’ Aaron said, almost in wonder. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t let him take it… you understand that. He was a traitor, a blasphemer. I couldn’t let him take this stone from us, too. You would have done the same, wouldn’t you, Isaac? Benedict?’ he begged desperately.

He staggered forward and would have fallen had Benedict not caught him in his arms and lowered him gently on to the bench.

Judith hurried across the room to the flagon of wine they kept for the Shabbat meal on Friday evening and swiftly returned with a large measure. Benedict gently prised the stone from Aaron’s fingers and laid it on the table before clasping the man’s stiff fingers around the beaker of wine. Aaron stared at it as if he couldn’t understand what he was holding, then he lifted it and drank so fast Benedict had to pull it away from him to stop him choking.

Isaac opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but no words came out.

Judith could contain herself no longer. ‘What did Nathan do to betray us? He couldn’t, not Nathan. He was such a gentle, honest man.’

Aaron turned to her, his gaze unfocused. ‘What do you mean, Nathan? Nathan’s a bloody fool at times, but he’s no traitor.’

‘But you said you killed him.’

Aaron buried his head in his hands. ‘I told you, I didn’t mean it. They’ll hang me. Worse than that. Who knows what they’d do to a Jew who killed a man in holy orders. You have to help me get out of Norwich before they find me.’

Judith knelt down on the rush-strewn floor and stroked his arm gently. She could feel his whole body shaking. ‘What happened, Aaron? Just tell us from the beginning.’

He took another gulp of wine and sat staring at the table. ‘I.. I went back to the study chamber on Erev Shavuoth after we parted. I wanted to try the meditation again on my own. Just as I got there, I saw someone hurrying down the stairs. I could see it wasn’t one of you. The figure was too tall, walking all hunched over, and he was wearing a long robe, though I couldn’t make out its colour in the dark. So I hid, but just as he drew level with me Nathan came staggering out of the chamber holding the side of his head. He was standing at the top of the stairs yelling, “Thief, thief.” The man took to his heels. I chased after him and managed to grab him on the corner of Little Orford Street. As soon as I turned him round, I realized he was a friar, a Black Friar, and he was trying to stuff the stone into his scrip. I told him to give it back and I’d let him go, but he just laughed. He said he’d rather destroy it than let a Jew have it. The whole story burst out of him like pus from a boil.

‘Apparently, the Black Friar had heard rumours about the stone in Exeter. A pedlar was spreading the word among the Jews, wanted to sell it to the highest bidder so that he could buy passage on a boat. The friar arrived just an hour too late. The pedlar told him that Jacob had already bought it and was on his way home. The friar knew that Jacob wouldn’t sell it to him, but he thought that once Jacob was home he could talk his way into his house and steal it.’

‘Jacob would never have allowed a friar across his threshold, not unless he had soldiers with him,’ Isaac said.

‘That’s what I told him, but he said Jacob would let him in if he thought he was a Jew. I laughed. That’s when the little weasel told me.

‘He said, “Do you think I’ve always looked like this? I was born one of you, a Jew. My fool of a father scraped a living from the leavings of the Gentiles all his life and still they spat on him in the street. You think I wanted to spend the rest of my life being kicked out of the way and treated like pigswill? I knew there was only one way out: if you can’t beat them, become one of them. So I converted to the true faith and joined the order as soon as I was twelve. They were pleased to have me at first, a convert plucked from the burning, but that didn’t last long. They were never going to let me forget I was born a Jew. But if I bring them the stone they’ll have to accept me. We’ll destroy it and then we’ll destroy the rest of you vermin. When there isn’t a Jew left in England, then they will forget I’m one of the accused tribe.” ’

Aaron clenched his fists. ‘I pulled my knife. I didn’t mean to use it, just to threaten him, but he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t give up. He just kept taunting me. There was a struggle. The ground was slippery from the rain. I don’t know if I pushed the knife into him or if he fell on it, but the next thing I knew he was dead.

‘I didn’t know what to do. I was about to run off when it occurred to me that if I stripped him, it might take longer for them to work out who he was and buy me a little more time. Besides,’ he added savagely, ‘I wasn’t going to let them find a Jew in a friar’s robes.’

Tuesday 28 May, the tenth day of Sivan

Judith stood in the doorway of their house, throwing the crumbs from the morning bread to the squabbling chickens in the yard. The pale primrose light gave promise of a fine day to come, which was as well for she needed to tend the synagogue garden. Weeds were sprouting everywhere after all the rain.

As if he could read her thoughts, Isaac paused in the act of pulling on his worn leather shoes. ‘Promise me you’ll stay out of the study chamber today. I don’t want you going back in there until I’ve had a chance to straighten it. We don’t want you imagining any more bodies or demons, do we?’

Judith rounded on him furiously. ‘I didn’t imagine it and Nathan is still missing, isn’t he? And his poor mother’s going out of her mind with worry.’

Isaac raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Give me patience. You heard Aaron last night. He said Nathan was standing on the stairs yelling, “Thief.” So the Black Friar can’t have killed him when he stole the stone. And before you start accusing him again, Aaron couldn’t have done it either; he was too busy chasing after the friar. Look, little sister, I didn’t want to tell you this, but Nathan has been seeing a girl, Eleanor. He’s besotted with her, but she’s a Christian, so they have to meet in secret. Nathan’s mother would kill herself if she found out about it.’

‘You think they’ve run off together?’

Isaac shrugged. ‘It’s more than possible, especially if the girl’s father got wind of it. He’d hardly give the couple his blessing, now, would he? But I can’t tell Nathan’s mother that. So be a good girl and stay out of that room. I don’t want you upset again. We’ve enough to worry about with a real body, without worrying about imaginary ones. If the authorities realize that corpse was a friar, not a Jew, they’ll turn this town upside down looking for his killer.’

Judith swallowed hard. She hadn’t dared tell Isaac that she had drawn the bailiff’s attention to the man’s tonsure. She prayed that the bailiff would dismiss what she said, as he did all Jews.

Beads of sweat prickled on Judith’s forehead. Although the afternoon sun was warm for May, she was hoeing with unnecessary vigour between the bushes of rosemary and hyssop in the synagogue garden to try to keep her thoughts off that study chamber. But it wasn’t working, and she kept glancing up at the casement. Isaac was right; the most likely explanation for Nathan’s disappearance was that he and this Christian girl had fled the city together.

As a little child, Judith been too terrified to cross the yard at night, convinced that she could see a demon with glowing eyes lurking in the corner, though her father had shown her it was just the light from her own lantern glinting off a piece of metal. Even now she sometimes thought she saw her mother sitting hunched in the chair before the fire. Perhaps she had imagined Nathan’s body, too. If she could just see what it was in that room — a shadow, a piece of cloth, something that had made her think she’d seen Nathan — she could forget the whole thing.

Judith’s heart gave a lurch of relief as she pushed open the door of the chamber. She’d half expected to see Nathan crouching there again, but the corner was empty and bare. Almost at once, relief was replaced by disappointment. Someone had already tidied the room, her brother or Benedict, no doubt, for it was a man’s hand that had tidied it, she could see that at once. Tables and benches were now upright, but not neatly aligned, and armfuls of books and parchments had been scooped up and stacked in drunken piles without any attempt to sort them or put them back in their places on the shelf. It was as if someone had straightened things just enough to create a space to work. Several sheets of parchment lay spread out on one of the tables, close to a candle stub with a quill pen and pot of black ink.

Judith lifted one of the sheets. It was a random list of words written in Hebrew — gold, fire, citadel. Other Hebrew letters were written beside each word, but these letters didn’t make words. Judith glanced at the rest of the table, searching for the book or scroll that the person had been studying. It was the custom to take a passage from the Torah and study each word and phrase in depth, looking for the different meanings. Usually that passage would be in front of the scholar as he studied, but there were no scrolls or books on the table.

Judith glanced up sharply as she heard footsteps pounding up the wooden steps outside, but before she could cry out the door burst open and Aaron rushed into the room. If anything, he looked paler than he had done the day before, and he was certainly trembling as much.

He doubled over, gasping for breath. ‘Isaac… Benedict… where are they? I… thought they might be here. They said at the tailor’s that Isaac had gone to the warehouse at the river to fetch cloth, but I thought he might have come here.’ He glanced repeatedly at the door as if he was fearful that someone might be following him.

‘What is it? Has something else happened?’ Judith asked, beginning to feel as scared as he looked.

Aaron took a deep breath. ‘I need to show you something. Come, please come.’

‘Where to?’

Aaron shook his head as if he couldn’t trust himself to speak, and after an anxious glance through the half-opened door he urgently motioned her to follow him. Judith was outside before she realized she still had the pieces of parchment in her hand and quickly stuffed them in her scrip before running after Aaron.

He strode rapidly, his hood pulled far down over his face as if he feared to be recognized. Judith had to keep breaking into a trot so as not to lose sight of him. When they reached Conesford Street, Aaron finally stopped. The breeze from the river was stronger here, and Judith was glad of it for she could feel the sweat running down her back.

They were standing in front of Jacob’s house, a fine stone building with a heavy oak door guarding the entrance. Aaron withdrew a large iron key from under his cloak and slid it into the lock. As the door swung open, he pushed Judith through the door, locking it behind them. It was dim inside the small entrance chamber. All the shutters were closed, and the only light came from two small slits in the thick stone walls either side of the door. Judith shivered. It had been just a week since Jacob’s death, but with no fires lit in the house the air felt damp and chill.

She rubbed her arms uneasily. ‘What are we doing here, Aaron?’

‘Upstairs… please,’ he begged her.

He led the way up the stone steps to the upper hall. A huge fireplace occupied one wall, but the logs in it were blackened and dead. A long table stretched down the centre of the room, set about with chairs. Chests and side tables were ranged along the walls. The lower half of the walls was wainscoted with timber panels, painted green and dotted with gold stars, while the stones on the upper half were lime-washed white. At the far end of the room was a wooden partition.

Judith hovered uneasily by the door. ‘We shouldn’t be in here. How did you get the key?’

‘I went to Nathan’s house to find out if there was any news of him. I saw the key on a shelf and guessed what it was. It was too big for any lock in that cottage. Nathan’s mother must have taken it home with her for safe-keeping when she dismissed Jacob’s servants after his death. I suppose the house would come to Nathan, in due course, unless Jacob bequeathed it to another relative.’

‘So Nathan’s mother knows you are here.’ Judith felt more comfortable knowing that.

Aaron looked wretched. ‘I took… borrowed the key when she was out of the room. No, wait, please, Judith,’ he pleaded. ‘Rumours are beginning to spread that the corpse was a monk. I even heard someone say he was a wealthy abbot. If the justices believe that, they won’t rest until his killer is caught. I have to get out of England. But I need money to buy a passage.

‘I can’t go to my father. He always puts his principles before anything, even his own son. He’d hand me over to the bailiff himself. I was sure Jacob would have something valuable in the house. I persuaded myself that Jacob didn’t need it any more and Nathan had run off with Eleanor. Who knows if he would ever come back to claim his inheritance? I wasn’t going to take much, just a few coins or something I could sell. But I couldn’t find anything small enough to carry. Nathan’s mother probably took anything of value to her own house in case of thieves breaking in.’

‘And it seems she was right to do so,’ Judith said pointedly, but Aaron ignored her.

‘Then I remembered once, when I was a child, I was playing here with Nathan and your brother and Benedict. Old Jacob was out and Nathan showed us the place where his grandfather hid his most treasured books. I thought there might still be something in the old hiding place.’

‘And was there?’ Judith asked.

Aaron nodded. Without saying anything more, he led the way behind the partition. Here a large bed, draped with hangings against the cold, occupied most of the centre of the room. Aaron went to the far wall and paused in front of the wooden wainscoting. Taking a deep breath, he ran his hands over the panelling until he found what he was searching for, then lifted the section away. There, set into the stone wall, was a long, low recess lined with wood, an ideal place in which to conceal books or anything else of value.

And it was filled with something covered in sacking, but from her position at the end of the bed Judith couldn’t make out what it was. She was aware only of a terrible stench filling the room. Her guts had turned to iced water, but she forced herself to move closer and then stifled a scream as she caught sight of what was lolling out of the top of the sack. The face was blackened now where the blood had congealed, the skin was beginning to peel, but for all that there was no mistaking that the body in the hidden recess was that of Jacob’s grandson, Nathan.

Judith didn’t know how long she stood there staring at that nightmare vision, but then cold fear pushed her into action. She’d been right all along. Aaron had killed Nathan and now he was going to do the same to her. That’s why he had lured her to an empty house. She ran back through the hall towards the stairs and clattered down them, slipping on the final steps in her haste and having to grasp the rail with both hands to stop herself crashing backwards on to the stone. She flew at the door, twisting the great iron handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. She could hear Aaron pounding down the steps behind her and she turned, trying to make for the door to the lower chamber, but at that moment Aaron reached the bottom of the stairs and stood barring her way.

He held out his hands. Terrified, she backed away. A look of bewilderment crossed his face.

‘I’m sorry, Judith. I should have warned you instead of showing you, but I didn’t know how to say it. I thought you wouldn’t believe me unless you saw for yourself. Judith, you’re the only one I can trust now. I must leave today, before the city gates close. I’d take you with me if I thought you wouldn’t be in even greater danger if they come after me, but I couldn’t leave you here with them without warning you.’

‘You think I’d go with you, a murderer?’ Judith screamed at him.

‘I told you I didn’t mean to kill the friar.’

‘Nathan! I’m talking about poor Nathan lying up there. What did you do, go back and strangle him after you’d finished butchering the friar?’

Aaron sank down on to the bottom step. ‘Is that what you think, that I killed Nathan? Judith, I swear that Nathan was alive when I left him, and I did not go back. I thought… I really thought he’d run off with that girl, until this afternoon when I removed that panel and found him there. I swear to you on my life, I did not kill him.’

‘Who else could have done it? Who else could have put him there?’ Judith raged at him.

Aaron covered his face with his hands and moaned. ‘I wish for your sake I had killed him, Judith, because the alternative…’ He raised his anguished eyes and looked at her. ‘Only five people knew of the existence of that recess. Jacob, Nathan and the three little boys Nathan was playing with that day. There was no one else Nathan would ever have shared the secret with except me, Isaac and Benedict. I know I didn’t kill Nathan, so that leaves only two others who could have done so and hidden his body here — your brother or your future husband.’

Judith sat shivering in her room. It was growing dark, but she hadn’t bothered to stoke up the fire or prepare supper. She couldn’t seem to think how to carry out even the simplest of tasks which she had been performing since she was a child.

Aaron had left Norwich. She had given him the small silver amulet in the shape of a hand that she wore around her neck. She didn’t suppose it would fetch much, but it was all she had, and Aaron had been grateful. Her mother had given her the amulet the day she and Judith’s father had fled before the trial. Judith remembered the fierce hugs. How she’d clung to her parents, desperate for them to stay, but urging them to go, scared that if they didn’t leave at once it would be too late. She’d felt that same fear again that afternoon when she hugged Aaron and pleaded with him to go quickly. His last words to her had been, ‘Take care of yourself.’ Her mother’s last words had been addressed not to her but to Isaac. ‘Look after your little sister, Isaac. You must be father and brother to her now.’

Was it true that her own brother had killed their best friend? She could not, she would not believe that, but if it wasn’t Isaac, then the man she loved even more than her brother, the man she had pledged her life to, must be the murderer. And that was equally unthinkable.

She tried to reason it out. Why had Isaac been so desperate to convince her she had imagined the corpse? Was he the shadow she’d seen under the apple tree? He could have waited until she left and then moved the body while she was searching for him. Not to Jacob’s house — there wouldn’t have been time — but he could have dragged the corpse from the chamber into the synagogue and moved it to Jacob’s house later that night. But why would he want to kill poor harmless Nathan?

She tried to visualize the room as she’d seen it that day, but all she could remember clearly was how it had looked this morning. The jumbled parchments and books piled up hastily as if someone had been impatient to get on with another task — those lists of words!

She reached into her scrip and pulled out the sheaf of parchments. Lighting a candle from the embers of the fire, Judith examined them again. Temple, burned offering, consume. Some of the words had been crossed out and different words written over the top. But the random letters alongside the words made no sense at all. Then, with a sudden flash, it came to her. Hebrew letters were also numbers. The letter Dalet was the number 4 and the letter Resh was the number 200. Every word on the list had a number beside it, and that number was the combined value of the letters in that word. The letters written on that stone — Hay, Shin and Mem — each had a numeric value too. Hay was 5, Shin was 300, Mem, 40; that made a total of 345. Was that important?

Judith glanced up. It was dark outside now, and Isaac still hadn’t returned. Something was wrong. She stuffed the parchments back into her scrip and, snatching up her cloak, hurriedly left the house. The streets were almost deserted, save for scavenging dogs. A couple of drunks reeled out from one of the taverns, holding each other up. One of them called out to her, but Judith kept her arms tightly crossed over her chest to hide her white badge and hurried on. The synagogue and the study chamber were in darkness, and there was no sign of Isaac there. She prayed she’d find him at Benedict’s lodging and turned to retrace her steps.

The wooden shutters on the apothecary’s shop, like all the others in the street, had been dropped down, sealing off the shop entrance, but Judith slipped along the alley to the side of the shop and knocked tentatively on the narrow door. Silence. Please be at home, Benedict, please. After the third time of knocking, the door opened a crack and Benedict peered out.

‘Is my brother here?’ Judith asked.

Benedict stared at her distractedly as if he wasn’t really taking in what she was saying.

‘I have to talk to you. It’s about Isaac. I’m worried he may be about to do something stupid, dangerous even. Benedict!’

He finally jerked out of his reverie and, with a worried frown, gestured for her to enter. Judith followed him through the storeroom, threading her way between barrels and great earthenware pots. Shelves were crowded with phials of green, brown and gold liquids, some opaque, some as transparent as the coloured glass in the windows of churches. Sacks of dried herbs lay in dusty corners and bunches of them hung from the beams, thickening the air with a potage of spicy scents. Roughly hewn tables were scattered with yellowing animal bones and black wizened roots like tiny shrivelled babies.

Benedict held aside a leather curtain that separated his own small chamber from the workroom. His bedding was rolled up in one corner, and a small table with two stools occupied another, but the rest of the room was taken up with piles of scrolls, sheaves of parchment and teetering stacks of books. Judith wondered where Benedict found space on the beaten-earth floor to lay out his thin palliasse when it came time to sleep.

He gestured to one of the stools but remained standing himself, hovering awkwardly in the doorway and wiping his grimy hands repeatedly on his sacking apron. Judith realized she had interrupted him grinding up some herbs for the shop.

‘What’s this about Isaac?’ Benedict prompted. ‘It must be serious for you to come here alone.’ There was a reproving note in his tone. Though they were betrothed, tongues would flap if she was seen entering his room at night, and such things mattered to Benedict, Judith thought with sudden irritation. She tried to ignore his frown. She had to tell him about Nathan, but she was unsure how to begin. If he disapproved of her coming to his room alone, he would certainly not like the idea of her going off with another man to an empty house.

‘Aaron has left Norwich, but before he left he told me he found the body of Nathan.’

Benedict stared at her in horror, then his legs seemed to give way and he crumpled against the door frame, pressing his fists to his eyes. Judith wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him, but she knew she had to keep talking or she’d never bring herself to tell him what she feared.

‘Nathan’s body was hidden in Jacob’s house in a secret recess that only you, he and Isaac knew of. Aaron swore that he didn’t put him there, so he reasoned it had to be either you or Isaac. And I’ve been thinking: when I told Isaac about the body, he ran straight to the study chamber, not the synagogue where I told him it was. Then he did everything he could to persuade me that I had imagined a body.’

Benedict thrust his hands palms out as if to push away the very suggestion. ‘You can’t believe your own brother is guilty of murder.’

‘I don’t want to believe it, but who else could have known about the hiding place? Isaac went to Nathan’s house that very afternoon. He must have seen the key there and taken it, just as Aaron did, then slipped it back when he returned later to ask if Nathan had returned.’

‘But why would he want to harm Nathan?’ Benedict asked.

‘I think he wanted the stone. Maybe he didn’t know that the Black Friar had already taken it. There’s something else.’ Judith pulled the lists of words out of her pocket. ‘Look, he has been practising gematria. I think he is trying to find words that add up to the same numeric value as the word on that stone.’

Benedict lunged forward and snatched the lists from her and examined them closely. ‘How… how do you know about gematria or about the word on the stone?’

Judith shook her head impatiently. ‘I overheard you all talking, but that’s not important. What matters is what Isaac is going to do with these words.’ She pointed to the lists.

Benedict took a deep breath and spoke without looking at her. ‘On Erev Shavuoth we were trying to meditate. We had almost succeeded in raising a powerful spirit, one who has the knowledge of the future, at least that’s what Aaron and your brother believed. But Nathan panicked and sent everything crashing to the floor before the spirit could materialize properly.’

‘Did you see it?’ Judith asked

Benedict shook his head. ‘I felt something, a force. It was as if I was hollow and a great wind had roared through me, and for a moment I felt such… but I saw nothing. There was nothing coming to our aid,’ he added bitterly. ‘Isaac wants to try again. But he is not as skilled in the art as Aaron. And it’s dangerous to attempt these things alone. Your brother doesn’t have the strength or knowledge to control what he might raise, and such a powerful spirit can take possession of you or even destroy you if you cannot master it.’

Judith leaped up. ‘We have to stop him. But I can’t find him. He didn’t come home, and he’s not in the study chamber.’

‘I think he will try to raise the spirit somewhere in the heart of the Christians’ world, so that it can destroy them. He will have used the words as a sign of where he should go.’ Benedict rifled through the lists, then he pounced on one and held it up. ‘This is the one. Cup — that is 170, gold, 14, temple, 65, idol, 148, daybreak, 508. They all add up to 905, the same number as the letters on the stone.’

Judith frowned. ‘But the value of the letters in HaShem is only 345. I worked that out myself. Never mind how I know,’ she added impatiently, seeing the astonishment on Benedict’s face.

Still staring at her in disbelief as if she was a cock that had laid an egg, Benedict said slowly, ‘Isaac was using the mystic numbers. If Mem is a final letter it has a greater value — 600, instead of 40.’

‘But even if these words add up to 905, what do they mean?’ Judith asked. ‘ Temple, cup, idol and gold — that could be a church; they have statues, gold and chalices in the churches, but there are fifty or sixty churches in Norwich. We can’t search them all.’

Benedict studied the words again. ‘ Daybreak.’ He shook his head. ‘ Cup — that must be it,’ he said finally. ‘All churches have chalices, but the cup is the specific emblem of one of their saints, John the Evangelist. There is only one church in the city with that name, and it’s in Conesford Street, not far from Jacob’s house.’

‘Then we must go there at once.’

‘This is no task for a woman,’ Benedict told her firmly. ‘You shouldn’t even know about the stone, much less the numbers. Alone, I can reason with Isaac quietly. If you’re there, his pride might make him do something foolish. You go home and wait for us. I’ll find him and bring him to you.’

As if to show that he would not be swayed on this, Benedict walked ahead of her out of the room, holding the lantern. Without really thinking what she was doing, Judith scooped up the pieces of parchment and followed him outside.

‘You will find him?’ she begged. ‘Whatever evil he’s done, he’s still my brother and I love him. He can’t have meant to kill Nathan. He must be ill or maybe whatever was conjured in the room that night..’

Benedict squeezed her shoulder. ‘Go home. I have to hurry!’

Judith crossed to the casement for the hundredth time that night, but there was still no sign of Isaac and Benedict. The curfew bell had long since sounded, signalling that all house fires must be damped down for the night and made safe, but still her brother had not returned.

Suppose Benedict had been too late or had gone to the wrong place? Could cup mean something else? But she couldn’t think what else it could mean. Frantically, Judith pored over the lists again. If only Aaron was here — he was more skilled in the art of the mysteries than any of them. She wondered where he was sleeping tonight. She prayed he was safe and the silver hand amulet would protect him; if only Isaac had such protection.

She began adding the words again, looking at each list in turn. None of the other lists added up to 905. Then finally she saw it: there was a second list that added up to that number. She’d almost missed it because of the repeated crossings-out. Two words on this other list were the same as the first, gold and daybreak, but the others were different. To cross, or pass over: the number 272 had been written beside this; and next burned offering: against that had been written 111.

To pass over, to cross: what did you pass over? A river, a bridge. You crossed over a river using a bridge. But which bridge? Coslany, Blackfriars, Fye, Whitefriars, Bishop’s Bridge? They were scattered right across Norwich. She stared at the other words, gold, burned offering, daybreak. These weren’t the names of any of the bridges. A bridge of gold? None of the bridges was made of anything but wood and stone, though some said the Bishop’s Bridge was paved with gold, given the money he gathered in tolls from those entering the city. That had to be the answer! Bishop’s Bridge was the only one of the bridges that formed an entrance to Norwich. And the tolls from this entrance went not to the city but straight to the bishop’s coffers. That’s what Isaac would want to destroy, not some little church. Benedict had gone to the wrong place.

Judith snatched up her cloak and a lantern and rushed out into the streets. Most of the houses were in darkness, though here and there a pinprick of light shone between the cracks of the shutters. The alehouses had long since emptied, and the brothels were silent. Norwich was sleeping. A mist was creeping up from the river and ditches, rubbing and curling around the houses. There was a squeal behind her and Judith whirled around, but her lantern caught only the great green eyes of a cat with a mouse dangling from its mouth. The cat glared at her before bounding lightly over a wall and disappearing.

Fog hung over the river like a white prayer shawl. Judith could hear the water rushing below her, but she couldn’t see more than an arm’s length in front of her. She crept as quietly as she could across the bridge, clinging on to the side to guide her way in the mist. Below her was nothing but swirling whiteness, as if the stones were floating on clouds. The bridge had never seemed as long as it did now. She hadn’t thought the river so wide.

Judith stopped with a gasp. She had almost walked straight into the wooden hurdles on the far side. Two of the bishop’s soldiers lay with their backs to her on the other side of the hurdles, their task to see that no one entered or left by that bridge until after prime in the morning when the tollbooth was open for business. She could hear the men snoring, confident in the knowledge that no one could drag those hurdles aside without waking them.

Judith backed away as quietly as she could. She had been so sure that Isaac would be here. How could she have been so arrogant as to think she had worked out what Benedict could not? He had already shown her to be wrong once that evening over the number. There was nothing for it but to return home and wait, as he had instructed her.

Then, as she had almost reached the city end of the bridge, she heard a scraping as if something heavy was being dragged over stones. She stopped and listened hard. For a moment or two she could hear nothing more over the sound of the rushing river, then she heard the noise again. It was coming from beneath her feet. It was probably just a piece of driftwood being ground against the pillars of the bridge by the force of the river. All the same, suppose Isaac was under the bridge, not on it.

Where the bridge joined the road on the city side, Judith left her lantern hanging on a tree and scrambled down the bank, sliding on her bottom until her foot encountered solid ground. Pressed against the wall, she edged forward gingerly. The mist billowed in waves, curling away, then closing in again. She thought that she could see a thin strip of flickering yellow light and someone or something moving. But each time her eyes fastened on the shape, the mist would obliterate it again. She edged forward, afraid that she would walk straight into the river, but just at that moment the white fog parted.

Hard against the bridge, a small wooden jetty projected out from the bank into deeper water to enable the boats to unload their cargoes when the river was low. Someone was standing on that jetty muttering to himself in a slow rhythmic chant, as if he was breathing every syllable. Ha-Sh-em. Ha-Sh-em.

‘Isaac, no, don’t. Please don’t try to conjure it,’ Judith whispered, trying to make him hear without her voice carrying to the two guards at the far end of the bridge.

Startled, the man whipped around, but it was not Isaac’s face she saw staring at her in alarm, but Benedict’s. His hands were trembling.

‘Go home, Judith. You shouldn’t be here. This is too dangerous. I don’t want you to get caught.’

‘But what are you doing here? I thought you were looking for Isaac at the church.’

Benedict sighed. ‘I couldn’t tell you, because I wanted to keep you safe. Isaac doesn’t have the stone. I do. It was me who wrote those lists of words. Aaron was right: we have to stand up for ourselves. We have to show them that we can fight back. The Eternal One is supposed to defend the innocent, but where was He the day they hanged my father in front of a jeering crowd? I learned something that day. Heaven will not send down fire to slay our enemies or part the water to save us unless we first do something for ourselves. We must fight for our own survival. If we fight, He will give us victory, but if we simply sit there praying and wailing, He will not hear us.’

‘So you mean to conjure up a spirit to destroy your father’s murderers?’ Judith asked.

He shook his head impatiently. ‘I am no more skilled than Isaac, as I told you. Even if I did possess Aaron’s ability to call up a spirit, what good would it be if I couldn’t control it? The stone was a sign, a sign that we had to rise up and take matters into our own hands. HaShem, The Name, the title the Eternal One used of Himself when He delivered us from slavery in Egypt. Our people had to force the pharaoh to let them go. They had to start walking before the Red Sea parted. Now we must do the same. The stone has told me what to do; there can be no mistake — the crossing of gold, the burned offering. It is so clear, Judith.’ Benedict’s eyes glittered in the lanternlight.

As he moved, Judith noticed three small barrels behind him on the jetty, stacked against the arch of the bridge. Benedict pulled the wooden bung out of one of the barrels. A thin stream of black powder began to trickle out across the wooden jetty under the bridge. It looked like the same powder that Judith had seen him dusting from his hands that afternoon.

‘What is that?’ Judith asked fearfully. ‘Is it a dried herb?’

‘It’s a mixture of substances; a little charcoal and sulphur, but mainly saltpetre, scraped from the walls of cellars. My father taught me to make it to treat running sores and cankers of the skin. Alchemists say it’s an elixir of life and will remove corruption from metals. But a few weeks ago I discovered in a book a list of recipes for making different kinds of fire. It was written that if the correct proportions are mixed, when a flame is touched to it, it will burn more fiercely than a blacksmith’s fire. And more than that: for the fire ignites so suddenly and with such force that it can bring walls crashing down. They say it is like a mighty thunderclap and flash of lightning together.’

For a moment Judith couldn’t grasp what he was saying; such a thing sounded impossible. Then she looked again at the three barrels stacked against the pillar of the bridge.

‘You mean to start such a terrible fire now, don’t you, and cause this bridge to tumble into the river?’

‘Yes, yes! Imagine it. Oh, they will rebuild it in time, but it will take a very long time, and think of the money the Church will lose. Think of the terror they will be in, knowing that we have such power. They will not dare lift their hands against us again, for this weapon will strike such fear into them, just as did the plagues of Egypt. And I want to hurt them, Judith, hurt them in the only way they will understand. Make them pay for what they did to my father and the others. All these years they have been bleeding us dry. Now they will know what it feels like to have what they value torn from them.’

‘And do you mean to smite the firstborn, too?’ Judith said furiously. ‘What of the innocent men, women and children crossing the bridge when you unleash this plague on them? Do you intend to drown them in the river like the pharaoh’s soldiers?’

Benedict looked shocked. ‘No. You know I would never kill anyone. The sign was clear — daybreak, dawn. The fire will be lit as the first rays of the sun light up the sky, long before the bridge is open. No one will die, I swear to you.’

‘But we will die, Benedict. Do you think they will allow you or me or any of us to live if they discover we possess such power and pose such a threat? There will be such an outcry in this land that the Christians will not rest until every Jew in England is burning. And what then, Benedict? What if they let you live to watch me burn on a bonfire and our neighbours and our friends, the old women and little children, too? If they let you live to witness that, how will you take revenge then for those innocent lives?

‘Your father went to the gallows still believing in justice; would he have wanted you to take revenge? Old Jacob gave all he had for a stone that he thought would bring peace and hope to all of us. He would be appalled at the thought of you using this stone to bring more destruction and misery.’ She abruptly halted in her tirade as an even more terrible thought flashed into her head. ‘The stone… If Isaac doesn’t have it and you do, then you must be the one who killed Nathan for it.’

Benedict threw his arms over his head. ‘Judith, how could you think that of me?’

‘You are standing there threatening to bring a bridge crashing into the river, and you ask me how I could think that you were a murderer. What else should I think?’

‘But I didn’t kill him! I discovered Nathan’s body in the chamber, but I heard someone in the synagogue, so I slipped away and hid. Then I saw you enter the chamber and come running out. Like you, I assumed Aaron had killed Nathan for the stone. You know how hot-tempered he is, and he was convinced he was meant to interpret the letters. I knew that if the authorities learned of a body in the synagogue they’d start arresting Jews for the murder. They didn’t bother for Jacob, because they guessed his killer was a Christian, but if they thought they could pin a murder on a Jew they wouldn’t hesitate to hang half the synagogue and claim we’d all had a hand in it, so that the Crown could claim all our property, just like they did when they hanged my father. I hid the body, Judith, to protect Aaron and the rest of us, but I am no murderer.’

‘And that’s why you’ll never have the guts to go through with this,’ a voice behind them sneered.

Judith spun around. A tall, muscular woman was leaning against the wall of the bridge, her arms folded over her pendulous breasts as if she was trying to keep them from straying.

‘He’s right, lady. He didn’t kill your friend; I did. My boys had been keeping a watch on this Nathan, but I told them to fetch me when they were sure he was alone. They’d already lost the stone once when they gave that old Jew a hammering, so I wasn’t going to trust them again. If you want something done properly, you need a woman to do it.

‘But young Nathan insisted he didn’t have the stone, even when I half throttled him with a piece of cord, so I finished the job and searched the room. As it turns out, the stinking piece of worm-meat was telling the truth; it wasn’t there. But I figured that if I left the body in the room, the stone would come to me. Your lover there knows what would have happened right enough. They’d have rounded up every Jew in Norwich and thrown them in the castle keep until they could decide how many to hang. The stone had to be in one of your houses, so all I had to do was wait, then send my lads round to search while you lot were rattling your chains and begging for mercy. But you had to go and move the little runt’s body, didn’t you? Still, no matter.’

Magote suddenly unclasped her arms and, too late, Judith saw the flash of metal. With the agility of a cat, Magote sprang forward and in one practised movement had grabbed Judith’s arm and spun her around to face Benedict, twisting the arm behind her back. Judith felt the point of a dagger pressing up between her ribs.

‘Now, lad, you give me that stone and I might just be persuaded to let your little sweeting live.’

‘I’ll… I’ll give it to you. Wait. Don’t hurt her, I beg of you,’ Benedict pleaded.

With shaking hands he struggled to pull the heavy stone from his scrip. After what seemed to Judith like a lifetime, he finally placed it on the wooden jetty next to his lantern so that it was in plain sight.

Holding Judith tightly in front of her, Magote pressed back against the wall. ‘Now, my pretty lad, you walk past me nice and slow and climb up the bank. When I have the stone safe I’ll let her come to you. But you try and make a grab for her and this dagger will be in her body up to the hilt afore you can bless yourself.’

Benedict edged past Judith, his face a mask of fear. Judith heard him trying to scramble up the wet grass, slipping and sliding in a frantic attempt to carry out the woman’s instructions to the letter.

‘You’re coming with me, my sweeting,’ Magote hissed in Judith’s ear, ‘just in case your lover there changes his mind and tries something.’

She slid the dagger around to Judith’s back and, using it as a goad, forced Judith to walk forward on to the slippery boards of the jetty. Without warning, Magote grabbed Judith’s shoulder and pulled her violently sideways. Judith’s feet slid from under her and she crashed into the river. She didn’t have time to take a breath before the icy water closed over her head, as her heavy skirts pulled her down and down into the blackness.

Free of Judith, Magote reached out for the stone, but she moved too quickly and slipped on the slimy boards. The edge of her gown caught the lantern and sent it crashing over. The candle rolled out on to a thin line of black powder, which instantly flared up like a rearing snake. Magote stared at it. She’d never seen the like of it before. The flame raced along the trail of powder and seemed to leap into the hole in the barrel. For a moment nothing happened, then there was a bang. Magote, screaming in agony, tottered backwards clutching at her face. Her gown, soaked in grease from the fat of the many meals she had cooked at the inn, blazed up like a tallow candle. For a few moments she teetered blindly on the edge of the jetty, flames leaping up around her head, before she toppled over into the river with a great splash and hiss.

It was the woman’s screams more than the dull bang that woke the guards, for the black powder was too damp and loosely packed to create a loud explosion and the bridge didn’t even tremble. By the time the guards got to their feet there was nothing to be heard but the sound of rushing water. They searched the length of the bridge but, finding nothing amiss, concluded that their duty was done and, yawning, returned to their posts and their dreams.

Benedict had slid back down the bank as soon as he heard the bang and the cries. But both women had vanished. Only a small blaze on the wooden jetty under the bridge marked what had happened. He knelt by the water’s edge, frantically calling Judith’s name, but there was no sound save for the gurgling of the oily black water.

With tears blinding his eyes, he desperately ranged up and down the bank, trying to peer through the mist for any sign of life. Then he heard something. At first he thought the sound was merely an echo of his own sobs, but as he held his breath he heard his own name. The sound seemed to be coming from under the arch in the middle of the river. But there was no means of getting to the place by land.

‘Judith! Judith, wait, I’m coming.’

Benedict stripped off his cloak and climbed down off the jetty, shuddering as the icy water crept up his body, and struck out to where he thought he had heard her calling. The noise of his own splashing and the water crashing against the stones drowned out any cries. The mist swirled above the water. He twisted and turned this way and that, trying to find her. Then he spotted something pale against the dark water. An arm, a single arm stretched out above the river, clinging to an iron mooring ring embedded in the stones of the bridge. Even as he struggled against the current to reach her, he could see her fingers slipping from the ring.

‘Please hold her up,’ he prayed desperately.

He must have said the words aloud, for Judith stirred at the sound, reaching out to him with her other hand. He swam towards her, but, as he had almost reached her, Judith’s fingers slid from the iron ring and she sank without a struggle beneath the rushing black water.

Desperately, Benedict pushed himself downwards, groping around until his fingers closed on some cloth. With a great heave he lifted Judith to the surface. He had enough strength only to reach out again for the iron ring and, with one arm locked tightly through it, he pulled her head on to his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and her skin was frog-cold.

Benedict pressed his face against hers, holding her tightly against his body, his eyes stinging with water and tears. He cursed himself and prayed in equal measure, begging, almost screaming for a miracle. Then he heard a cough and a gasp, her head moved slightly beneath his chin and, looking down, he saw her eyelids fluttering. Judith, his beloved Judith, was alive.

Wednesday 29 May, the eleventh day of Sivan

Just after dawn, fishermen pulled Benedict and Judith from the water. The men assumed that the couple had stumbled into the river in the fog, and Benedict did not disabuse them. The fire on the jetty had long since burned itself out, and those who noticed the scorch marks assumed that boys had wantonly lit the fire from mischief or to cook a supper of fish. They grumbled that young lads these days were out of control; they had no respect for property or their elders. And with Magote dead, there was no one to contradict them.

As Benedict helped Judith up the street to her home, Isaac came running out of the house towards them. He swept his sister up in his arms and carried her inside, almost sobbing with relief that she was unharmed. He seemed to have aged ten years overnight.

Isaac told them that the previous evening he had gone to the inn owned by Eleanor’s father. It had occurred to him that if he could discover that Eleanor was also missing, it would confirm his suspicions that Nathan had indeed run off with her and then he would be able to put Judith’s fears to rest.

Isaac had hung around the inn until late that night trying to pick up any gossip about the girl, for if Eleanor had vanished it would be dangerous for him to be heard asking questions about her. But he’d discovered nothing. Then, just as the inn was closing, Isaac glimpsed Eleanor in the yard throwing out the slops and he knew that wherever Nathan was, he was not with her.

With a heavy heart, Isaac had returned home, only to find his own house empty and no sign of Judith. Fearing that she, too, had been attacked like Jacob and was lying hurt somewhere or worse, he had spent the rest of the night frantically searching the streets for her, though it had never occurred to him to look under a bridge.

Judith and Benedict could delay the tragic news no longer. When they finally told him that Nathan’s body had been found, Isaac tore his shirt and cried like a little child in his sister’s arms.

That same afternoon Benedict returned to the bridge, as soon as he had assured himself that Judith was resting safely, being cosseted by her brother and an endless stream of neighbours bringing nourishing possets and potages to her bedside.

Just before he left her, Judith seized his hand and whispered, ‘Remember the vow you made in the water last night. You must keep it now, you know.’

‘I thought you couldn’t hear me,’ Benedict said in astonishment, blushing furiously as he recalled just what he had been murmuring through that long hour until dawn.

‘A woman can always hear what she wants to.’ Judith managed a tired little smile. ‘I love you, Benedict. Though goodness knows why, for you are the most irritating, stubborn, obstinate, foolhardy muttonhead I’ve ever known, save for my own brother. And no other woman would put up with you, so I suppose I must, for you need someone to keep you from your own folly.’

Benedict humbly acknowledged the truth of that with a wry smile and quickly slipped away before she could think any more of his faults to add to her list.

The miraculous stone still lay on the jetty among the charred remains of the barrels. Even if anyone had noticed the dark stone in the shadow of the bridge, no one would have troubled to take such a commonplace thing. What value would it have had to anyone?

Benedict took the stone straight to the home of Rabbi Elias and placed it on the table in front of him.

‘This is what Jacob went to Exeter to fetch.’

Rabbi Elias lifted it up, his face registering surprise as he felt the weight of it. He turned it over in his hand.

‘So Jacob sells everything he values for something that looks like a child’s carving of a bird or maybe he thought it was a boat. But.. ’ A smile of wonderment spread over the rabbi’s face. ‘There is a great sense of peace in this stone, a sweetness, like the moment when the world stops and we pause to light the Shabbat candles.’

‘Perhaps in the right hands, rabbi, but mine are not the right hands,’ Benedict said, shuddering, as once more he was overcome by shame at the thought of how close he had come to killing the one person in the world that he truly loved with all his soul.

‘There are letters on the stone, rabbi, if you examine it closely.’

Rabbi Elias nodded. ‘I dare say, but I think sometimes it is better not to examine things too closely. Let us be content with saying it is nothing more than a bird or a boat; after all, it was an ark and a dove that brought us hope once, and it was enough then. May it be so again.’

‘Amen,’ Benedict breathed. He grinned bashfully, remembering what Judith had said about holding him to his vow. ‘One thing more, rabbi. I would like to marry Judith just as soon as it can be arranged.’

The rabbi’s mouth’s split in a broad grin. ‘It’s about time. You’ve waited far too long,’ he said, slapping Benedict firmly on the back. ‘And after a wedding night, we hope, comes the blessing of a new generation. What better memorial to your poor father than that he should have grandchildren and great grandchildren to carry on his name.’

Benedict smiled. For the first time since his father had died he felt at peace. The bitterness and hatred which had festered in him for so many months seemed to have drained away in that river and been carried far out to sea. Benedict reached out to touch the stone one last time. Maybe old Jacob had been right and there was something in that stone which could save a man, even if that man didn’t know he needed saving.

Downriver a group of small urchins, wandering home after a day of fishing and mischief-making, saw something stranded in the mud among the reeds. The creature was lying face down, naked above the waist. Its back was blistered so that it almost looked as if it had scales. The hair was burned away, leaving livid red patches on the skin of the head. The boys cautiously prodded it with long sticks, but it didn’t move. Each dared the other to turn the creature over, and finally one plucked up the courage to do so. There was no mistaking that this monster was a female, for though her breasts were as burned as her back, they were massive enough for there to be no mistake. But a female what? The swollen, charred face, covered with cuts and tiny fragments of wood, did not resemble anything human.

The bravest of the boys went closer and poked the creature again, giggling and showing off to his friends. But the laughter changed to a shriek of terror as a hand shot out and seized his ankle with a grip as strong as an iron manacle. He fell over, yelling and struggling as the monster dragged him towards her across the mud. His companions seized their playmate’s arms and pulled with all their strength, until the creature’s fingers slipped from the boy’s muddy leg.

The urchins took to their heels and ran to their parents, yelling that they had just seen a hideous mermaid who’d tried to drag them into the water and drown them, for hadn’t their mothers told them often enough that it was just what these evil river monsters do. But none of the adults came to look, for only last week the same boys had sworn they’d seen a serpent as big as a tree trunk slithering through the marshes.

And later, when the boys crept back, like brave knights, to slaughter the monstrous mermaid with their sticks and borrowed axes, they found that, like the giant serpent, the creature had vanished; which, though they’d never admit it, was a great relief to them all, for none of them would really have been brave enough to strike the first blow.

Historical note

The incidents in this story concerning the sacred stone are, of course, fictional, but the hanging of Benedict’s father and the exile of Judith’s parents are based on a recorded incident. In 1234 thirteen Norwich Jews were accused of having unlawfully circumcised a five-year-old Christian child, Odard, in 1231. The first trial before the religious authorities in Norwich found all guilty except one, and twelve were sent to stand trial before the King and Archbishop. The Jews paid a gold mark to the King to have the boy publicly examined to prove he had not been circumcised, which suggests that they had not been involved. However, the child was found to be circumcised.

In around 1237 the accused paid two hundred pounds for a trial and a further fifty marks for bail. But they were not brought to trial until 1240, when they paid another twenty pounds to be brought before a mixed jury of Jews and Christians. Having taken the money, the King then instructed the justices that Jews could not sit on the jury, since a mixed jury would fail to agree. At least three of the Jews were hanged and one died in prison awaiting trial. Another

eleven were listed as fugitives from justice, having fled before the trial. Clearly, more Jews were convicted than had originally been charged in 1234.

It has been suggested that Odard was the son of a Jewish convert to Christianity, and one possible explanation for this bizarre incident might be that his parents may have been crypto-Jews who had converted under duress or to improve their circumstances but were still practising their Jewish faith in secret. It was common for ‘hidden Jews’ to circumcise their children. However, if a Gentile had noticed that the child was circumcised and threatened to report the matter to the Church, the father might well have claimed that the boy had been abducted and circumcised without his consent in order to save his own life and that of his family.

Gunpowder had been used for many years in China, both in fireworks for entertainment and as a deadly weapon in battle. Although gunpowder was not employed in European warfare until the fourteenth century, it was in use by the twelfth century in the West as a medicine and as a purifier in alchemy. In the first half of the thirteenth century a number of books came into circulation in Europe giving recipes for creating different kinds of fire and small explosions using ‘black powder’. In the early days black powder was not a reliable explosive. Saltpetre, which has to be dissolved in water then crystallized out, was often contaminated with impurities. Other factors such as the powder being packed too tightly or loosely or getting damp often resulted in the powder producing only a small bang like a firework, which would cause great injury to anyone standing immediately next to it but was not sufficient to damage buildings or anyone standing a few feet away.