Jeri Westerson - The Demon’s Parchment

Crispin did not allow pride to get in the way of his taking this money. It was certainly well earned. He stiffly bowed his thanks and then turned to Julianne. “I would speak with your daughter, sir. Alone.”

“No.”

“Father, please.”

Jacob did not look as if he would relent, but after a moment of reflection he shuffled toward the inner chamber, pulling the door after him but leaving it ajar.

He gazed at her, small and solemn in the light of the one candle. “I had to see you. I. . wish to continue to do so.”

She took a step closer. “That is madness.”

He pushed a hand through his crusty hair, thinking of the last few hours. “I am mad.”

When she set the candle down she touched the blood on his clothes and face. “Crispin. What happened to you this night?”

“Much. Jesu, but I am weary.”

“But. . you are unhurt?”

He nodded. A hand lifted and touched a lock of her hair. “I have been thinking about you a great deal.”

She shook her head, but gently so as not to dislodge his caressing hand. “We can do nothing, you and I. The best thing we can do is forget each other.”

He stepped forward and engulfed her in his arms. The candle flickered in those glistening eyes. “I am afraid I cannot do that.” He bent his head and took her lips. Even as she tried to shake her head, her mouth responded, opening. The kiss lasted until he needed to take a breath. “Julianne,” he whispered to her forehead, kissing the warm flesh. Maybe something good could come of this horror. Maybe. .

“But Crispin.” She pushed him back. Worry lines replaced the kiss he had bestowed there. “What of the Golem? You must first see to that.”

“That was no Golem,” he said, pulling her back against his chest. How he liked the feel of her there. He wondered what her hair would look like grown out and down to her hips. “It was a man. A potter. A strange man, true, but-”

“No! There is a Golem!”

He clutched her tighter. “Julianne, there is nothing to fear. You heard your father. I tell you there is no Golem. It is only your fanciful imagination. It was a man. I spoke with him.”

“But there is !” She shoved him back hard. Wildness radiated in her eyes. “There is!” she insisted. “ I made it.”

His head. It must still be throbbing from the thrashing he’d gotten. “I. . I don’t understand.”

She sighed with both shoulders. “When my father’s papers were stolen, it gave me an idea. I stole the parchments of Creation myself and studied them carefully. I went to the potter’s row and bought the clay.”

“But. . when would you have had time? Your father says-”

“I was in my menses. For a Jew, a woman in her menses is unclean. It was a good excuse to hide away. I created the Golem in the unused mews at the end of the stables at the palace.”

The shadows played with her face, changing her angelic features to those of a darker angel. His gut felt as if a stone now sat there, hard and solid. “You. . you can’t have.”

“ I spoke the words of Creation.” She turned her hands, looking down at them. “I carved the word on its chest, gave it life. It moved for me, did as I bid. But when I returned the next day, the Golem was gone. And the murders began.”

“A man murdered those children,” his voice said dazedly.

“I never meant for children to die.”

“Then who did you mean?”

“Christians, of course.” He took a step back. The cold stone in his gut grew heavier. “My revenge,” she was saying, though her voice sounded far away. A ringing started in his ears. “You do not know, Crispin. You do not know what Father and I have endured over the years. The Golem was to teach them a lesson.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Oh. . but Crispin. You are not like them. You’re different.”

“More like them than you seem to realize.”

She studied his face, squinting from the faint light. “Crispin?” She reached for him but he pushed back those hands, hands he had desperately wanted to caress him a mere few moments ago.

“How could you have done such evil? And then to allow me to-”

“Evil? Like the evil that has been done to us!”

“An eye for an eye, is that it?”

“Yes!”

He shook his head. The cold stone made the bile rise to his throat. “You don’t know me at all.”

“I know you are a fool for helping those people when they do you wrong. But I can overlook that.”

“Can you? And yet I cannot overlook this evil you would set upon London. Where is this Golem now?”

“I don’t know. It vanished. But you said you encountered it.”

Crispin tried to think, tried to distinguish the times he had seen the Golem. Had it truly been Odo all those times? What of that clay-smeared wall in the palace? Was it Odo who killed Radulfus? He hadn’t seen its face at the time.

“It’s no matter,” she said. “When it rains he will wash away. Without the symbols etched on his chest he will cease to exist. You don’t have to worry. He will melt into the pile of clay from which he was made.” She reached for him again but he slapped her hands away.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Julianne!” cried Jacob, standing unsteadily in the doorway, his white face older by some years. “Is this true? Did you let loose the Golem?”

“Father, you don’t understand-”

“Let the man go.”

“No! Father! He’s not like the others. Make him see-”

“Julianne! No. Go to the chamber.”

“But Father!”

“GO!”

Julianne hung her head. Wringing her hands, she obeyed Jacob at last, retreating sullenly into the darkened room.

Jacob silently closed the door. With his trembling hand laid against it, he did not turn to Crispin. “I have committed many sins, it seems,” he said brokenly. “To raise a daughter like a son was a grave sin indeed. I am just now paying the price. That I see with clarity. There is no need to regret this episode, Maître Guest. We will leave England as soon as possible. I will send my regrets to the queen. It was a mistake to come here. I was only trying to do my countrymen a mitzvah . A good deed. But I see now that I have only cursed them all.”

Crispin had no words of comfort. If he opened his mouth, he did not know what would come out. Instead, he turned away, tight-lipped, and left.

The next day Crispin and Jack returned to London with Wynchecombe’s borrowed horse, neither of them speaking of Jack’s harrowing experience. The days passed, and Crispin tried to forget short-cropped hair and green eyes. He thought of venturing back to the potter’s row to tell Berthildus the fate of her son, but he could not bring himself to do it. It was by mere chance that the astrologer had chosen Berthildus from whom to buy the clay, and her poorer luck that she had a young son. No, he could not tell her.

He did send an anonymous message to Matthew Middleton the goldsmith, warning him that the Church knew of their secret. A fortnight after that, there was a sudden selling of many properties near the Domus and several of London’s most successful citizens had departed the city for parts unknown.

Advent passed and Christmas day dawned, just like any other. He went through the motions of the day, shaving, brushing down his cotehardie, taking turns with Jack adding fuel to the fire. He admonished Jack to go to mass, but the boy would not leave his side. When the bells tolled for Sext, Crispin reminded Jack that he was expected at Gilbert and Eleanor’s table.

Sullenly, Jack adjusted his cloak and rested his hand on the door ring. “Master, I think you should come.”