Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

AT DOVER, an old man was being hurried through the castle at a rate not congenial to his rheumatism. It was a huge castle, very cold and echoing with furious noises. Despite the rate he had to go, the old man remained chilled-partly because he was frightened. The court sergeant was taking him to a man who frightened everybody.

They went along stone corridors, sometimes past open doors issuing light and warmth, chatter and the notes of a lyre, past others that were closed on what the old man imagined to be ungodly scenes.

Their progress sent castle servants cowering or flung them out of the way so that the two of them left behind them a trail of dropped trays, spattered piss pots, and bitten-off exclamations of hurt.

One final circular staircase and they were in a long gallery of which this end was taken up by desks lining the walls and a massive table with a top of green felt partitioned into squares. There were varying piles of counters on the squares. Thirty or so clerks filled the room with the scratch of quills on parchment. Colored balls flicked and clicked along the wires of their abaci so that it was like entering a field of industrious crickets.

In the whole place, the only human being at rest was a man sitting on one of the windowsills.

“Aaron of Lincoln, my lord,” the sergeant announced.

Aaron of Lincoln went down on one painful knee and touched his forehead with the fingers of his right hand, then extended the palm in obeisance to the man on the windowsill.

“Do you know what that is?”

Aaron glanced awkwardly behind him at the vast table and didn’t answer; he knew what it was, but Henry II’s question had been rhetorical.

“It ain’t for playing billiards, I’ll tell you that,” the king said. “It’s my Exchequer. Those squares represent my English counties, and the counters on them show how much income from each is due to the Royal Treasury. Get up.”

He seized the old man and took him to the table, pointing to one of the squares. “That’s Cambridgeshire.” He let Aaron go. “Using your considerable financial acumen, Aaron, how many counters do you reckon are on it?”

“Not enough, my lord?”

“Indeed,” Henry said. “A profitable county, Cambridge -usually. Somewhat flat, but it produces a considerable amount of grain and cattle and fish, and pays the Treasury well-usually. Its sizable Jewish population also pays the Treasury well-usually. Would you say the number of counters on it at the moment do not present a true representation of its wealth?”

Again, the old man did not reply.

“And why is that?” Henry asked.

Aaron said wearily, “I imagine it’s because of the children, my lord. The death of children is always to be lamented…”

“Indeed it is.” Henry hoisted himself up on the edge of the table, letting his legs dangle. “And when it becomes a matter of economics, it’s disastrous. The peasants of Cambridge are in revolt and the Jews are…where are they?”

“Sheltering in its castle, my lord.”

“What’s left of it,” Henry agreed. “They are indeed. My castle. Eating my food on my charity and shitting it out immediately because they’re too scared to leave. All of which means they’re not earning me any money, Aaron.”

“No, my lord.”

“And the revolting peasants have burned down its east tower, which contains all records of debts owed to the Jews, and therefore to me -to say nothing of the tax accounts-because they believe the Jews are torturing and killing their children.”

For the first time, a whistle of hope sounded among the execution drums in the old man’s head. “But you do not, my lord?”

“Do not what?”

“You do not believe Jews are killing these children?”

“I don’t know, Aaron,” the king said pleasantly. Without taking his eyes off the old man, he raised his hand. A clerk ran forward to put a piece of parchment in it. “This is an account by a certain Roger of Acton saying that such is your regular practice. According to the good Roger, Jews usually torture at least one Christian child to death at Easter by putting it in a hinged barrel inwardly pierced by nails. They always have, they always will.”

He consulted the parchment. “‘They do place the child into the barrel, then close the barrel so that the pins do enter his flesh. These fiends do then catch the blood as it seeps into their vessels to mix with their ritual pastries.’”

Henry II looked up: “Not pleasant, Aaron.” He returned to the parchment. “Oh, and you laugh a lot while you’re doing it.”

“You know it is not true, my lord.”

For all the notice the king took, the old man’s interjection might have been another click on an abacus.

“But this Easter, Aaron, this Easter, you’ve started crucifying them. Certainly, our good Roger of Acton claims that the infant who’s been found was crucified-what was the child’s name?”

“Peter of Trumpington, my lord,” supplied the attendant clerk.

“That Peter of Trumpington was crucified, and therefore the same fate may well overcome the other two children who are missing. Crucifixion, Aaron.” The king spoke the mighty and terrible word softly, but it traveled along the cold gallery, accreting power as it went. “There’s already agitation to make Little Peter a saint, as if we didn’t have enough of them already. Two children missing and one bloodless mangled little body found in my fenland so far, Aaron. That’s a lot of pastries.”

Henry got down from the table and walked up the gallery, the old man following, leaving the field of crickets behind. The king dragged a stool from under a window and kicked another in Aaron’s direction. “Sit down.”

It was quieter at this end; damp, bitter air coming through the unglazed windows made the old man shake. Of the two, Aaron was the more richly clothed. Henry II dressed like a huntsman with careless habits; his queen’s courtiers oiled their hair with unguents and were scented with attars, but Henry smelled of horses and sweat. His hands were leathery; his red hair was cropped close to a head as round as a cannonball. Yet nobody, Aaron thought, ever mistook him for other than what he was-the ruler of an empire stretching from the borders of Scotland to the Pyrenees.

Aaron could have loved him, almost did love him, if the man had not been so horrifyingly unpredictable. When this king was in a temper, he bit carpets and people died.

“God hates you Jews, Aaron,” Henry said. “You killed His Son.”

Aaron closed his eyes, waiting.

“And God hates me.”

Aaron opened his eyes.

The king’s voice rose in a wail that filled the gallery like a despairing trumpet. “Sweet God, forgive this unhappy and remorseful king. Thou knowest how Thomas à Becket did oppose me in all things so that in my rage I called for his death. Peccavi, peccavi, for certain knights did mistake my anger and ride to kill him, thinking to please me, for which abomination You in Your righteousness have turned Your face from me. I am a worm, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. I crawl beneath Your anger while Archbishop Thomas is received into Your Glory and sitteth on the right hand of Your Gracious Son, Jesus Christ.”

Faces turned. Quills were poised in mid-account, abaci stilled.

Henry stopped beating his breast. He said conversationally, “And if I am not mistaken, the Lord will find him as big a pain in the arse as I did.” He leaned over, put a finger gently beneath Aaron of Lincoln’s lower jaw, and raised it. “The moment that those bastards chopped Becket down, I became vulnerable. The Church seeks revenge, it wants my liver, hot and smoking, it wants recompense and must get it, and one of the things it wants, has always wanted, is the expulsion of you Jews from Christendom.”