Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

“Try losing weight,” Adelia told him, her eyes presented with his backside as it ascended.

“I am a man of muscle, madam.”

“Fat,” she said. She slowed so that he rounded the next twist ahead of her and she could hiss at Simon at her rear, “He is going to listen in to what we have to say.”

Simon took his hands off the rail that had been aiding him upward and spread them. “He must know our business here already. He knows-Lord, he’s right about these stairs-who you are. Where’s the difference?”

The difference was that the man would draw conclusions from what was to be said to the Jews. Adelia distrusted conclusions until she had all the evidence. Also, she distrusted Sir Rowley. “But if he should be the killer?”

“Then he knows already.” Simon closed his eyes and groped for the rail.

Sir Rowley was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, much put out. “You think me fat, mistress? I’d have you know that when he heard I was on the march, Nur-ad-Din would pack up his tents and steal away into the desert.”

“You went on crusade?”

“The Holy Places couldn’t have done without me.”

He left them in a small circular room, of which the only amenities were some stools, a table, and two unglazed windows with spreading views, promising that Master Gabirol would attend them in minutes and that he’d send up his squire with refreshments.

While Simon paced and Mansur stood, a statue as usual, Adelia went to the windows, one facing west, the other east, to study the panorama afforded by each.

To the west, among the low hills, she could see battlemented roofs from which flew a standard. Even miniaturized by distance, the manor that Sir Gervase held from the priory was larger than Adelia would have expected of a knight’s fee. If Sir Joscelin’s, held from the nuns, to the southeast and beyond either window’s view, was as big, both gentlemen appeared to have done well from their tenancies and crusading.

Two men came in. Yehuda Gabirol was young, his black earlocks cork-screwed against cheeks that were hollow and tinged with an Iberian pallor.

The uninvited guest was old and had found the climb hard. He clung to the doorpost, introducing himself to Simon in a wheeze. “Benjamin ben Rav Moshe. And if you’re Simon of Naples, I knew your father. Old Eli still alive, is he?”

Simon’s bow was uncharacteristically curt, as was his introduction of Adelia and Mansur, merely giving their names without explaining their presence.

The old man nodded to them, still wheezing. “Is it you occupying my house?”

Since Simon showed no sign of replying, Adelia said, “We are. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I should mind?” Old Benjamin said sadly. “In good shape is it?”

“Yes. Better for being occupied, I think.”

“You like the hall windows?”

“Very nice. Most unusual.”

Simon addressed the younger man. “Yehuda Gabirol, just before Passover a year ago, you married the daughter of Chaim ben Eliezer here in Cambridge.”

“The cause of all my troubles,” Yehuda said gloomily.

“The boy came all the way from Spain to do it,” Benjamin said. “I arranged it. A good marriage, though, I say it myself. If it turned out unfortunate, is that the fault of the shadchan ?”

Simon continued to ignore him, his eyes on Yehuda. “A child of this town disappeared on that day. Perhaps Master Gabirol could cast light on what happened to him.”

Adelia had never seen this side of Simon; he was angry.

There was an outburst of Yiddish from both men. The young one’s thin voice rose over Benjamin’s deeper one: “Should I know? Am I the keeper of English children?”

Simon slapped him across the face.

A sparrow hawk landed on the west windowsill and took off again, disturbed by the vibration inside the room as the sound of Simon’s slap reverberated round the walls. Fingermarks rose on Yehuda’s cheek.

Mansur stepped forward in case of retaliation, but the young man had covered his face and was cowering. “What else could we do? What else?”

Adelia stood unnoticed by the window as the three Jews recovered themselves enough to drag three stools into the center of the room and sit down on them. A ceremony even for this, she thought.

Benjamin did most of the talking while young Yehuda cried and rocked.

A good wedding it had been, Old Benjamin said, an alliance between cash and culture, between a rich man’s daughter and this young Spanish scholar of excellent pedigree whom Chaim intended to keep as an eidem af kest, a resident son-in-law to whom he would give a dowry of ten marks…

“Get on,” Simon said.

A fine early spring day it was; the chuppah in the synagogue was decorated with cowslips. “I myself shattered the glass…”

“Get on .”

So back to Chaim’s house for the wedding banquet, which, such was Chaim’s wealth, had been expected to go on for a week. Fife, drums, fiddle, cymbals, tables weighed with dishes, wine cups filled and refilled, enthronement of the bride under white samite, speeches-all this on the riverside lawn because the house was scarcely big enough to entertain all the guests, some of whom had traveled more than a thousand miles to get there.

“Maybe, maybe a little bit, Chaim was showing off to the town,” Benjamin admitted.

Inevitably, he was, Adelia thought. To burghers who would not invite him to their houses yet were quick enough to borrow from him? Of course he was.

“Get on.” Simon was remorseless, but at that moment Mansur raised a hand and began tiptoeing to the door.

Him. Adelia tensed. The tax collector was listening.

Mansur opened the door with a pull that took half of it off its hinges. It was not Sir Rowley who knelt on the threshold, ear at keyhole level, it was his squire. A tray with a flagon and cups was on the floor beside him.

In one flowing movement, Mansur scooped up the tray and kicked the eavesdropper down the stairs. The man-he was very young-tumbled to the turn of the stairwell which caught him so that he was doubled with his legs higher than his head. “Ow. Ow. ” But when Mansur shifted as if to follow him down and kick him again, the boy writhed to his feet and pattered away down the steps, holding his back.

The odd thing was, Adelia thought, that the three Jews sitting on the stools paid the incident little attention, as if it was of no more moment than another bird landing on the windowsill.

Is that plump Sir Rowley the killer? What exercises him about these murdered children?

There were people-she knew because she’d encountered them-who became excited by death, who tried to bribe their way into the school’s stone chamber when she was working on a corpse. Gordinus had been obliged to put a guard on his death field to shoo away men, even women, wanting to gaze on the festering carcasses of the pigs.

She hadn’t detected that particular salacity in Sir Rowley during the examination she’d carried out in Saint Werbertha’s cell; he’d seemed appalled.

But he’d sent his creature-Pipin, that was the squire’s name-to listen at the keyhole, which suggested that Sir Rowley wished to keep himself abreast of her and Simon’s investigation, either through interest- in which case, why doesn’t he ask us directly? -or through fear that it would lead to him.

What are you?

Not what he seemed was the only answer. Adelia returned her attention to the three men in their circle.

Simon had not yet allowed Mansur to offer round the contents of the tray; he was forcing the two Jews on, through the events of Chaim’s daughter’s wedding.

To the evening. A chilly dusk descending, the guests had retired back into the house to dance, but the lamps across the garden were left burning. “And maybe, a little bit, the men were getting drunk,” Benjamin said.