Mistress of the Art of Death (32 page)

In any case, he thought of her as sexless or his account of his crusade would not have been so frank and so full of swear words. A man talked to a friendly priest in those terms, to a Prior Geoffrey perhaps, not to the lady of his fancy.

In any case, with a bishopric in his sights, he could not offer marriage to anybody. And a bishop's mistress? There were plenty of them, some being ostentatious, shameless strumpets, others a rumor, a thing of gossip and sniggers, hidden away in a secret bower, dependent on the whim of their particular diocesan lover.

Welcome to the Gates of Heaven, Adelia, and what did you do with your life? My lord, I was a bishop's whore.

And if he became a baron? He would look for an heiress to increase his estates, as they all did. Poor heiress, a life devoted to store cupboard, children, entertaining, and setting one's husband's bloody deeds to song when he came back from whatever battlefield his king had dragged him off to. Where, undoubtedly, said husband had taken other women--brunettes, in this case--and fathered bastards on them with the concupiscence of a rutting rabbit.

Deliberately, exhausted, she worked herself into such a fury at the hypothetically adulterous Sir Rowley Picot with his hypothetical and illegitimate brats that, Gyltha now coming into the room with a bowl of gruel for him, Adelia told her, "You and Mansur look after the swine tonight. I'm going home."

Yehuda waylaid her at the bottom of the steps to inquire after Rowley and to drag her off to see his new son. The baby nuzzling at Dina's breast was tiny but seemed to have all its requisites, though its parents were concerned that it was not gaining sufficient weight.

"We've agreed with Rabbi Gotsce that Brit Mila should be delayed beyond the eight days. Do it when he is stronger," Yehuda said, anxiously. "What do you think, mistress?"

Adelia said that it was probably wise not to subject the child to circumcision until it was a better size.

"Is it my milk, do you think?" Dina said. "I don't have enough?"

Midwifery was not Adelia's field; she knew the principles, but Gordinus had always taught his students that the practice was better left to wise women of whatever denomination unless there were complications in the case. His belief, based on observation, was that more babies survived when delivered by experienced women than by male doctors. It was not a teaching that made him popular with either the general medical profession or the Church, both of which found it profitable to condemn most midwives as witches, but the death toll in Salerno not only among babies but their mothers whose accouchement had been attended by male physicians suggested that Gordinus was right.

However, the baby
was
very small and seemed to be sucking without profit, so Adelia ventured, "Have you considered a wet nurse?"

"And where do we find one of those?" Yehuda demanded with an Iberian sneer. "Did the mob that drove us in here make sure we had lactating mothers among our number? They overlooked it, I don't know why."

Adelia hesitated before saying, "I could ask Lady Baldwin if there is one in the castle."

She waited for condemnation. Margaret had originally been her wet nurse, and Adelia knew of other Christian women employed in that capacity by Jewish households, but whether this stiff-necked little enclave would contemplate its newest recruit being put to a goy's breast...

Dina surprised her. "Milk's milk, my husband. I would trust Lady Baldwin to find a clean woman."

Yehuda put his hand gently on his wife's head. "As long as she understands that it is not your fault. With all you have suffered, we are lucky to have a son at all."

Oh ho,
Adelia thought,
fatherhood is improving you, young man.
And Dina, though anxious, looked happier than the last time she'd seen her; this had the makings of a better marriage than its beginning had promised.

As she left them, Yehuda followed her out. "Doctor..."

Adelia turned on him fast. "You must not call me that. The doctor is Master Mansur Khayoun of Al 'Amarah. I am but his helper."

Obviously, the tale of the operation in the sheriff's kitchen had circulated, and she had enough troubles without the inevitable opposition she would encounter from Cambridge's physicians, let alone the Church, if her profession became generally recognized.

Perhaps she could put down the presence of Mansur--he had stood by during the procedure--to that of a master overseeing the work. Claim it had been a Moslem holy day and that Allah wouldn't allow him to touch blood during its hours. Something like that.

Yehuda bowed. "Mistress, I only wish to say that we are naming the baby Simon."

She took his hand. "Thank you."

Though still tired, the day altered for her; life itself had altered with a swing. She felt, quite literally, uplifted by the naming of the child--she experienced a curious feeling of bobbing.

It was being in love, she realized. Love, however doomed, had the capacity to attach buoys to the soul. Never had seagulls circled with such purity against the eggshell-blue sky, never had their cries been so thrilling.

Visiting the other Simon was a priority, and on her way to the sheriff's garden, Adelia toured the bailey, looking for flowers to take to his grave. This part of the castle was strictly utilitarian, and its roaming hens and pigs had stripped it of most vegetation, but some Jack-by-the-hedge had colonized the top of an old wall and a blackthorn was flowering on the Saxon mound where the original wooden keep had stood.

Children were sliding down the slope on a plank of wood, and while she painfully snapped off some twigs, a small boy and girl came up to chat.

"What's that?"

"It's my dog," Adelia told them.

They considered the statement and animal for a moment. Then, "That blackie you come with, lady, is he a wizard?"

"A doctor," she told them.

"Is he mending Sir Rowley, lady?"

"He's funny, Sir Rowley," the little girl said. "He says it's a mouse in his hand but it's a farthing really, what he gives us. I like him."

"So do I," Adelia said helplessly, finding it sweet to make the confession.

The boy said, pointing, "That's Sam and Bracey. Shouldn't have let 'em in, should they? Not even to kill Jews, my pa says."

He was indicating to a spot near the new gallows on which stood a double pillory with two heads protruding from it, presumably those of the guards on the gate when Roger of Acton and the townspeople had gained entrance to the castle.

"Sam says he didn't mean to let them in," the girl said. "Sam says the buggers rushed him."

"Oh, dear," Adelia said. "How long have they been there?"

"Shouldn't have let 'em in, should they?" the boy said.

The little girl was more forgiving. "They free 'em of nights."

So bad for the back, the pillory. Adelia hurried over to it. A wooden sign had been hung about each man's neck. It read: "Failed in Duty."

Carefully avoiding the ordure that was collecting round the feet of the pillory's victims, Adelia placed her posy on the ground and lifted one of the signs. She settled the guard's jerkin so that it formed a buffer between his skin and the string that had been cutting into his neck. She did the same for the other man. "I hope that's more comfortable."

"Thank you, mistress." Both stared straight ahead with military directness.

"How much longer must you remain here?"

"Two more days."

"Oh, dear," Adelia said. "I know it cannot be easy, but if you let your wrists take the weight from time to time and incline your legs backwards, it will reduce the strain on the spine."

One of the men said flatly, "We'll bear it in mind, mistress."

"Do."

In the sheriff's garden, the sheriff's wife, who was at one end overseeing the division of tansy roots, was holding a shouted conversation with Rabbi Gotsce at the other, where he bent over the grave.

"You should wear it in your shoes, Rabbi. I do. Tansy is a specific against the ague." Lady Baldwin's voice carried effortlessly to the ramparts.

"Better than garlic?"

"Infinitely better."

Charmed and unseen, Adelia lingered in the gateway until Lady Baldwin caught sight of her. "There you are, Adelia. And how is Sir Rowley today?"

"Improving. I thank you, ma'am."

"Good, good. We cannot spare such a brave fighter. And what of your poor nose?"

Adelia smiled. "Mended and forgotten." The race to halt Rowley's hemorrhage had obliterated everything else. She'd only become aware of the fracture to her nose two days later, when Gyltha commented on the fact that it had become humped and blue. Once the swelling went down, she'd clicked the bone into place without trouble.

Lady Baldwin nodded. "What a pretty posy, very green and white. The rabbi is seeing to the grave. Go down, go down. Yes, the dog too--if that's what it is."

Adelia went down the path to the cherry tree. A simple wooden board had been laid over the grave. Carved into it was the Hebrew for "Here lies buried" followed by Simon's name. On the bottom were the five letters for "May his soul be bound up in the bond of life eternal."

"It will do for now," Rabbi Gotsce said. "Lady Baldwin is finding us a stone to replace it, one that's too heavy to lift, she says, so Simon cannot be desecrated." He stood up and dusted his hands. "Adelia, that is a fine woman."

"Yes, she is." Much more than the sheriff's, this was his wife's garden; it was where her children played and from which she took the herbs to flavor her food and scent her rooms. It had been no mean sacrifice to surrender part of it to the corpse of a man despised by her religion. Admittedly, since this was ultimately royal ground, it had been imposed on her force majeure, but whatever she felt in private, Lady Baldwin had acceded with grace.

Better still, the principle that giving imposes obligation on the giver as well as the recipient had come into play, and Lady Baldwin was showing concern for the welfare of the strange community in her castle. The newest little Baldwin's baby clouts had been passed on to Dina and the suggestion made that the community should have a share in the castle's great bread oven instead of baking for themselves.

"They're really human beings just like us, you know," Lady Baldwin had lectured Adelia when visiting the sickroom bearing calf's-foot jelly for the patient. "And their rabbi is quite knowledgeable on the subject of herbs, really quite knowledgeable. Apparently they eat a lot of them at Easter, though they seem to choose the bitter ones, horseradish and such. Why not a little angelica, I asked him. To sweeten it up?"

Smiling, Adelia had said, "I think they're supposed to be bitter."

"Yes, so he told me."

Now, asked if she knew of a wet nurse for Baby Simon, Lady Baldwin promised to supply one. "And not one of the castle trollops, either," she said. "That baby needs
respectable
Christian milk."

The only one who had failed Simon, Adelia thought as she placed her posy, was herself. His name on the simple board should shriek of murder instead of portraying a supposed victim of his own negligence.

"Help me, Rabbi," she said. "I must write to Simon's family and tell his wife and children he is dead."

"So write," Rabbi Gotsce said. "We shall see to sending the letter; we have people in London who correspond with Naples."

"Thank you, I would be grateful. It's not that, it's...
what
shall I write? That he was murdered but his death has been recorded as an accident?"

The rabbi grunted. "If you were his wife, what would you want to know?"

She said immediately, "The truth." Then she considered. "Oh, I don't know." Better for Simon's Rebecca to grieve over a drowning accident than to envisage again and again Simon's last minutes as she did, to have her mourning polluted by horror, as was Adelia's, to desire justice on his killer so much that she could not take ease in anything else.

"I suppose I shall not tell them," she said, defeated. "Not while he is unavenged. When the killer is found and punished, perhaps then we can give them the truth."

"The truth, Adelia? So simple?"

"Isn't it?"

Rabbi Gotsce sighed. "To you, maybe. But as the Talmud tells us, the name of Mount Sinai comes from our Hebrew word for hatred,
sinah,
because truth produces hate for those who speak it. Now, Jeremiah..."

Oh, dear,
she thought.
Jeremiah, the weeping prophet.
None of the slow, worldly-wise, clever Jewish voices lecturing in the sunlit atrium of her foster parents' villa had ever mentioned Jeremiah without prophesying evil. And it was such a nice day, and there was beautiful detail in the flowers of the cherry blossom.

"...we should remember the old Jewish proverb that truth is the safest lie."

"I've never understood it," she said, coming to.

"No more have I," the rabbi said. "But by extension it tells us that the rest of the world never wholly believes a Jewish truth. Adelia, do you think that sooner or later the real killer will be revealed and condemned?"

"Sooner or later," she said. "God send it be sooner."

"Amen to that. And on that happy day, the good people of Cambridge will line up outside this castle, weeping and sorry, so sorry, for killing two Jews and keeping the rest imprisoned? That also you believe? The news will speed through Christendom that Jews do not crucify children for their pleasure? You believe that, too?"

"Why not? It is the truth."

Rabbi Gotsce shrugged. "It's your truth, it's mine, it was truth for the man who lies here. Maybe even the townsfolk of Cambridge will believe it. But truth travels slowly and gets weaker as it goes. Suitable lies are strong and run faster. And this was a suitable lie; Jews put the Lamb of God to the cross, therefore they crucify children--it fits. A nice, agreeable lie like that, it scampers through all Christendom. Will the villages in Spain believe the truth if it limps so far? Will the peasants of France? Russia?"

"Don't, Rabbi. Oh, don't." It was as if this man had lived a thousand years; perhaps he had.

He bent to remove a piece of blossom from the grave and stood up again, taking her arm and walking her to the gate. "Find the killer, Adelia. Deliver us from this English Egypt. But in the end, it will still be the Jews who crucified that child."