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Overview
Heaven has a way of playing with mortals. When the mummified arm of St. Aldhelm is stolen from the Salisbury Cathedral in England, Catherine LeVendeur must find the lost reliquary to save those she loves — and to do so, she must finally confront and come to terms with her family's Jewish heritage.
"Newman offers another exquisitely crafted historical whodunit... An extremely intelligent narrative that expertly captures and conveys the authentic flavor of medieval life and thought." - Booklist
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780312877330 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/11/2001 |
| Series: | Catherine LeVendeur Series , #3 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 360 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.79(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
WANDERING ARM
One
The keep at Vielleteneuse, north of Paris, Feast of Saint Julian: martyr; and Saint Basilisa, his wife: virgin, Thursday, January 9, 1141
Ele va par ses chanbres, se le duet molt li ciés, Ses dens estraint ensanle, ses mal et enforciés. Les dames qui soufroient des enfans les mesciés Savant bien le malage, ...
She goes to her rooms, and she suffers greatly there, Her teeth clenched together, her pain increases. Women who suffer the pains of childbirth They know the agony well, ...
—La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne lines 1241-1244
Catherine screamed.
In the room just below, Edgar leaped to his feet in an effort to reach her. Two strong pairs of arms restrained him.
"Let go of me!" he shouted. "They're hurting her!"
His father-in-law, Hubert, pushed him firmly back in his chair. Warily, Guillaume, Catherine's brother, and Solomon, her cousin, released their hold on him.
"I promise you, Edgar," Guillaume said. "She doesn't want to see you now."
"Of course she does," Edgar insisted. "She's calling my name."
Catherine screamed again. "Edgar!"
The hands descended on his shoulders once more.
"Damn you, Edgar!" Catherine's voice echoed down the staircase. "Damn you for an English bastard. Damn you and your family and the boat that brought you here! Edgarde! Maledicite! Edgarde, viescat verpa tua!"
Edgar gasped.
Upstairs Catherine took another breath and screamed with the contraction. "Verrucosaque fiat verpa tua!" Then lower, as the pain subsided momentarily. "In tres partes confracta canibus devoretur verpa tua!! And the same to every man from Adam on. And damn Eve, too ... ."
Edgar sank back, his face even paler than usual. Hubert chuckled.
"Don't worry, boy," he said. "If she can still make a noise like that, she's fine."
"But did you hear what she said?" Edgar asked.
"I didn't catch all of it," Hubert admitted. "Catherine has a marvelous vocabulary. I suppose it's from all those years in the convent."
Edgar shook his head in awe. "She never learned those words at the Paraclete. Are you sure she's all right?"
Guillaume nodded. "When our first child was born, I sat in thenext room and listened until I thought I deserved gelding for putting Marie through all that. For the second, I went hunting. It's better not to know what your wife thinks of you at these times. She won't remember it afterward, or that's what she'll tell you."
"But it's been hours," Edgar said.
"Only since dawn," Hubert assured him. "Here, have some more wine."
Involuntarily the four men glanced out the window, where the short winter afternoon was ending. Solomon, who wasn't married, relaxed. Hubert and Guillaume didn't. Catherine was nineteen and strong. But it had been all day and, by the midwife's reckoning, it was a month too soon. Guillaume poured more wine and wished he'd taken Edgar hunting, despite his protests.
Upstairs in the birthing room, Catherine's imprecations were greeted with cheers.
"That's right, dear," the midwife said. "Sons of whores, the lot of 'em. Yell all you like. But don't blame poor Eve; she was beguiled by a serpent, just like we all were. Samonie, warm a little more oil to rub her stomach with and drip some onto my hands. She needs a bit of help. Then you'd best bring that bowl of holy water Father Anselm left. Put it on the floor here."
Catherine's servant did as she was told. Over Catherine's bowed head she exchanged a worried glance with Guillaume's wife, Marie. The pains were close enough. More should be happening. As Samonie put the oil on the midwife's hands, the old woman whispered to her.
"Give the girl a few sips of the hot ale and dittany." She shook her head in worry. "Then be ready to hold her. I've got to turn it." Samonie bit her tongue to keep from crying. Catherine sat on the birthing stool, dark curls plastered to her face, too exhausted to blink as the sweat rolled into her eyes. Samonie signaled to Marie what must be done. Marie closed her eyes a moment and began reciting a prayer to the Virgin, begging her to summon the child forth safely. But she knew from her own experience of three stillbirths that the Virgin and the saints didn't always heed such supplications.
Catherine had said nothing for several minutes. She ached all over from trying to rid herself of this baby. The rim of the birthing stool was digging into her buttocks. Her hands and feet were freezing despitefrequent rubbings with vinegar and salt. Even her eyes hurt. The room blurred and shimmered every time she opened them.
Someone forced a warm liquid down her throat. She gagged on it, then swallowed. Arms went around her shoulders and Marie's cheek pressed against hers.
"Mother of God, care for your daughter," she chanted. Catherine weakly nodded agreement.
"Ready?" the midwife said.
"We have her," Samonie answered.
The midwife put her hand in to push up the tiny foot that had just appeared.
Catherine screamed again. Then there was silence.
In the room below the men looked up, hardly daring to breathe, hoping for the feeble wail of new life. They only heard the rustle of feet in the rushes on the floor above. Edgar buried his face in his hands.
"I should have left her in the convent," he muttered. "She was happy there, safe. Now I've killed her."
"Don't say that!" Hubert snapped.
Edgar looked up, startled.
"We don't know what's happened," Hubert continued. "She may only be resting between the pains. My daughter is not going to die!"
He turned his back to the others, groping for the wine pitcher. Like Guillaume, he had generally managed to be somewhere else during his wife's confinements. At the moment, he hated Edgar passionately for causing Catherine to be in such danger. Even more, Hubert feared that this was simply a continuation of God's punishment on him. But was the divine retribution for letting himself be baptized rather than slaughtered with his mother and sisters? Or was it for returning to the Jewish faith of his ancestors? If he knew which, he could repent, but no sign had been sent to tell him, so he simply muddled on. And upstairs, Catherine's suffering continued.
The door opened. The men all stood. Solomon put a hand on Edgar's arm.
Marie stood in the doorway. The look in her eyes made Edgar's heart jolt.
"We tried," she said. "The child was turned wrong. We got itout, but it was too late. It had strangled on the cord."
Edgar tried to speak but couldn't get his mouth to move.
"And Catherine?" Guillaume said it for him.
"She's alive," Marie said. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "The bleeding isn't too bad. If we can stop it, if she doesn't get the fever, if she doesn't die of grief, she'll survive to go through this again. I did."
She leaned against the door, worn with the hours of fruitless work, and glared at all of them for being male. Guillaume ignored the look and went to her. She buried her face in his shoulder, crying.
Edgar fell back into his chair, too numb to cry. Catherine was alive; that was all that mattered.
"Can I see her?" he asked.
"We've given her a sleeping potion," Marie told him. "They're cleaning her now and putting her to bed. You may look in on her when they've finished, if you don't wake her."
"And the baby?" Hubert added.
"We can bury her with the ones I lost, in the corner of the garden, by the chapel wall," Marie answered.
They all knew the child couldn't be buried in consecrated ground since it hadn't lived to be baptized.
Edgar lifted his head. "It was a girl?"
"It would have been," Marie said. She wiped her eyes and nose on her husband's sleeve, turned and went back up the stairs.
"Edgar ..." Solomon began. He searched for some words of comfort, thought of none and then realized that Edgar wouldn't have heard them anyway. Instead he sat on the floor next to his friend, hoping that his presence would be comfort enough.
Hubert sighed and left the room, followed by Guillaume. Catherine was alive; that was all that mattered. She was the one child who loved him despite knowing his darkest secret. The one who had his mother's face. Losing her would have been more than he could bear.
But there was nothing more he could do. It was time to return to his own business.
At the final turn in the stairway before the Great Hall, Guillaume caught Hubert's arm.
"Father," he said, "how could you have let that man stay with us at such a time?"
"But Edgar is her husband," Hubert answered, bewildered.
Guillaume glared at him. "Not Edgar, that associate of yours," he said. "That Jew. Did it ever occur to you that he might have done something to make Catherine's pregnancy go wrong?"
"Guillaume!" Hubert was frightened by the vehemence of his son's accusation. He wished he had the courage to tell him that Solomon wasn't some chance trading partner but his own nephew, the son of his lost brother, Jacob, and blood cousin to Catherine and Guillaume himself. Catherine knew and accepted the fact. But his other daughter, Agnes, had found out by accident the summer before and hadn't spoken to him since. This was not the time to enlighten Guillaume about family connections.
"You're speaking nonsense," Hubert said at last. "Solomon is devoted to Catherine. He has been since they were children and played together at the fairs. I could always trust him to look out for her while I was doing business. And he and Edgar are good friends. Solomon would never hurt them."
"But it is known that those people are adept at potions and evil magic," Guillaume responded.
"I don't know it," Hubert answered him sharply. "And neither do you. If that were so, there'd be no children born dead among the Jews. You've only to see their cemetery at Saint-Denis to know that's not true."
Guillaume shook himself as if to rid his head of a nightmare. Reluctantly, he nodded. "Yes, I suppose you're right," he said. "But it seems strange that Solomon showed up the evening before Catherine's pains started."
"He brought a message for me, from the silversmith Baruch at Saint-Denis," Hubert explained. "The abbey has more work for us."
He knew that was a good way to end any conversation with Guillaume. His son was not proud that Hubert's wealth came from trade. Never mind that it had bought Guillaume military training, a wife from the lower nobility and a position as castellan for Abbot Suger. It was embarrassing. Hubert sighed. That was the penalty for raising one's son to better things.
They entered the Great Hall. A little boy broke away from his nurse and ran to them. He was about three years old. He had thegolden curls of his mother but dark eyes that made him irresistible to the ladies already, as well as a curve to his nostrils and a tint to his skin that might have betrayed his Jewish ancestry, if anyone had thought to look for it.
"Papa!" he shouted as he threw himself into Guillaume's arms. "Do I have a new cousin?"
Guillaume held him close, remembering once again the joyous relief he had felt when they had told him that this child would live.
"No, Gerard," Hubert answered for him. "The baby didn't survive, but Aunt Catherine will be all right."
Clumsily, the boy blessed himself. Guillaume nodded approval. The nurse was doing her job.
"Is it in heaven, then?" Gerard asked.
Guillaume opened his mouth to lie. But he couldn't. "Only Our Lord knows that," he equivocated.
The child seemed satisfied. At this point in his life, God was just a force, like the king or abbot or his father, to be feared or ignored as need dictated.
Hubert smiled on him. He doted on his grandson as well as Guillaume and Marie's second child, a daughter, born the previous summer. It would have been nice for them to have a cousin.
"I have to go meet with the silversmith," Hubert repeated. "I'll be back at first light to see Catherine. Ask Solomon to stay with Edgar for the night. He'll need a friend."
It was past dark when Hubert arrived at the house of Baruch, which was in the town of Saint-Denis, which surrounded the great abbey. He was admitted at once.
"Shalom," Baruch greeted him. "You look terrible. Is anything wrong?"
Hubert told him.
"Thank the Almighty One your daughter survived," Baruch consoled.
"I do," Hubert said. "Now, what is this Solomon was telling me about a parcel of pearls and gold chain?"
"Prior Hervé summoned me to the abbey today," Baruch explained. "It seems that Natan ben Judah has been to see him, offering this parcel at a suspiciously low price."
"What was his story?" Hubert asked.
"Natan told the prior that he had taken the gems as pledge from a nobleman in England who has since lost his lands in the war there and can't redeem them."
"What does Prior Hervé say to that?" Hubert grinned.
"The prior is no fool," Baruch said. "He says the pearls have the look of having been pried loose from something. There are scratches on them, bits of glue. And he suspects the chain may have been part of a censer."
Hubert nodded. "The anarchy in England has allowed many people to acquire church property, some from looting in the course of battle. But I can't imagine Natan entering a church for any reason, even theft. His story could be true. How the nobleman came by the parcel is not his concern."
"I agree," Baruch said. "But if Natan knew the property was stolen from a church, would he have refused to take it, as you and I would? This dealing in their holy objects is bad for all of us. Oh, forgive me, do you want some ale?"
"Yes." Hubert answered the second question first. He took a long draught and set the cup down with a clink. "I don't trust Natan," he said. "He's been known to buy horses and sheep from men who clearly couldn't have been the true owners. But up to now, he's only been an animal trader. This is the first I've heard of his dealing in gems. I wouldn't have thought he knew anything about them. What price did he ask of the prior?"
"Two marks," Baruch answered. "That's what roused Hervé's suspicions."
Hubert smiled. "It's a good thing he went to Hervé and not to Abbot Suger. The prior may not be a scholar, but he's a sharp trader. He knows the tricks. Suger would simply have thought it was another example of good fortune attending his building program."
"Good or bad, who knows?" Baruch said. "I don't like it when the Edomites can point a finger at us, even at one like Natan."
"It's true, he could cause trouble for us all," Hubert said. "Perhaps if the matter is taken up with the entire community of Paris we can exert enough pressure to convince Natan to change his ways. I'll ask my brother."
"Perhaps." Baruch sounded doubtful. "He doesn't seem to caremuch for the opinion of the community. But for now, what am I to tell Prior Hervé?"
"Don't worry, my friend," Hubert sighed. "I'll speak with him. He has so many other concerns that he should be happy to leave this one to us."
Baruch smiled sadly at his old friend. "You have enough worries of your own, Hubert. This life is too hard on you. Why don't you simply give up the pretense and rejoin us? You can go to my cousin in Arles and start again."
Hubert shook his head as he rose. "It's a kind offer," he said. "But it's too late. I'm not truly a Jew anymore, even if I only move through the rituals of being a Christian. I have responsibilities and people I love. I can't abandon them now. Catherine says that her Master Abelard teaches that it is our intentions that are judged, more than our acts. My only hope is that the Almighty One knows that I'm doing the best I can with what He has given me."
"How could He not?" Baruch asked. "Now, where are you going? Not to bed so soon? Don't you want to sit up a while, have some cheese, play a friendly game of tric-trac?"
"Thank you, no," Hubert said, as he continued on his way to the stairs. "It's been too long a day. I can't bear hearing my child crying out like that and not be able to ease her pain."
"I know," Baruch said. "There's nothing worse. Here, take another cup with you. You may wake up in the night and need it. Sleep well. May your dreams be empty of omens."
The little oil lamp by the bed sent flickers and shadows across Catherine's face as though the spirits of light and dark were fighting over her still. She lay motionless, her skin so pale that Edgar had to put his mouth to hers and feel her breath before he was reassured that she was alive.
Gingerly, he laid his hand on her stomach. It felt spongy, like a sack of new cheese. He swallowed and tried not to imagine further.
"Edgar?"
Her eyes were still closed and her voice so soft that he thought he must have imagined it. Then her lashes moved and there was the glint of tears in the lamplight.
"I'm sorry, Edgar," she said. "I failed. It never even cried."
None of the thousand things that raced through his mind seemed adequate to tell her what he was feeling. He bent over and, very carefully, kissed her.
At first, she didn't respond at all; then she put her arms around him. He knelt by the bed, afraid to jostle it and hurt her more. After a moment, she lowered her arms, too exhausted even for comfort.
"Stillborn, they said," she sighed. "Its soul is lost now. Poor baby, wandering alone ... all alone."
"Catherine," Edgar said quickly. "Don't think about it now. You have to rest."
"I'm cold," she answered. "Hold me."
He could tell that she was still hazy from the sleeping potion. She spoke as if from another world. If frightened him to think how close she had come to leaving this one. It wasn't the first time she had been in danger of death, but it was the first time he had been the one responsible for putting her in danger. Her request was no problem. He wanted nothing more than to hold her, to reassure himself from one instant to the next that her heart was still beating. He took off his shoes and lifted the covers to slip in beside her.
"Saint Margaret's sacred milk! What do you think you're doing here!"
Edgar lost his balance and landed on the floor with a thump. The midwife was standing over him with a pitcher in one hand and a clay cup in the other.
"You foul mesel!" she shrieked. "Thinking of your own lusts after what she's been through. You don't touch her until she's been churched, young man. And if you have trouble with that, I'll be happy to give you a kick that will put the idea out of your mind even longer."
"Edgar?" Catherine's hand appeared over the edge of the bed, groping for him. "Are you all right?"
Edgar scrambled to his feet. He patted Catherine's hand on his way up. Then, straightening himself to his full six feet, he glared down at the midwife.
"No one, not even you," he said clearly, "has the right to tell me how to care for my wife. I will stay here as long as she needs me. You will not speak to me in that tone again."
The woman glared back at him, her jaw clenched. Then sheturned and stomped from the room. She turned at the doorway.
"I will return only when this foreigner, this English, is gone," she announced. "Or, my lady Catherine, when you decide which of us you need more."
Edgar maintained his glare until the woman had flounced out. Then he looked ruefully at Catherine. "I'm sorry, leoffedest," he said. "I don't like being treated like some serf of the family. It's been harder these past few months. I'm used to having a place in the world."
Catherine tried to smile. "I know. Are you sorry now you married me?"
"Absolutely not," he said, and he meant it.
He bent over and kissed her again, to assure her. As he released her, her hand dropped to her stomach. She pushed at it and gave a cry.
"Edgar, my stomach! It squishes like a bag of new cheese! That's disgusting! Oh, sweet Saint Melania, what's happened to me?"
Samonie, the maid, came in just then to find Catherine in tears with Edgar hovering over her like an ill-fed egret repeating that everything would be fine, and that cheese had never even occurred to him. Samonie had no idea what was happening, but she took pity on him and guided him out of the room.
"Catherine will be better soon," she told him. "Give her time to rest and accept what has happened. Come back tomorrow. Bring her a rose."
"A rose?" Edgar stopped. "It's midwinter."
"That's right," Samonie answered. "So you should be kept well occupied in finding one."
At the bottom of the staircase he found Catherine's cousin, Solomon, in the process of pulling on his warm hose. His cloak and boots lay on the bench next to him.
"What are you doing?" Edgar asked. "You can't be leaving now; it's pitch dark out."
"I believe my claim to hospitality here has worn thin," Solomon told him. "Your brother-in-law has said clearly that tonight they plan to have pork sausage. He looked straight at me in a very pointed manner as he spoke. I got the feeling he would be happy to excuse me."
"Guillaume does have a certain lordly way about him," Edgar admitted. "I don't think he's accepted me into the family yet. I wonder what he would do if he found out you were already a member."
"I don't want to wonder." Solomon shuddered.
"Well, I find it an interesting intellectual problem," Edgar continued, seating himself next to him on the bench. "You know, I feel more comfortable with you than with anyone I've met in France, except Catherine, of course. Certainly more than any other of her family. Why should that be? Let's see, if I'm Guillaume's brother-in-law and you're his cousin—"
"Not-in-law," Solomon interrupted.
"What does that make us?" Edgar finished.
Solomon fluttered his lashes. "Too closely connected ever to marry?" He smiled sweetly.
Edgar cuffed him hard enough to knock him off the bench. "You are no scholar," he said.
"And you are no knight," Solomon replied. "I barely felt that. But," he continued, "my unscholarly opinion is that we're friends because we're both foreigners here."
"You're not a foreigner," Edgar argued. "You were born in Paris!"
"I was born a Jew," Solomon said quietly. "I'm a foreigner everywhere. Is there any more wine in the pitcher, do you think? I wouldn't mind a cup for the journey."
"Take what you like," Edgar replied absently. He circled the room, scuffing at the rushes, peering into the corners.
"What are you looking for?" Solomon asked as he poured.
"A bit of wood."
"What for?"
"I have to make a rose for Catherine."
Solomon left the keep soon after and set off into the black night. He cursed his own pride as he slid on the ice in the wagon ruts of the road. He could have supped on bread and wine and left for Saint-Denis in the morning. But he would rather freeze to death than stay in a place where he was considered less respectable than the dogs under the tables.
He slipped again and landed on his knees, the frozen mud jarringhis bones. From the church at Saint-Denis, three miles distant, he heard the bells calling the monks to prayer.
Even out here, he thought. It's all around me. I am trapped in a land that will never accept me, amid people I can never trust.
He shouldn't have had that last cup of wine. Red wine always made him maudlin.
He reached the river Croult and turned east for Saint-Denis, keeping an eye peeled for a likely spot to cross. The river split into two branches, north and south of the village, and then rejoined to make a dignified entrance to the Seine, barely a mile away. There was a glaze of ice on the river, but Solomon didn't trust it and, while the water was no more than a foot or so deep, he had no desire to walk the last mile in boots that squelched and with feet cold as the welcome given him by his cousin, Guillaume.
He was so busy watching his step in the road and looking for a ford that he nearly caught his neck on the thin rope stretched across the way, tied to trees on either side of the river. Someone must have left it earlier in the day, while there was still light to find solid footing. Holding on to it with one hand, Solomon tested the bank with his feet. Yes, there were stones across the stream in a line straight enough to cross on.
He gave the rope a quick pull. Although it was no thicker than his finger, it didn't give. It would be enough to keep his balance with as he eased from one slippery rock to the next. Cautiously, he started across.
The man must have been watching all along. He waited until Solomon was in the middle, one foot braced on a rock point, the other reaching for the next.
"Hé! Malfé!" he taunted. "A cold night for a journey. Afraid to baptize your toes in the river?"
"Cold, indeed, friend," Solomon answered, planting his left foot firmly on the next rock. "One doesn't have to be the devil to mislike wading on a night cold as this."
He swung his right arm over so that he was holding on with both hands and both feet were on the rock. He looked over his right shoulder. The man hadn't moved. He was too far back in the shadows for Solomon to make out his features. He could be just another traveler, caught by winter darkness, trying to get home, but Solomon was not about to assume anything so harmless.
"What will you pay for dry feet?" the man asked as he gently shook the rope.
"Abbot Suger has given you the tolls for this elegant bridge?" Solomon responded as he gauged the distance to solid ground. "Or have you set up to compete with the Trecines Bridge?"
There was one more rock. Could he make it to the other side before the man made his move? He slid his hands along the rope and prepared to leap.
He let go just in time as the man jerked hard on the rope in an effort to throw him into the river.
Solomon scrambled up the bank as the man tried to push him back. Despite having the upper ground, the assailant wasn't strong enough to stop him. He realized his misjudgment quickly and backed away as Solomon approached.
"I have a knife!" he yelled in panic.
"Do you?" Solomon answered. "Let's see it, then!"
As he spoke he drew his own knife, not the stubby one he kept for the table but the long one he kept sheathed and tied to his left arm by a leather strap. Even in the dim starlight, it glinted menacingly. The man moved back another step, into a tree.
"Don't kill me," he begged. "I'm only a poor farmer, but I'll give you whatever I have."
Solomon considered. "What's that you're carrying?" he asked. "A weapon?"
"Only food, grain and beans for my family," the man answered. "It's alms from the monks at the abbey. Our crop was bad this year and we've nothing left. You wouldn't have my children starve, would you?"
"Show me," Solomon ordered.
He was puzzled by the sudden change in the man, from bluster to whine. Did this peasant really believe Solomon was an outlaw about to slit his throat? Was the man really no more than some villein bringing back food for his family? His lack of a knife would suggest it. Still, there was something wrong about the whole business. Solomon felt a frisson at the back of his neck.
The man was waiting for someone. Maybe several someones, armed and accustomed to casual murder. He was stalling until they arrived to save him.
The man dropped the bag and began to open it slowly, apparentlystruggling with the knots. Solomon kicked him away from it and picked it up.
"If this truly came from the monks," he said, "I'll see that your family gets it tomorrow. If not ... then I suggest you cross the river now and follow your nose north before your friends discover your cowardice. Now!"
The man felt the prick of the knife in his back as he hesitated. Quickly, he splashed across, his boots slipping on the rocks. As soon as he had reached the other side, Solomon slashed at the icy rope until the knife frayed it and it snapped. The rope fell into the water and the peasant grabbed it and pulled it to his side of the river, winding it around his arm.
"This won't stop them, you know," he shouted to Solomon. "They have horses. Big horses ... and dogs. They have swords and crossbows and ..."
He realized he had gone too far. A force like that would be heard for miles in the still evening. But Solomon wasn't about to wait to find out how much the man had exaggerated. He threw the sack over his shoulder and ran for the town.
Luckily, the guard at the Pontoise Gate knew him and merely waved him through. "More goods for the abbot?" he asked without much interest as he closed the door behind them. "I hope he pays you more than me for freezing your nache off on a night like this."
"Not likely," Solomon grunted. "I'm just the messenger boy."
"Well, a good night to you, anyway," the guard answered. "On a night like this, I look forward to Hell, just to warm my toes again."
"Save me a place when you get there," Solomon agreed. "If the bishops haven't taken all the best seats."
The guard laughed and returned to the gatehouse. Solomon continued through the quiet streets until he reached the wall of Baruch's house. Baruch had long ago given him the key to the door by the stables. He took care to lock it again behind him.
There was an oil lamp hanging on a hook near the still-glowing hearth. Solomon took a spill from the kindling box and ignited it on the coals. He lit the lamp from that. He pulled off his gloves, holding his hands over the coals until he could feel his fingers again. Then he turned his attention to the bag.
The knots were pulled tight. Doubt again hit him. Had the manbeen telling the truth? He cut the cords and opened the bag. Grain fell out onto the stone floor. Baruch's wife would be furious with him for making such a mess. He reached gingerly inside the bag. There was something cold and hard stashed in the center. Slowly he took it out and held it up to the light. It sparkled, silver, gold, red and green. The monks had certainly been very generous with their alms. He shook the grain off the thing and then gasped in horror as he realized what it was. He dropped it with a loud clank.
Quickly, he stepped away from it, rubbing his hands against his braies to wipe away the very feel of the thing.
He had thought it was a cup, stolen from some lord's table. But there was no mistaking what the peasant had been carrying.
It was a chalice.
Copyright © 1995 by Sharan Newman