‘Dinner will be served very soon, madame. I hope you enjoy what small pleasures we can provide. If you have a moment, the orangery is lovely at night.’
Reuben was on the point of excusing himself when he heard coarse voices raised in the garden. He pursed his lips tight, hiding his irritation behind the wine glass as he sipped. One of the local farmers had been trying for some time to bring him in front of a magistrate. It was a trivial matter and Reuben knew the city officials too well to be worried about some poor peasant with a grievance. It was not impossible that the fool had come to the annual party to cause a disturbance. He tilted his head, exchanging a glance with his wife that showed she understood.
‘I should go and see to my other guests. Lady York, milord. I’m very sorry.’
The noise was increasing and he could see dozens of heads turning. Reuben moved smoothly through the crowd, smiling and making his excuses as he went. His wife would entertain the English lord and his cold wife, making them both welcome, he thought. Sara was God’s gift to a devout man.
The house had once belonged to a French baron, a family fallen on hard times and forced to sell their properties after disasters in battle. Reuben had bought it outright, much to
the disgust of local noble families who objected to a Jew owning a Christian home. Yet the English were more relaxed about such things, or at least easy to bribe.
Reuben reached the great windows in clear glass that opened out on to the lawn. They were folded back that night, to let in the warm air. He frowned as he saw soldiers standing with their boots on the neatly trimmed grass. His guests were all listening, of course, so he kept his voice calm and low.
‘Gentlemen, as you can see, I am in the middle of a private dinner for friends. Can this not wait until tomorrow morning?’
‘Are you Reuben Moselle?’ one of the soldiers asked. The voice contained a sneer, but Reuben dealt with that every day and his pleasant expression didn’t falter.
‘I am. You are standing in my home, sir.’
‘You do well for yourself,’ the soldier replied, looking into the hall.
Reuben cleared his throat, feeling the first tingle of nervousness. The man was confident, where usually he might have expected a certain wariness around wealth and power.
‘May I have the honour of knowing your name in return?’ Reuben said, his voice shading into coldness. The soldier did not deserve his courtesy, but there were still too many interested heads turned in his direction.
‘Captain Recine of Saumur, Monsieur Moselle. I have orders for your arrest.’
‘Pardon? On what charge? This is a mistake, captain, I assure you. The magistrate is inside, in fact. Allow me to take you to him and he will explain …’
‘I have my orders, monsieur. An accusation has been made, at département level. You’ll come with me now. You can explain yourself to the judge.’
Reuben
stared at the soldier. The man had dirty hands and his uniform stank, but there was still that unsettling confidence about him. Three more men showed yellow teeth at his back, enjoying the discomfort they were causing. The thought of being forced to go with such men made Reuben begin to sweat.
‘I wonder if I can be of help, Monsieur Moselle?’ a voice said at his shoulder.
He turned to see the figure of Lord York standing there with a glass of wine in his hand. Reuben breathed in relief. The English noble looked like a soldier, with his jutting chin and wide shoulders. The French soldiers were instantly more respectful.
‘This … captain is saying I am to be arrested, Lord York,’ Reuben said quickly, deliberately using the title. ‘He has not yet mentioned the charge, but I am certain there has been some sort of mistake.’
‘I see. What
is
the charge?’ York said.
Reuben could see the soldier consider an insolent reply, but then the man shrugged. It was not wise to irritate a man of York’s reputation and influence, at least not for a lowly captain.
‘Blasphemy and witchcraft, milord. He’ll have to answer at the court in Nantes.’
Reuben felt his mouth fall open in surprise.
‘Blasphemy and … This is madness, monsieur! Who is my accuser?’
‘Not my place to say,’ the soldier replied. He was watching Lord York, fully aware that the man could choose to interfere. Reuben too turned to the Englishman.
‘My lord, if you will have them return tomorrow morning, I am certain I can find witnesses and assurances that will reveal this for the falsehood it is.’
York
looked down on him and his eyes glittered in the lamplight.
‘It does not strike me as a matter for English law, Monsieur Moselle. This is no business of mine.’
The captain smiled wider at hearing that. He stepped forward and took Reuben by the arm in a firm grip.
‘Begging your indulgence, monsieur. Come with me now. I don’t want to have to drag you.’ The grip grew stronger, giving the lie to his words. Reuben stumbled with it, unable to believe what was happening.
‘The magistrate is in my house, captain! Will you at least let me bring him out to you? He will explain it all.’
‘It’s not a local matter, monsieur. Why don’t you say something else and give me the pleasure of knocking your teeth into the back of your throat?’
Reuben shook his head, mute with fear. He was fifty years old and already breathing hard. The violent threat astonished him.
Richard, Duke of York, watched his host being taken away with something like amusement. He saw his wife come through the crowd to stand at his shoulder, her expression delighted as the elderly man stumbled out through the gardens with his captors.
‘I thought this evening would be terribly dull,’ she said. ‘That is the only way to deal with Jews. They grow too bold unless they are reminded of their station. I hope they beat him for his insolence.’
‘I’m sure they will, my dear,’ he said, amused.
In the main hall, they both heard a shriek as the news reached Reuben’s wife. Cecily smiled.
‘I think I would like to see the orangery,’ she said, extending her arm for her husband to guide her inside.
‘The charges are rather serious, my dear,’ York said
thoughtfully. ‘I could buy the house for you, if you wish. Angers is splendid in summer and I have no property here.’
Her thin lips curled as she shook her head.
‘Better to have it burned and rebuilt, after the previous owner,’ she replied, making him laugh as they went in.
Reuben tasted blood in his mouth as he staggered sideways across the road. He could smell the unwashed crowd that bayed and spat at him, calling him ‘Christ-killer’ and ‘blasphemer’, their faces red with righteous indignation. Some of them threw stones and cold, wet filth that struck him on the chest and slithered inside his open shirt.
Reuben ignored the outraged citizens. They could hardly hurt him worse than he had been already. Every part of him was bruised or battered and one of his eyes was just a sticky blind mass that seeped a trail of fluid down his cheek. He limped as he was shoved along the street of Nantes, crying out as his feet bled through the wrappings and left red prints on the stones behind him.
He had lost something in the months of torture and imprisonment. Not his faith. He had never doubted for a moment that his enemies would receive the same punishments. God would seek them out and bow their heads with hot iron. Yet his belief in any sense of decency in men had been crushed along with his feet. No one had come to speak for him or claim him from the courts. He knew at least a dozen men with the authority and wealth to secure his release, but they had all stayed silent as news of his terrible crimes became known. Reuben shook his head wearily, washed through with fatalism. There was no sense to any of it. As if a man of his standing would spend his evenings drinking the blood of Christian children! Not when there was good red wine in his cellar.
The
charges had been so monstrous that at first he had been certain they would be revealed as lies. No sensible man could believe any of it. Yet the city judges had screwed up their fat mouths as they stared down at the broken, battered figure dragged up from the cells. They looked on him with disgust on their faces, as if he had somehow chosen to become the shambling, stinking thing the court inquisitors had made of him. Wearing black caps, the judges had pronounced a sentence of death by flaying, with every sign of satisfaction at a job well done.
Reuben had learned a sort of courage in his cell, with the boot they made him wear that could be wound tighter and tighter until his bones creaked and broke. In all his life, he had never had the strength or the wind to fight. With what God had given him, he had made himself wealthy: with his intellect, secretly scorning those who paraded their ability to lift lengths of iron into the air and swing them. Yet when the pain was unbearable, when he had stripped his throat raw with screaming, he had still not confessed. It was a stubbornness he had not known was in him, perhaps the only way left to show his contempt. He had wanted to meet his execution with that shred of pride still intact, like a last thread of gold in a worn cloak.
The senior judge from Nantes had come to the cell after many days. Jean Marisse looked like a cadaver, holding a pomander of dry petals to his nose against the stink. Masked in dried blood and his own filth, Reuben had glared up at him through his one good eye, hoping to shame Marisse with something like dignity. He could not speak by then. His teeth had all been broken and he could barely take in the slop of porridge they brought each day to keep him alive.
‘I see the devil’s pride is still in him,’ Jean Marisse had said to the guards.
Reuben had stared in dull hatred. He knew Jean Marisse,
as he knew all the officials of the region. It had once seemed a profitable enterprise to learn their habits, though it had not saved him. The man had a reputation among the whores of the town as one who preferred to whip rather than kiss. There was even talk of a girl who had died after an evening with him. Marisse’s wife would have been scandalized at the news, Reuben was certain. His mind had swirled with his own accusations, but there was no one to listen and his tongue had been pulled to its full extent and mangled with pincers designed for the purpose.
‘Your questioners tell me you will not confess to your sins,’ Jean Marisse had said. ‘Can you hear me, Monsieur Moselle? They say you will not sign anything, though they have left your right hand untouched for that purpose. Do you not understand this could all end? Your fate has already been written, as sure as sunset. There is nothing left for you. Confess and seek absolution. Our Lord is a merciful God, though I do not expect one of you Abrahams to understand. It is written that you must burn for your heresies, but who can say, truly? If you repent, if you confess, He may yet spare you the fires of hell.’
Reuben remembered staring back. He’d felt as if he could channel all his pain into his gaze, until it would strip away the man’s lies and flesh and open him down to the bone. Marisse already looked like a corpse, with his thin face and skin like wrinkled yellow parchment. Yet God did not strike him down. Jean Marisse had thrust out his chin, as if the silence itself was a challenge to his authority.
‘Your property is forfeit, you understand? No man may profit from an association with the devil. Your wife and children will have to make their own way in the world. You have made it hard enough for them with your rites and secret magic. We have a witness, Monsieur Moselle, a Christian of
good standing and unimpeachable honour. Do you understand? There is no hope for you in this world. Who will take in your family now, when you are gone? Shall they continue to suffer for what you have done? Heaven cries out, Reuben Moselle. It cries out against the pain of innocents. Confess, man – and this will end!’
In the street, Reuben staggered against a shouting peasant, his broken foot betraying him. The burly apprentice struck out immediately, cracking Reuben’s head back and sending a fresh flow of blood spattering from his nose. He saw bright drops of it gleam on the straw and filth that made up the road to the town square. One of the guards snarled at the apprentice, shoving him back into the crowd with a pike pole held across his chest. Reuben heard the man cackle even so, delighted to be able to tell his friends he had landed a stroke on the Jew’s head.
He staggered on, his mind fluttering in and out of clarity. The road seemed to go on for ever and every step was lined with townspeople come to see him die. Some snot-nosed urchin stuck out a foot and Reuben fell with a grunt, his knees striking the stones so that a lance of pain went up his legs. The crowd laughed, delighted that some part of the scene would play out in front of them. The ones pressed six-deep along the route at that stage could not afford to bribe their way into the main square.
Reuben felt a strong arm lift him up, accompanied by a smell of garlic and onions that he knew well from the prison. He tried to thank the guard for his help, but his words were unintelligible.
‘On your feet,’ the man growled at him. ‘It’s not far now.’
Reuben remembered Jean Marisse leaning over him in his cell, like a crow examining a body for some part still worth eating.
‘There
are some who wonder how a Jew could carry out such filthy spells and rituals without his wife and children knowing. Do you understand me, Monsieur Moselle? There are some who whisper that the wife is surely as guilty as the husband, that the children must be as tainted as the father. They are saying it would be a crime to let them go free. If you do not confess, it will be my duty to bring them here to these cells, to put them to the question. Can you imagine what it would be like for a woman, Monsieur Moselle? Or a child? Can you conceive of their terror? Yet evil cannot be allowed to take root. Weeds must be torn out and cast on the fire before they spread their seed on the wind. Do you understand, monsieur? Sign the confession and this will end. All this will end.’
Just a year before, Reuben would have laughed at such a threat. He’d had friends and wealth then, even influence. The world had been an ordered place where innocent men did not find themselves held down and screaming as strangers worked on them, with no one coming to help, or one word of comfort to be had. He’d learned what evil really was in the cells beneath the prison yard at Nantes. Hope had died in him as his flesh was burned and broken.
He’d signed. The memory was clear in his mind, looking down on his own shaking hand as he put his name to lies without bothering to read them. Jean Marisse had smiled, his lips peeling back from rotting teeth as he’d leaned close. Reuben still remembered his warm breath and the fact that the judge’s voice had been almost kind.
‘You have done well, monsieur,’ Marisse had said. ‘There is no shame in telling the truth at last. Take comfort in that.’
The town square was packed with onlookers, leaving only a narrow path between ranks of guards. Reuben shuddered as he saw cauldrons of bubbling water on either side of a raised platform. The manner of his death had been described
to him with relish by his torturers. It had amused them to make sure he understood what awaited. Boiling water would be poured over his skin, searing it from the bones and making it easier to strip long pieces of steaming flesh from his arms and chest. It would be hours of impossible torment for the pleasure of the crowd. Reuben knew with a shudder that he could
not
bear it. He saw himself becoming a screaming animal before them all, with all his dignity ripped away. He dared not think of his wife or his daughters. They would not be abandoned, he told himself, shaking. His brother would surely take them in.
Even the thoughts of his enemies had to be squashed down to a small corner of his mind. He was half-certain he knew the architect of his fall, for all the good it did him. Duke René of Anjou had borrowed fortunes in the months before his arrest, against the security of Saumur Castle. The first tranche of repayment had been due around the time the soldiers came to arrest him. Reuben’s wife had advised against making the loan, saying it was well known that the Anjou family had no money, but then a lord like René of Anjou could ruin a man just as easily for a refusal.
As Reuben was bound to poles facing the crowd, he tried to resist the gibbering terror that screamed inside him. It would be hard, as hard as they could make it. He could only wish for his heart to give way, the frightened, leaping thing that pounded in his chest.
The men on the platform were all locals, paid a few silver deniers for the day’s work. Reuben did not know any of the faces, for which he was thankful. It was hard enough to have strangers howling and raging at him. He did not think he could stand to see the faces of men he knew. As his limbs were fastened in place with harsh tugging, the crowd pressed in to see his wounds, pointing them out in fascination.
His
gaze swept across the empty, roaring faces, then stopped suddenly, the mist clearing from his good eye. A balcony hung over the square and a small group of men and women rested there, watching the proceedings and talking amongst themselves. Reuben knew Lord York even before the man saw him looking and met his stare with interest. Reuben saw the man catch his wife’s attention and she too looked over the railing, pressing her hand to her mouth in delighted awe as his bony chest was revealed.
Reuben looked down, his humiliation complete. The men on the platform had stripped his shirt away, revealing a mass of colourful bruises in all shades of yellow and purple, down almost to black where his ribs had been kicked and cracked.
‘Baruch dayan emet,’ Reuben muttered, pronouncing the words with difficulty. The crowd did not hear him bless the only true judge that mattered. He tried to press them away from him, closing his eyes as the first clay jugs were dipped into bubbling water and the long knives were shown to the crowd. He knew he could not bear it, but neither could he die, until they let him.
Portsmouth was loud with street criers and the bustle of one of the kingdom’s great ports. Despite the anonymity of the busy street, Derry Brewer had insisted on emptying the inn of all customers and staff before he spoke a word of private business. He had three burly guards outside, facing disgruntled patrons unable even to finish their beers.
Derry crossed to the bar and sniffed at a jug before pouring dark ale into a big wooden mug. He raised it up in a mock toast as he sat back down and drank a deep draught. Lord Suffolk poured from the jug of water on the table, emptying his cup and smacking his lips as he refilled it. Eyeing him,
Derry pulled a satchel around from his back and rootled around in its depths. He held up a roll of parchment, sealed with wax and wrapped in a gold ribbon.
‘It seems the Pope is willing enough, William. I am amazed at such a spiritual man finding some purpose for the chest of silver we sent him, but perhaps it will go to the poor, no?’
Suffolk chose not to dignify the mocking question with an answer. He took another long drink to wash the taste of sea salt from his mouth. He’d spent the last six months travelling back and forth from France so often that the Portsmouth dockers greeted him by name as they doffed their hats. He was weary beyond belief, sick of discussions and arguments in two languages. He eyed the bound roll in Derry’s hands, aware that it signalled a fast-approaching reality.
‘No congratulations?’ Derry said cheerfully. ‘No “well done, Derry”? I am disappointed in you, William Pole. There’s not many men could have pulled this off in such a time, but I have, haven’t I? The French looked for foxes and found only innocent chickens, just like we wanted. The marriage will go ahead and all we need to do now is mention casually to the English living in Maine and Anjou that their service is no longer appreciated by the Crown. In short, that they can fuck off.’
Suffolk winced, both at the word and the truth of it. The English in Anjou and Maine ran businesses and huge estates. From noble lords with power and influence to the lowest apprentices, they would all be enraged when a French army came to evict them.
‘There is one thing, though, William. One delicate little matter that I hesitate to bring up to a noble lord of your exalted station in life.’
‘What
is
it, Derry?’ Suffolk said, tired of the games. His cup of water was empty again, but the jug was dry. Derry
swirled his ale around in the mug, staring at the liquid as it moved.
‘They’ve asked for the marriage to take place in the cathedral at Tours, that’s what. Land that will have the French army camped outside, ready to take possession of the price of the truce, that’s what! I’m not letting Henry walk in there, William, not while there’s life in me.’