Nor was I spared a lecture from My Lady Constance on the subject, before she left to join her husband at their Meresfeld manor an hour’s ride to the north.
‘You should know that my son is an exuberant young man, who’ll never walk if he can run,’ she said. ‘They say King Richard would sell London to finance his expedition if he could find a buyer for it, and you will find Sir Garon much the same. When something captures his attention he embraces it entirely – be it a competition, an archbishop’s cross. Or a marriage bed, my dear.’
She nodded when she saw I understood, for however she’d defended Garon’s actions at the fortress they clearly weren’t her own idea of any kind of sense. He wouldn’t be the first young man, she pointed out, to fall beneath the spell of a new bride. And if that happy circumstance should chance – the benefit, his mother was convinced, must be felt by us all.
Which brings me to my perfect plan. (Well if not entirely perfect, it’s workable at least.) In the first month I act on Maman’s, Hoddie’s, Lady Constance’s advice to make myself attractive to my husband. I know a little now about the method – and judging from the way he acts it shouldn’t be too hard to get results.
I was amazed at first that anyone as incoherent as Sir Garon could be so desperate about his wants, although having seen him on the tourney field I suppose I might have guessed. He called me white and beautiful that second night, which came as a surprise. And whether he intended to or no, his body’s taught me something even I had not expected.
Well then when I’ve reduced him to a trembling husk in bed – say by the second month, I’ll please him out of it in any way I can devise. Find ways to use the guarderobe and pick my nose without him seeing. Serve him delicious food to tempt his appetite. Weave spotless linen for his shirts. Change everything inside his manor for the better – and sing for him, he likes it when I sing – and make him to smile a little more.
Then by month three, as Hoddie’s most attentive pupil I’ll astonish him with news that I’m with child (if that’s not already obvious by month two). Which leaves me with three months in hand to show him that a lively bedfellow, a well-run home, the promise of a son and heir, are worth a good deal more than an amercement of six shillings to free him from a thoughtless oath!
I don’t say it will be easy. But I’m sure that I can do it if I try.
The day his mother and his little sister left us, our first day on our own, Garon told me that henceforth his squire and man-at-arms would sleep with us in our chamber. And when I mentioned that in Lancaster no married lady would submit to such indignity, he just said things were different in Sussex and bedded both down by the fire. He even brought his verminous excuse for a dog inside, and all of them laughed at the shriek I gave when Bruno poked his wet nose through the bed-hangings.
A battle lost. But I’ve a war to win and will not be disheartened. Although we’ve yet to ride the outer boundaries of the manor, I have explored within and found a deal in need of my attention. The house is bigger than I’m used to, and even with the fires lit there’s a chill about the hall. Limewash is flaking from the walls in several of the storerooms. They shutter the east chambers to keep out the flies, while anyone with half a brain can see they need to move the dungheap from the yard below them.
The whole place could do with freshening and scrubbing, and I’ll not to hang my tapestries until it’s done. We need more cats. There’s mouse-dirt in the kitchen. We need more greenery and lavender for every room – fresh rushes every fortnight (I love that grassy smell!). I want a private garden like the one at home with shingle paths and strawberries and fruit espaliers – a trellised arbour and a cushioned bench and lavender and gillyflowers – and yes, a painted statue. We have to have a statue! Cupid with his bow?
The sour steward and that hatchet-faced old beldame, Agnès, who was here with Garon’s father, may need some telling what to do. But the other servants all seem willing and I’ve old Hod to help me.
Meantime this afternoon… Heavens – in the next half-hour if that’s Sext the church bell’s striking? – we’re all to ride to Lewes, to see about a loan for Garon to finance the enterprise that I’m determined to prevent!
‘Hod, are you there?’
I’ll need my watchet gown (the blue-green suits my colouring), my riding cloak and something quick to eat while I am dressing.
‘Hoddie! Hodierne!’ Where in the name of mercy has that woman got to?
The steward said we’d find the moneylender’s house just off the town’s main thoroughfare before we reach the fortress, in one of the steep cross-streets that run down to the Saxon wall. In fact, it’s little more than a dark cleft between two lopsided buildings whose upper storeys all but touch above our heads – a lane so narrow that we’ve had to leave the horses at the inn with Bertram and make our way to it on foot.
‘There then, be sure to take a rosary with you into that tatterdemalion’s den,’ Hod warned me while she helped me dress. The Jews who crucified Our Lord are known to be in league with the ungodly powers of darkness, she insists, and can walk backwards with their eyes shut if they choose. Their stores of gold and silver come from mortgaging their souls to Satan.
‘True as Holy Writ, as anyone ’ud tell you,’ Hoddie told me.
‘Good faith, such goings on! ’Tis blowed about their Jewish rhabbis only drink the blood an’ cut away the podskins of poor little Christian lads in their abuseful rites! Ye’ll need to take some amulets along an’ all,’ she thought. ‘A black cat’s paw’s a certain-sure protection ’gainst any kind of curse.’
Old Agnès in the background offered similar advice. ‘A bag of clover tied under-skirts ’ull save ye from ol’ Nick hisself if ye should chance to rub against the man,’ she said and made a sign against the evil eye.
I told her I would think about it, which Hoddie rightly took to mean I wouldn’t.
‘Leastways wear your crucifix, my lamb – look ’ere ’tis, you’ll ’ardly know you ’ave it on.’
Her lack of chin makes Hoddie’s whole face wobble when she’s agitated. But still there is something comforting about the way she fusses.
Inside the passageway, at shoulder height, someone has chalked a crude graffito of a hook-nosed Jew in a cornatum hat beside a rough-planked door.
‘Depend on it, ’tis shabby by design.’
Steward Kempe’s a tall, stern kind of man of more than middle age who must have had the pock at some time in his youth, his skin’s so marked and pitted. He has a jutting lower lip, lank hair and a singularly long face on a long body. And yet he knows his business one would think.
‘These Asrelites will never show their wealth for fear of thieves,’ he scoffs. ‘They’d skin a flint if they could sell it for its hide and fat.’ But now he’s rapping with his dagger-hilt on the plank door. ‘Ho there, Jacob ben Aaron!’
Gracious, I can hardly wait to see inside.
‘Ho, Jacob! Open to Sir Garon and his lady, who would do business with you.’
Part of the upper door frame is damp and rotten. Below where it is sounder, a shuttle-shaped container’s nailed up at an angle with some kind of a strange sign on it like a three-fingered hand.
I wonder… But how odd, I feel somehow as if I’ve been here before – as if I know exactly how the Jew will look and what he’s going to say. Oh, I can hear the tumble of a lock and hinges creaking…
For an agent of the Devil the old man who opens it looks remarkably benign. But not as I imagined. He’s wearing gabardine and a close bonnet, both expensively dyed black without a tinge of green. Beard’s sparse and grey, curled into ringlets (but I mustn’t stare).
‘Ah, Master Kempe, shlomot.’
He speaks in heavily accented French. ‘Come in, come in!’ He hurries us inside and locks the door, begs us excuse the times and the necessity to be discreet.
‘Thirty of my race were slaughtered by the London mob but three weeks past for daring to approach the new king at his coronation. We are confused with Saracens and are not safe abroad,’ he tells us with a shrug.
‘My lord knight, I already know something of your affairs. Come, let us be comfortable. Mistress, you’re welcome.’ He motions to a fringed and padded stool. ‘Be seated if you will.’
The old Jew lifts a curtain that conceals a stairway. ‘Sara, yakirati! We have a Christian lady in our house who has need of refreshment.’ He looks this time in my direction and smiles within his beard. ‘If only to convince her we’re not cannibals entirely in our tastes.’
His voice is rasping, nasal. Teeth crooked and discoloured. But when he smiles, his sad little eyes are near-submerged in wrinkles. It seems to me that Jews are not so different in the end to other men. Christ after all was raised by Jews, was born a Jew himself – and I’m sorry but I really think I like this old man. Which is why I’m smiling back at him to show a friendly face.
You couldn’t say his room is large. But such furnishings, I’ve never seen their like! Brass and silver, polished wood lit from a window high up in the wall – Turkey carpets, satin cushions, damask cloth and fine Venetian glass. It smells of dusty fabric, of some musky perfume I can’t put a name to, and one whole wall is honeycombed with racks of parchment – scrolls tied with scarlet ribbons, nested like pigeons in a cote.
‘Now Sir Knight, and Master Kempe – how is it I can help you?’ old Jacob asks.
‘I’m sworn to join Archbishop Baldwin on the Kings’ Croisade next year.’ (When you hear Garon speak it isn’t hard to tell he’s at a disadvantage.)
‘You seek to free Jerusalem of Saracens?’
‘Yes naturally.’ My husband’s arms are crossed – big hands tucked into his armpits.
‘Yet when they first captured it your Christians slaughtered everyone within the city – Muslims, Jews and even those of their own faith. It’s said that sixty thousand perished. Whereas we’re told that Saladin permits men of all faiths to worship there in peace.’
Garon gives a snort of laughter. ‘And you believe THAT – when we know, when everyone has heard they skewered babies, stabled horses in Christ’s Sepulchre?’
The old man contemplates him, seems about to argue then heaves a sigh instead. ‘There’s no future in disputing rumours neither of us can be sure of,’ he remarks. ‘But I think you were about to tell me why you’ve come?’
‘To raise funds for the undertaking.’ Garon tells him bluntly.
‘So? We talk of finance.’ Jacob leans across his table to a sand-glass and turns it up to show the business has begun. ‘It would be idle I suppose to think that anything but finance would induce a Christian knight to knock on a Jew’s door. So tell me, have you calculated the sum you’ll need to fund the venture?’
The old body, Sara, who must be his wife has brought in a tray of sugared fruit, with wine and silver goblets to set beside him on the table. She’s small, round shouldered, with full breasts and the distinctive profile of her race – wears a chemise, and over it a carsey-perse striped gown, primrose and cinder grey with a plain yellow sash. A length of green silk’s wound about her head and knotted at the brow. Gold pendants swing from both her ears. And now as she’s about to leave, she smiles – eyes black, intelligent as Jacob’s and as kind. (I really like her stripey carsey-perse.)
‘Fifty marks.’ The way that Garon says it sounds more like a challenge than a reasonable request. ‘That’s what we’ll need to fund a year’s campaign with transport for two horses and four men besides myself.’
‘’T’is a realistic calculation,’ the steward’s anxious to confirm, ‘taking every circumstance into account.
‘A guess, in other words.’
Jacob brings the goblets, careful not to touch us as he sets them down. ‘Our faith permits us to share a little wine on working days, although in moderation.’ He smiles again into the spirals of his beard. ‘A small cup clarifies the mind they say, even as a large one clouds it.’
I sip the wine. It’s very sweet.
‘You wish me to advance you fifty marks? A prodigal amount by any reckoning. The problem is…’
‘You haven’t heard what I can offer as collateral.’ The interruption Garon’s.
‘You are about to tell me I believe?’
‘I would be willing to offer you a mortgage on my land at Haddertun against the loan.’ He tries to make it sound like a concession.
‘My dear young man, I was about to point out that your Church prohibits you from pledging property to members of our faith, against a pilgrimage or any other Christian undertaking.’
‘Officially.’ Kempe dares to place a cautious hand on Garon’s arm. ‘But you and I have dealt before, Jew, and you may be sure we’ll honour any reasonable terms.’
‘Reasonable terms?’
Old Jacob sets his goblet back upon the cloth to wipe his beard with one long ink-stained finger. ‘But there you have the heart of it, my friend. We both of us are men of business, are we not? So let’s be plain, as men of business we must weigh all the risks before we make a heskem – a contract, as you say.’
‘The manor prospers, Jew. The risk is slight.’
‘Not from where I stand, Master Kempe. You will forgive me, but what if your young Lord should meet his Maker overseas – or mine if he’s unlucky? What if the crops should fail at Haddertun? What if its livestock should be visited with murrain?’ He nods. ‘Oh yes, it happens.
‘What if, for no fault of your own, you were unable to repay me interest out of revenues? Do you imagine that the King’s Court, or your Church’s, would uphold the claim of an accursed Jew excluded by all English laws from croisade usury?’ He spreads his hands and shrugs again expressively. ‘No, no my friend. Much as it grieves me to decline, I tell you by the Holy Shabbat that I’m unable to do business with a crucesignatus.’