I heard Robin curse softly beside me, and turned to look at him. He was looking into his empty arrow bag and muttering to himself a stream of utterly foul obscenity. I saw then that he had only one arrow left, the one in his hand. He caught my eye, and shrugged, as he nocked it, and then he loosed it at a man-at-arms who was running across the bailey to the shelter of the chapel. The arrow took the man full in the back, even at two hundred yards piercing his chainmail hauberk and hurling him to the ground. He was still moving feebly but Robin ignored him and turned to me.
‘I should have brought more shafts, Alan. That was a mistake.’
‘We didn’t plan to fight a full-scale battle,’ I said.
‘True; but mistakes like that that can get a man quite badly killed.’ And then, with a wry smile, he turned away and made his way towards the staircase and the hall below.
I stayed at the wall, standing that whole night as a mad, pointless, utterly foolish tribute to that little girl; thinking about the her and the swift, merciful death that Robin had given her; and thinking of Sir Richard Malbete, too.
In the first grey light, Ruth came to me, bringing ale and bread, and I finally eased my stiff legs down, lowered my rump to the floor and began to eat. But I was started from my breakfast by the sound of trumpets. With my fellow warriors, I gathered at the parapet to watch a cavalcade of fifty knights and a hundred or so foot soldiers, followed by a great train of ox-wagons carrying what seemed to be huge squared lengths of timber, ride into the bailey through the eastern gate. Sir John Marshal had returned to his castle.
Feelings were mixed among the besieged Jews of the Tower: some men assumed that they were saved now that the King’s representative had returned; others of a darker cast of mind saw only reinforcements for our enemies.
‘At the least now we should be able to negotiate,’ said Reuben to me as we stood side-by-side, leaning on the battlements and looking over the bailey. He had brought his own breakfast and was munching on a crust as we surveyed the soldiers spilling into the courtyard. Directly below us the bodies of the dead lay undisturbed, except by the ravens who had gathered in their scores and who pecked at Christian flesh with a glassy avian disregard for human dignity.
‘May I see your sword,’ I asked Reuben presently. And he obligingly pulled the slim curved blade from its ornate scabbard and passed it hilt first to me. It felt light, too light in my hand. I made a few experimental passes in the air. It was like waving an ash wand; it had none of the brute power of my own weapon. But, by God, a man could strike fast with this blade. Then Reuben took a flimsy silk scarf from around his neck and asked me to hold out the sword at arm’s length. He held the scarf over the weapon and dropped it. The silk was cut in two, merely by its own weight. I was astounded. I had never seen a blade as keen in my life; I tested the edge of the sword and immediately cut deep into the ball of my thumb. Sucking the injured digit ruefully, I asked Reuben where he had obtained such a fine weapon.
‘It is a scimitar, in the Arabian pattern,’ he replied, not quite answering my question. ‘If we live through this siege and you travel with the King to Outremer, you will see many more swords of this type — and perhaps you may wish you had not. It is a common weapon in the great army of the warlord you Christians call Saladin.’
I asked him again, looking directly at him: ‘But where did you get it?’
He sighed. ‘Where do you think I am from, Alan?’
‘Why, York, of course. Although I have heard it said that you also have a dwelling in Nottingham.’
‘Look at my skin, my eyes, my hair — do I look as if I come from the north of England?’ he said.
‘Well, you are a Jew,’ I said, acknowledging the hazelnut hue of his face and his midnight eyes, ‘so I suppose that at one time your family must have come from the Holy Land.’
‘Do I resemble these others?’ he indicated the Jews at the battlements beside us.
‘Of course, well, a little… actually, not very much.’ I could not believe that I had not noticed it before but Reuben was much darker than all the other Jews; some of the crossbowmen at the battlements had red-gold hair, some even had blue eyes.
‘We are all equally the children of Israel,’ Reuben said, ‘but these good Jews are from northern France and their families lived there for many generations before they came to try their luck in England.’
‘So you are from Outremer?’ I asked. I was fascinated. I had never really thought about Reuben’s antecedents before, He had just been Robin’s friend, the Jew, the merchant and moneylender from York. To hail from Outremer, where Christ’s blessed feet had walked, the sacred land of John the Baptist, and Moses, and King David, and Samson and Delilah, and all those other figures from the Bible… it seemed impossibly exotic and mysterious.
‘I am of the Temanim, a Jew from the far south. I come from a land far beyond Outremer, which the Arabs call al-Yaman — it was once known as the land of the Queen of Sheba,’ he said, a note of pride in his voice.
This seemed even more fabulous. Beyond Outremer? He might have said that he came from the Moon. Tuck had told me the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, but it had all seemed so long ago, so far away. A legend. It was as if I had just come face to face with a unicorn.
‘What is it like — al-Yaman?’ I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar name, but imagining a perfumed land flowing with rivers of wine, where jewels grew in the earth like flowers, and sweet cakes grew on trees.
‘It’s a desert, mostly, sand and rock and merciless sun. But it is home, I suppose, in a way. Or it would be home if any of my family still lived.’
I said nothing at this point, and just stared at him, willing him to tell me the story; listening with my eyes. He smiled at me again, indicated that we should sit with a graceful wave of his hand, and then, settling himself down, with his back to the battlements, his beautiful sword across his knees, he began.
‘My father, may his soul rest with God, was a sword-maker. He made this very weapon,’ he said laying a hand reverently on the ornate silver-chased scabbard. ‘We were a wealthy family, business was very good, and for the most part there was harmony between the Jews of our town and the Arabs. I was trained in the use of arms by the best teachers my father’s money could buy; and taught languages — Greek and Latin — as well as history, philosophy, a little medicine and courtly manners. I was happy. It was my father’s dream that I should be a gentleman, a poet perhaps, or a musician like you, Alan, not an artisan, not a sword-smith such as himself, sweating over a forge fire all day in a leather apron. And I was content with that ambition; I attended the best parties, mixed with the sons of other rich men, and there was talk of a marriage between myself and the daughter of a wealthy merchant from a neighbouring town. Life was very good.’ He paused here and closed his eyes, savouring that youthful happiness for a moment or so. Then he continued. ‘When I was sixteen, a wandering Muslim cleric came to our town. He was dressed almost in rags, but his eyes burned with passion and he preached with great eloquence to the faithful in the local mosque. His preaching was considered sublime; people came from far and wide to hear his words. He was inspired by the Prophet himself, praise be upon him, the people said. But what he preached was purity. Only by keeping himself pure, he said, could a Muslim reach paradise at the end of his life. Only by living a saintly life and eschewing all defilement, could a true Muslim honour God in the proper way. All impurity was to be shunned; it must be swept away, banished, and if it could not be banished then it must be destroyed. And we Jews, said this so-called holy man, were impure.’
I was beginning to see where this story was going. There was a note of deep bitterness in Reuben’s voice, and I thought of the evening when Robin and I had arrived at his house to be greeted with a thrown knife. But I held my peace, and waited for Reuben to continue.