“But why did the crime occur at this spot?” Thomas rubbed sweat off his forehead. “It is but a short walk to the gate. If a quarrel burst out between two men, they would have left the priory to settle their differences. The forest or the road would have been the most likely place to fight. Why shed blood on God’s earth?”
“Like you, I am troubled by that,” Eleanor replied. Her gray eyes now matched the color of the darkening clouds. “I fear murder was not done within our walls by accident. There was a reason.”
7
Belia squeezed her mother’s arm with all her strength. Sweat ran down her face in rivulets.
Ignoring the pain of her daughter’s grip, Malka crooned to her with soft love, although she had just looked with dark anger at her son-in-law, Jacob ben Asser.
The young woman could not have owned more than twenty summers on earth, but her features resembled those of an ancient crone, sharp-edged and hollow-cheeked. When she opened her eyes, terror glittered from them. Death’s touch was one all mortals know. Belia stood at the edge of a grave and knew the space would fit her well.
“Sleep, my dove,” the mother said. “The pain shall pass. This is but any woman’s trial. Did I not bear you and your three brothers?” She shrugged. “And here I sit beside you, no worse for it all. You will soon forget this labor when the babe lies safely in your arms. That, I promise.” Smiling, she kissed her daughter’s cheek.
Belia nodded weakly, her jaw briefly setting with determination before her eyelids, once again, grew too heavy. The pain must have lessened. She fell into an uneasy sleep.
Slipping away from her child’s loosening grasp, Malka rose and motioned for Jacob to step away from the large-bellied woman who was his suffering wife.
They walked just outside the stall, more suited to housing a horse than three adults. One young servant leapt to her feet in anticipation of some request. Jacob shook his head and asked her to stand some distance away so he and his mother-in-law might speak in private.
“She needs more than I can give her,” Malka said.
“And you are all she has,” he replied in a broken whisper. From his eyes, tears rolled down his smooth-shaven cheeks like a flash-flood. He gestured discreetly at the servant. “That one is but a child.”
“Tell me how I shall aid her in birth with these?” The mother stretched forth her hands. The fingers were bent, some backwards and others sideways, the knuckles were huge, and the skin red. “I would kill her and the babe, even if I had the strength to pull the child into the world. She needs a midwife.”
“Had we reached Norwich, we’d have had our choice of skilled women.” He pointed toward the opening in the unfinished wall. “Here we are surrounded by those who hate us.” He grimaced. “The innkeeper offered to send for a nun. A nun! One who would have baptized the child, stolen the babe before he could suck his own mother’s milk, and passed him to a Christian family to raise. How…” He buried his head in his hands.
Malka turned away, her jaw set with anger, looking much as her daughter had before falling asleep.
From inside the stall, Belia whimpered, and the mother now lost her resolve as well. Tears wound their way through the creases in her cheeks.
Jacob put his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head on his.
Quietly, the two wept.
From outside the partially completed stable, a man’s voice suddenly roared. “Let the scales of the Devil’s blindness drop from your eyes. Listen to God’s Will. Hear His Son’s cry. Be not a stiff-necked people and embrace the truth! Accept baptism. Be saved from Hell!”
The young servant cried out and braced herself against the wall, her widening eyes black with helpless terror.
A cry of anguish escaping from his lips, Jacob leapt to his feet.
His mother-in-law tried to grab his robe, but her hand found only air. “Do not go out there!”
Jacob looked down at her, fury turning his face as bright as fire. “No sooner do I rid us of one abuser than another takes his place. I will kill him!”
She took a deep breath. “Stay calm,” she whispered. “We dare not fight back, except with reason and gentle courtesy.”
“Those who scream such things at us own neither,” he hissed.
Again the man outside shouted: “Cease your dance with the Devil and accept the cleansing of baptism. Your willful denial of His truth corrupts all you touch. How long do you think God and good Christian men will tolerate this before you are destroyed like the evil ones in Sodom and Gomorrah?”
From the stall, Belia groaned.
Jacob put the heel of his hands against his eyes, then threw his head back and shook his fist at the door leading to the inn yard. “I cannot allow that fool to destroy what little peace my wife has! She bears a child. If she must do so in a horse stall with neither a gentle midwife nor a decent bed in which to nurse the babe, surely she should be allowed to sleep without this bellowing.”
Malka looked up at him, and her expression changed to weary resignation. “If you must go forth, do so with humility and a calm voice. Men who shout condemnation at us often hold swords and pitchforks with which to pierce our breasts, but a meek man has been known to soften even a lion’s heart. If you leave here with fist raised, you court death as surely as if you faced a wild beast. Shall your child never know his father?”
“All I want is for him to cease his ranting. Belia must gather her strength.” Jacob groaned. “But you are right. Shall I promise to listen to his preaching after the child is born? In Cambridge, I was forced to do so once a week. Another few hours of that is worth an hour of quiet for my wife.”
“And speak of charity, on your knees if you must, and say that you will ponder his words. Beg him for merciful compassion while you do.” Malka ran her hand along the seam of her robe as if considering the quality of the stitches. “Christians think they invented the virtue,” she said, glancing back at Jacob with a quick smile. “If it helps us all survive, let the man outside continue to believe it.”
Jacob bent down to kiss the top of his mother-in-law’s head. “It shall be as you say. You are wiser than I shall ever be.” His voice was soft with love for this woman, one who had not only given birth to his adored wife but had also embraced him as a son after his own mother had died.
Then he straightened, touched the yellow badge sewn on his robes by the order of King Edward, and walked out into the courtyard.
8
Ralf strode from the inn. The sun was bright in his eyes, but his mood darkened as he looked down the road at the crowds milling around the merchant stalls.
It was marketing day, a time for families to visit with friends and see what wondrous things had come with Norwich merchants or even from Cambridge. Women argued with butchers, men debated the merits of one tradesman’s wares over another’s, and laughing children ran around the legs of all.
A father holding his laughing son caught the crowner’s particular attention. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.
Signy was right. Although he loved his daughter to distraction, he had yet to remarry and produce an heir as he had promised his eldest brother. Fulke’s wife had long been barren, yet the man refused to find cause to divorce her, a choice that had warmed Ralf’s heart for just an instant. And in that regrettable moment of weakness, he had given his word that he would produce the requisite, legitimate heir as long as his next wife was of his own choosing.
Ever since, he had found innumerable reasons to avoid keeping that ill-advised oath. The problem was not in making his choice of wife. He knew the woman he would ask, but approaching his friend, Tostig, for permission to marry his sister made Ralf tremble like a virgin on the wedding night. He had grown to love Gytha; indeed he adored her too much.