Stowing his satchelful of kimiyeh and painted stones in one corner of the bare room that he and Hak shared, Covele slumped down on the creaky pallet that was the only furnishing. He tossed his spiked hat on top of the satchel and lay back exhausted. It was not long before his eyes closed, and he drifted off to sleep. His dream of untold wealth, however, was soon disturbed by a creaking sound from outside his room. He sat up, guessing that Hak had returned with some provisions. But the boy was usually boisterous, and he realized that the sound had not been followed by Hak’s normal clamour.
‘Hak? Is that you? Stop playing tricks on your father, boy. Bring me the food.’
Covele fancied he heard a low sigh, but nothing more. He started to feel a prickle of fear running down his spine. Barefoot, he pattered over to the door, putting his ear to it.
‘Hak?’
This time he did not call out, but only whispered his query. He didn’t really want anyone to answer. Better that the person behind the door was only in his imagination. He lifted the latch slowly.
Hak had delayed his return to his father because he had hoped to see the King. He first passed the message about the sky-stone on to the old man, Elias, who groaned at discovering that what he sought was now a hundred miles away. The boy had told him his father would get it back within days. But the old man knew Covele could not afford a horse and would have to walk, a journey that would take at least three weeks. He cursed the old woman, Magote, who he was sure was responsible for the stone being stolen from him in the first place. Just his luck that the King should turn up wanting the stone.
‘The King is here now and is seeking the stone in order to cure him of his ailments. If anyone gets to know that I had it and lost it, I will be in grave trouble. And I will make sure your father shares the punishment, too.’
He put his grey-haired head in his hands and moaned over his ill luck. Hak quietly retreated. Free of the old man’s interrogations, he scurried out into the street. He was excited. The King was in Norwich! So instead of immediately going to fetch the food his father wanted, he dawdled around the close where the cathedral stood. He knew that rich folk stayed there when they visited the town. Maybe, if he waited long enough, he would get to see King Henry himself. However, he managed to hang around only long enough for one of the black-garbed priests who wandered in and out of the big church to take note of him. Finally, the man hurried over and tried to strike him across the face.
‘Get away from here, Jew. Go back to your own kind.’
Hak expertly dodged the flailing hand and ran off towards the Jewish quarter. He had lingered as long as he dared anyway without incurring his father’s wrath. On the way back, he collected a dish of warm potage from the widow woman who cooked for other Jews, exchanging it for the few coins his father had given him. She covered the dish with a greyish, thin cloth and adjured the boy to hurry home before the broth got cold. Hak carefully negotiated the muddy lane back to the tenement where he and his father lived. At one point he slipped silently down a side alley when he saw some roistering Christian boys coming his way. He knew if he was not careful they would jostle him, and the broth would be all over the ground. Fortunately, they had not spotted his evasive action and ran past the end of the dark alley laughing and shouting. Safe from their attentions, but once again delayed, Hak hurried the final distance to the crumbling house where he and his father had a room. It was easy to negotiate the front door, even with a dish in both hands. The door had not closed properly in years, and it hung half off its hinges. Hak slipped through the gap and made for the back of the house. Closest to the midden in the backyard, the room Covele rented was the cheapest of all.
‘Father, I am back. I am sorry it took so long. I had to wait at the widow’s for-’
The excuse died on his lips when he saw that the door to their room was ajar. His father never left the door open under any circumstances. Covele preached safety and circumspection to his son. They were, after all, Jews in a Christian world, with precious items worth much money. Hak nudged the door further open with his foot. It gave that familiar creak, which almost reassured him that all was well. But then he saw his father sprawled out on the bed they shared at night, blood leaking from his mouth. He gasped, and dropped the dish of stew on the dirty rush-strewn floor. The pottery bowl shattered, and the contents bled through the cloth that clung to the mess and oozed across the beaten earth. Covele’s dull, staring eyes slowly focused on his son. Hak sighed.
‘Father. I thought you were dead.’
Covele seemed unable to comprehend for a while what Hak was saying. Then he saw the mess on the floor. ‘The food… You dropped the bowl.’
Hak wasn’t sure if he was more scared at thinking his father dead or at finding him alive but not the same father. Covele’s normally sharp tones were dulled, and he appeared uncertain of his surroundings. He helped his father sit up, wiping the blood from his lips. He saw now that a swelling was coming on his jaw. Someone had hit his father hard in the face.
‘Who did this, Father? Who hit you?’
Covele ignored his questions, glancing fearfully around him, as though his attacker could be hiding somewhere in the bare, small room. His fear was so palpable that Hak, too, found himself looking around the chamber. It was a foolish act. There was nowhere anyone could hide. The boy tried to cheer his father up by asking about Oxford.
‘When do we start out for Oxford again, Father? The sooner we get the sky-stone back, the better things will be for us.’
For the first time since Hak had entered the room and found his father sprawled on the bed, Covele’s voice had a touch of its usual harshness to it.
‘Forget the stone. I don’t want to hear you mention it again.’
Puzzled at the sudden about turn in his father’s attitude, Hak rose and knelt on the floor, trying to salvage what he could of the potage. He still didn’t know what had gone on in his absence, but it had clearly frightened his father. From behind him, as if reading the boy’s mind, Covele finally answered his questions about who had beaten him.
‘It was the Elagabal.’
Falconer was fascinated by the sky-stone. It was late into the night, but he still burned a precious candle down in order to examine its properties. It certainly wasn’t any ordinary stone, as he had already suspected. He was used to stones he could shatter with a mason’s hammer and chisel. Some he could cut into shards that showed marks inside them; others broke into pretty crystal shapes. He had tentatively tapped the sky-stone, only to get the ringing note he had first heard hitting it with his dagger. Then he had hit it with as heavy a blow as he could, and still it refused to break. Now he was sliding a magnetized piece of iron towards it.
He was following instructions from a document that lay at his elbow. It was in his own hand, and he had copied it from a manuscript received by his old friend Roger Bacon only months ago. The original document had been drafted by a military engineer in the service of Charles of Anjou, King of Cyprus. The man was called Peter de Maricourt, and he had some interesting ideas about magnetism. Bacon, a Franciscan monk and experimental scientist, was so taken by the work of Peter that he called him magister experimentorum — the master of experiments — which from such a man as Bacon, devoted to practical science as he was, was praise indeed. Peter, sometimes called Peregrinus — the pilgrim — had shown that a piece of magnetite, or magnetized iron, had very particular properties, always aligning north-south. And when a magnet was broken in two, both pieces preserved the north and south polarities that were in the original piece. He believed these properties came from the celestial poles, and a magnetic needle should be able to guide a traveller on his journey by land or sea. Falconer could see that the idea had possibilities, but for the time being he was concentrating on the basic properties of a magnet.