Mistress of the Art of Death

The worldly wise eyes were suddenly amused, like those of a teacher whose student had unexpectedly come up to scratch. She’d passed.

But if the testimony of the peat seller was so obviously false, thus casting doubt on that of the woman who claimed that only a little while before, she had seen the crucified body of the child in Chaim’s house, why had the finger of guilt pointed straight at the Jews?

“Acause they bloody did it,” the boy said, “only not then.” He gestured with a grubby hand for her to sit down on the grass, then sat beside her. He began talking fast, allowing her entrance into a world of juveniles who formed theory based on data differently observed and at odds with the conclusions of adults.

Adelia had difficulty following not only the accent but the patois; she leaped onto phrases she could recognize as if jumping from tussock to tussock across a morass.

Will, she gathered, was a boy of about Ulf’s age, and he had been on the same errand as Peter, to gather pussy willow for Palm Sunday decoration. Will lived in Cambridge proper, but he and the boy from Trumpington had encountered each other at Saint Radegund’s tree, where both had been attracted by the sight of the wedding celebrations on Chaim’s lawn across the river. Will had thereupon accompanied Peter over the bridge and through the town in order to see what was to be seen in the stables at the back of Chaim’s house.

Afterward, Will had left his companion to take the needed willow branches back home to his mother.

There was a pause in the narration, but Adelia knew there was more to come-Ulf was a born storyteller. The sun was warm, and it was not unpleasant to sit in the dappling shade of the willows, though Safeguard’s coat had acquired something noisome on the walk that became more pungent as it dried. Ulf, with his prehensile little feet in the river, complained of hunger. “Give us a penny and I’ll go to the pie shop for us.”

“Later.” Adelia prodded him on. “Let me recapitulate. Will went home and Peter disappeared into Chaim’s house, never to be seen again.”

The child gave a mocking sniff. “Never to be seen by any bugger ’cept Will.”

“Will saw him again?”

It had been later that day, getting dark. Will had returned to the Cam to bring a supper pail to his father, who was working into the night caulking one of the barges ready for the morning.

And Will on the Cambridge side had seen Peter across the river, standing on the left bank-“Here he was, right here. Where we’re bloody sitting.” Will had called out to Peter that he should be getting home.

“So he ought’ve,” Ulf added, virtuously, “you get caught in them Trumpington marshes of a night, will o’the wisps lead you down to the Pit.”

Adelia ignored will o’the wisps, not knowing, nor caring, what they were. “Go on.”

“So Peter, he calls back he’s going to meet someone for the Jew-Jews.”

“Ju-jus?”

“Jew-Jews.” Ulf was impatient, twice prodding a finger in the air toward Chaim’s house. “Jew-Jews, that’s what he said. He was going to meet someone for the Jew-Jews, and would Will come with him. But Will says no, and he’s bloody glad he did, acause that’s when nobody saw Peter after.”

Jew-Jews. Meeting someone for the Jew-Jews? Running an errand on the Jew-Jews’ behalf? And why that infantile term? There were a hundred derogatory terms for Jews; since she’d been in England she’d heard most of them, but not that one.

She puzzled over it, recreating the scene at the river on that night. Even today in full sunlight, even with the crowd around Saint Radegund’s tree farther up, this bit of bank was quiet, forest and parkland closing in behind it. How shadowy it would have been then.

Peter’s character, she thought, emerged from the narrative as fey, romantic; Ulf had described a child more easily distracted than the dependable Will.

She saw him now: a small figure, waving to his friend, pale among the dusk of the trees, disappearing into them forever.

“Did Will inform anyone of this?”

Will had not, at least not the adults. Too scared the bloody Jews would come after him next. And right to be so, in Ulf’s opinion. Only to his peers, that knee-high, hidden, disregarded, secret world of childhood camaraderie, had Will committed his secret.

The result, in any case, had been the desired one: The Jews had been accused and the perpetrator and his wife punished.

Leaving the ground clear for the murderer to kill again, Adelia thought.

Ulf was watching her. “You want more? There’s more. Get your boots wet, though.”

He showed her his final proof that Peter had returned to Chaim’s house later that night, proof of Chaim’s guilt. Because she had to scramble down the bank to the river’s edge and bend low, it did indeed involve getting her feet wet. And the bottom of her skirt. And a considerable amount of Cambridge silt over the rest of her. Safeguard came with them.

It was when the three emerged back onto the bank that darker shadows than those of the trees fell across them.

“God’s eyes, it’s the foreign bitch,” Sir Gervase said.

“Rising as Aphrodite from the river,” Sir Joscelin said.

They were in hunting leathers, sitting their sweat-flecked horses like gods. The corpse of a wolf slung in front of Sir Joscelin had a cloak lain over it from which a dripping muzzle hung down, still caught in the rictus of a snarl.

The huntsman who’d accompanied them on the pilgrimage was in the background, holding three wolfhounds on a leash, each one of which was big enough to pick Adelia up and carry her off. The dogs’ eyes watched her mildly from rough, mustachioed faces.

She would have walked away, but Sir Gervase kneed his horse forward so that she and Ulf and Safeguard were in a triangle formed on two sides by horses with the river as its base behind them.

“We should ask ourselves what our visitor to Cambridge is doing paddling in the mud, Gervase.” Sir Joscelin was amused.

“We should. We should also damn well tell the sheriff about her magic axes when a gentleman deigns to notice her.” More jovial now, but still threatening, Gervase was out to regain the supremacy he’d lost to Adelia in their encounter. “Eh? What about that, witch? Where’s your Saracen lover now?” Each question came louder. “What about ducking you back in the water? Eh? Eh? Is that his brat? It looks dirty enough.”

She wasn’t frightened this time. You ignorant clod, she thought. You dare talk to me.

At the same time she was fascinated; she didn’t take her eyes off him. More hatred here, enough to eclipse Roger of Acton’s. He’d have raped her on that hill merely to show that he could-and would now if his friend were not by. Power over the powerless.

Was it you?

The boy beside her was as still as death. The dog had crept behind her legs where the wolfhounds couldn’t see him.

“Gervase,” Sir Joscelin said sharply. Then, to her: “Pay my friend no mind, mistress. He’s waxy because his spear missed old Lupus here”-he patted the wolf’s head-“and mine didn’t.” He smiled at his companion before turning to look down again on Adelia. “I hear the good prior has found you better accommodation than a cart.”

“Thank you,” she said, “he has.”

“And your doctor friend? Is he setting up here?”

“He is.”

“Saracen Quack and Whore, that’ll look good on the shingle.” Sir Gervase was getting restive and more outrageous.

This is what it’s like to be among the weak, Adelia thought. The strong insult you with impunity. Well, we’ll see.

Sir Joscelin was ignoring the man. “I suppose your doctor can do nothing for poor Gelhert here, can he? The wolf sliced his leg.” He jerked his head toward one of the hounds. It had a paw raised.

And that, too, is an insult, Adelia thought, though you may not mean it to be. She said, “He is better with humans. You should advise your friend to consult him as soon as possible.”

“Eh? What’s the bitch say?”

“Do you think him ill then?” Joscelin asked.

“There are signs.”

“What signs?” Gervase was suddenly anxious. “What signs, woman?”

“I am not in a position to say,” she told Joscelin. Which was true, since there were none. “But it would be as well for him to consult a doctor-and quickly.”

Anxiety was turning to alarm. “Oh my God, I sneezed a full seven times this morning.”

“Sneezing,” Adelia said, reflectively. “There it is, then.”

“Oh my God.” He wrenched the reins and wheeled his horse, spiking its side with his spurs, leaving Adelia spattered with mud but content.

Smiling, Joscelin raised his cap. “Good day, mistress.”

The huntsman bowed to her, gathered the hounds, and followed them.

It could be either of them, Adelia told herself, watching them go. Because Gervase is a brute and the other is not means nothing.

Sir Joscelin, for all his pleasant manner, was as likely a candidate as his objectionable companion, of whom he was obviously fond. He’d been on the hill that morning.

But then, who had not? Hugh, the huntsman with a face as bland as milk that might well harbor as much viciousness as Roger of Acton without showing it. The fat-cheeked merchant from Cherry Hinton. The minstrel, too. The monks-the one they called Brother Gilbert was a hater if ever she’d met one. All had access to Wandlebury Ring that night. As for the inquisitive tax inspector, everything about him was subject to suspicion.

And why do I consider only the men? There’s the prioress, nun, merchant’s wife, servants.

But, no, she absolved all females; this was not a woman’s crime. Not that women were incapable of cruelty to children-she had examined many results of torture and neglect-but the only cases that even approached this one’s savage, sexual assault had involved men, always men.

“They talked to you.” Ulf’s stillness, unlike her own, had been the grip of awe. “Crusaders, they are. Both on ’em. Been to the Holy Land.”

“Have they indeed,” she said flatly.

They had, and had come back rich, having won their spurs. Sir Gervase held Coton manor by knight’s fee of the priory. Sir Joscelin held Grantchester manor of Saint Radegund’s. Great hunters they were and borrowed Hugh and his wolfhounds from Prior Geoffrey when they had to run down a devil like the one across Sir Joscelin’s horse-been taking lambs over Trumpington way, it had- acause Hugh was the best wolf hunter in Cambridgeshire…

Men, she thought, listening to him run on in his admiration. Even when they are small boys…

But this one was looking up at her now, worldly wise again. “And you stood to ’em,” he said.

She, too, had won her spurs.

Companionably, they walked back to Old Benjamin’s together, the disgraced Safeguard trailing behind them.

IT WAS DARK by the time Simon returned to the house, hungry for the eel stew with dumplings and fish pie awaiting him-the day was Friday and Gyltha strictly observed it-complaining of the great number of wool merchants plying their trade in and around Cambridge.