almost as if they were sleeping.
Then Aaron, keeping his voice low and even, spoke from the shadows. ‘Look at the letters on the stone Hay, Shin, Mem. Stare at each letter in turn until they start to move. Watch them weave in and out of each other, growing bigger and smaller, changing their colours. Let yourself dissolve into the letters — become the letters.’
Nathan knew the meditation well. Their former teacher had often made them practise it, but always before they had visualized words in their heads. They had never stared at letters written on anything. Nathan had never been any good at it, not even when they were students. You were supposed to breathe each word until it lost its meaning and new words and new meanings danced in your head, but the only thoughts that ever came into Nathan’s head were certainly not spiritual. Mostly he spent the time dreaming up ways of being alone with the voluptuous, flaxen-haired Eleanor without her father finding out.
But tonight, as Nathan stared at the stone glistening in the trembling yellow candle flame, it was only too easy to see the letters moving. The letters first began twisting and undulating, then they seemed to be crawling off the stone and scuttling across the table towards him. He could hear the word stalking around him in the darkness, Ha-Sh-em, Ha-Sh-em. His three companions were breathing rhythmically in and out on the syllables of the word. Though he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the letters, Nathan was vaguely aware that the others were standing now, folding and unfolding their bodies to the rhythm of their breath, Ha-Sh-em. The word slithered through the shadows.
The letters were changing colour. Shin was glowing red as if it had caught fire. Mem had turned ice-blue and was running like water over the table, yet where the blue water touched the ruby flame it seemed only to make the flame burn more fiercely.
Aaron’s breathing had deepened as if he was trying to suck all the air from the room. He was chanting a different word now — Raziel, Raziel. The other two joined in, calling on the name of the angel who reveals the secrets of heaven and the knowledge of the future. Raziel, Raziel, Raziel. Nathan became aware of something growing in the corner of the room, blacker than a hangman’s shadow, deeper than the pit of Gehenna, a total absence of light so thick and heavy it was as if the very darkness from which the world had been created was reforming in that room. It was swelling up, uncoiling and reaching out
…
Nathan yelled in panic and dashed his hand across the table, sweeping stone, cord and candles crashing to the floor. For a moment he could see nothing while his eyes adjusted to the thin shaft of moonlight filtering in through the hole in the shutters. But Nathan didn’t need any light to tell him that whatever it was that had entered that room had vanished and the four of them were alone.
‘You clumsy imbecile, Nathan,’ Aaron raged at him. ‘We’d almost succeeded in summoning the spirit that would have given us knowledge of the future. Do you realize what a miracle that was? Not even the greatest mystic teachers have succeeded. Just think what power…’ Words failed Aaron, and he slammed his fist into the table in frustration.
‘But didn’t you see it?’ Nathan asked them. ‘That thing didn’t come from the light… Didn’t any of you see what it was?’
It was too dark to make out the expressions on their faces, but he could sense their anger and bewilderment. But if they hadn’t seen it, how could he begin to explain?
Nathan sank down on the stool, his hands trembling. ‘Just go. Get out of here and leave me alone.’
He heard the door close behind them and their footsteps on the wooden staircase, but he didn’t move. He sat staring into the corner, trying to understand what he had seen. There had been nothing there, and yet that nothing had been so dense, so massive, so full of rage and hate, it felt as if that nothing had been the only solid thing in the room, and the table, the walls, even he himself had been mere wisps of smoke in its presence.
Somewhere out in the city a dog was howling, and then he heard a single set of footsteps slowly climbing the wooden staircase outside. It must be Isaac, Benedict or Aaron come back to see if he was all right and walk him home. Nathan rose and started across the room to meet them. A finger came through the hole in the door, lifting the latch, and the door swung open.
Friday 24 May, the sixth day of Sivan, the Festival of Shavuoth
Judith leaped to her feet almost before she had opened her eyes, startled by the shouts and cries in the street outside. For a moment she thought she had overslept and the market was already open for the day, but then she realized the room was still dark. Isaac was standing by the tiny casement and peering out through the open shutter, shivering in the cold damp air. A thin grey light crawling up over the rooftops showed that dawn was not far off. Judith joined her brother at the casement, draping his cloak around his shoulders against the cold, though it still felt damp from the night’s rain.
‘What’s the noise?’ Judith asked.
Men were spilling out of the houses on either side of the street, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Women and children leaned out of the casements trying to see what was going on.
‘They’re calling the hue and cry,’ Isaac sighed. ‘I’d better go and help.’ He stooped, struggling to pull on his wet shoes. They were caked in mud.
Judith frowned. ‘Why didn’t you put those near the hearth when you came in? Anyway, when did you come in? It must have been very late. I didn’t hear you.’
But Isaac was already halfway out of the door. Judith turned back to the window and saw her brother emerge on to the street to join the other men who were rapidly dispersing in threes and fours in different directions hunting whoever was being sought by the law. She waited until Isaac had reached the end of the street, then she could contain her curiosity no longer and, slipping into her kirtle, cloak and shoes, ran outside. By now the women, hugging themselves against the sharp morning air, were gathering on the street.
‘Been a murder in Little Orford Street,’ they told her. ‘Jew it was and no mistaking it — found him naked as the day he was born.’
Judith felt her throat tighten. There wasn’t a Jew in Norwich she didn’t know, at least by sight. Now that they were all forced to wear the white strips, they could recognize everyone, even those who didn’t come to the synagogue. She found herself praying that it would not be one of her own friends, then reproved herself sharply; after all, it would be some poor woman’s father or brother or son. Another one of their community murdered. Where would it all end?
She allowed herself to be swept along by the crowd into Little Orford Street, where a mass of people had gathered around a small gap between two of the houses. At first Judith couldn’t see anything, but then a man caught her arm and dragged her forward through the throng.
‘Here’s another of the Jews, bailiff. Go on, you look, girl, see if you know him.’
A figure was lying stretched out on the ground on his back, his arms raised above his head. He’d been covered by someone’s cloak, but one of the men kneeling beside the corpse pulled it back far enough to allow Judith to see the face. She closed her eyes briefly, steeling herself to look. The dark brown eyes of the corpse were wide open as if in shock, and the lips were drawn back from the yellowed teeth in something approaching a snarl, but despite the contorted expression Judith was certain it was not a face she knew.
She felt her stomach relax in relief. ‘I’ve never seen that man before. Besides, he’s not Jewish. He has no beard, and look at his hair.’
Though the victim had dark stubble on his face, he had certainly been clean-shaven not much more than a week ago, and there was something else. A circular fuzz of new hair in the centre of his head indicated that in the not-too-distant past the man had been tonsured.
‘Probably trying to pass himself off as a God-fearing man,’ one man in the crowd muttered. ‘Trying to cod innocent folk into giving him alms or get into an abbey, so he could steal from them. Typical of their tricks.’ The others nodded.
Judith pressed her nails into the palms of her hands, trying to keep her anger in check. ‘But what makes you think he is Jewish?’ she persisted.
The men grinned at each other. With a magician’s flourish, the bailiff whipped the cloak from the naked body. A livid stab wound in the chest showed that there was no mistaking this was murder, but the bailiff was not pointing to the man’s wound. His spiteful smile deepened as he watched the hot blush spread over Judith’s face.
‘Good Christians don’t go around chopping the heads off their sons’ manhoods,’ he sneered.
