vanished. Only a small blaze on the wooden jetty under the bridge marked what had happened. He knelt by the water’s edge, frantically calling Judith’s name, but there was no sound save for the gurgling of the oily black water.
With tears blinding his eyes, he desperately ranged up and down the bank, trying to peer through the mist for any sign of life. Then he heard something. At first he thought the sound was merely an echo of his own sobs, but as he held his breath he heard his own name. The sound seemed to be coming from under the arch in the middle of the river. But there was no means of getting to the place by land.
‘Judith! Judith, wait, I’m coming.’
Benedict stripped off his cloak and climbed down off the jetty, shuddering as the icy water crept up his body, and struck out to where he thought he had heard her calling. The noise of his own splashing and the water crashing against the stones drowned out any cries. The mist swirled above the water. He twisted and turned this way and that, trying to find her. Then he spotted something pale against the dark water. An arm, a single arm stretched out above the river, clinging to an iron mooring ring embedded in the stones of the bridge. Even as he struggled against the current to reach her, he could see her fingers slipping from the ring.
‘Please hold her up,’ he prayed desperately.
He must have said the words aloud, for Judith stirred at the sound, reaching out to him with her other hand. He swam towards her, but, as he had almost reached her, Judith’s fingers slid from the iron ring and she sank without a struggle beneath the rushing black water.
Desperately, Benedict pushed himself downwards, groping around until his fingers closed on some cloth. With a great heave he lifted Judith to the surface. He had enough strength only to reach out again for the iron ring and, with one arm locked tightly through it, he pulled her head on to his shoulder. Her eyes were closed and her skin was frog-cold.
Benedict pressed his face against hers, holding her tightly against his body, his eyes stinging with water and tears. He cursed himself and prayed in equal measure, begging, almost screaming for a miracle. Then he heard a cough and a gasp, her head moved slightly beneath his chin and, looking down, he saw her eyelids fluttering. Judith, his beloved Judith, was alive.
Wednesday 29 May, the eleventh day of Sivan
Just after dawn, fishermen pulled Benedict and Judith from the water. The men assumed that the couple had stumbled into the river in the fog, and Benedict did not disabuse them. The fire on the jetty had long since burned itself out, and those who noticed the scorch marks assumed that boys had wantonly lit the fire from mischief or to cook a supper of fish. They grumbled that young lads these days were out of control; they had no respect for property or their elders. And with Magote dead, there was no one to contradict them.
As Benedict helped Judith up the street to her home, Isaac came running out of the house towards them. He swept his sister up in his arms and carried her inside, almost sobbing with relief that she was unharmed. He seemed to have aged ten years overnight.
Isaac told them that the previous evening he had gone to the inn owned by Eleanor’s father. It had occurred to him that if he could discover that Eleanor was also missing, it would confirm his suspicions that Nathan had indeed run off with her and then he would be able to put Judith’s fears to rest.
Isaac had hung around the inn until late that night trying to pick up any gossip about the girl, for if Eleanor had vanished it would be dangerous for him to be heard asking questions about her. But he’d discovered nothing. Then, just as the inn was closing, Isaac glimpsed Eleanor in the yard throwing out the slops and he knew that wherever Nathan was, he was not with her.
With a heavy heart, Isaac had returned home, only to find his own house empty and no sign of Judith. Fearing that she, too, had been attacked like Jacob and was lying hurt somewhere or worse, he had spent the rest of the night frantically searching the streets for her, though it had never occurred to him to look under a bridge.
Judith and Benedict could delay the tragic news no longer. When they finally told him that Nathan’s body had been found, Isaac tore his shirt and cried like a little child in his sister’s arms.
That same afternoon Benedict returned to the bridge, as soon as he had assured himself that Judith was resting safely, being cosseted by her brother and an endless stream of neighbours bringing nourishing possets and potages to her bedside.
Just before he left her, Judith seized his hand and whispered, ‘Remember the vow you made in the water last night. You must keep it now, you know.’
‘I thought you couldn’t hear me,’ Benedict said in astonishment, blushing furiously as he recalled just what he had been murmuring through that long hour until dawn.
‘A woman can always hear what she wants to.’ Judith managed a tired little smile. ‘I love you, Benedict. Though goodness knows why, for you are the most irritating, stubborn, obstinate, foolhardy muttonhead I’ve ever known, save for my own brother. And no other woman would put up with you, so I suppose I must, for you need someone to keep you from your own folly.’
Benedict humbly acknowledged the truth of that with a wry smile and quickly slipped away before she could think any more of his faults to add to her list.
The miraculous stone still lay on the jetty among the charred remains of the barrels. Even if anyone had noticed the dark stone in the shadow of the bridge, no one would have troubled to take such a commonplace thing. What value would it have had to anyone?
Benedict took the stone straight to the home of Rabbi Elias and placed it on the table in front of him.
‘This is what Jacob went to Exeter to fetch.’
Rabbi Elias lifted it up, his face registering surprise as he felt the weight of it. He turned it over in his hand.
‘So Jacob sells everything he values for something that looks like a child’s carving of a bird or maybe he thought it was a boat. But.. ’ A smile of wonderment spread over the rabbi’s face. ‘There is a great sense of peace in this stone, a sweetness, like the moment when the world stops and we pause to light the Shabbat candles.’
‘Perhaps in the right hands, rabbi, but mine are not the right hands,’ Benedict said, shuddering, as once more he was overcome by shame at the thought of how close he had come to killing the one person in the world that he truly loved with all his soul.
‘There are letters on the stone, rabbi, if you examine it closely.’
Rabbi Elias nodded. ‘I dare say, but I think sometimes it is better not to examine things too closely. Let us be content with saying it is nothing more than a bird or a boat; after all, it was an ark and a dove that brought us hope once, and it was enough then. May it be so again.’
‘Amen,’ Benedict breathed. He grinned bashfully, remembering what Judith had said about holding him to his vow. ‘One thing more, rabbi. I would like to marry Judith just as soon as it can be arranged.’
The rabbi’s mouth’s split in a broad grin. ‘It’s about time. You’ve waited far too long,’ he said, slapping Benedict firmly on the back. ‘And after a wedding night, we hope, comes the blessing of a new generation. What better memorial to your poor father than that he should have grandchildren and great grandchildren to carry on his name.’
Benedict smiled. For the first time since his father had died he felt at peace. The bitterness and hatred which had festered in him for so many months seemed to have drained away in that river and been carried far out to sea. Benedict reached out to touch the stone one last time. Maybe old Jacob had been right and there was something in that stone which could save a man, even if that man didn’t know he needed saving.
Downriver a group of small urchins, wandering home after a day of fishing and mischief-making, saw something stranded in the mud among the reeds. The creature was lying face down, naked above the waist. Its back was blistered so that it almost looked as if it had scales. The hair was burned away, leaving livid red patches on the skin of the head. The boys cautiously prodded it with long sticks, but it didn’t move. Each dared the other to turn the creature over, and finally one plucked up the courage to do so. There was no mistaking that this monster was a female, for though her breasts were as burned as her back, they were massive enough for there to be no mistake. But a female what? The swollen, charred face, covered with cuts and tiny fragments of wood, did not resemble anything human.
The bravest of the boys went closer and poked the creature again, giggling and showing off to his friends. But the laughter changed to a shriek of terror as a hand shot out and seized his ankle with a grip as strong as an iron manacle. He fell over, yelling and struggling as the monster dragged him towards her across the mud. His companions seized their playmate’s arms and pulled with all their strength, until the creature’s fingers slipped from
