The Demon’s Parchment

from the wood sellers or managed to scavenge.

Jacob used a straw to light several candles. As the room glowed, Crispin glanced about. Bright drapery hung on the walls, giving the plaster a cheery appearance. Shadowed alcoves pricked Crispin’s curiosity, where tables with various beakers and bowls stood ready. Except for the numerous bottles and canisters and the odd smells emanating from that direction, the room looked to be as any ordinary physician’s parlor. A door to the left must have led to a bed chamber. Not bad for a Jew, mused Crispin grudgingly.

The chamber door opened suddenly.

Crispin’s hand reached for his dagger. A young man, thin and pale, stepped through the opening. At first Crispin thought him to be a page, but the yellow rouelle on his dark, ankle-length gown soon snuffed that notion. He wore a scarlet sash about his waist and from it hung a gold chain with a key, a money pouch, and a small dagger. A thick, gold chain on his chest seemed an attempt to hide the rouelle. The youth glared with narrowed, jewel-green eyes. “Mon pere.” His voice was harsher than Crispin expected from his slight features. It was almost hoarse. His brown hair hung limply on either side of his cheeks down to the jaw. A dark cap perched on the crown of his head.

Jacob nodded toward the lad. “This is Julian. My son.”

The boy did not acknowledge his father, but continued his mistrustful stare at Crispin.

Jacob frowned. “Is this how I taught you hospitality? How do you treat guests?”

Julian gritted his teeth and shuffled to a table near the high window. He poured four shares of wine into bowls, bringing the first to his father. When he settled his own to his chest, he leaned against the wall and studied Crispin from afar.

“Qui sont ces mendiants?” Julian asked derisively.

Exasperated, Jacob hissed at him, “English!”

Crispin stiffened. “Nous ne sommes pas des mendiants,” he answered. His lips curled into a lopsided grin when Julian drew back sharply, spilling his wine.

Jacob smiled. “Many Englishmen speak French. That will teach you to better guard your tongue.”

Julian recovered and sipped his bowl, eyes wandering toward the dark window. His cheek was still pink.

“I apologize for my son,” said Jacob with a sigh. He gestured Crispin to a chair. “He is often quick to judge and slow to change. It is the fault of youth, I am afraid.”

“I would rather honest hate than useless flattery,” said Crispin over his wine. “ ‘People generally despise where they flatter.’ ”

Jacob chuckled, noting Julian’s discomfiture at their speaking about him. “You quote Aristotle. How interesting.”

Crispin lowered the wine from his lips. “I am surprised you would recognize the words of a pagan philosopher, Master Jacob. I was not aware that your . . . people . . . would read such men.”

Jacob waved a hand vaguely. “It was Jewish scholars who rescued the words of pagan philosophers from obscurity.” Crispin narrowed his eyes at that, but Jacob went on, despite Crispin’s obvious skepticism. “I have learned many things from many sources, Maitre Guest. Though the Scriptures and the words of the ancient rabbis resonate in my craft, I realized quite early in my schooling that not all the wisdom of the ages belongs to the Jews . . . merely most of it.”

Julian snorted a laugh but hid his expression in his bowl.

Jack hovered behind Crispin’s chair, gulping his wine before Crispin twisted around and took the bowl from him. “Master Jacob,” said Crispin tightly. “Perhaps if we can get to the business at hand . . .”

Julian grumbled. “I do not know why you had to bring this Gentile into our suite, Father,” he muttered. “Who cares if something is stolen from a Jew, after all?” Julian fixed his glare on Crispin. The boy had an evil glint in his eye. “A man who does such work for money. Is that not why there is a sheriff?”

Crispin stood. “Then call in the sheriff. Here.” He reached for the coin pouch and dropped the offending bag onto a table. “Take back your coin, Master Jacob.”

Jacob looked beside himself. He touched his forehead and groaned. “You see what you have done?” he hissed at his son.

“I do not care! We do not belong in England. Their laws are a disgrace. We defile ourselves by being here! We belong in Avignon where a Jew is treated with dignity.”

“You know nothing!” he hissed at the boy. He turned entreating eyes to Crispin. “Maitre Guest, I implore you. I need your help. London needs your help.”

He gave Julian a stern look. “I would counsel your son to keep his arguments to himself from now on.”

Julian pressed forward, opening his mouth as if to speak, when Jacob wheeled on him. “You will be still!” Surprised, the boy blinked rapidly and clamped his lips shut. The fist at his side trembled.

Jacob nodded. “Maitre Guest. I apologize for such an unruly household. My wife died when he was only an infant. I fear that he did not receive the benefit of Patience from a mother’s touch as perhaps he should have done. Please, sit. Have more wine. Julian, bring a stool for the servant boy.”

“You are enigmatic, sir,” Crispin offered as Julian did as bid. “At first, you tell me that something dangerous has been stolen from you. And then you tell me your theft involved mere parchments. And just now, you intimate that London is in danger. I think it might be best to get to the point.”

The firelight painted Jacob’s white face with deeply etched lines of age and worry. Julian had eased into a folding seat and watched his father with pursed lips and glittering eyes.

“I am certain, Maitre Guest, that you have been schooled in the sciences. You seem to be a well-educated man.”

“My education would be beside the point.”

“Oh no. I do not think so.” Jacob settled himself deeper into his cushioned chair. “It is the very point. Have you ever heard of your Englishman William of Ockham?”

Surprised that the Jew had, he did not show it on his face. “Indeed. It is part and parcel to my personal philosophy. Lex parsimoniae. ‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.’”

A slight clearing of a throat behind him. He raised a brow toward Jack. “It means ‘entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.’ ”

“ ‘The simplest explanation is the best’ ” offered Julian.

Crispin glanced at the young Jew, who gave him a triumphant smirk. He almost returned an admiring smile. Turning his metal wine bowl in his hand and feeling the raised designs under his fingertips, Crispin added, “Aristotle also coined: ‘A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.’ ” Julian wore an approving expression before he seemed to remember himself and lost it again. “I have learned that truth is truth, Master Jacob,” Crispin continued, “no matter the age, no matter the philosopher.”

Jacob’s chapped lips curved into a brief smile. “You are an interesting man, Maitre. But there is still much to tell. I asked about your studies in science because it is so appropriate to our discussion. Great scholars of the age—Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, Gersonides—bear the one truth, the one we all hold dear. And that is that the Lord Almighty, blessed be His name, is the architect of our universe, of all that we can possibly understand and conceive. That the Lord holds every answer to every mystery. Is this not so?”

Crispin ran a tongue over his lips, tasting the last of his wine. “Yes.”

“And to these few scholars, He opens the door but a crack, allowing in a mere candle flame of light. There is so much more to know.”

“Someone has stolen your research, then,” Crispin offered, trying to hurry him along.

“My research? No, not mine.”

He turned to the youth. “Yours, then?”

Julian seemed startled to be addressed and opened his mouth to comment when Jacob jolted from his chair and paced before his book-laden table. He pondered the books for some time before pouncing and rummaging through them. Piles of parchments tied together with leather covers. Scrolls with unfamiliar writing, at least unfamiliar to Crispin from the brief snatches he saw of them before Jacob discarded one to pick up another. “Astrology tells us much; our personalities, our humors. Divination through numbers and patterns—”

“Father!”