The Demon’s Parchment

“Mon pere! Why? Why risk such a dangerous move?”

“You are not blind, my child.” His body spoke of a deep weariness, but his voice took on a harder edge. “You have seen the persecutions. Our life in Provencal has been good, but it hangs by a thread. The whim of a monarch can send us into certain poverty and sorrow. When I knew I was coming to England, I made preparations.” His eyes blinked once at his disguised daughter before he turned them to Crispin. “My apologies for deceiving you, Maitre. I could not very well tell you my mission here without putting lives at risk. As a physician, it is my task to heal. And if that healing is merely spiritual, well. Then that is also my task. And a blessing.”

“You placed me in unnecessary danger without full disclosure. That is unacceptable.”

“Yes. Yes, for that, too, do I apologize. But I am only guilty of the sin of omission. The parchment to create a Golem was missing, but I did not worry over its loss as much as I let on.”

“You waited two months to hire me.”

“It took two months before I first heard of you.”

“There seems a great deal of deception about you, Master Jacob.” And he looked pointedly at Julianne. She pulled her gown tight about her and raised her chin insolently. “Do not fret over the loss. I do not think they will fall to the wrong hands in this instance. I rather think they were also destroyed.”

Jacob nodded. “Perhaps a better end to them. The loss of the Scripture, however, is of great sorrow. It is only that my people wished to worship in the tongue of their forefathers. Why is this so wrong?” He shrugged and stared at the shaky candle flame in Julianne’s grasp. “I will still pay you for your efforts, of course.” He pushed himself up from his chair and ambled slowly toward an iron chest. Withdrawing a key from a ring on his belt, he unlocked it and pulled out a small pouch. “I think this silver will cover your fee.”

Crispin did not allow pride to get in the way of his taking this money. It was certainly well earned. He stiffly bowed his thanks and then turned to Julianne. “I would speak with your daughter, sir. Alone.”

“No.”

“Father, please.”

Jacob did not look as if he would relent, but after a moment of reflection he shuffled toward the inner chamber, pulling the door after him but leaving it ajar.

He gazed at her, small and solemn in the light of the one candle. “I had to see you. I . . . wish to continue to do so.”

She took a step closer. “That is madness.”

He pushed a hand through his crusty hair, thinking of the last few hours. “I am mad.”

When she set the candle down she touched the blood on his clothes and face. “Crispin. What happened to you this night?”

“Much. Jesu, but I am weary.”

“But . . . you are unhurt?”

He nodded. A hand lifted and touched a lock of her hair. “I have been thinking about you a great deal.”

She shook her head, but gently so as not to dislodge his caressing hand. “We can do nothing, you and I. The best thing we can do is forget each other.”

He stepped forward and engulfed her in his arms. The candle flickered in those glistening eyes. “I am afraid I cannot do that.” He bent his head and took her lips. Even as she tried to shake her head, her mouth responded, opening. The kiss lasted until he needed to take a breath. “Julianne,” he whispered to her forehead, kissing the warm flesh. Maybe something good could come of this horror. Maybe . . .

“But Crispin.” She pushed him back. Worry lines replaced the kiss he had bestowed there. “What of the Golem? You must first see to that.”

“That was no Golem,” he said, pulling her back against his chest. How he liked the feel of her there. He wondered what her hair would look like grown out and down to her hips. “It was a man. A potter. A strange man, true, but—”

“No! There is a Golem!”

He clutched her tighter. “Julianne, there is nothing to fear. You heard your father. I tell you there is no Golem. It is only your fanciful imagination. It was a man. I spoke with him.”

“But there is!” She shoved him back hard. Wildness radiated in her eyes. “There is!” she insisted. “I made it.”

His head. It must still be throbbing from the thrashing he’d gotten. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

She sighed with both shoulders. “When my father’s papers were stolen, it gave me an idea. I stole the parchments of Creation myself and studied them carefully. I went to the potter’s row and bought the clay.”

“But . . . when would you have had time? Your father says—”

“I was in my menses. For a Jew, a woman in her menses is unclean. It was a good excuse to hide away. I created the Golem in the unused mews at the end of the stables at the palace.”

The shadows played with her face, changing her angelic features to those of a darker angel. His gut felt as if a stone now sat there, hard and solid. “You . . . you can’t have.”

“I spoke the words of Creation.” She turned her hands, looking down at them. “I carved the word on its chest, gave it life. It moved for me, did as I bid. But when I returned the next day, the Golem was gone. And the murders began.”

“A man murdered those children,” his voice said dazedly.

“I never meant for children to die.”

“Then who did you mean?”

“Christians, of course.” He took a step back. The cold stone in his gut grew heavier. “My revenge,” she was saying, though her voice sounded far away. A ringing started in his ears. “You do not know, Crispin. You do not know what Father and I have endured over the years. The Golem was to teach them a lesson.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Oh . . . but Crispin. You are not like them. You’re different.”

“More like them than you seem to realize.”

She studied his face, squinting from the faint light. “Crispin?” She reached for him but he pushed back those hands, hands he had desperately wanted to caress him a mere few moments ago.

“How could you have done such evil? And then to allow me to—”

“Evil? Like the evil that has been done to us!”

“An eye for an eye, is that it?”

“Yes!”

He shook his head. The cold stone made the bile rise to his throat. “You don’t know me at all.”

“I know you are a fool for helping those people when they do you wrong. But I can overlook that.”

“Can you? And yet I cannot overlook this evil you would set upon London. Where is this Golem now?”

“I don’t know. It vanished. But you said you encountered it.”

Crispin tried to think, tried to distinguish the times he had seen the Golem. Had it truly been Odo all those times? What of that clay-smeared wall in the palace? Was it Odo who killed Radulfus? He hadn’t seen its face at the time.

“It’s no matter,” she said. “When it rains he will wash away. Without the symbols etched on his chest he will cease to exist. You don’t have to worry. He will melt into the pile of clay from which he was made.” She reached for him again but he slapped her hands away.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Julianne!” cried Jacob, standing unsteadily in the doorway, his white face older by some years. “Is this true? Did you let loose the Golem?”

“Father, you don’t understand—”

“Let the man go.”

“No! Father! He’s not like the others. Make him see—”

“Julianne! No. Go to the chamber.”

“But Father!”

“GO!”