Pilgrims

by Matthew Kneale

  Or Joan would be telling me to go out to a shop and sell my jewels. She could do it for me if I liked, she said. She’d gone round Rome and found where they all were. ‘I don’t know what we’re waiting for, as you said you wanted to go,’ she’d say. ‘Selling your jewels is all that’s needed as our boots are soled and we have nuts and such for the road.’ And though he’d not been eager to go to Jerusalem before, saying he’d rather go home, even my Paul started pestering me to go there now. ‘Anything to get you up from that bed,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s all go to one of these jewel shops right now,’ he’d tell me, ‘and then we’ll have a lovely lunch, something you really like. Remember that bean stew we had on our first day here? You talked about it for days.’ And so I had, though it was strange, because the thought of it seemed dreary now, as it was like I knew it wouldn’t taste of anything much after all. ‘So we will,’ I told him, to make him stop being so noisy, ‘but not today. I don’t feel like it today.’

  As mornings mixed with one another and all seemed the same, I couldn’t tell you how many had gone by when they brought the little fellow up to see me. I’d been having a doze when I found them crowding round the bed. There was Paul, looking puzzled, there was Ragged Tom, seeming more cheery, there was Joan, who looked sour, there was the clerk of the hospital and finally there was another whom I’d never seen before. He was a curious little body, though. I swear he was shorter even than my Paul and he had a knowing, weary look about him, as if the world had battered him about the head so many times that he hardly noticed any more. ‘This man wants to see you,’ said my Paul, ‘though I wasn’t sure if I should let him.’ ‘You shouldn’t have,’ said Joan firmly. ‘He wants us to go with him,’ said Paul then. ‘But not me,’ said Joan. ‘It’s you and Paul and Tom he wants and nobody else.’ It all seemed so strange and I struggled to get my thoughts around it. ‘Go where?’ I asked. ‘He won’t say,’ said Paul. ‘He says he can’t tell us. But he says if we want answers to all the things that are troubling and vexing us, then we must go with him, and we must go straight away.’

  All the things that had been troubling and vexing us answered. I lay there for a moment saying the words over in my mind. It was like they made my head spin. A thought came to me, perhaps he’ll take me to an angel who’ll make everything right, and though I didn’t believe it, not really, the notion of it warmed me a little. I looked at the man’s face. He didn’t seem wicked. Everything that troubled and vexed me answered. Somebody must know something of us for saying such a thing. I tried to think what it would be like for everything to be answered but it was hard even to begin. It was like being in a dark cave for so long that when you step out the light’s too dazzling for your eyes. How would it be to get out of this mire that seemed as if it would never end? I glimpsed it now, and it was like I was so starved that I’d forgotten how hungry I was. Even if there was just a tiny hope that it was true, I couldn’t let it pass me by. ‘You know what,’ I said slowly. ‘I think I might go.’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ said the hospital clerk. ‘I’ve never seen this fellow before. And it’s almost dusk now.’ Joan said I was lunatic even to think of it. ‘You’ll be robbed and murdered for certain,’ she said. ‘And you’re too frail. You’ve hardly eaten a thing for days.’ But strange to say, I didn’t feel so tired now. Everything that vexed me answered? There was so much. Mostly, of course, it was the one thing. ‘No, I’m going, you hear,’ I said and, sitting up and feeling faint, I asked the clerk to fetch me an apple. Tom was glad I wanted to go. ‘I was hoping you’d say yes,’ he said, ‘as I can’t think how many troubling things there are that I’d like to have an answer for. For one, why is it that I’ve not seen Sammy in my dreams for a week or more now, neither in paradise nor in purgatory?’ Though Paul wasn’t so sure, he said of course he’d come too, as he wasn’t letting me go off without him. The clerk, when he came back with my apple, said we should take Jack, being a strong fellow, and Dame Lucy, when she came up soon afterwards, said she’d happily spare him, but we knew it could be only the three of us.

  Joan said I must leave my pouch of valuables with her, as it would be plain madness to have that on me through Rome at this hour, so I did and then, feeling dizzy from laying in bed for so long, I got to my feet and made my way down the stairs. Stepping out of the hospital door I found that, even though the sun was down, everything seemed so broad and bright that I had to stop for a moment and rest against the wall. But Paul and Tom helped me and the little fellow was patient and he didn’t hurry us. Yet the road he took was a strange one. I’m the kind who usually knows my way but as we turned every moment left or right down another dark, winding, muddy lane, I soon lost all notion. ‘Weren’t we here just now?’ I said to Paul. ‘I don’t think so,’ he answered, though he didn’t seem sure. Tom let out a little anguished snicker. ‘I hope we won’t find Sir John up there with his dagger.’ If he’d meant to be funny, neither of us laughed. ‘Sir John went home days back,’ I said, which had Tom putting up his hands in surrender. ‘Of course, so he did,’ he said, snickering again.

  It was almost dark when our little guide led us into a tiny courtyard and I guessed we were arrived. He pulled a set of big keys from his belt, unlocked a door and pointed us to go in. Looking up I saw it was at the base of a tall, thin tower while from a window on the top floor I could see light gently shining. That filled me with cheer. God’s here, I thought. Please, I beg you, help me now and cure my vexations. It was almost pitch black inside and I heard Paul and Tom banging into something, or each other, just behind me. ‘I’m not sure I like this,’ said Paul. ‘It’ll be all right, don’t you worry,’ I said, and when Tom moaned, ‘I hope so,’ I told him firmly, ‘We’re not going back now that we’re almost there.’ The first steps were so dark that I only knew my way from the thump of our little fellow’s boots ahead of me, but then I saw a faint glimmering between the floorboards above that grew slowly stronger as I climbed, till I could see my way well enough. Here’s light, I thought, with a rising heart. Here’s God.

  Finally we reached the topmost floor, and I saw that the beacon that had led us up was an oil lamp flickering from a niche in the wall. There was a door, half open, and in the room beyond, getting up from behind a table and giving us a smile, was a man I’d never seen before, with a long white beard. I caught my breath. He looks so venerable, I thought, like a saint, or even God himself. We’re saved now all right, I thought. Now my boy will be well, I’m sure of it. But then our little guide opened the door wider and I saw the other two who were getting to their feet beside him. What are they doing here? I thought. Because it was the Jews, Mary and Helena.

  Paul darted past me and threw his arms round Mary, while Tom clapped his hands and let out a cheer. Mary must’ve seen I didn’t look much pleased and she stepped towards me. ‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said. ‘I’d have made everything clearer if only I could have.’ Then she looked at Tom. ‘The truth is, you see, that I need to ask you a favour.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Motte

  Ever since I was a little girl all I wanted was to be good by God and the world. And the trouble it’s got me into.

  When I was growing up in Gloucester I sought to be a righteous daughter and a good kinswoman to my brothers and sisters. When my parents said I should please Benedict, who’d come from London to make silver candlesticks for our synagogue, and who I could see had taken a liking to me, I kept his company and tried to show myself agreeable. And when they said I should marry him I did that too. Then I tried to be a good wife to him, though it wasn’t easy. Benedict was kindly enough but it was hard to be away from all my family and to live in a big, noisy city that I didn’t know. And though I wanted to be a good daughter-in-law I never could bring myself to love Benedict’s mother, Licoricia. Then she didn’t like me either, and not a day passed without her telling me that her dear son could’ve married seven times better than he had. But I hardly cared once I’d had my two little boys, L
eo and Hame. And I never had to strive to be a good mother and to adore and cherish them both, as I couldn’t have done anything else.

  When my parents sent my little sister Rosa to stay with us in London to find a husband, I was her protector when Licoricia complained that she was too sad, always picking at her food, or when she ran away, because she hated being in that house. And when trouble broke out between de Montfort and the king I tried to stay calm, as I knew there was no use doing otherwise. When, in the middle of it all, Rosa ran away once again, I went in search of her, like a good sister should. And afterwards I tried not to hate her, even though it was her fault that I’d been stuck outside the city on that day when the slaughter came, which meant I wasn’t able to comfort my two boys when they were taken in the night to be slain, and that I hadn’t been killed with them, which was all I wanted, as being spared when they were gone seemed not a blessing but a curse.

  I can’t say I was good by God and the world after that. I was a bad daughter-in-law, no denying. I couldn’t forgive Licoricia for having been spared that day, as de Montfort’s folk had thought her too old to trouble with. But what made me hate her every hour, and show it too, was that on that terrible day she’d told my boys they mustn’t abjure their faith and declare themselves Christians, which would’ve saved their lives. And though I tried not to hate Benedict for being her son, I can’t say I did well with him either. I knew it was wrong for a wife not to let her husband touch her but I couldn’t do it, as the last thing I wanted in all the world was to have another child to be hurt and murdered.

  But there’s nothing like time to lull the soul. Years passed, my mother-in-law died, not mourned by me, and we Jews were left in peace, mostly. So I tried to be good after all. I let Benedict have his husband’s rights and we soon had a little daughter, Mirabilia, my dear sweet Miri. But I swear it seemed like letting myself have hope provoked new trouble against us. Miri had barely come into the world when we had a new king, Edward. I’m not saying any of them had much loved their Jews, but at least some of them had found us useful. And useful we’d been, giving them a way of taxing their own people without seeming to. They’d let us make money from lending and then they’d take it back in the tallage they took from us, which meant they could fleece their folk and put all their hate onto us. But King Edward seemed not to care that we were serviceable to him and he reviled us even worse than any of his forefathers had. He banned us from lending, though there was little else we could do, as we’d long been forbidden from any other converse with Christian English, whether as traders or physicians or anything else. Then he taxed us so high that many had hardly a thing left. My Benedict struggled like the rest, as few Jews had money to buy silver trinkets now, and I tried to be his good wife and give him comfort.

  I soon had to comfort him more. King Edward wanted a new set of coins minted and, to stop them being spoiled like the old ones he ordered that anyone who clipped the edges off them – which many had done, Christians much more than Jews – must be tried in the courts. And though hardly one Christian was seized, scores of Jews were and, guilty or not, were hanged. As a silversmith Benedict was just the kind who’d be taken, but I tried to seem calm, not wanting to put more fear into him and little Miri than they already had, though I’d lie awake each night listening for a rap on our door and for his name to be called out. All the while I prayed every waking hour, till finally God heard me and the king ordered the trials stopped. Then he had to or he’d have had no Jews left to tax.

  But I should have prayed even harder. Of all the lies told against us in this age of lies, the very worst, and which was first invented in England by English folk, was that Jews loved to steal away Christian children and crucify them, to mock and laugh at Jesus’ death. Jews, who venerated all children, whether Christian or their own, and who treated them with more kindness than did most Christians, who scolded and beat their own. Though some had believed it, most hadn’t because the kings wouldn’t give such a monstrous notion their blessing. That was until King William, Edward’s father, went to Lincoln to pray to Little Hugh, the poor mite whom Christians said we’d murdered. After that there was hardly a soul who said it was the foul lie it was, and from that time there was nothing Jews feared more than news that a Christian child was missing. Yet when I heard talk that a child had vanished in Northampton I wasn’t fearful, as Northampton was far from London and none of us had ever gone there. But it wasn’t far enough as it turned out. The Sheriff of Northampton brought some of the city’s Jews to London and dragged them behind horses through the streets to die. Afterwards some of the crowd who’d cheered it being done chanced upon Benedict on London Bridge, one of them knew him, and they all set upon him and threw him into the river to drown.

  After that there was only one way left to me to try and be good, which was to keep my Miri safe. I couldn’t feel right in London any more and so I moved back to Gloucester where I still had kin, including my little sister Rosa, who was married now with three children. I’d worked as a seamstress once before and I set up as a gown maker, and little Miri helped with the fine stitching. But I didn’t feel safe in Gloucester either. I saw how our Christian neighbours lost their smiles when they passed us on the street, and would cross themselves and spit. At night I’d have nightmares and I’d wake Miri with my screams.

  It happened that next door to my gown shop was a butcher’s shop that was owned by a Christian named Edmund, who was a widower with no living children. He was friendly to us in a way few others of his kind were and I saw the way he’d look at me. So my thoughts began to stray where I’d never dreamed they might. My two little boys and Benedict had kept to their faith and what good had it done them? Though I knew it was dangerous, as any doings between my folk and Edmund’s were forbidden, I paid visits to him in his shop early in the morning when it was empty, until by and by we reached an accord. One morning I took Miri to the Blackfriars where we learned about Jesus and Mother Mary and all the saints, and we recited our catechism and the Lord’s Prayer. I was baptized Mary and Miri became Helena. I paid half of my fortune to the king, as the law said I must, and I ate pork for the first time and though it seemed sweet and chewy I soon grew used to its taste.

  If all I’d wanted was to be a good Jew, now all I wanted was to be a good Christian. I never missed church and I prayed to Jesus and God and Mother Mary every day. What’s more, I loved Jesus not just when I was with Christians but when I was quiet and alone. And I was set on making Helena a good Christian too. I made her recite her prayers and catechism, I examined her on the saints and the foul deaths each had suffered and the miracles they’d done. And I scolded her most sharply if she said anything that wasn’t respectful of her new creed.

  Of course I wasn’t good by God or the world in the eyes of my kin. None would speak to us, not even my sister Rosa whom I’d watched over in London and rescued when she ran away. If they passed us on the street they’d spit and look the other way just like my Christian neighbours used to do. Even my Helena was angry with me for a long while. Then she’d already hated me for marrying Edmund. Which wasn’t right, I thought, as he was a clean and honourable man who did his best to be a good husband, and a good father to her. But most of all she couldn’t bear that she’d lost the company of her cousins and her friends. As if it was easy for me? Like her, I missed the turning of the week and of the seasons, which I’d known through the synagogue, where I’d gone each Saturday, and for Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the other holy days. And though I tried to love churches, they seemed sorry, grave places, and not warm and friendly like our little synagogue.

  Even after giving half my property to the king I still had a good house and my gown shop, while Edmund had a house and his shop too, so we sold it all and bought one of the finest houses in Gloucester, which was on the far side of the town from the Jewry so I passed my old kin less often on the street. We bought a bigger shop for his butchering and for three years we lived well and for the first time in as long as I cou
ld remember I felt no fear. Till Edmund did the only thing that I find it hard to forgive him for to this day. One spring morning he was taken sick with a fever and ten days later he was dead.

  It was only when he was gone that I realized how much he’d been our shield. I’d known his kin didn’t much like Helena and me but I’d never guessed the full truth. We had a Christian neighbour who’d give us news sometimes, and though the way she told us was more taunting than friendly, it was as well she did. She told us that because Edmund had been widowed and childless till he married me, his kin had been looking forward to inheriting his house and his butcher’s shop. Now they hated us for taking what they thought was rightfully theirs. They said we weren’t Christians but were only pretending and were still Jews in secret. They said I’d used Jew spells to bewitch Edmund and make him fall in love with me so I might have his fortune. Most of all they said that, having got what we wanted, Helena and I had murdered him with poison and magic. And, seeing the hateful looks we got when we walked about Gloucester, I knew that everything the woman told us was true.

  After that all my fears came back worse than before. There seemed nothing we could do. We couldn’t go back to being Jews again as we’d be burned as apostates. Helena scolded me, saying that we’d turned our backs on our own people and gained nobody in their place. ‘You wanted us to be safe,’ she’d say, ‘and now we’re more in danger than we ever were.’ I tried my best to be a good mother and not to despair. We’re righteous Christians, I told myself. We’ve learned the Lord’s Prayer and our catechisms and all the saints and can recite them better than most Christians can. Surely now that we’ve given our faith to Jesus and God and Mary, they’ll look after us?