The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  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 the boy’s muddy leg.

  The urchins took to their heels and ran to their parents, yelling that they had just seen a hideous mermaid who’d tried to drag them into the water and drown them, for hadn’t their mothers told them often enough that it was just what these evil river monsters do. But none of the adults came to look, for only last week the same boys had sworn they’d seen a serpent as big as a tree trunk slithering through the marshes.

  And later, when the boys crept back, like brave knights, to slaughter the monstrous mermaid with their sticks and borrowed axes, they found that, like the giant serpent, the creature had vanished; which, though they’d never admit it, was a great relief to them all, for none of them would really have been brave enough to strike the first blow.

  Historical note

  The incidents in this story concerning the sacred stone are, of course, fictional, but the hanging of Benedict’s father and the exile of Judith’s parents are based on a recorded incident. In 1234 thirteen Norwich Jews were accused of having unlawfully circumcised a five-year-old Christian child, Odard, in 1231. The first trial before the religious authorities in Norwich found all guilty except one, and twelve were sent to stand trial before the King and Archbishop. The Jews paid a gold mark to the King to have the boy publicly examined to prove he had not been circumcised, which suggests that they had not been involved. However, the child was found to be circumcised.

  In around 1237 the accused paid two hundred pounds for a trial and a further fifty marks for bail. But they were not brought to trial until 1240, when they paid another twenty pounds to be brought before a mixed jury of Jews and Christians. Having taken the money, the King then instructed the justices that Jews could not sit on the jury, since a mixed jury would fail to agree. At least three of the Jews were hanged and one died in prison awaiting trial. Another eleven were listed as fugitives from justice, having fled before the trial. Clearly, more Jews were convicted than had originally been charged in 1234.

  It has been suggested that Odard was the son of a Jewish convert to Christianity, and one possible explanation for this bizarre incident might be that his parents may have been crypto-Jews who had converted under duress or to improve their circumstances but were still practising their Jewish faith in secret. It was common for ‘hidden Jews’ to circumcise their children. However, if a Gentile had noticed that the child was circumcised and threatened to report the matter to the Church, the father might well have claimed that the boy had been abducted and circumcised without his consent in order to save his own life and that of his family.

  Gunpowder had been used for many years in China, both in fireworks for entertainment and as a deadly weapon in battle. Although gunpowder was not employed in European warfare until the fourteenth century, it was in use by the twelfth century in the West as a medicine and as a purifier in alchemy. In the first half of the thirteenth century a number of books came into circulation in Europe giving recipes for creating different kinds of fire and small explosions using ‘black powder’. In the early days black powder was not a reliable explosive. Saltpetre, which has to be dissolved in water then crystallized out, was often contaminated with impurities. Other factors such as the powder being packed too tightly or loosely or getting damp often resulted in the powder producing only a small bang like a firework, which would cause great injury to anyone standing immediately next to it but was not sufficient to damage buildings or anyone standing a few feet away.

  Act Four

  Westminster, 1272

  His Majesty King Henry of Winchester, the third monarch of England to bear that name, was dying. At his bedside in the Palace of Westminster sat a grizzled man shabbily dressed in a worn black robe that had seen better days. His unruly tangle of tight grey locks spilled out from under his round cap, a university master’s pileum. The room was silent, save for the ragged breathing of the King. The atmosphere was oppressive, weighed down with the heavy odours of one near to death. The King’s own wavering voice broke the silence.

  ‘But who killed him?’

  ‘Work it out for yourself.’

  The master’s bedside manner was not of the best, and he spoke before recalling whom he was addressing. To soften his tones, he leaned forward to tidy the embroidered cushions that had slipped out from behind Henry’s back. He studiously ignored the sharp intake of breath that his abrupt response had drawn from the only other occupant of the room. Sir Thomas Dalyson, the King’s chamberlain and most obsequious courtier, would not have dared to speak to the King of England so. He had expressed his disapproval but remained standing, half hidden in the long shadows cast by the Burgundian drapes that hung across the window arch. The bright and sparkling sun was not to be allowed to spoil the funereal atmosphere of the death room.

  The master leaned forward and whispered something in the aged King’s ear. It brought forth a rasping wheeze of laughter that angered Dalyson. What was this upstart tutor saying about him? This William Falconer – so-called detector of murderers, regent master at Oxford, and now the King’s favoured pet? Dalyson suddenly became aware that Falconer had turned his penetrating blue eyes on the chamberlain.

  ‘The King requests we speak alone.’

  There was a moment when the two men’s gaze locked like two rutting stags then, pale with rage, Sir Thomas left the room. The master turned back to the feeble man on the bed, who was fighting for each breath in his reluctance to give up his temporal realm.

  ‘Now remember my guiding rule of deductive logic – the syllogism. Two lesser truths, when brought together, can reveal the greater truth being sought.’

  Henry was still vexed as he struggled in vain to find a starting point. Falconer began to speak, but the King imperiously waved a skeletal hand to stay him.

  ‘If only I had the sky-stone. I felt clear-headed when I touched it.’

  Falconer sighed, wishing he could please the King in his desire. After all, being King gave him the right to be waited on as he pleased. It was 1272, and he had been King of England for well nigh fifty-six years. Falconer knew that, while Henry had had the stone in his grasp, he had felt safe from the angel of death. Some animation had returned to his flaccid face, and a sparkle to his formerly dull, cloudy eyes. Now the King was despondent, and his right eyelid, which had hung down over the orb beneath it all his life, fluttered but briefly. Falconer was reminded that many said Henry at his peak was the one designated by the prophet Merlin. He spoke of a King likened to the lynx – pen
etrating everything with his eye. That was no longer so. The King’s eyes were dimmer, and his voice also weaker since the stone had been stolen.

  ‘I must try to think clearly.’ He turned to look sternly at Falconer. ‘What is that word you used?’

  ‘Syllogism, Majesty.’

  The word reminded Falconer of when all this started.

  He was despairing of this new batch of students who had started at the university a little while ago. It was late October, and the faculty of arts schoolroom he rented was an icy box. A bare room at the best of times, it now had the semblance of a monastic cold store. He scanned the three rows of low benches on which sat his class. He could barely discern more than their noses peeping out from between felt hats rammed on greasy heads, and woollen comforters wrapped around throats. And what he could see of their faces was pinched and reddened. Young Paul Mithian sniffled, and a dewdrop fell from the end of his nose. Falconer had taught his elder brother, Peter, and now it was the youngster’s turn to apply his mind to logic and rhetoric. Both were beggar students with no money, relying on the charitable chest of the university and working as slaves to the wealthier students. Somehow they survived – Falconer saw to that. But every subsequent class now seemed to Falconer to be dimmer than its predecessor. He wondered if he, not they, was the problem. Perhaps he had been teaching for too long.

  He took a deep breath, pressing on regardless.

  ‘Syllogism. A discourse in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.’

  These words were Aristotle’s own, even if a little obscure. He looked around the blank, uncomprehending faces and groaned audibly. He waved a weary hand.

  ‘Go. Your brains are clearly as frozen as are my fingers. Go, and thaw them out.’

  Enlivened by this early and unexpected release from their toils, the reluctant students rose noisily from their benches, scraping them across the stained wooden floor of the schoolroom. Cheerful again, they made for the door out on to the narrow lane that wound northwards behind St Mary’s Church on the High Street. Falconer gave them a final task, however.

  ‘We will move on at the next lecture, though. Begin reading “On Sophistical Refutations” .’

  The general groan of horror from his students gave him cause to smile broadly. He followed the ragged band out of the icy schoolroom, and as they dispersed to their respective halls he made his way back to his own. Aristotle’s Hall stood in Kibald Street – a long lane south of the great High Street. One end of the lane terminated at the town walls and the other at Grope Lane, which was lined with brothels. Falconer always felt he thereby held a satisfying middle position between the order of the civil authority and the chaos of the dark world of personal pleasures. A good place for scholarship to inhabit. He ducked through the low doorway in the hall’s narrow frontage and into the dimness of the communal hall behind. Once up the rickety staircase, he would be back in his private solar on the upper floor of the building. Safe among his prized possessions, he was in his own special world. The tenement building was only rented by him from the prior of Oseney Abbey, the great religious endowment that towered up beyond the western edge of Oxford, and he covered his costs by taking in students at whatever rent they could afford. Some years had been better than others, some worse, but he had always survived. Teaching also gave him time and opportunity to pursue his private interests, including understanding the world around him. And solving murder cases.

  He had discovered this latter interest almost by chance, when one of his students had become embroiled in the curious death of a serving girl. He had quickly discovered that applying Aristotelean deductive logic to the material relating to the case – and not a little intuition – had led to identifying the murderer. He had repeated the process in several other cases since, assisting the town constable, Peter Bullock, in bringing killers to justice. Much to his embarrassment, Bullock had dubbed him the Great Deductive.

  Pushing open the door to his solar, he was pleased to find Saphira standing behind his work table. The table was as usual cluttered with a myriad objects, including broken stones that revealed patterns in their interiors, animal and human bones, pots and vials containing liquids and pastes that emanated a mixture of vile and intoxicating odours, and old scrolls and texts in ancient languages. She put down the small and malodorous jar she had been sniffing and smiled.

  ‘There you are. I have a gift for you that will outdo all these marvels.’

  She swept her right hand across the jumble on the table.

  ‘Indeed. And where is this marvel?’

  She brought her left hand from behind her back and opened her fingers. In her palm nestled a dark stone. It was nondescript and quite small. Unconvinced of its uniqueness, he asked Saphira where she had come by it. She smiled sweetly at him.

  ‘It was hard come by, and expensive. Covele, the talisman seller, was reluctant to sell, but for us Jews business is business.’

  She liked to tease him over the Christian contempt for her race, though she knew he was a good friend to the Jews of Oxford. Saphira Le Veske was a Jew herself and a widow, who had run her husband’s business since his death. Well, to be frank she had run it long before his death. He had become deeply immersed in the Kabbalah – much to her concern – and had ignored the family business, which was based in Bordeaux in France. She had taken over, and run it successfully, handling the lending and transfer of money as well as initiating the dealing in wine shipping as a sideline. When her husband had died, she had not missed him. But her son, Menahem, had run away at the same time. Her search for him had caused her to neglect the business and had brought her to England – first to Canterbury, and then to Oxford. A chance meeting with William Falconer had led to her finding her son. And to a close relationship with the regent master, despite his nominal celibacy. She explained what had brought about the ownership of the object.

  ‘Actually, he sold it for a song, as it was too heavy to hang around anyone’s neck like his usual amulets. His dupes prefer the little angel texts – kimiyeh – sealed in silver cases that they can wear to ward off evil humours and illnesses. He did say this stone had the same miraculous properties.’

  Falconer looked at what Saphira still held in her hands. ‘Heavy? That little thing?’

  Saphira smiled and held the dark stone out for him to take.

  He lifted it from her open palm. ‘Oh! I see what you mean.’

  The smooth stone was heavier than it should have been. He swept aside the clutter on his table, and set it down. Only as big as the palm of his hand, from one angle it resembled a ship with curving prows at both ends, a cabin amidships and a small keel below. But then, as he walked around the table, it changed and became in his eyes a gliding bird, its curved wings outstretched like a swallow’s. The keel became the bird’s head and the cabin its tail. But he thought he saw that because of his own burning obsession. Falconer was consumed with a desire to solve the mystery of flight and to soar like a bird himself. He had got as far as building kites that he tossed off the tallest tower in Oxford – at Oseney Abbey. But when they plunged to earth and smashed, he decided not to risk his own life to one of them just yet.

  ‘Has it been worked by hand? Or is its shape natural?’

  Saphira’s question caused Falconer to look closer at the stone. He could see some markings on its surface. He got out his eye-lenses and put them on his nose. Falconer was short-sighted and had been astonished when, a few years ago, an artisan had offered him these ground-down glass lenses to see through. He had first held them up to his eyes on a simple V-shaped frame. But now he had made his own frame with side hooks that went over his ears. He peered through the lenses at the marks.

  ‘Could these be Hebrew letters?’

  He pointed them out to Saphira. Though he could read Hebrew himself, he wanted her confirmation. She leaned over the stone, her head close to his with a stray lock of red hair suddenly spill
ing out of her modest widow’s snood. She paled a little at what she saw. When she spoke her voice betrayed an uncertain note.

  ‘They may be. It looks like HaShem, meaning The Name. But Covele often paints signs on the stones he sells as talismans.’

  She stood up, tucking the stray lock back in her snood. Falconer frowned, knowing the Jewish proscription on saying the name of God out loud.

  ‘Yes, but this is not painted on. It looks as if it is ingrained in the stone. Where did Covele get this, anyway? Did he say?’

  ‘From an old woman with a scarred face in Norwich. He remembers it clearly because, when he was in the town earlier this year, a sudden flash of lightning struck the main tower of the Christian church towards the north so hard that it sent stones flying in every direction. There was much gossip about what evil it might portend. So Covele left as soon as he could for fear of an attack on the Jews of the town. I believe the month was June. The old woman who sold it was happy to be rid of the stone because it carried with it stories of strange events – some of them not particularly welcome, though some had said it cured all evils. She had kept it for nearly forty years and said that no good had ever come of owning it. The old woman was so glad to be rid of it in the end that she sold it to Covele for next to nothing. I only bought it as a curiosity because I thought you might like to see if it contained those strange patterns inside it that you like to find in stones.’

  Falconer tapped the dark stone with the metal hilt of a knife that lay on the table. It almost rang like a bell. ‘I don’t think this will shatter like those other stones. It sounds as if it is made of iron.’

  Saphira took the knife and tapped it too. ‘The story that came with it from Norwich was that it had fallen from the sky already shaped as it is. But isn’t that just myth? It is not possible, surely?’