15 The Sempster's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  Chapter 10

  Mistress Grene began struggling to rise, crying, “It’s Hal!”, but Master Grene sprang to his feet, holding her by the shoulders, saying quickly, “No. Listen.”

  ‘I know it’s Hal,“ she cried. ”I know.“ ”We don’t know,“ Master Grene insisted. ”That’s why Father Walter sent for me. Because they don’t know. I didn’t want you to hear from a servant that I’d gone, and where, and why. I knew what you’d think. But you mustn’t. Not until we know. Hush now. For the baby’s sake.“

  Mistress Grene was clinging to his hands now, desperately wanting to be reassured, but she looked to Mistress Blakhall and said, her voice catching on the words. “Do you go with him. To see for me.” And pleaded when Mistress Blakhall drew back in her chair, her eyes widening with refusal, “Please. I can’t.”

  ‘I’ll go,“ Mistress Hercy said despite she was gone as white as her daughter.

  But Mistress Blakhall had overtaken her unwillingness and said firmly, “No, I’ll go if you need me to, Pernell.”

  Mistress Hercy looked about to protest that, but Frevisse, to sort them out the more quickly, said, “Mistress Hercy, you should stay with your daughter. Mistress Blakhall, I’ll go with you if you like, so you won’t be alone in this. Dame Juliana, will you stay here with them for their better comfort?”

  Having held office often enough at St. Frideswide’s to value the use of strong decisions quickly made, Dame Juliana nodded ready agreement.

  Master Grene quickly kissed his wife’s cheek. “I’ll send word as soon as I’m sure. It’s going to be all right.” One of those meaningless promises that served to soothe only those who didn’t think about them.

  Brother Michael, Master Weir, and Master Bocking were waiting at the stairfoot. They looked their surprise at seeing the women, but Master Grene said, “Master Bocking, would you go up and keep my lady in talk? So she doesn’t fret more than need be while I’m gone. Brother Michael, Daved, I’d like you with me, if you would.”

  Master Bocking said, “But of course,” gave a brief bow to Frevisse and Mistress Blakhall and went for the stairs as Master Grene started for the outer door, saying, “Let’s make haste and have this done.”

  Outside, in the yard, Master Naylor and Dickon came from among the household servants gathered staring and talking there. “You’re going?” he asked Frevisse.

  Without pausing, Frevisse said, “With Mistress Blakhall, yes. Dame Juliana is staying to keep Mistress Grene company.”

  ‘We’ll come with you, then,“ Master Naylor said and fell behind her with Dickon.

  She let them because there was no reason not to, and after all they had not far to go. St. Swithin church stood where St. Swithin’s Lane met wide Candlewick Street, and what neighbors did not provide toward the crowd starting to gather in the churchyard, passersby on the busy street did; but a way cleared readily for Master Grene, who only shook his head and did not answer what questions were asked as he passed. The two men on guard at the church door to keep out the curious stood aside to let him and the others go in, and Frevisse barely saw the statue of St. Swithin with his crozier, closed book, and cloud on the gable above the door before she was inside. It was an older church, with the round columns of Norman times along the narrow nave, but newer aisles added to either side and the roof raised by a new-made clerestory of pale stone and glazed windows that filled the church with sunlight told of the wealth of its parishioners here in London’s heart. Despite the guard outside, there were a number of men already here, mostly priests and probably belonging to the church, and from among them Father Tomas came toward Master Grene, saying, “The body is below. In the crypt. The constables and under-crowner have been sent for, but Father Walter thought you should come because…” The priest dropped his voice. “… he does think it is Hal.”

  ‘Thinks?“ Mistress Blakhall said with distress. ”He can’t tell?“

  ‘Anne,“ Master Grene said gently. ”Hal’s been missing nearly a week. You’d maybe best not…“

  Mistress Blakhall lifted her chin. “I told Pernell I’d see.”

  ‘You shouldn’t,“ said Master Weir.

  ‘Father Walter,“ Father Tomas said carefully, ”says he died a bad death.“

  One way and another, Frevisse had seen violently dead bodies before this, and she doubted with the men that Mistress Blakhall should see this one; but stubbornly Mistress Blakhall said, “I told Pernell I’d see for her. I have to.” However little she wanted to hold to her word, now that she had found out what it would mean, Frevisse thought, and thought the better of her for it.

  Father Tomas still hesitated, looking to Master Grene, who after a moment nodded for him to lead on.

  The way to the crypt was through a door standing open in a west corner of the nave. Stone steps went down into thick shadows, with only the uneven flicker of a single candle on a pricket at the stairfoot to light the way. Father Tomas went first, Master Grene and Brother Michael behind him and then Master Weir, who turned sideways to hold Mistress Blakhall’s arm as she descended. Frevisse paused to say to Master Naylor, “It’s maybe better you and Dickon wait here. There’s going to be people enough in the crypt, as it is.”

  ‘It’s maybe better you wait here, too,“ Master Naylor said.

  Not deigning to answer that, Frevisse turned from him, cleared her skirts from her feet, and started down. Was halfway down when the gorge-rising smell of rotting flesh reached her. At the stairfoot Mistress Blakhall had started to gag, and Master Weir was saying quickly, “Hold your sleeve over your nose and mouth. Breathe through it.”

  Fumbling with haste, Mistress Blakhall did. Frevisse noted that he did not. Nor did she, knowing that in a while her mind would refuse the stench and she would cease to note it. Or at least to note it so stomach-churningly.

  They moved away toward an unseen lantern’s light at the crypt’s far end, Master Weir steadying Mistress Blakhall on the uneven earthen floor, Frevisse taking care of her own steps in the darkness between the stairfoot’s candle and the lantern-light beyond the piled wooden coffins that half-filled the crypt, set on shelves along the walls and between the two rows of squat stone columns running the crypt’s length— stunted brothers to the ones in the nave above them.

  The body lay on the floor in the gap between the last piled coffins and the crypt’s end wall, hidden by two men already there beside it. Frevisse looked first at them, rather than trying to see the body, guessing that Father Walter was the middle-aged priest with a silver-gilt crucifix on a silver chain around his neck and an appearance of authority, while the other was simply a plain-dressed young priest, kneeling beside the body with eyes closed, murmuring in rapid prayer, his face the whey-color of someone who had just been—or was going to be—very sick.

  Mistress Blakhall, ahead of Frevisse, able to see the body first past Master Grene and Brother Michael, gave one sickened cry and turned away. An arm around her waist, Master Weir moved her away into the shadows, and Frevisse edged forward to look past Father Tomas and the other men.

  The body was lying naked on its back, legs straight, arms outstretched to either side. Rats had been at it, and bloating had begun. In places the greenish skin had begun to slip loose from the flesh. The days of decay, even in the cool crypt, had had their toll but…

  Hush-voiced, Father Walter said, “It’s Hal, isn’t it?”

  The words flat with his strangled feelings, Master Grene answered, “It’s Hal. Yes.”

  Father Tomas knelt down and began to pray with the young priest, their voices low together. “… animam famuli tui, quam de hoc saeculo migrare iussisti, in pacis ac lucis regione constituas…”… the soul of your servant, which from this life you have ordered to go, into the place of peace and light…

  Brother Michael, still standing, went on staring at the body, seemingly intent beyond horror.

  ‘My wife…“ Master Grene said. ”She can’t see this. She can’t ever know… what… how…“

  ‘Not
while she’s bearing,“ Mistress Blakhall choked, still with her back turned. ”It would kill her and the baby both. Or mar the child.“

  Brother Michael, his voice odd, said, “Those marks on his chest and stomach.”

  Of them all, he and Frevisse were the only ones still fully looking at the body. The sight sickened her, but a week ago this ruined, decaying body had been alive. Had been a boy with thoughts, feelings, hopes. Had been someone who expected to be alive this day and other days after it, had expected to see summer end and autumn come and winter after that and another spring. Not be a rotting corpse unfound and unmourned for almost a week. He deserved more than her sickened, averted glance, and she looked at what was left of him, trying to see beyond it to the boy there had been, despite how little of his face remained.

  But like Brother Michael she was also seeing the shallow wounds all over his chest and stomach. The rats did not account for the score or more of long, blood-blackened gashes into the corpse’s chest and belly—thin slices into the flesh, done with the point of a very sharp knife or dagger—except for a single, wider one under his right breast that looked to have been a killing-deep thrust to the lung. She hoped that had been the first one—that he had been dead before the rest were done to him.

  ‘And the wounds in his hands and feet,“ Brother Michael said.

  Frevisse had not seen those until now—the deep cuts driven into both of his hands and both of his feet. She was refusing to understand them when Master Grene said with hush-voiced horror, “He’s been crucified.”

  Father Walter groaned, “I know. God save us. Devils and fiends were here.”

  ‘Not devils,“ Brother Michael said. ”Jews.“

  The young priest broke off praying with a gasp. Father Tomas went quiet. Somewhat desperately Father Walter said, “There’ve been no Jews in England for a hundred years and more.”

  In a voice as dark as the lantern shadows cast upward on his face, Brother Michael said, “Jews are everywhere. Known and unknown. Secretly as rats in walls. Waiting to pollute—”

  Heavy footsteps down the stairs and the sudden jump of new lantern light among the crypt’s shadows interrupted him. Of the two men who came with the light, the first carried himself in a way that told he was either the under-crowner or else a constable even before Father Walter said with open relief, “Master Crane,” and added to Brother Michael, “He’s a constable of Walbrook Ward here.”

  ‘And Master Lewes, my clerk,“ Master Crane said. He started to say more, but his gaze had fallen toward the body, and his words and face froze. Then he crossed himself, saying, ”Dear God.“

  Frevisse, stepping back to make room for him, glimpsed Mistress Blakhall and Master Weir where they stood beyond the nearest pillar, safely beyond seeing the body and turned to each other, only shadow-shapes against the distant candleglow but with something in the way they were together—a unexpected nearness that she would, another time, have thought on; but over the boy’s body Brother Michael was repeating his assertion against Jews to Master Crane, with, “My work in France was to find them out, so I know…”

  Seeming not to care what the friar knew, Master Crane asked Master Grene, “This is your stepson? You’re sure of it?”

  ‘I’m sure.“

  ‘How long has he been missing?“

  ‘Since Thursday last past. In the evening. He’s apprenticed to Master Yarford in Rother Lane. He went out after supper and didn’t come back.“

  Master Crane stared grimly at the body. “Looks to have been dead that long, too.” He shifted his stare to Father Walter. “You found him? Why wasn’t he found before? By the smell, if nothing else.”

  ‘It’s cool in the crypt,“ Father Walter answered, firm in his authority. ”Corruption comes more slowly here. The floor of the nave is stone, and so there’s no smell in the church yet. It was only because I came down here I found… smelled… found him.“

  ‘Why did you come down here today and not before?“

  ‘There was no need before today. But Master Neve died at dawn, and his wife wants him in the crypt. I came to see about a place for him.“

  ‘All of which is neither here nor there,“ Brother Michael broke in almost angrily. ”I’m saying it was Jews did this profanation.“

  ‘Why are you so set on that?“ Master Crane demanded at him. ”Yes, I see the hands and feet and the wound in the side. I’m not blind. But those could be done by some half-mad Christian without bringing Jews into it. There’ve been no Jews in England—“

  ‘Those marks,“ Brother Michael interrupted. ”The Hebrew letters gashed into his flesh. Who else but a Jew would make them? Why else would they be made except for a Jew’s purpose? This was no plain killing. This was done by Jews. It was one of their ritual murders!“

  Silence deep as the darkness in the crypt’s far corners enwrapped them. No one moved and no one spoke, all stares fixed on Brother Michael, whose own look dared anyone to deny his charge. Of all the crimes that could be done against Christendom, ritual murder was among the worst—the killing of a Christian child by Jews in mockery of Christ’s crucifixion. England had two boy-saints, St. William of Norwich and Lincoln’s little St. Hugh, both said to have suffered that fate generations ago. Throughout Europe, an accusation that a child found dead had died at Jewish hands was all too often all that was needed to bring on a seeking out and killing of Jews—any Jews—men, women, children—in blind revenge. But into the crypt’s heavy silence full of that thought Frevisse said slowly, “Pope after pope has decreed there’s no such thing as ritual murder by Jews.”

  ‘And yet there…“ Brother Michael pointed at the body. ”… there is proof of it!“

  ‘Those marks,“ Father Tomas said, his voice small, as if he would smother the words as he said them, ”are not Hebrew. They are maybe meant to look so, but they are not.“

  ‘You’d know Hebrew to see it?“ Brother Michael challenged with an edge of scorn.

  Gripping the cross hanging on his breast with a trembling hand, Father Tomas met the friar’s stare with his own straight look. “I would know.”

  Brother Michael’s scorn went into something sharper. “How?”

  Afraid though Father Tomas openly was, he lifted his head, bracing for an attack he knew would come, and said, “Because I saw my grandfather’s Jewish books when I was young.”

  Chapter 11

  Brother Michael’s was not the only sharp-drawn breath, but his was the accusation afterward. “You’re Jewish!”

  ‘I am Christian.“ With no going back, Father Tomas seemed to gather strength. ”I was baptized at birth. My parents—“

  ‘Where?“ Brother Michael demanded. ”Antwerp. Where my parents went after being forced from Portugal.“

  ‘Because they were Jewish!“

  ‘Because their parents had been Jewish. In Spain now that is not forgiven even unto the third and fourth generations.“ Father Tomas’ bitterness was undisguised. ”Converses and their children and their children’s children are watched and hunted by the Inquisition. For the chance to be Christians in peace, my parents left, taking my father’s father with them, the last of any family they had left. In Antwerp no one knew they were anything but Christian, so they lived in peace until they died.“

  ‘Except your grandfather still had his Hebrew books,“ Brother Michael accused.

  ‘Because my grandfather was a learned man who valued the learning in those books.“

  ‘Tainted beliefs. False beliefs.“

  ‘I did not say they were books of religion,“ Father Tomas said back at him. ”More than that can be written in Hebrew.“

  ‘He lived as a pretended Christian among honest men…“

  ‘He pretended nothing. He lived in a back, upper room of my father’s house, never leaving it, never seeing even our servants, through all the last years of his life. He was old and tired and did not want to learn new ways.“

  ‘So your father hid him and let him live his Jewish life, false to his
baptism.“

  ‘He sheltered his aged parent and left him in peace. Does not the commandment say to honor your father and your mother? It does not say ’unless’ or ‘except’, only ‘to honor.’ “

  ‘He had Jewish books, and you read them,“ Brother Michael said.

  ‘I did not. I only followed his finger as he read aloud to me. Read poetry and history, not religion. But I saw the letters while he read, and those—“ Father Tomas pointed at the slices in the body ”—are maybe meant to look like Hebrew, but they are not anything.“

  Brother Michael drew a deep breath to say more, but Frevisse said from where she stood behind the men, at the edge of the lantern-light, “Nor was the boy crucified.”

  ‘What?“ Master Grene asked quickly as Brother Michael turned an angry look to her.

  The friar’s claim was too dangerous to leave unchallenged. “The wounds in his hands and feet are wrong. Look at them.”

  Master Crane already had. Instead of at the wounds he looked at her and agreed, “They aren’t nail-wounds, no. They looked to have been stabbed into him with probably a dagger.”

  ‘Whereas for a true ritual killing nails should have been used,“ Frevisse said. ”Nor should he have been dead when it was done. But he was.“

  ‘Nails or not,“ Brother Michael declared, ”and whatever is claimed against those letters…“ his look at Father Tomas was ripe with accusation. ”… this was a ritual killing of a Christian boy by Jews.“

  ‘Likewise the time of year is wrong, isn’t it?“ Master Weir asked from the deeper shadows. ”Isn’t part of the purpose said to be to get blood for their Passover rites? That’s at Eastertide, not midsummer.“

  ‘Could any of those wounds have been used to drain his blood?“ Frevisse asked, sure of the answer.

  ‘I’d say no,“ answered Master Crane. ”None of these wounds bled. As you say, everything looks to have been done to him after death.“