by Anne Rice
Dear God, that I ever abandoned You, turned my back on You … I am Yours.
The stars had so multiplied in number as to seem the sands of the sea. In fact, there was no darkness apart from brilliance, yet each star pulsed with a perfect iridescent light. And all around me, above, below, beside, I saw what seemed like shooting stars, whipping past me without a sound.
I felt bodiless, in the very midst of this, and never wanting to leave this again. Suddenly, as if it had been told to me, I realized these shooting stars were angels. I simply knew it. I knew they were angels traveling up and down and across and diagonally, their swift and inevitable journeys part of the warp and woof of this great universal realm.
As for me, I wasn’t traveling with this speed. I was drifting. And yet even that word carries too much the weight of gravity for the state in which I found myself completely at ease.
Very slowly the swelling music yielded to another sound. It came hushed and then ever more urgent, a chorus of whispers rising from below. So many soft and secretive voices joined in this whispering as it blended itself with the music that it seemed all the world beneath us, or around us, was filled with this whispering, and I heard a multitude of syllables, yet all seemed to be sending up one simple plea.
I looked down, amazed that I had any sense of direction. The music continued to fade as the sight of a great solid planet came into view. I ached for the music. I felt I couldn’t bear losing it. But we were plunging down towards the planet, and I knew this was just and right, and I didn’t resist it in any way.
Everywhere the moving stars still darted to and fro, and there was no doubt in my mind at all now that these were angels answering prayers. These were the active messengers of God, and I felt utterly privileged to be seeing this, even though the most ethereal music I’d ever heard was now almost gone.
The chorus of whispers was vast and in its own way a perfect yet darker sound. These are the songs of earth, I thought, quite consciously, and they are filled with sadness and need and worship and reverence and awe.
I saw the dark masses of land appear, spectacled with myriad lights, and the great satin gleam of the seas. Cities were visible to me as great webs of illumination appearing and disappearing beneath the layer upon layer of dim cloud. Then I made out smaller configurations as we moved down.
The music was altogether gone now, and the chorus of prayers was the melody that filled my ears.
For a split second, a multitude of questions came to me, but at once they were answered. We were approaching Earth but in a different time.
“Remember,” Malchiah said softly against my ear, “that The Maker knows all things, all that is past and present, all that has happened and will happen, and what might happen as well. Remember there is no past or future where The Maker is but only the vast present of all things living.”
I was utterly convinced of the truth of this, and absorbed in it, and again an immense gratitude filled me, a gratitude so overwhelming that it dwarfed any emotion I’d ever consciously known. I was traveling with Malchiah through Angel Time and back into Natural Time, and I was safe in his purpose because that was his grasp.
The myriad pinpoints of light, those moving at great speed, were now thinning, or deliberately fading from my view. Just below us, in a well of whispering and frantic praying, I saw a great group of snow-covered rooftops, and chimneys giving to the night air their reddened smoke.
The delicious smell of burning fires rose to my nostrils. The prayers had words and varying intensity, but I couldn’t make out what they said.
I felt my entire body take form again, even as the whispering enveloped me, and I became aware too that my old garments were gone. I wore something that felt like heavy wool.
But I didn’t care about myself or how I was clothed. I was too entranced by the sight below.
I thought I saw a river moving through the houses, a ribbon of silver in the darkness, and the vague shape of what must have been a very large cathedral with its inevitable cruciform shape. On a great rise, there stood what had to be a castle. And all the rest was the rooftops crowded together, some utterly blanketed in white and others so steep that the snow had somewhat fallen away.
Indeed the snow was falling with a delicious softness that I could hear.
Louder and louder came the great chorus of overlapping whispers.
“They’re praying, and they’re frightened,” I said aloud, and heard my voice very immediate and close to myself, as though I weren’t in this vast expanse of sky. A chill came over me. The air enveloped me. I felt the snow on my face and hands. I wanted desperately to hear the lost music one last time, and to my astonishment I did hear it in a great swelling echo, and then it was gone.
I wanted to weep in gratitude just for that, but I had to find out what I was meant to do. I didn’t deserve to hear the music. And the idea that I could do something good in this world gripped me as I fought back tears.
“They’re praying for Meir and for Fluria,” said Malchiah. “They are praying for all the Jewry of the town. You must be the answer to their prayers.”
“But how, what will I do?” I struggled to form the words, but we were very close to the rooftops now, and I could make out the lanes and streets of the place, and the snow covered the towers of the castle, and the roof of the cathedral that gleamed as if the starlight could shine through the drifting downfall, making all of the little town very plain.
“It’s early evening in the town of Norwich,” said Malchiah, his voice intimate and perfect, and undisturbed by our descent or the prayers rising in my ears. “The Christmas pageants have only just ended and a time of troubles for the Jewry has begun.”
I didn’t have to ask him to go on. I knew the word, “Jewry,” referred to the Jewish population in Norwich and to the small area where most of them lived.
Our descent had become more rapid. Indeed I did see a river, and for a moment, I felt I saw the prayers themselves rising, but the sky was thickening, the roofs were like ghosts beneath me, and I felt again the wet brush of falling snow.
We found ourselves now passing into the town itself, and slowly I found myself standing firmly on the ground. We were surrounded by close half-timbered houses that seemed to slant inward dangerously, as if they’d tumble down on us in an instant. There were dim lights in tiny thick windows.
Only small snowflakes were swirling in the cold air.
I looked down in the dim light and saw that I was dressed as a monk, and I recognized the habit immediately. I wore the white tunic and long white scapular, and the black hooded mantle, of a Dominican. There was the familiar knotted cord of a girdle around my waist but the long scapular covered it. Over my left shoulder was a leather book bag. I was stunned.
I put up my hands anxiously and discovered that I’d been tonsured, and that I had the simple bald pate and ring of trimmed hair that monks of those times wore.
“You’ve made me what I always wanted to be,” I said. “A Dominican friar.” I felt such excitement that I couldn’t contain it. I wanted to know what I carried in the leather book bag.
“Now listen,” he said, and though I couldn’t see him, his voice echoed off the walls. We seemed lost in the shadows. In fact, he was not visible at all. I was alone here.
I could hear angry voices in the night, not very far away. And the chorus of prayers had died away.
“I’m right beside you,” he said.
For a minute I felt panic, but then I felt the press of his hand on mine.
“Listen to me,” he said. “It’s a mob you hear in the next street, and time is short. King Henry of Winchester sits on the English throne,” he explained. “And you may reckon this to be the year 1257, but neither of these bits of information will be of interest to you here. You know the time as well perhaps as any human of your own century, and you know it as it cannot know itself. Meir and Fluria are your charges, and all the Jewry are praying because Meir and Fluria are in danger, and as you well understan
d, that danger may extend to the entire little Jewish population of this town. That danger could reach as far as London.”
I was utterly fascinated, and wildly excited, more so than I’d ever been in my natural life. And I did know these times and the peril that had surrounded the Jews of England everywhere.
I was also getting very cold.
I looked down and saw that I wore buckled shoes. I felt woolen stockings on my legs. Thank Heaven, I wasn’t a Franciscan and consigned to sandals or bare feet, I thought, and then a giddy sensation gripped me. I had to stop this nonsense and think of what I was meant to do.
“Precisely,” came Malchiah’s intimate voice. “But will you take pleasure in what you mean to do here? Yes, you will. There is no angel of God who does not take joy in helping humans. And you are working with us now. You are our child.”
“Can these people see me?”
“Most definitely. They’ll see and hear you, and you will understand them and they will understand you. You will know when you are speaking French or English or Hebrew, and when they are speaking those tongues. Such things are easy enough for us to do.”
“But what about you?”
“I’ll be with you always, as I told you,” he said. “But only you will see and hear me. Don’t try to speak to me with your lips. And don’t call for me unless you have to do it.
“Now go to the mob and get into the very thick of it, because it’s turning in a way that it should not. You are a traveling scholar, you’ve come from Italy, through France, to England, and your name is Br. Toby, which is simple enough.”
I was more eager to do this than I could express.
“But what more do I need to know?”
“Trust your gifts,” he said. “The gifts for which I chose you. You’re well-spoken, even eloquent, and you have great confidence in playing a role for a certain purpose. Trust in The Maker and trust in me.”
I could hear the voices in the nearby street growing louder. A bell was tolling.
“That must be the curfew,” I said quickly. My mind was racing. What I knew of this century seemed scant suddenly and again I felt apprehension, almost fear.
“It is the curfew,” said Malchiah. “And it will inflame those who are making the trouble, because they’re eager for a resolution. Now go.”
CHAPTER SIX
The Mystery of Lea
IT WAS AN ANGRY MOB, AND FRIGHTENING IN APPEARANCE because it was not all rabble by any means. Many carried lanterns and some had torches, and a few even carried tapers, and many were richly dressed in velvet and fur.
The houses on either side of this street were of stone, and I remembered that the Jews had built the very first stone houses in England, and with reason.
I could hear Malchiah’s intimate voice as I approached.
“The priests in white are from the cathedral priory,” he said, as I looked to the three heavily robed men closest to the door of the house. “The Dominicans are gathered there around Lady Margaret, who is a niece to the Sherriff and a cousin of the Archbishop. That’s her daughter beside her, Nell, a girl of thirteen. They are the ones bringing the charge against Meir and Fluria that they’ve poisoned their child and secretly buried her. Remember, Meir and Fluria are your charges, and you are here to help them.”
There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask. I was reeling from the statement that a child might have been murdered. And only dimly did I make the obvious connection: these people were being accused of the very crime I myself had committed habitually.
I pushed into the midst of the crowd, and Malchiah was gone and I knew it. I was on my own now.
It was Lady Margaret who pounded at the door as I approached it. She was stunningly dressed in a narrow robe with dagged leaves, all trimmed in fur, and she wore a loose hooded mantle of fur. Her face was stained with tears, and her voice was broken.
“Come out and answer!” she demanded. She seemed utterly sincere and deeply distressed. “Meir and Fluria, I demand it. Produce Lea now or answer for why she’s not here. We’ll have no more of your lies, I swear it.”
She turned around and let her voice ring out over the crowd. “Tell us no more fanciful tales, that this child has been taken to Paris.”
A great chorus of approval rose from the crowd.
I greeted the other Dominicans who moved towards me and told them under my breath that I was Br. Toby, a pilgrim, who had traveled through many lands.
“Well, you’ve come at the right time,” said the tallest and most impressive of the friars. “I’m Fr. Antoine, the Superior here, as you no doubt know, if you’ve been to Paris, and these Jews have poisoned their own daughter because she dared to enter the cathedral on Christmas night.”
Though he tried to keep his voice down, this brought an immediate sobbing from Lady Margaret, and her daughter Nell. And many shouts and cries of agreement from those around us.
The young girl, Nell, was as exquisitely dressed as her mother, but infinitely more distressed, shaking her head and sobbing. “It’s all my fault, all my fault. I brought her to the church.”
At once, the white-robed priests from the priory began to quarrel with the friar who’d spoken to me.
“That’s Fr. Jerome,” Malchiah whispered, “and you’ll see he leads the opposition to this campaign to make another Jewish martyr and saint.”
I was relieved to hear his voice, but how could I ask him for any further information?
I felt him push me forward and I suddenly found myself with my back to the door of the large stone house in which Meir and Fluria obviously lived.
“Forgive me, as I’m a stranger here,” I said, my own voice sounding completely natural to me, “but why are you so certain that a murder has taken place?”
“She’s nowhere to be found, that’s how we know,” said Lady Margaret. She was surely one of the more attractive women I’ve ever seen in my life, even with her eyes reddened and wet. “We took Lea with us because she wanted to see the Christ Child,” she said to me bitterly, her lip trembling. “We never dreamed that her own parents would poison her and preside over her deathbed with hearts of stone. Make them come out. Make them answer.”
It seemed the entire crowd started shouting at these words, and the white-clad priest, Fr. Jerome, demanded silence.
He glared at me.
“We have enough Dominicans in this town already,” he said. “And we have a perfect martyr already in our own cathedral, Little St. William. Those evil Jews who murdered him are long dead, and they did not go unpunished. These Dominican brethren of yours want their own saint as ours is not good enough.”
“It’s Little St. Lea whom we want to celebrate now,” said Lady Margaret in her hoarse and tragic voice. “And Nell and I are the cause of her downfall.” She caught her breath. “All know of Little Hugh of Lincoln, and the horrors that were—.”
“Lady Margaret, this isn’t the town of Lincoln,” insisted Fr. Jerome. “And we have no evidence such as was found at Lincoln to believe in a murder here.” He turned to me. “If you’ve come to pray at the shrine of Little St. William, then we welcome you,” he said. “I can see you’re an educated friar and no ordinary beggar.” He glared at the other Dominicans. “And I can tell you right now that Little St. William is a true saint, famous throughout all England, and these people have no proof that Fluria’s daughter, Lea, was ever even baptized.”
“She suffered Baptism of blood,” insisted the Dominican Fr. Antoine. He spoke with the confidence of a preacher. “Doesn’t the martyrdom of Little Hugh tell us what these Jews will do, if allowed to do it? This young girl died for her faith, she died for entering the church on Christmas Eve. And this man and woman must answer, not merely for the unnatural crime of killing their own flesh and blood, but for the murder of a Christian, for that is what Lea became.”
The crowd gave him a loud roar of approval, but I could see that many bystanders did not believe in what he’d said.
How and what was I supposed
to do? I turned and knocked on the door, and said in a soft voice, “Meir and Fluria, I’m here to defend you. Please answer to me.” I didn’t know whether or not they could hear me.
Meantime half the town it seemed was joining the crowd, and suddenly there sounded from a nearby steeple the clang of an alarm bell. More and more people were crowding into the street of the stone houses.
Suddenly the crowd was thrown in disarray by oncoming soldiers. I saw a well-dressed man on horseback, his white hair flowing in the wind, with a sword on his hip. He brought his horse to a halt several yards from the door of the house, and there gathered behind him at least five or six horsemen.
Some people immediately ran away. Others began to shout: “Arrest them. Arrest the Jews. Arrest them.” Others drew closer in as the man dismounted and came up to those who stood before the door, his eyes passing over me without any change of expression.
Lady Margaret spoke before the man could.
“My Lord Sherriff, you know these Jews are guilty,” she said. “You know they were seen in the forest with a heavy burden, and no doubt buried this child right by the great oak.”
The Sherriff, a big husky man with a beard as white as his hair, looked around himself disgustedly.
“Stop that alarm bell now,” he shouted to one of his men.
He took my measure again, but I didn’t step aside for him.
He turned to address the crowd.
“Let me remind you good people that these Jews are the property of His Highness King Henry, and if you do any damage to them or their houses or their property, you do damage to the King, and I’ll place you under arrest and hold you completely accountable. These are the King’s Jews. They are Serfs of the Crown. Now be gone from here. What, would we have a Jewish martyr in every town of the realm?”