Falls the Shadow: A Novel

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “I’ve decided to put the Londoners under Nicholas Segrave’s command,” Simon said, earning widespread mutterings of approval, for Segrave was a seasoned soldier, respected by all. Nor was there competition for that command; too many feared the Londoners might break under their first taste of battle.

  Humphrey de Bohun smothered a yawn; sleep was a stranger to them all these days. “Has there been any word from the Earl of Derby?”

  Simon shook his head. “Not since Edward seized his castle at Tutbury. But if he meant to fight with us, he’d be here.”

  Derby’s defection was a bitter disappointment, if not altogether unexpected; the young Earl was one for looking to his own interests. But Gloucester could not keep from suggesting sourly, “Mayhap he’d still be with us if Harry de Montfort had not antagonized him so needlessly at Gloucester. Derby is known to have been outraged when de Montfort let Edward go, and who can blame him?”

  Harry flushed, half rose from his seat. But Guy was quicker. “What would you know of it? Whilst my brothers were fighting de Mortimer and his Marcher allies, you were holed up in Tonbridge. The only action you saw all spring was when you attacked the Canterbury Jews.” Adding with a sneer, “I daresay they resisted fiercely!”

  Gloucester was on his feet, face mottled with rage. “The Canterbury Jewry was rife with treachery; you ought to be thankful I rooted it out in time. As for being ‘holed up’ in Tonbridge, I was keeping watch upon the coast! I then moved on Rochester, took the town, and—”

  “The Devil you did!” Harry cut in hotly. “I was there, remember? It was my father who captured Rochester, by sending that burning barge against the bridge pilings—”

  “Enough!” Simon could outshout anyone when he chose. “I cannot believe that you’d be fools enough to fight on a cliff’s edge. Are the odds facing us not daunting enough without shedding our own blood?”

  His sons at once subsided. So, too, did Gloucester, mollified that Simon’s anger had been so indiscriminately aimed. It was the Mayor who tactfully dispelled the tension by changing the subject. Simon was coming to rely more and more upon the finesse of his London ally, a draper with all the instincts of a born diplomat. Gloucester rose, headed for the privy chamber tucked away into the north wall, and with his departure, the atmosphere lightened still further. A break was in order. As men relaxed, Simon rose stiffly, moved toward the hearth. His leg had begun to throb, a sure sign of fatigue; it was with a dull sense of surprise that he realized it was nigh on seventeen hours since he’d last seen a bed.

  He was pleased when he was joined by Thomas Fitz Thomas; as unlike as the two men were, a genuine bond was developing between them. It occurred to Simon now that Fitz Thomas might be loath to relinquish command of his Londoners to Nicholas Segrave. But with his first words, the Mayor began to laugh.

  “I nurse no delusions of grandeur, my lord, am no soldier. Just tell me what you would have me do.”

  After dealing with unpredictable, thin-skinned personalities like Gloucester and Derby, Simon found Fitz Thomas to be a veritable godsend, and he gave the younger man a grateful grin. “Bless your good nature, Tom! But it is no easy task I ask of you. I want you to remain in London, to hold the city for us. If any man can keep the people from panicking again, you’re the one.”

  “I hope to God you’re right, my lord.” Fitz Thomas was no longer smiling, for he knew the fear that seethed just beneath the surface of his city. If Simon lost… But there were fates too dire to contemplate. He was secretly relieved by Simon’s request. London was the lodestar of his life; come what may, he wanted to be with his city. “My Cecilia has kin in St Albans,” he confided quietly, “but she refuses to leave London, insists that her place is with me.”

  Simon’s smile was wry. “Passing strange,” he said, “that you should say that. After Northampton fell, I wrote to my wife, told her I thought it best that she travel to Dover, take ship for France and there wait out the war, as Henry’s Queen is doing. I gave Nell no choice in the matter…and where is she now? Paris? Montfort I’Amaury? No…Kenilworth.”

  Fitz Thomas laughed. He would have imagined that Simon de Montfort, of all men, was master of his own household—had he not once met Simon’s headstrong lady. They were, he thought, like twin comets, blazing across the heavens in flaming harmony, and some of his unease began to ebb. If ever a man was born to win, to triumph over all adversity, it was this man. How could he lose to the inept, feckless Henry? “My lord…have you had any word about your son?”

  Simon shook his head. “All we know is that Bran is being held at Windsor Castle. But beyond that, we—”

  “Beg pardon, my lord Leicester.” The guard had not ventured far from the door, instead, raised his voice, and in consequence, turned all heads his way. “There’s an old Jew at the land-gate, seeking entry. We’d have chased him off, but he insisted that you’re expecting him.”

  “Damnation!” Simon had forgotten entirely about his morning encounter at St Paul’s. But when the Constable of the Tower impatiently ordered the guard to “send the Jew away,” Simon reluctantly countermanded him. “No…I did agree to see the man. Send him up.”

  Under different circumstances, Benedict would have welcomed this opportunity to inspect the uppermost chamber of the White Tower, for London legend held that twenty years past, a highborn Welsh prisoner had plunged to his death from one of these windows. Now, however, it took an enormous effort of will just to cross the threshold, so overt was the hostility within.

  “I feel like Daniel entering the lion’s den,” he whispered, “or one of those Christian martyrs in a Roman amphitheater.” That was too flippant for his father’s taste, though. Jacob gave him a burning glance, a silent warning to guard his tongue as if his life depended upon it, for well it might. Chastened—the last thing he’d wanted was to add to Jacob’s anxiety—Benedict followed his father into the chamber.

  Benedict truly did feel as if he’d run straight into a stone wall, so oppressive was the atmosphere in the room. His father had once made a grim jest, that a Jew in England was caught between the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis. But to Benedict, the Church was always a greater enemy than the King, for it was the Church that taught its sons and daughters to hate Jews as an act of faith, it was the Church that branded them as Antichrists and heretics. It frightened him to recognize the white tunic and black cloak of a Dominican Prior, for if the Templars were the knights of Christ, the friars were His foot-soldiers, and of all the orders, the Black Friars were the most zealous. Glancing nervously about the chamber, his eyes were drawn to a large, carved crucifix high on the wall above their heads. Idolators. Gods of silver or gods of gold, ye shall not make unto you. He shivered suddenly. What had ever possessed Papa to come here?

  “Master Jacob, is it not?” As the speaker came out of the shadows, Benedict felt a jolt of recognition. His was an embittered conviction, that there was not a Gentile alive whom a Jew dared trust—with the possible exception of this man. He owed Thomas Fitz Thomas his life, for it was the Mayor’s men who had gotten him to safety in the Tower. Fitz Thomas had gone into the Jewry himself, seeking to end the slaughter, and now the sight of him took Benedict’s breath, conjuring up a memory of disturbing vividness—Fitz Thomas’s fair hair in disarray, his face the color of chalk under the harsh glare of torch-light, mouth contorted with rage, with an emotion Benedict had not expected a Christian to feel—horror.

  Simon was looking at the Mayor in surprise. “You know this man, Tom?”

  “Yes, my lord, I do. I’ve dealt with him in the past, when problems arose in the Jewry,” Fitz Thomas said, and smiled at Jacob and his son, as if offering courtesy to a Jew was too commonplace to warrant comment. It was, Benedict thought, a brave thing to do under the eyes of three Bishops. But he seemed to detect a faint thawing in the chill, eloquent testimony to Fitz Thomas’s standing with his highborn allies. Simon moved forward, and after glancing at Jacob’s cane, gestured for a servant to bring forth a stool. />
  It was at that moment that the Earl of Gloucester emerged from the privy chamber. “God’s wrath! Why are these Jews here?”

  Benedict was no less shocked than Gloucester. His greatest fear had been that Fitz John, the man his father meant to accuse, might be present at this meeting. He’d never given a thought to Gloucester. Now, confronted with the young Earl, he felt blood surging into his face, roaring in his ears, and as Gloucester strode toward them, he stepped protectively in front of his father.

  “How dare you come amongst us like this, after what you’ve done?” Gloucester demanded, and Benedict began to tremble with a killing rage.

  “What we’ve done?” he echoed. “The massacre was of your doing, not ours!”

  “Whatever happened, you brought it upon yourselves. Had you not been plotting to betray the city to the King—”

  “That is not so! We knew nothing of a plot! Why would we conspire with the King? Why would we risk our lives for a man who bleeds us white?”

  “Why do you Jews do anything—for money, of course! You’d like nothing better than to stir up dissension between Christians, for no evil is beneath you. You befoul our very air with your infidel breaths, you poison England with your vile, foreign ways, you blaspheme and—”

  “We are not infidels! We believe in one God as you do, the God of Israel. And we are not foreigners.” From a great distance, Benedict could hear a voice strangely like his own, slurred with fury, impossible to silence. “We came to England at the behest of William the Bastard—just as your people did. We have lived here for nigh on two hundred years. We speak Norman-French as you do. My family does not call me by my Hebrew name, Berechiah, they call me Benedict. England is our home, too!”

  “Your home, by rights, should be in Hell! But we are not deceived by your guile. You are servants of Satan, dwelling in our very midst. Yet the day is coming when we shall no longer tolerate your presence amongst us, for you mock Christ’s Passion, you profane the Eucharist, you crucify Christian children in your accursed rituals—”

  “Lies and more lies!” Benedict was vaguely aware of someone pulling at his sleeve. But he could not stop himself. A red haze swam before his eyes. Blood of the innocents—the shade of Gloucester’s hair. Miriam’s hair. “Those are tales told to frighten the simple, the gullible. No men of sense give them credence,” he said scornfully, “only fools!”

  Gloucester gave an audible gasp. As if in slow motion, Benedict saw his fist clench, his arm swing back. But the blow never connected. Simon was suddenly between them, catching Gloucester’s wrist in mid-air.

  “Would you shame me by striking a guest at my hearth?”

  Gloucester wrenched free, with such force that he stumbled backward. So easy was it to transfer his fury from Benedict to Simon that the two men blurred in his mind, the French-born Earl and the foreign Jew he sought to protect. Why? What true Christian would take a Jew’s part? And as he stared at Simon, Gloucester felt a rush of fear—what if Leicester were in league with the Jews? God’s truth, but the Earl was as glib as any Jew, preached the Provisions like Holy Writ. Had he been too quick to heed Leicester’s beguilements? What if he’d allowed his passion for the Provisions to imperil his soul?

  There was such a wild look on his face that Simon’s anger gave way to alarm. “Gilbert? Are you ill?”

  Gloucester blinked, and his panic receded. Leicester was French, he was foreign, he was not to be trusted. But he was no heretic. “You do shame yourself, my lord,” he said unsteadily, “by consorting with these alien disbelievers, these…these agents of evil. God sees—and judges. You’d best bear that in mind. As for me, I’ll not stay in the company of Jews. I value too highly my immortal soul.” He did not wait for Simon’s response. Convinced that the last word had been his, he stalked from the chamber.

  Jacob slowly unclenched his fingers from his son’s arm. “Thank you, my lord,” he said huskily, convinced that Simon’s intervention might well have saved Benedict’s life. Simon turned toward him, and he saw how little his gratitude meant to the other man; Simon was furious.

  “If Edward and Henry had but one wish,” he snapped, “I daresay it would be for this—a falling-out with Gloucester on the eve of battle!” His eyes fastened coldly on Benedict. “If you’d come here with evil intent, you could not have done more damage to our cause.”

  The mere suggestion was enough to chill Jacob, for he knew that even if Simon himself did not suspect their motives, there were men in the room who would. So accustomed was he to dealing with religious bias that he’d rarely given much thought to the political dimensions of their danger. Now he was suddenly seeing his people from Simon de Montfort’s perspective—as the King’s accomplices—and the implications were darkly disturbing.

  “I can understand why you would view us with suspicion, my lord. We are a significant source of revenue for the King. I’ll not deny that the tallages levied upon England’s Jews help him to make war upon you. But my lord of Leicester, the fault does not lie with us. We are not partners in crime, we are the King’s chattels. I believe the exact legal concept is called ‘servi camerae,’ but that does not matter. What does is that my people are totally dependent upon the King’s will, the King’s whims. If we keep his coffers filled, it is not by choice. In all the wars and rebellions that have torn England asunder—King Stephen versus the Empress Maud, King John and his barons, King Henry and you, my lord—never have the Jews interfered. We have no vested interest in the King’s victory. We do but obey—to save our lives.”

  Simon’s mouth twitched. “If I did not know that Jews were barred from universities, I could believe you were a lawyer.”

  Jacob’s relief was considerable. Simon’s response had been sardonic but not hostile, and he dared hope that he had planted a seed. His belief that the Earl of Leicester was an honorable man, one amenable to reason, once more seemed plausible, worth pursuing. But it was then that his son’s bitterness burst forth again.

  “Papa, do not waste your breath. How can you expect this man to heed your appeal? One of his first acts as Earl of Leicester was to banish all the Jews from his domains!”

  Jacob was appalled, but as he turned back toward Simon, he saw no anger in the other man’s face, only surprise. “Indeed, I did expel the Jews from Leicester,” he said, so matter-of-factly that Jacob suddenly understood why Simon had taken no offense; he did not see his action as one that needed defending. “But it was not done to punish the Jews. My intent was to protect my Christian brethren, to keep them from being sucked dry by Jewish money-lenders. Holy Church imposes responsibilities upon those who wield power, and one of them is to combat the evils of usury.”

  The other men had been listening in silence, with varying degrees of interest or amusement or resentment. At that, though, murmurs of approval rose from numerous throats. The Bishop of Worcester was quick to confirm Simon’s concept of Christian lordship, in clipped, dispassionate tones that could not disguise a visceral antipathy, nuances of distaste not lost upon Jacob or his son. But Humphrey de Bohun’s antagonism was not cloaked in even the thinnest veneer of civility; he was known to be deeply in debt to Hereford money-lenders.

  “You speak right eloquently of the poor, persecuted Jews. But what have you to say of their money-lending? Are you one of that accursed breed? Do you prey upon a man’s need, lead him on till he’s hopelessly entangled in your web?”

  Fitz Thomas’s voice came calmly from the shadows. “Master Jacob is a physician, I believe.”

  “I have been charged interest rates as high as sixty percent of the debt!” But Humphrey’s indignation was no longer dangerously directed at Jacob; Fitz Thomas’s interruption had been adroitly timed for maximum effect.

  Jacob prudently kept silent; money-lending was about as risky a topic as there could be between Jew and Gentile. It was his son who rushed heedlessly ahead, his son who had always spoken of moneylenders with disdain. “They charge such high interest rates,” Benedict said, “because they
have so little chance of ever collecting the debt. The King can cancel it at any time, and often does, a magnanimous gesture that costs him nothing and earns the debtor’s gratitude. A most successful business transaction, for only the Jew suffers. Nor is that his only risk. The King levies tallages whenever he is short of funds, and if a Jew cannot scrape up the money demanded, he’ll find himself rotting in gaol whilst his family and friends beggar themselves on his behalf.”

  “How truly heart-rending!” The speaker was obviously a de Montfort son; Benedict just wasn’t sure which one. As he leaned forward, the candles reflected glints in eyes as dark and opaque as wood-smoke, and Benedict decided this must be Guy. They were very close in age, very alike in coloring, and yet they could have been born in different centuries, so alien were their worlds. Guy was smiling, without amusement. “Those do sound like occupational hazards to me,” he said challengingly, “hardly grounds for condolences.”

  Jacob did not like the intensity of his gaze. It alarmed him that one of these young lords should single his son out for special notice, and he sought hastily to draw attention back to himself. “You would be right, Sir Guy—if money-lending was an occupation of choice. But that is not so. For most of my brethren, it is the only livelihood open to them. We are barred from the craft and trade guilds. We are not permitted to sell our goods in your market places. Your Church forbids us to work for Christians, or even to employ them. Because we cannot take your oaths of homage, we cannot hold land. Your universities are closed to us. So, too, are your courts, since we cannot swear upon your holy relics. So how are we to live?”

  He paused for breath, trying to gauge the impact of his words. While none had yet to interrupt, only a few seemed to be truly listening; he was heartened, though, that Simon was one of them. He hesitated, and then concluded quietly, “Your society barricades all roads but one. Is it fair, then, to scorn us for taking the only path possible?”