“I see,” Ranulf said, although he did not. Josce seemed to be going out of his way to be belligerent. Why?
Josce’s brother was no longer smiling. “Josce feared that if you died of your wound and were found in our cart, men would blame us for your death,” he explained somberly, but Ranulf still did not understand.
“Why would you be blamed? Because you are…peddlers?”
Josce smiled, without humor. “No…because we are Jews,” he said, and laughed bitterly then, at Ranulf’s involuntary recoil. “From your look of horror, I assume you’ve never been in the company of…what do you Gentiles like to call us? The Devil’s minions? Servants of Satan?”
He was not far wrong, for Ranulf had never had any dealings with Jews. He knew of them, of course. They’d come over to England from Normandy after the Conquest. Most were moneylenders, for they were not permitted to join the craft guilds. They were often accused of usury, of coin-clipping, and sometimes suspected of profaning the Eucharist, stabbing the Host till it bled. Four years ago in Norwich, an even more unspeakable accusation had been made, that they had crucified a Christian child in an unholy mockery of the Passion of Christ. The Norwich sheriff had not believed the charge, taking the town’s Jews into the castle to shelter them from a mob’s fury. But his skepticism had not stopped people from flocking to the church where the boy was buried, or from proclaiming him a sainted innocent, a martyr to the True Faith.
Ranulf had not believed the Norwich accusation, either. He’d never shared the view so many did, that the Jews were Christ’s enemies in their midst, doing the Devil’s bidding to corrupt unwary Christians. For if they were truly so evil, he reasoned, his father would not have protected them. And the old king had, granting them a charter which gave them the right to live freely in England, to hold land, to have recourse to royal justice. If his father, a man so quick to suspect the worst, had not feared the Jews, why should he?
And yet…and yet, they were still aliens and infidels. They might look like their Christian neighbors, speak French as well as any Norman baron, but the fact remained that they were dangerously different. They rejected the concept of Original Sin. They did not believe in the Holy Trinity. They denied the divinity of Our Lord Christ. They faced the horror of Eternal Damnation without flinching, without fear for their immortal souls.
For an unnerving moment, Ranulf felt an instinctive unease; he was, after all, utterly at their mercy. But then common sense reasserted itself. These men had saved his life. They had chased after his horse, bandaged his wound, even buried his dog. What more proof did he demand of their goodwill?
“I have my vices,” he said, “but ingratitude is not amongst them. I admit I was taken aback, merely because I’ve never known any Jews. But if it did not matter last night, it ought not to matter today.” He smiled wryly. “I do not remember your asking if I was a Jew ere you came to my aid. I am deeply grateful to you both, owe you a debt I can never repay.”
The elder of the brothers smiled, too. “I’ll settle for a name. I am Aaron of Bristol. Josce, as you know, is my brother. What do men call you?”
“Ranulf…Ranulf Fitz Henry.” Ranulf’s new identity was not assumed for their benefit. He’d stopped calling himself the king’s son the day he rode away from Devizes.
Aaron and his brother were indeed peddlers, as Ranulf had guessed. Filling their cart with woolens imported from France, with needles and thread and metal mirrors, they routinely made the perilous journey from Bristol up to Chester. They were on their way back to Bristol when they’d stumbled onto the ambush, and Aaron insisted that Ranulf ride with them till he recovered his strength. They’d cleansed his wound with honey, applied a plantain poultice to stop his bleeding; they were, of necessity, knowledgeable in the healing arts and well supplied with life-saving medicinal herbs. But he still needed a doctor’s care, Aaron stressed, for the danger of infection was always hovering close at hand. Fortunately, the knife blade seemed to have missed any vital organs. Ranulf had been amazingly lucky, Aaron concluded, and Ranulf heartily concurred.
Ranulf slept through most of the day and the night that followed. The next morning they made him as comfortable in their cart as they could, and headed for home. They were both Bristol-born and-raised, and very thankful that Bristol had so far been spared the suffering of Winchester and Oxford and Lincoln and the other English cities caught up in this accursed civil war. Aaron had a wife and young son awaiting him at home, and he cheerfully passed the time extolling the virtues of his Belaset and their two-year-old Samuel. Josce walked alongside the wagon, brusquely declining Ranulf’s offer to ride his stallion, leaving it to his brother to carry the conversational burden.
Aaron was happy to oblige, and Ranulf found himself being given a rare glimpse into a hitherto hidden world; what surprised him the most was that it was, in so many ways, a familiar world, too. Aaron’s concerns were those of any Bristol citizen: pride in his son, worry over the war, anxiety lest the new Earl of Gloucester not prove himself to be the man his father was, for Bristol’s continuing safety depended upon his strength.
Slowly, though, distinctly Jewish details began to emerge. Ranulf learned that Jews did not eat pork, which was considered unclean. The Jewish Sabbath was not Sunday as in the Christian faith, but sundown to sundown, Friday to Saturday. And dogs were not often found in Jewish households; their formidable Cain was an object of curiosity back in the Bristol Jewry. Although Aaron didn’t say so, Ranulf was sure that the dog’s name had come from Josce, a sardonic swipe at those who claimed all Jews bore the Mark of Cain.
Ranulf had never ridden in a cart before. It was an experience he could have done without, so jolting and rough a ride that he soon scrambled out to walk beside Josce, fearing that the constant jouncing might break his wound open. After that, Aaron insisted upon pausing frequently, ostensibly to rest their horse, and Ranulf gained new appreciation for his tact.
As they grew more comfortable with Ranulf, the brothers began to talk more frankly of politics. Aaron praised the old king for keeping the peace and putting his Jewish brethren under the protection of the Crown. Josce pointed out, though, that the king profited handsomely from the presence of the Jews in his realm. “Think of us,” he said sarcastically, “as a herd of milch cows, which the king alone has the right to milk.”
Aaron’s opinion of Stephen was one Ranulf had often heard voiced in the Christian community, too, that he was “good-hearted, but as easily swayed as a weather vane.” On the whole, he said, Stephen was favorably disposed toward the Jews, but he could be most unfair when his pride was pricked by the Lady Empress, his foe. And he told Ranulf of the experience of the Oxford Jews. When the empress held the city, she’d imposed a levy upon the Jews there, and when Stephen recaptured Oxford, he demanded that they pay three and a half times the amount of her levy, as punishment for obeying her unlawful command. Ranulf remembered when Maude had decided to impose that levy; it had seemed a good way to raise much-needed money. He’d never given a moment’s thought to Oxford’s hard-pressed Jews. Listening now to Aaron, he wished that he had.
They did not debate theology; that was too inflammatory a subject. Aaron said only that Jews and Christians shared a belief in the same God, the God of Israel, and by unspoken consent, they ventured no further. But as Josce slowly thawed toward Ranulf, he could not resist regaling him with facts sure to startle.
It was eye-opening to Ranulf to learn that Jews were by their own laws forbidden to break bread or drink wine with Gentiles. Obviously this was not strictly enforced, for the brothers had been sharing their meals with him for two days now. But it was disconcerting, nonetheless. He was surprised, too, by Josce’s revelation that English Jews, no matter where they lived, could be buried only in the Jewish cemetery in London; he had to admit that seemed like an undue burden to impose upon people already mourning a loved one.
What Ranulf found most astonishing, though, was Josce’s mischievous description of the Rite of Abraham, which inv
olved snipping away the foreskin from the most vulnerable part of the male anatomy. By now he’d discovered that Josce’s humor was as perverse and unpredictable as Geoffrey of Anjou’s, and he half suspected that he was being teased, until Aaron confirmed that they did indeed circumcise their young sons. It was, Ranulf decided, one more reason to be thankful he’d been born into the True Faith, but he did not let himself pursue that line of thought. He did not want to think of Aaron and Josce as Jews, for he did not want to think of them as doomed, forever lost to God’s Grace.
It was a strange interlude for Ranulf, the first time in two months that he’d formed any bond with another human being, other than an occasional tumble in a harlot’s bed. It did not seem real somehow, that so much could have happened-have changed-in such a brief time: that he’d come so close to death, that he’d lost Loth, that a good Christian could look upon Jews with respect, even friendship. The respite ended that night, though, as they made ready to bed down by the fire. It was then that Aaron mumbled sleepily that with luck, they might be able to reach Shrewsbury on the morrow.
Ranulf jerked upright, brought back to reality with a jolt. “I cannot go to Shrewsbury!”
They sat up, too, regarding him curiously in the flickering firelight. “Ranulf, I’ve told you from the first that you need to have that wound tended by a doctor. There is one in Shrewsbury, also a monk at their abbey said to be skilled in the use of healing herbs. But we’ll not find another one till we reach Hereford or Gloucester, and it would not be wise to wait that long.”
“I cannot go to Shrewsbury, Aaron. Wise or not, I cannot.”
“Why not?”
Ranulf hesitated. He could not tell them about Annora, the unforgivable botch he’d made of his life. But he owed them more than evasion or rebuff. “I was not completely truthful with you ere this.”
“What a surprise,” Josce murmured dryly, and his brother scowled in his direction.
“Not now, Josce. What did you lie about, Ranulf?”
“It was not a lie, more like a…a sin of omission.” Did Jews know about such things? Now was not the time, however, to elaborate upon the finer points of Christian doctrine. “When I called myself Ranulf Fitz Henry, that was indeed my father’s given name. What I omitted was his title-Fitz Roy.”
There was a brief silence as they absorbed this. Josce whistled softly, and Aaron said carefully, “You are saying, then, that you are one of the old king’s…natural sons?”
“One of his bastards,” Ranulf said bluntly. “No need for delicacy, Aaron. But you see now why I cannot go into Shrewsbury. The town and castle are held by Stephen, and I’ve been fighting for my sister. I cannot risk being recognized.” That had never kept him away from Shrewsbury in the past, an inner voice jeered, but Aaron and Josce could not hear it, and they took his excuse at face value.
“No, I suppose you cannot,” Aaron agreed, sounding worried. “The problem is that we have business dealings in Shrewsbury. Mayhap if we let you off ere we reached the town and then came back for you afterward…?”
“That is a right generous offer, but I’d not impose further upon your goodwill. You’ve a wife eager to welcome you home, Aaron. It would be ill done on my part if I repaid your kindness by making her fret over your safe return.”
Aaron could not deny that he was impatient to get back to Bristol and Belaset. “I will not feel easy in my mind, watching you go off by yourself. There is a doctor in Chester, but that is too long and dangerous a ride on your own. Have you no friends or kindred closer at hand?”
Ranulf shook his head, but he knew Aaron was right. It would indeed be foolhardy to ride all the way to Chester, as weak as he was, and without Loth to watch over him. Pain rippled toward the surface; he resolutely pushed it back into the depths. In any event, he had no intention of going to Chester; he was not yet ready to deal with Maud’s curiosity or-worse-her pity. After some reflection, he had the answer.
“William Fitz Alan,” he said triumphantly. “He used to be castellan of Shrewsbury Castle, until Stephen chased him out. But he still holds a castle at Blancminster, on the Welsh border. I’d be sure of a welcome there, and if he does not have a doctor in his household, he’ll send for one.” Best of all, there’d be no awkward questions, no prying, no pity, for Fitz Alan was an ally, not a friend.
“As you will,” Aaron agreed dubiously. A wounded man going off into the Marches alone…not a reassuring prospect. But it was not his choice. It was Ranulf’s. Rolling over into his blankets, he comforted himself with the thought that come morning, Ranulf might change his mind.
Ranulf did not, though. He arose determined to seek out Fitz Alan at Blancminster, and after a hurried breakfast, he stood beside them in the road, not sure how to say farewell. How could he just ride off? But he knew they’d have been insulted had he offered them money. There must be something he could do for them…and then he smiled, for he knew what it was.
“Thanking you seems a meagre response, indeed, for giving me back my life. I will remember you, Aaron and Josce of Bristol, and wish you well all your days. And if-God forbid-you ever find yourself in trouble on one of your trips to Chester, get word to the Countess of Chester and she will come to your aid, for I will let her know what you did for me. She makes a good ally, does my niece,” he said, and his smile twisted awry. Too good an ally. How selfish he’d been to entangle her in his adultery. But surely God would forgive her, when his sin was so much greater?
“That is most generous,” Aaron said, and Josce made a jest about friends in high places, but he looked pleased, too. It was no small boon Ranulf was offering; to be a Jew was to ride always along the cliff’s edge, and in Chester, where no Jews dwelled, there would have been none to speak up for them. Aaron came forward, Josce following, and they helped Ranulf up into the saddle. He smiled again, wished them Godspeed back to Bristol, and then turned his stallion toward the west, toward Wales.
The brothers stood in the road, watching him ride away. He looked back once, waved, and Aaron waved, too. Somewhat to his surprise, so did Josce.
“I ought to have wished him good luck,” Aaron said suddenly. “I wish I’d remembered.”
Josce nodded. “He’ll need it.”
40
The Welsh Marches
March 1148
Ranulf had been to Blancminster once before, with Robert, and he remembered that it was sixteen miles northwest of Shrewsbury. That would make it, by his reckoning, fourteen or fifteen miles due west. Even if he kept his mount to a slow canter and stopped often, he should still be able to reach Fitz Alan’s stronghold before dark.
He soon realized, though, that this would be the longest fifteen-mile ride of his life. He had to halt and rest frequently, and each time it became more difficult to get back into the saddle. By noon, he was already wondering why he’d been such a fool, and if he’d had it to do over again, he’d have elected to ride into Shrewsbury with Aaron and Josce, and let Annora and his overblown pride and Stephen’s sheriff be damned. But that was a regret four hours and five miles too late. All he could do now was to make the best of a bad bargain.
With that in mind, he resolved to seek the first shelter he could find, no matter how shabby or meagre. But the narrow road was deserted, the land uninhabited. He passed no hamlets, not even an occasional secluded cottage. Villages did not thrive in the shadow of the border, for this was bloody, disputed ground, English today, Welsh yesterday, who knows on the morrow. Ranulf felt as if he were riding through a ghost country, watched by unseen eyes, and his unease increased apace with his exhaustion. He plodded on, telling himself that he must be almost there, that the castle was likely to come into view at any time, just around the next bend in the road. But what he encountered was a river, swollen with the spring thaw.
He drew rein, staring in dismay at the expanse of muddy brown water. The River Dee snaked its way south from Chester, twisting and doubling back on itself like a fugitive seeking to throw off pursuit. Could this be the Dee? I
f so, he was miles to the north of where he’d hoped to be. How could he have gone so far astray?
Oddly enough, his very fatigue enabled him to slough off his despair; he was just too tired to be truly alarmed. He would, he decided, camp there by the river for the night. Come morning, he could decide whether to retrace his path back to the Chester Road or follow the river south toward Blancminster.
He’d been accustomed from boyhood to caring for horses, but never had such simple tasks exacted such a toll. By the time he’d unsaddled and watered his stallion and tethered it to graze, the sun was retreating west into Wales. Making a fire was an even more laborious effort, for first he had to gather and shred birch bark and dry moss to use as tinder, and then find a hard stone to strike sparks against his dagger. Once he finally got a fire going, he forced himself to eat some of the bread and salted fish he’d gotten from Aaron. It troubled him that he had so little appetite; he knew that was not a good sign.
It was not yet dark, but he laid out his blankets by the fire, wincing as he pulled his hauberk over his head. The interlocking metal links weighed more than twenty pounds and seemed to have gotten heavier as the day dragged on, but if he’d been wearing it on the Chester Road, it might have deflected that outlaw’s dagger. Rolling up his tunic, he slowly unwound the bandage Aaron had fashioned from a shirt, fearing what he would find. Red streaks radiated outward from the wound, like spokes on a wagon wheel, pus oozed around the edges of the plantain poultice, and the lightest touch of his fingers caused pain. Aaron had prophesied true when he’d argued the need for a doctor’s care. Well, God Willing, he’d find one on the morrow.
Ranulf awoke with a start. The sky was still dark, speckled with stars above his head. The air held a damp chill, but he’d flung the blankets off in his sleep, and when he touched his face now, his skin felt as if it were afire. Trying not to panic, he lay back upon the blanket. A fever was not always fatal. He was ill, there was no denying that. But he might be better by morning. If not, then he’d spend another day here, recovering his strength. There was no need to fear, not yet. He kept telling himself that until he finally fell asleep again.
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