Chapter SEVEN
Meir and Fluria
A BRIGHT MARGIN OF LIGHT REVEALED A TALL, dark-haired man, with deep-set eyes peering out at us from a very white face. He wore a robe of brown patterned silk, with the customary yellow badge on it. His high cheekbones appeared to be polished, so tight was his skin.
“They’re gone for the moment,” said the Sherriff intimately. “Let us in. And get your wife and yourself ready to go with me.”
The man disappeared, and the Sherriff and I slipped into the house easily.
I followed the Sherriff up a narrow brightly lighted and carpeted stairway, and into a beautiful room, where a graceful and elegant woman sat beside a large fireplace.
Two serving women hovered in the shadows.
There were rich Turkey carpets covering the floors, and tapestries on all the walls, though the tapestries had only geometric patterns. But the ornament of the room was the woman.
She was younger than Lady Margaret. Her white wimple and headdress covered her hair entirely, and they set off her olive skin and her deep brown eyes beautifully. Her robes were a deep rose color, with rich sleeves buttoned over an undertunic of what appeared to be gold thread. She wore heavy shoes, and I saw her mantle over the back of the chair. She was dressed and ready to be taken from here.
There was a huge bookcase against one far wall, crammed with leather-bound volumes, and a large plain wooden desk heaped with what looked like ledgers and pages of parchment covered in writing. A few darkly bound volumes lay to one side. And I saw what might have been a map on another wall, but it was too far from the light of the fire for me to be certain.
The hearth itself was high and the fire luxuriantly big, and the chairs scattered about were of thick dark heavily carved wood with cushions on their seats. There were also a few benches in the shadows, in a neat row, as if students from time to time came here.
The woman stood at once, and lifted her hooded mantle from the back of the chair. She spoke softly and calmly.
“May I offer you some mulled wine before I go, my Lord Sherriff?”
The young man appeared to be paralyzed watching all the proceedings as if he couldn’t think what to do and was very ashamed of this. He was handsome by anyone’s standards, and had slender beautiful hands, and a soft dreamy depth to his eyes. He appeared miserable. Almost without hope. I was desperate to inspire him.
“I know what’s to be done,” said the woman. “You will take me to the castle for safekeeping.”
She reminded me of someone I myself knew, but I couldn’t think of who it was, or what it meant, and I had no time for it. She was speaking:
“We’ve talked with the elders, with the Magister of the synagogue. We’ve spoken to Isaac, and to his sons. We’re all agreed. Meir will write to Paris to our cousins there. He will produce a letter from my daughter which verifies that she’s alive …”
“That won’t be enough,” the Sherriff began. “It’s dangerous to leave Meir here.”
“Why do you say this?” she asked. “Everyone knows he will not leave Norwich without me.”
“That’s true,” reflected the Sherriff. “Very well.”
“And he will write for a thousand gold marks for the Dominican priory.”
The Sherriff threw up his hands at the pity of it and nodded.
“Let me remain here,” said Meir in a quiet voice. “I must write the letters and also talk further of these things with the others.”
“You’ll be in danger,” said the Sherriff. “The sooner you raise some money, even among the Jews here, the better it will be for you. But sometimes money is not enough to stop these things. I say, send for your daughter and bring her home.”
Meir shook his head. “I wouldn’t have her travel again in this weather,” he said, but his voice was unsteady and I knew he was saying something false, and he was ashamed of it. “One thousand gold marks and whatever debts we can remit. I don’t share the tribal gift for money lending,” he continued. “I’m a scholar, as you well know, and your sons know, Lord Sherriff. But I can speak again to everyone here, and certainly we can arrive at a sum….”
“Very likely so,” said the Sherriff. “But there’s one thing I demand before I protect you further. Your sacred book, which is it?”
Meir, fair as he was, turned pale. He moved slowly to his desk, and he picked up a big leather-bound volume that lay there. There were Hebrew letters on it in deep graven gold.
“Torah,” he whispered. He gazed miserably at the Sherriff.
“Put your hand on it and swear to me that you are innocent of all blame here.”
The man looked as if he would lose consciousness. There was a faraway look in his eyes as if he was dreaming and the dream was a nightmare. But he didn’t lose consciousness, of course.
I wanted desperately to intervene but what could I do? Malchiah, help him.
Finally, balancing the heavy book on his left hand, Meir laid his right upon it, and in a low quavering voice, he spoke.
“I swear that never in my life have I done harm to any human being and never would I have harmed Fluria’s daughter, Lea. I swear that I have done her no harm whatsoever, in no way, but only cared for her with love, and such tenderness as befits a stepfather, and that she is … gone from here.”
He looked at the Sherriff.
Now the Sherriff knew the girl was dead.
But the Sherriff only paused, then nodded.
“Come, Fluria,” the Sherriff said. He looked at Meir. “I’ll see that she’s safe and has every comfort. I’ll see the soldiers spread the word through the town. I’ll speak to the Dominicans myself. And so can you!” He looked at me. Then went on to Meir. “Obtain the money as quickly as you can. Remit as many debts as you are able. This will cost the entire community, but it shouldn’t be ruinous.”
The serving women and the wife went down the stairway, and the Sherriff followed. Below I heard someone bolt the door behind them.
Now the man looked at me quietly.
“Why do you want to help me?” he asked. He seemed as deflated and dejected as a man could be.
“Because you’ve prayed for help,” I answered, “and if I can be the answer to that prayer I’ll do it.”
“Do you mock me, Brother?” he asked.
“Never,” I said. “But the young woman, Lea. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
He merely looked at me for a long moment. Then he took his chair behind the desk.
I took the dark high-backed chair that stood in front of it. We faced each other.
“I don’t know where you’ve come from,” he said under his breath. “I don’t know why I trust you. You know as well as I do that it’s your fellow Dominican friars who are heaping abuse on us. Campaigning for a saint, that is their mission. As if Little St. William does not haunt Norwich forever.”
“I know the story of Little St. William,” I said. “I’ve heard it often. A child crucified by Jews at Passover. A pack of lies. And a shrine to bring pilgrims to Norwich.”
“Don’t say such things outside this house,” said Meir, “or they’ll tear you limb from limb.”
“I’m not here to argue with them over that. I’m here to help you solve the problem that lies before you. Tell me what happened and why you haven’t fled.”
“Fled?” he asked. “If we fled, we would be guilty as charged and pursued, and this madness would engulf not only Norwich but any Jewry in which we took refuge. Believe me, in this country, a riot in Oxford can spark a riot in London.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right. What happened?”
His eyes filled with tears. “She died,” he whispered. “Of the iliac passion. At the end the pain stopped as it so often does. She was calm. But she was only cool to the touch because we laid cold compresses on her. And when she received her friends Lady Margaret and Nell, she only seemed to have lost her fever. Early in the morning, she died in Fluria’s arms, and Fluria—. But I can’t tell you all of it.”
“Is she buried by the big oak?”
“Certainly not,” he said, scornfully, “and those drunkards never saw us take her from here. There was no one to see us. I carried her in both arms against my breast, as tenderly as one might carry a bride. And we walked for hours through the forest until we came to the soft banks of a stream, and there in a shallow grave we committed her to the earth, wrapped only in a sheet, and we prayed together, as we covered the grave with stones. That was all we could do for her.”
“Is there someone in Paris who can write a letter that will be believed here?” I asked.
He looked up as if from a dream and seemed to be marveling at my ability to cooperate in a deception.
“Surely there’s a Jewish community there—.”
“Oh, indeed,” he said. “We’ve only just come from Paris, the three of us, because I inherited this house and the loans left to me by my uncle here. Yes, there is a community in Paris, and there is one Dominican there who might very well be of help to us, not because he would scruple to write a letter pretending the girl is alive. But because he is our friend, and would be our friend in this, and would believe us, and would plead for us.”
“That might very well be all that’s needed. This Dominican, he’s a scholar?”
“Brilliant, studying under the greatest teachers there. A doctor of the law as well as a student of theology. And much grateful to us for a very unusual favor.” He stopped.
“But what if I’m wrong. What if I am completely wrong and he turns against us? There is cause for that, too, Heaven knows.”
“Can you explain this to me?”
“No, I can’t do it.”
“How can you make up your mind whether he’s to help you or turn on you?”
“Fluria would know. Fluria would know perfectly what to do, and it’s only Fluria who can make this plain to you. If Fluria said that it was right for me to write to this man …”
Again he paused. He had no confidence in any of his own decisions. One couldn’t even call them decisions.
“But I can’t write to him. I’m mad to think of it. What if he came here and pointed his finger at us?”
“What sort of man is this?” I demanded. “How is he connected to you and to Fluria?”
“Oh, you ask the very question,” he said.
“What if I went to him, spoke with him, myself? How long does it take to reach Paris? Do you think you could remit enough debts, acquire enough gold, and all this with the promise of my returning with larger sums? Tell me about this man. Why did you think this man might help you?”
He bit his lip. I thought he’d draw blood. He sat back in the chair.
“But without Fluria,” he murmured. “I don’t have leave to do this, even though he might very well save all of us. If anyone could.”
“Do you speak of the girl’s paternal family?” I asked. “A grandfather? Is he your hope for the gold marks? I heard you take your vow as a stepfather.”
He waved this away. “I have plenty of friends. The money is not the question. I can obtain the money. I can obtain it from London, for that matter. The mention of Paris was only to give us time, and because we claim that Lea has gone there, and that a letter from Paris would prove it. Lies. Lies!” He bowed his head. “But this man—.” He stopped again.
“Meir, this doctor of the law may be the very thing. You must confide in me. If this powerful Dominican were to come, he could gain control of the small community here, and stop this mad drive for a new saint, because that is the goal that is feeding the fire, and surely a man of education and wits will understand this. Norwich is not Paris.”
His face was unspeakably sad. He couldn’t talk. Clearly he was torn.
“Oh, I have never been anything but a scholar,” he said with a sigh. “I have no cleverness. I don’t know what this man would do or not do. A thousand marks I can raise, but this man—. If only Fluria had not been taken away.”
“Give me permission to talk to your wife, if that’s what you want me to do,” I said. “Write it out here, a note to the Sherriff permitting me to see your wife alone. They’ll admit me to the castle. The man’s already formed a favorable opinion of me.”
“Will you keep secret whatever she tells you, whatever she asks, whatever she reveals?”
“Yes, as if I were a priest, though I’m not. Meir, trust in me. I’m here for you and for Fluria and for no other reason.”
He smiled in the saddest way. “I prayed for an angel of the Lord to come,” he said. “I write my poems, I pray. I implore the Lord to defeat my enemies. What a dreamer and a poet I am.”
“A poet,” I said, musing, and smiling. He was as elegant as his wife as he sat back against the chair, slender, and otherworldly in a manner I found so moving. And now he had attached that beautiful word to himself, and he was ashamed of it.
And people outside were plotting his death. I was certain of that.
“You’re a poet and a pious man,” I said. “You prayed with faith, didn’t you?”
He nodded. He looked at his books. “And I swore on my sacred book.”
“And you told the truth,” I said. But I could see that any further talk with him would lead nowhere.
“Yes, I did, and the Sherriff knows now.” He was close to breaking under the strain.
“Meir, there is no time, really, for us to ponder these matters,” I said. “Write the note now, Meir. I’m not a poet or a dreamer. But I can try to be an angel of the Lord. Now do it.”