The Silver Cup (2 page)

“Ah, welcome, sir. My father will be delighted to see you. I'll take your horse to the back and water her.”

“Thank you,” said Gunther, nudging Anna as they stepped inside.

The narrow hall funneled into a wide back room, bright with sunlight from the generous window along its back wall. A large stone hearth with a small forge warmed the high space, and Anna was struck by the quiet and the light. It was nothing like her uncle Karl's iron forge, but she was also uneasy, remembering her cousin Martin's stories of Jews with black magic and evil eyes.

At a bench near the window, a hunched man scratched away at the surface of a small cup which had been bent and hammered around a polished hardwood mold. Black dust floated from his small file, and a pile of shavings grew beneath the cup. Behind the silversmith stood a heavy man and three children: two boys and a girl. The silversmith looked up from his work.

“I am glad to see you, Gunther. You have my tools? ”

“Yes, Samuel,” answered Gunther as he placed the bundle on the bench.

The silversmith gestured with his chin at Anna and asked, “Who is this maid? ”

“My daughter, Anna.”

Samuel nodded politely to Anna and asked Gunther, “And where is your boy with the yellow hair? ”

“My nephew Martin? He's elsewhere today.”

“I see. Can you wait? I am just finishing the niello on this cup for a very special customer.” He indicated the taller boy, who grinned.

The craftsman's file scraped along the cup's surface making a grating, unpleasant noise. Gunther and Anna moved to a bench, which the boy in the apron had set away from the smoke but near the warmth of the fire. Anna stared at the family, who in turn watched the silversmith as he began to rub the surface of the cup with pumice and then with a soft leather cloth. The silver brightened with each rub, and the craftsman chatted with his customers. Anna understood little as she watched the girl, who looked close to her own age, talking with her hands fluttering, poking the boys and causing everyone, even the silversmith and his son, to smile and laugh. Now and then Anna thought she caught a word from her own language, but she had no idea what they were talking and laughing about.
Are they mocking me
, Anna wondered.The girl was so pretty, and Anna had never seen a more elegant dress. Its wool was the color of the Rhine at day's end—deep blue green. The sleeves were dark blue, laced from the wrists to the elbows with a thick fir-green ribbon. More of the same ribbon circled her waist several times. Anna folded her hands over a patch on her kirtle.

Anna looked up and found the girl watching her, and when their eyes met, the girl smiled brightly. But Anna dropped her eyes and moved closer to her father. The girl became silent, and the laughter stopped.

2

TRADING

 
Anna studied her feet as the silversmith promised to deliver the cup the next day, and the heavy man and his children departed.

“Sorry you had to wait, Gunther. Jakob is a very important man. And the cup is to celebrate his son's bar mitzvah when he becomes a man in the synagogue.” Samuel held the cup high, catching the sunlight on the bright, polished surface, and said, “
L'chaim!
”

Alarmed by Samuel's foreign incantation, Anna grabbed her father's sleeve, but he moved away from her and went to the bench where Samuel worked. As Gunther unwrapped each tool, the silversmith examined it carefully, clicking his tongue and whistling softly.

“
Dos gefelt mir.
Ah, they are perfect. Feel the balance of this hammer,
mayn zundele
.”

The boy took the hammer. Anna watched her father. She had never been in a Jewish home; she was frightened by their strange language and longed to leave. She fidgeted as her father bargained with the silversmith, trading the tools for salt and vinegar. Then Samuel handed Gunther a small wooden box.

“Spices from the fat man,” said Samuel.

“Fat man?” asked Gunther.

“
Alevei!
We would be lucky to eat at his table, right,
mayn zundele
? ” The silversmith smiled at his son who nodded. “Yes, the man who just left, Jakob. He's a very rich merchant from across the way.”

“Yes?”

“He wants three small knife blades. I'll make silver handles,” said Samuel.

“Plain blades?” asked Gunther.

“I hear your smith etches with great skill.
Nu,
let him decorate the blades. Two with oak leaves and acorns. The other with morning glories. The finest he can make.”

“A generous fee,” said Gunt her opening the box. “In a few weeks then, I will return with the blades for Jakob.”

After they left the silversmith, Anna asked her father, “Must you trade with those people?”

“I am eager to trade with them.”

“Martin says the Jews are wicked.”

“Your cousin is a story teller,” said Gunther curtly.

“You aren't afraid? ”asked Anna.

Gunther frowned, and Anna thought,
He'll never ever bring me to the city again.
She followed her father back to the marketplace, where he traded four nails for two meat pies for their meal and some honey cakes for later. More nails went to a butcher who handed Gunther a sack of animal horns. An ax head was traded for a fine pair of leather shoes for Elisabeth, one of Anna's cousins.

By mid-afternoon they were on the road, and before sundown, Anna and her father were home. The September evening was warm, so they sat on stools in the garden. Anna darned a stocking in the last of the daylight while Gunther sat with his back against the wall of the house, sipping ale.

“I've had a hard day!” said Martin, returning from his father's house. “I'd be too tired to lift a spoon.”

His face was smudged, and his hair, usually a halo of yellow curls, was dark and stringy and sticking to his forehead.

“Poor Martin!” said Anna gleefully. “You probably won't want this honey cake we got for you in Worms.”

“This needs no spoon,” said Martin snatching the cake and dropping to the ground with a sigh. He stretched his legs and wiggled his toes as he sat at Gunther's feet. “I could use some ale, Anna.”

“Of course, my lord,” said Anna with a grand curtsy. She was delighted to see that, for once, Martin's day had been harder than hers. “Wait until you hear about Worms.” Anna brought Martin a mug and began to tell him about the silversmith and about the girl in the beautiful dress.

“You didn't go too close, Anna? ” asked Martin, licking each of his sticky fingers.

“No, I—”

“Good. We dealt with a Jew in Worms last month. With my own eyes, I saw that, in truth, he was no man,” said Martin.

“What do you mean? ”

“He seemed nice enough, but just as he turned away from us, I saw a tail, a long skinny rat tail, slip from beneath his black cloak. He knew I saw it and quickly tucked it in, winking at me with his evil eye. My skin began to prickle, and I could smell brimstone—”

“Martin, you saw nothing of the kind!” said Gunther setting down his ale. “I've traded with Samuel many times. Anna has just seen the very same man. The Jews are a separate people, but they are people. They keep to themselves, but they travel far and wide, and their people are scattered throughout the lands. They trade with each other across mountains and seas. Far beyond the river. Places a simple German boy like you shall never see.”

Places I'll certainly never see either
, thought Anna wistfully as she looked out into the garden. She noticed the first pale pears in the branches of her favorite tree, and she remembered sitting in its shade with her mother before she died. Her mother would tell Anna how she had fallen in love with Gunther and how he, the second son of a knight, had fallen in love with a smith's daughter. He had given up everything for Anna's mother.

“Your father's mother died giving birth to him, and his father never forgave him. No one loved him until he met me. And I loved him more than anything. More than the spring,” her mother had said.

Anna knew that her father as the son in a noble family had never learned a craft, but he had made himself useful trading the iron goods that his bride's family produced. The forge made sickles, knives, axes, and swords, and Gunther traveled to the nearby towns and manors along the river and traded them for livestock, salt, leather, cheese, fish, wine, and woolen cloth. Trade was good, and Gunther built a separate house on the far side of the garden, where he lived with his wife and their daughter, Anna.

But when Anna was in her tenth spring, her mother died in childbirth, and so did the baby. Everything changed. Anna was largely left in the care of her mother's sister, while Gunther spent his days on the road. Though his trade and his wealth grew, Gunther's heart was empty, and so was their home, until Anna's cousin Martin moved in.

Only the first two sons of Aunt Agnes and Uncle Karl were training to be smiths. Their third son, Lukas, was in training to become a priest, and when Martin, the fourth son, reached his tenth autumn, he had been apprenticed to Gunther. Thereafter, Martin, who talked more than all his brothers combined, lived and traveled with Gunther, learning the roads and the trade. Martin brought noise to their very quiet household.

“What are you dreaming about Anna? ” said Martin holding up his mug for more ale. “Jewish riches? You'd love their silks—colors as bright as bluebells and poppies, dandelions and violets. From the East, they bring splendid furs—softer and much warmer than the best rabbit.” Then Martin leaned forward and added menacingly, “I've also heard that they steal children and sell them to the dark-skinned Arabs.”

Gunther protested, “That is untrue.”

“But they trade in slaves.”

“Yes, but so do others,” sighed Gunther. “Anyway, I've only seen them selling pagan Slav people from the East. The Jews don't steal children.”

“I've heard stories, Uncle.”

“You've heard tales,” corrected Gunther.

“I've
seen
their tails, Uncle,” Martin said with a wicked grin.

“Clever and impossible boy.”

Gunther rose and went into the house. When he returned to the garden, he handed Martin the small wooden box and said, “I have a new commission for your father from a rich Jewish merchant. Three knife blades for this.”

Martin slipped the small latch; inside he found cinnamon bark, cardamom seedpods, and dried buds of clove. He raised his eyebrows and gave the box to Anna who carefully lifted each spice and held it gently under her nose, closing her eyes.

“This must be what heaven smells like,” said Anna holding a piece of cinnamon.

“Close the box,” said Martin, rolling his eyes and taking the box back. “
This
surely is not heaven.”

“No,” said Anna glumly. Then she brightened and added, “But when your mother cooks with these treasures, we'll eat as well as the angels in heaven. That is, of course, unless you're afraid to eat the Jew's spices!”

3

AGNES

 
Anna awakened before her father or her cousin, to the caw of crows and the sweetness of wood smoke seeping through the shutters and beneath the door. The earthen floor was cool, powdery soft under her feet, as she moved about the dim room. She raked the ashes, added twigs and straw, and blew the embers on the hearth. Soon a curl of smoke was threading its way from the stones on the floor, up through the hole at the peak of the roof. She unfastened the oak door and shutters to let in light and the freshness of the September morning. The household stirred with the new day.

As Anna stood blinking at the pearl sky from the opened door, she was greeted by her aunt, who was already returning to her adjoining house with two full buckets of water, sloshing, but not spilling a drop.

“So you're awake finally, Anna? The Lord grants you another day, and you squander his light? ”

“Good morning, Aunt Agnes.”

Anna smiled at her aunt, ducked back inside, and waited for her to pass.
Aunt Agnes has to be the most perfect and the most unpleasant woman anywhere,
she thought. Six years earlier, the newly motherless Anna had been added to her aunt's responsibilities, and Aunt Agnes had stepped into the duties of motherhood but not the caring.

Aunt Agnes was ten years older than Anna's mother, and within a month of Anna's mother's death, she gave birth to Thomas, her seventh child. Everyone said it was a miracle. Her straw-colored hair was laced with white, and she squinted and struggled to thread a needle, yet she had found herself with child for the seventh time. No woman had ever survived seven births. Everyone believed Agnes was blessed. She already had four strapping sons and two beautiful daughters, but baby Thomas was not like the four older sons. When her sister died and when Thomas was not perfect, poor Agnes felt something she had never experienced: the pity of her neighbors. And it froze her soul.

Suddenly Anna was aware of her aunt standing in the middle of the room, with her hands on her hips, glaring.

“What are you doing, you useless snail? Just staring at nothing? The chickens are hungry. This house is a mess! And you call that a fire? Just because your father's father was a knight, do you think you can sleep all morning? Get to work, you! You're not some frittering noblewoman!” said Agnes, kicking up a cloud of ash at the hearth and leaving with a slam of the door.

Anna looked down at her worn dress and rough hands and thought,
I'm half noble, which is more than you'll ever be.

She scooped some grain into a basket and went to feed the chickens. Before long she heard Martin whistling happily. He had just returned from fetching the water, a chore he always left for Anna, but she knew he was bursting to finish the chores so he could present his mother with the spice treasures. When mid morning's Tierce bells tolled the third hour since sunrise, Martin grabbed Anna's hand and began pleading with Gunther.