Unholy Innocence (18 page)

‘Grieve?’ I snorted angrily as I paused on the threshold. ‘You speak as though Isaac were already dead.’

I could not see the rabbi’s face, only hear his words: ‘Isn’t he?’

*

Outside the air seemed clean and the day bright. I felt angry, frustrated, useless. I’d been so close to knowing the truth and in the end I was thwarted. What had passed between Matthew and Isaac? What was their secret? My temper wasn’t improved by once again having the feeling that I was being watched. Frustration finally got the better of me.

‘Come on!’ I yelled spinning round. ‘Show yourself!’ I ran to a corner but there was no-one there. I ran back again. I squinted hard into the bright sunshine and shook my fist impotently in the air. ‘Coward!’

‘Feeling better now?’ said the captain once I was a little calmer. He must have thought I’d lost my senses. ‘I think I preferred it better with those wailer women. Here.’ He held out his hand in which there were half a dozen of the silver pennies. ‘I found these among the weeds. These little rascals will have the eyes from your head if you let them.’ He nodded to the street urchins who were still hanging about waiting for the next opportunity to present itself.

‘Keep them,’ I said dismissively. I could hardly care less for the money.

The captain shook his head. ‘No, it’s more than my job’s worth.’

‘Why should it matter?’

He shrugged. ‘Who knows? I’ve been a soldier for a long time, fought in the King’s wars in Palestine – King Richard I mean, not this new one,’ he added, lowering his voice. ‘I’ve learnt the safest road is the straightest one. Do your duty, don’t ask questions and act dumb, that’s my rule. It’s thinking that does for people.’

‘What a sad comment on the state of humanity,’ I said with sincerity.

‘Aye, mebbe. But I’m forty-seven now. In three years time, God willing, I shall retire with enough money to marry my sweetheart, buy her father’s assart from his lord in Lincolnshire and build a little cottage to see out our days.’

I managed a smile at that. ‘Good for you, my friend,’ I said sincerely. ‘It is cheering to hear a glad tale in these sorry times. I wish you well indeed.’ I laughed and took the proffered money returning it to the purse and intending to put it in the poor box and say a prayer for the captain and his family. ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’

‘I will. Tomorrow, Monday and for three days after the trial.’

‘Ah yes,’ I nodded. ‘For the judgement. Well, I must be getting back to the abbey, there is so much to do. I’ll bid you good day.’

‘Good day to you too,’ he sniffed looking up at the sky. ‘Doubtless we’ll be seeing each other again.’

He was right, we would indeed be seeing each other again, but in circumstances I would have given the bag of coin and half my own wealth not to be.

*

I was beginning to build up a picture of the boy Matthew whose character was slowly coming into focus.  The image of the child saint who could do no wrong was gone, replaced by something far more complex, far more
human
. Something had passed between Isaac and Matthew, but exactly what my imagination could not fathom. Rachel said they had become friends, but what sort of friendship could it have been between a fourteen-year-old boy and a man old enough to be his father – indeed, who was a father of a boy of the same age? Matthew had begun visiting the Moy house, Rachel had said, to bring them fuller’s earth. This in itself would have been theft since the mill and all its produce belonged to the abbey. It seems Matthew was making a little extra income illicitly. But that, surely, would not be sufficient motive for murder.

Matthew had gained entrance to the Moy house – that much had been endorsed by Sir Richard de Tayfen and by Rachel’s somewhat more ambiguous replies. Having thus won their confidence he continued to visit them. Why? And what happened next? Did they have a falling out? Was that what led to Matthew’s death? Over what? And by whose hand? And what had Isaac’s testament to do with all this? The more I pondered the conundrum so the mist seemed to return to obscure the scene. I needed time for the picture to clear further but time was rapidly running out.

As I walked down the hill towards the abbey I became aware that I was being followed this time not by my phantom shadow but by the same street urchins who had been tormenting the Knieler women outside the Moy house. They had been watching, I noticed, when I came out of the house and must have seen the captain give me back my money. Perhaps they were hoping I’d give them some more. Now like jackals on the scent of a kill they were keeping pace with me but just a few feet behind. I stopped and turned. They stopped too but maintained their strict distance of two or three feet just out of arm’s-reach. If I took a step or two towards them they melted back again. I shrugged and continued nonchalantly on my way but after a few more steps I turned suddenly and roared towards them like a lion so that they squealed in fright and scampered away in all directions. I stood in the street with my arms akimbo laughing as one by one half a dozen faces reappeared from behind walls and bushes. They were like a troupe of monkeys and a variety of ages and heights they were too. No doubt this was how they survived by being ready to take any opportunity as it presented itself. I noticed the boy with the mizzened hand was still among them. Doubtless his deformity made his life even more of a struggle than the others. But he was still alive and thriving,
Deo favente
.

‘Who deserves a penny?’ I grinned round at them. That drew them a little out into the open though they still kept their distance.

‘All right,’ I said fishing out the coins that the captain had returned to me and holding them out in my tightly-clenched fist. This tempted the bravest of them closer until one, the bravest, finally came right up to me and tried to prise open my fist with his grubby little fingers. I was astonished at just how determined and persistent he was. It was a struggle but I managed to keep my fist closed. Frustrated by their friend’s failure, the others now tried too biting, scratching, pinching – anything they could think of to wrench my fingers apart. But though pained and scratched I just proved the stronger and managed to keep hold of the money. Eventually they pulled and twisted my hand so hard that I went down, laughing and panting, onto my knees where, being now at their eye-level, I decided to remain.

‘All right, all right, I tell you what, you can have one each,’ I yelled above their squabbling, ‘in return for –’

‘What?’

‘Information.’

‘In-form-?’

‘-mation,’ I repeated. ‘Information. Do you know what that is? It means telling me something I don’t already know.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like the name of the boy who got murdered?’

‘That’s easy!’ said one.

‘You already know,’ said another.

‘We all do!’ came a third.

‘Matthew!’ one of the littlest ones said and grinned his gappy-tooth grin.

‘That’s right,’ I said, smiling and nodding. ‘Matthew. He was a friend of yours, yes?’

They all nodded confirming something Mother Han had told me about Matthew “running with the strays”. So far so good.

‘Now, what else can you tell me about him?’ I sensed there was some kind of code of silence going on, so I upped the bribe. ‘Two pennies for anyone who can tell me what sort of boy he was.’

This drew some more nervous giggling and two of the youngest did some odd sort of wriggling dance that was comical and strange at the same time. I frowned at them and they pulled faces back mimicking me the way they had the Knieler women.

‘So?’ I said.

‘He was bad,’ said one of them at last but he was immediately pounced upon by one of the older boys. ‘He was a saint,’ he insisted. ‘Haven’t you heard? The God says so.’

‘You mean
God
,’ I said gently, frowning. ‘There is no “the”. Just “God”. And He hasn’t said so, not yet.’

They all looked vacantly back at me so I tried again:

‘All right, then. In what way was Matthew bad?’

‘He…’ began one of the smaller boys but he was smacked hard by the other one who had spoken. It must have hurt but the little trooper stoically refused to cry, God bless him.

Their obstinacy was beginning to annoy me. ‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?’ I said. ‘You see this robe I’m wearing? That means I’m a monk from the abbey. You know it’s a sin to lie to a monk.’

At this they just laughed. I looked round at their faces, childishly innocent and worldly-wise beyond their years at one and the same time. I sighed, exasperated. I could see that I was going to get no further with them, so I turned my, by now, scratched and bruised hand over and opened it. They grabbed hungrily at the coins like so many starlings pecking at an ear of corn, and in a moment every penny had gone. As they ran off with their prizes I made a grab at the boy with the mizzened hand and caught him by the actual hand itself. He struggled in panic for a moment making a pathetic mewing sound in his throat like a trapped animal. I realised in addition to being deformed he was also mute and my heart went out to him. I smiled and nodded trying to reassure him that I meant him no harm and gently drew him closer. I wanted to look at the hand - I was, after all, a physician. I could see it was deformed but from birth not from any accident, and not from leprosy either. The thumb was fully formed but the fingers were little more than pea-sized stumps. I had never seen a hand quite like it before and wondered what sin he had committed to deserve such a terrible burden to have to carry through life. There was clearly nothing I could do for him, so I stroked the hand even making myself kiss it in order to prove to him that I wasn’t repelled by it.

‘You know,’ I said gently, ‘you could try praying to Saint Giles of Nîmes, the patron saint of cripples. Miracles do happen.’

The boy looked at me blankly. Then a thought struck me:

‘You have heard of saints, have you?’ I ventured, but he simply continued to stare at me with his huge innocent eyes as though I were speaking Persian.

And then he did something truly horrible: He coughed up the biggest gob of phlegm I have ever seen and spat on the ground in front of me. I was so shocked that this time when he tugged at his hand I let it go and watched him run off after his friends.

I was shaken by what he’d done. As I was already on my knees anyway I thought I’d say a prayer for the boy. Clasping my hands together tightly and shutting my eyes there in the street, I bowed my head, ‘Oh Lord, Jesus Christ, if it be your will, restore this child to wholeness I earnestly beseech you, and protect and comfort all these the least and most vulnerable of your children. And also bring comfort and justice to Isaac ben Moy and his family, for your name’s sake, Amen.’

When I opened my eyes again the bright light dazzled for a moment, but then I glimpsed a flash of colour disappearing around a corner. Was this my elusive shadow again? Quick as lightning, I was on my feet and ran into the alley after it, but whoever it was had eluded me once again.

Chapter 17

TRIAL
BY ORDEAL

For
the rest of that Friday and all through Saturday and Sunday Jocelin and I did our best to get the trial annulled or at least delayed in order to give us more time for our inquiries - all to no avail. Looking back now I can see we were foolish to even try. Powerful interests were set upon a trial and nothing that Jocelin or I could have done would have dissuaded them. I tried to petition Samson one last time but he refused to see me, claiming pressure of getting the court proceedings in order before Monday morning. So I left Jocelin camped outside his office and told him not to move, even to relieve himself, until Samson came out and then he was to use all his guile to persuade his old mentor to grant us a hearing. But if Samson was in there he must have superhuman bladder control for he never appeared out of his office once in ten hours.

Every attempt to petition the King also came up against similar intransigence. I doubt if my increasingly desperate notes made it further than the King’s lowliest clerk. By compline on Sunday night it was clear that we had lost. The notices went up on the abbey notice boards and in the refectory: All those with interest before the King’s justices in the case of Saint Edmund versus Isaac ben Moy were to present themselves to the court summoner by terce the next morning. I had now only the maxim of the Law to fall back on:
Dura lex, sed lex
. The law is indeed harsh, but it was all we had.

*

It was clear from the beginning that this was not to be a trial in the normal sense of determining guilt and administering punishment. Rather, it was to be a formal hearing to decide whether or not to proceed to trial by ordeal. Elsewhere in England pleas of the crown like murder are reserved for judgement by the royal justices but in Bury the Abbot had this right granted since the time of King Cnut and it was a privilege jealously guarded by Abbot Samson. Normally hearings like this are held in the Abbot’s Hall but such was the public interest in this case that it was realised a bigger venue would be needed to hold all who wanted to witness the proceedings. The case was therefore to be heard in the larger Hall of Pleas which stands next to the cellarer’s gate and faces onto Palace Yard.

Abbot Samson sat in the middle of the semi-circular bench at the far end of the hall adorned in his formal robe as Baron of the Liberty of Saint Edmund while ranked either side of him were the chief obedientiaries of the abbey, each in his own robe of office. Before them sat the clerks busily scribbling and ready to record every jot and tittle of the proceedings. There was some curiosity over a single vacant chair which had been placed just below and to the left of the bench but which so far remained empty.

Facing this formidable array of worthies in the middle of the hall were two tables, one on the left, the other on the right. At the left-hand table sat the prosecution team among whom I had to sit uncomfortably prominent as the chief investigative officer in the case. My function was not to prosecute but to give support to the abbey’s prosecutor-general, Sir Fulk de Warenne, beside whom I sat. I’d only just met Sir Fulk that morning and fully expected - indeed
wanted
- to loathe the man, but in all fairness I could not. He was a career lawyer, one of those infuriating men who knew his business to the finest measure but managed to maintain a professional detachment. He exuded charm as he explained my function which was to provide the evidence when called upon to do so. He understood completely that I did this reluctantly and that every investigative officer he had ever dealt with had gone through the same agonies of conscience which in the case of a monk must be all the more intense. But, he reminded me gently, it was my duty to do all this clearly, thoroughly, to the best of my ability and without fear or favour to any man. By the time he had finished prepping me I was completely in his hands - damn the man’s eyes. He sat nonchalantly cross-legged in his lawyer’s gown radiating quiet confidence, his black beard which was flecked with grey twitching like a mouse’s whiskers and his sharp little rodent eyes under his lawyer’s cap missed nothing.

On the other side of the gangway was an identical table to ours at which sat the defence team which totalled six in all, three lawyers in their black gowns and caps plus their secretaries. I was secretly pleased to see that the Moy family seemed to be sparing no expense in providing Isaac with the best defence they could buy. In the middle of this gaggle sat Isaac, soberly dressed in the garb of a prominent local Jew, stoically dignified and rigidly erect. You’d have been forgiven for thinking he was the person least connected with the drama which was about to unfold instead of being its central player.

Behind all were the common throng of the people standing in serried ranks below the bar of the court and spilling out into Palace Yard, a goodly cross-section of the populous of Bury from rich merchants to lowly serfs, each craning his neck to see over the man in front of him and each hoping to catch a glimpse of the defendant. With so many human animals in such a confined space the doors of the court were left open to catch any cooling breeze on this hot June morning while at the same time letting out the stench of so many unwashed bodies.

 
All the major players were now on stage in their places and waiting for the drama to begin, but the appointed time for the commencement of proceedings came and went and nothing seemed to be happening. Even with the doors open it was stiflingly hot in the hall making short tempers shorter, especially when no-one seemed to know what was going on. After several minutes of confused inactivity the usher of the court, dressed in his long black robe and carrying his rod of office, made his way quickly over to the Abbot and whispered something in his ear. Whatever it was he said to him Abbot Samson frowned and shook his head whereupon the usher shrugged and went away again. It was all very intriguing.

At this point Jocelin come bustling into the hall pushing his way through the crush and beaming all over his face as he hurried over to the prosecution table. ‘It’s all right’, he whispered excitedly to me as he sat down. ‘It’s n-not to be ordeal by fire but ordeal by w-water. G-good news, eh?’ I was not so sure. Then someone broke wind behind in a very loud and irreverent way which met with a roar of approval. The trial was in danger of descending into farce.

Then just as it seemed the day was lost and the usher might have to clear the court, horses were heard outside the hall and heads turned to see the King appear at the bar of the court accompanied by a dozen of his courtiers. The party were all dressed in their hunting array of browns and greens, long leather riding boots and even some of their greyhounds panting and yelping on leashes - quite inappropriate for such an august setting. All heads craned to see them – all, that is, except for Isaac who alone continued to stare stonily ahead. The King looked dusty and hot after his ride, his retinue full of loud and boisterous chatter in Norman French – discussing, as far as I could follow it, the doe that had eluded their arrows and the King’s excellent shot at downing an antlered buck. You’d have been forgiven for thinking they were in a private hunting lodge somewhere in the forest rather than a court of law where a man was about to go on trial for his life. Many among the throng pressing around him frowned in disapproval and could be seen muttering among themselves – though none loud enough to be heard. To give him his due, the King did seem to realise their behaviour was out of place and with a gesture silenced his noble companions. Even so, he was not to be hurried. In the silence that followed and with exaggerated care he peeled off his long gloves and handed them to a page. He then looked about him with a bemused expression as if seeing the court for the first time and then, noticing the Abbot, addressed him in a loud and confident voice:

‘My Lord Abbot,’ he bowed. ‘May I be permitted to observe the proceedings of this illustrious assembly?’

Ponderously, deliberately and with exaggerated gravitas, Abbot Samson rose to his feet, and with him the entire court also stood. The Abbot then bowed formally to the King. ‘My Liege, you do our humble gathering great honour with your presence.’ And with that he gestured imperiously to the vacant chair below him.

So that’s what it was for. I should have guessed. No casual happenchance this but a carefully stage-managed little scene. The King then bowed theatrically to the Abbot in return and strode purposefully down the gangway towards the bench. As he passed me I could smell the scent of the kill still upon him and winced, realising that Isaac must have smelt it too. When he got to the vacant chair he turned and sat down with a flourish and took up the pose of a curious but neutral observer, whereupon Samson also sat, and we all resumed our places once more.

With everyone at last in position the business of the court could get under way. At a signal from Samson the chief usher wrapped three times on the floor with his rod to bring everyone to order and called for the accused man to stand up. Slowly, Isaac rose to his feet.

*

‘Isaac ben Moy ben Moses ben Sechok, you stand accused of the wilful torture and murder of Matthew, son of William the Fuller, on the ninth of June last against the peace of our Lord the King and the dignity of Saint Edmund. How do you plea?’

There was total silence as Isaac’s clear voice uttered the two words, ‘Not Guilty,’ at which the court erupted into noisy babble. The usher banged three more times with his staff and called above the din for the tithing-man of the district in which the murder had taken place to present the case. Everyone looked round straining to see who this was. After a pause a frightened little man, unshaven, dishevelled, cloth cap held in both hands against his chest and clearly overwhelmed by the whole proceedings, blinked and rose hesitantly from the body of the court. Giggles and guffaws ran around the court as they saw the identity of the tithing-man. I heard the name ‘Cuthbert’ whispered several times followed by hoots of laughter and incredulity. The usher, seeing who it was, shook his head in dismay.

To explain: You have first to remember that this was forty years ago and we do things slightly differently now, but in those days everyday policing in Edmundstown was organised by dividing the town into units of ten households known as ‘tithes’. Every male over the age of twelve had to join his local tithe whose leader, known as the ‘tithing
-
man’, was elected by the other members. It was the tithing-man’s responsibility to make sure anyone accused of a crime was arrested and brought before the justices. This was a lonely, difficult and often dangerous job and therefore unpopular. Usually the least appropriate person was designated to do it whether he liked - or even knew - that he had been chosen. This was evidently the case here for the funny little man who was clearly perplexed and, stumbling over his words, had to be led through the presentation by the court usher, to much jeering and whistling from his neighbours. By the end of his performance, though, he had begun to enjoy the unusual attention he was being given and it was the usher who finished it for him, frowning and still shaking his head. It did, however, provide a brief interlude of levity in an otherwise sombre occasion.

That marked the end of the preliminaries. Now the meat of the case could begin and people settled down to enjoy hearing the juicy details of Isaac’s purported crimes. But in this they were to be disappointed. What followed was an hour of heated legal argument between Sir Fulk on one side and the Moy team on the other, each bobbing up in turn with legal technicalities incomprehensible to everyone but themselves and the court recorders. The crux of the dispute, as far as I could follow it, was over the legitimacy of the court to even hear the case with Isaac’s lawyers vehemently protesting that as a Jew Isaac was the legal property of the King and therefore not subject to the common law. This problem was eventually resolved rather neatly: Since the King himself was present, Sir Fulk suggested, surely he could be appealed to directly. The King duly rose and graciously dispensed with his royal prerogative then sat down again. It was presented as a spontaneous decision by the King but anyone could see it was just another piece of theatre pre-arranged between the King and the Abbot in order to speed matters along. The strategy of the defence team had evidently been to lock the court in lengthy legal wrangling in the hope that the case would simply collapse for lack of time, but they were being thwarted by the wily Samson. It made me glad I was not a lawyer but a mere physician. The human body with all its baffling cogs and whirls was a child’s toy compared to the complexities of the
body
juris
.

Having had their first fox shot Isaac’s lawyers immediately moved their second objection: Under one of King Henry’s laws, they affirmed, Isaac had to be tried by a jury of his peers consisting of six Jews and six Christians of good character. This started a flurry of activity among the court’s clerks to try to find the citation, much to the amusement of Sir Fulk who clearly had anticipated the tactic beforehand. It was another legal ruse by Isaac’s team because, as everybody knew, since the 1190 expulsion there were no longer six Jews to be found anywhere within the Liberty. As a result, they urged, the case could not legally be heard. Sir Fulk simply argued that since this was a crime against the person of Christ Himself judgment could safely rest with God alone and so there was no need of a jury.