The Prince of Poison Read online

  I also learned that everyone worked—there were servants, but very few. I’m sure there was class distinction as well—everyone looked up to Bonel—but labor seemed to be assigned to everyone. When Viette and Rachel thought me strong enough, for example, I was assigned to the laundry room! Me! Can you believe it? I fought like one of the spotted animals in Bonel’s office against the hot sudsy water, the smelly garments, the garden behind the house where we stretched garments over shrubs. Was this Bonel’s idea of how to treat a baroness? I would rather be delivering babies with Tib!

  I found time, however, to become acquainted with my son, who changed every day. His skin, once a flayed red, turned to cream; his eyes remained a dark blue; his hair thickened into flaxen swirls. I loved his layers of fat, his sweet smell, his happy drool, for he was of sanguine disposition. Most remarkable, however, was his fantastick cell, which grew apace. Though he didn’t talk, he had a large vocabulary of sounds close to speech; his eyes followed me everywhere, and I fancied he understood my cooings. Our love vow to each other on the road intensified. I was deliriously happy to be loved without ulterior motive—not for my appearance, my estate, or even the boyish look Richard had so admired. I needed and wanted nothing but my baby. Yet Bonel was right; with all his fast maturation, Theo remained helpless.

  The two rows of houses, joined at every level, I learned, contained about a hundred Jews, the male half above the females in every way. Though Rachel insisted that the males worked, I don’t consider reading of law and scripture real work. None fought as knights or plowed (though they owned a vast field behind the houses, given by King Henry I). I walked over the field one afternoon to check on Sea Mew, who was getting fat in a small barn.

  Though the women stayed in the women’s quarters downstairs much as Christian women stayed in their towers, unlike Christians, the Jewish women joined their husbands at sundown. Viette told me that all married people had their own rooms. She also claimed that there was no infidelity, which seemed passing strange after my period in Aquitaine.

  The Jewish women were curious about me, some friendly, some hostile. The main issue was Bonel. He was betrothed to a small dark woman named Esther, a mercurial woman of merry disposition most of the time, though she seemed to dislike me—at least she ran in the other direction everytime I approached. Though Rachel assured me that Esther was exceptionally learned and had a small fortune as well, I was surprised that Bonel had decided to wed anyone at all, since his first fiance had been killed in the York tower. Rachel informed me that a Jew of Bonel’s high intelligence had to wed and have bairns.

  When I thought about Rachel’s words in the night, I was amazed. Bonel might want children for his own reasons, but I’d never heard of any Christian marrying for intelligence! The Jews shared one aspect of Christianity, however: Intelligence was the domain of men, many of them scholars, whom Viette at least thought didn’t work.

  Women had the same power among Jews that they did among Christians: male children. And again I was blamed for seducing Bonel away from Esther, because he doted on Theo. To be honest, I was of two minds about the obvious affection: I could see that Theo benefited from the male attention, which other babies received from their fathers; on the other hand, Enoch was Theo’s father, the only father he’d ever know.

  I took care not to be with Theo when Bonel visited.

  Rachel informed me that there were many Jews living in other parts of Normandy. She didn’t know about their communes or why they’d selected this duchy, but she had heard that at one time there’d been many more, before the First Crusade. What happened then? I asked. She knew only that—like York in England—there’d been a huge slaughter of Jews, this one by the Crusaders. It had happened in Mainz, she believed, which many denied was in Normandy. Nevertheless, Jews who were more informed than she was were wary. As for Rachel, she was happy; she trusted Bonel.

  Both men and women were exceedingly clean, cleaner than anyone I’d known, even in the royal palaces. Though I found their food not to my taste—too salty and fatty—I could see that it, too, was clean. Everyone seemed devout: Prayers were said all day long, and there were many religious holidays.

  Bonel had been back two weeks before he summoned me again. Now in the dark velvet trimmed with black fur he’d worn when we first met, he still seemed an Oriental potentate.

  He rose when I entered. “Do you feel well enough for a stroll? I’d like to show you a bit of our public buildings.”

  “Aye, thank you.” But I didn’t move. Was it safe for me to be seen? And wasn’t it still winter, though a weak sun shone?

  He answered the second question by placing a fur throw over my shoulders. Soon we stood in front of Number 6, where he lived; to our right was the Cathedral Square with its magnificent edifice, to our left three great buildings belonging to the Jews. We turned toward the Jewish buildings.

  How had he found Vernon? Had his transactions with the king gone well?

  He smiled. “You neither want to know nor can I tell you.”

  He then asked how I had fared in the quarter, to which I gave perfuntory answers.

  We both fell silent.

  “You think it absurd for me to return to Wanthwaite, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely absurd!” He saw my expression. “Impossible, Alix.”

  “Why?”

  “May I be frank? Because Enoch may not accept you. I hate to see you and Theo cast out in that northern wilderness.”

  “Enoch’s my husband! He has to accept me!” My voice dropped. “He loves me.”

  “Loves you?” As if I were a warthog. And an idiot to boot. “Have you been in touch with him since the king died? Does he know you have a child by the king?”

  I shook my head. “He has to accept me; it’s the law.”

  “What law?”

  I became flustered. We’d married in full sight of the village and of God; marriage could not be annulled in our religion.

  He listened thoughfully. “Perhaps you’re right; I’m not as conversant with Christian law. However . . .”

  “However what?”

  “I know Jewish law—no, don’t laugh—your Messiah was a Jew, after all, and his ideas were rooted in Jewish law. By Jewish law, then, you’re an adulteress, and your husband can cast you off.”

  “I’m not an adulteress!”

  He turned to face me. “Canon law follows Jewish law in another way: Only the man can get an annulment or divorce, never a woman.”

  I didn’t want to argue, but he’d never met Enoch.

  He was a silhouette against the light. “You have a powerful enemy, Alix.” He stepped close. “And very few friends.” He smiled mirthlessly. “You might as well be a Jew.”

  We came to our first great public building, the slaughterhouse.

  “No point visiting here unless you enjoy kosher butchering.”

  I clutched his arm. Two pails of bloody entrails were slowly freezing in the brisk air; they reminded me of Bok. Bonel studied my face, then slipped his arm under my fur.

  We did enter the school, a massive edifice built of stones joined by cement in the Roman fashion. The bright room inside contained a long table and benches for Talmudic scholars from our quarters and two visiting scholars from Andalusia. Though all spoke to one another in Hebrew, Bonel told me that the rabbis felt privileged because their visitors worked in the Arabic tongue, a language which was noted for its great scientific discoveries, as well as its literature.

  Though I’d actually traveled to the Arabic countries on the Crusade, I was frankly astonished.

  Bonel recited a verse:

  Arraying the heavens shines a single star

  With beauty and wisdom and peace;

  From Sinai it comes, from Ramah,

  To my heart’s ill-ease;

  It heals the lonely and the blind;

  Honey water for my soul.

  He fell silent. “A single star,” he repeated.

  He pulled me toward our door.


  Honey water for my soul. Like troubador poetry, I thought. How strange that the Arabs had written such verse at the very same time that the Aquitanians had. Even stranger that Bonel, a Jew, responded with such sensitivity. I studied his profile: I was wrong; that kiss on the road had nothing to do with his position in Richard’s court. A Jew he might be, an important man in his own culture, but most of all a man of deep feeling.

  “Are those literature?” I pointed to thick volumes of vellum between heavy boards chained to the walls.

  “No, sacred texts, mostly from the Torah.”

  “Torah?”

  “Jewish law.” As he continued to explain, it sounded like the Bible.

  He pulled me outside.

  “I’d like to study the law!” I cried.

  He laughed. “I have other plans for you.”

  The synagogue was empty. Bonel pointed out a long low candelabra made of gold, then suggested we leave.

  Sipping my wine in his office, I asked Bonel, “Did you meet with King John at Vernon?”

  “Yes. I’m meeting with his emissaries in two weeks at Le Mans.”

  “So . . . you’ve seen him personally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you find him as formidable as I do?”

  “We have different interests in the new king. You compare him to King Richard; I compare him to King Philip of France.” He smiled at my surprise. “King Philip and King John both claim Normandy. We Jews sit on the sidelines, waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “To see who wins. Many Jews have holdings in both England and Normandy; it will be difficult if they have to choose. But this problem is mine alone, not yours. May we talk about you?” He filled his glass a second time. “By the law you say you want to study, Enoch assumed your title when he married you. He paid a marriage portion for the privilege, as all lords do, but he bought Wanthwaite, not you!”

  I heard Enoch’s voice: I ha’e bought the apple; I had to take the worm quhat came with it!

  “Furthermore, the man who married you would assume your title and the military obligation of your estate. I’m surprised Enoch didn’t explain this himself.”

  “Because you’re wrong. I inherited Wanthwaite,” I said stubbornly.

  “You became the king’s marriage prize when your parents died and King Richard sold you for a goodly sum. Cling to your illusions if you must, but be aware that no one—not Enoch, not any assize court—will agree with you.”

  “Enoch . . .” I clamped my lips closed.

  “Loves you?” He smiled piteously. “No doubt he coveted your perfection. King Richard had good taste. Now you want to return with another man’s child. Be realistic, Alix.”

  I tried. “Tell me, Bonel, if Enoch should not accept me, is there any other way I could reclaim Wanthwaite?”

  He looked at me strangely. “Very few men are as faithful as I am to a dream, Alix.” His dead fiance, yet even Bonel was getting married.

  “What if Enoch should die?”

  He started. “I don’t understand.”

  “The law is based on custom. When the Duchess of Pembroke’s husband died, her original estate reverted to her.”

  “Whereupon she became the king’s marriage prize and he married her to William Marshal, the new Earl of Pembroke. Isn’t that a precedent?” He grimaced. “Are you considering murdering Enoch, Alix?”

  “Of course not! As I told you, I want to study law.”

  “Canon law is based on authority. There’s really nothing to study.” He bent forward. “In case no one has told you for a time, Alix, you are the most delectable creature on earth. Every person in our commune has remarked on it: ethereal, lovely, and tender beyond words. Now you tell me that beneath that delicate facade lies a cold, calculating intelligence.”

  “Yes.”

  He burst into loud guffaws. He rocked, wiped sweat from his face, gasped, wiped tears from his good eye, poured more wine.

  “That’s not all, Bonel. I want Theo christened. If anything should happen to him . . .”

  After much haggling, he promised to approach a priest at the cathedral who might be persuaded to come to an herb garden after sundown. Esther had met this priest, a Father Michael, several times. It would be a great risk, however, on many counts.

  “Now you’ve seduced—induced—me into listening to your pleas, may I make my own wishes known?”

  “Of course.”

  “What profession do you fancy? And don’t say law—I mean something that would earn a living.”

  There was only one profession I knew to be open to women, provided they were virgins: to join a nunnery, obviously impossible for a woman with a child.

  “Are you good with your hands?”

  “Oh, you mean a seamstress!” I looked at my fingers, delicate but strong, long, flexible. “I daresay I could sew. Perhaps embroider.”

  He rose and paced. “What think you of the jewelry business?”

  I knew nothing of it.

  “We Jews have access to pearls of great worth and emeralds, rubies, and the like from the Orient, some stones from Russia.”

  He went on: I must learn two aspects to creating jewelry—cutting the gem stones and the setting. Eight men in the compound worked at nothing else and, at Bonel’s order, would teach me the trade. Their representatives met with agents from all over Europe; they sold the finished product to lords who preferred to put their wealth into an investment more secure than land or money, and also more easy to transport.

  Richard had had a collection of fine jewels, I knew, the royal jewels; he’d left them to his nephew, Otto, who lived in the Holy Roman Empire.

  “Once you’re proficient, I’ll give you the names of two Jewish shops on a lane in London where you might find employment.”

  He didn’t believe I would ever return to Wanthwaite; I felt sick. “Are you so famous, Bonel?”

  He shrugged. “What say you?”

  My voice trembled. “What can I say, Bonel, except thank you? You’re offering me a life . . .”

  “A life that I once took from you, don’t forget.”

  I’d had too much wine, for now I wept.

  He touched my shoulder awkwardly. “Don’t cry. Who knows? You might gain wealth.”

  I sobbed. “I want to go home!”

  “Be a good mother, Alix; learn the jewelry trade, regain your own strength. Theo needs a strong parent.”

  “Must I stay a whole year?”

  He drew away. “Is that so terrible?”

  I began my lessons in setting jewels the very next morning. I actually felt guilty, leaving my laundry duties to another, yet followed Bonel up the steps with mounting excitement. We walked through corridors on the upper story to the first house on the street. There we were admitted into a room even larger than his, with windows on two sides. It was far from luxurious, however; a pall of fine dust hung in the air above three tables pushed together. The four gem setters gazed at me from bloodshot eyes. Bonel introduced them as Yossi, Ely, Samuel, and Abraham; none of them acknowledged me. After Bonel left, however, Yossi pulled a chair to the table close to him and gestured that I should sit. Apparently, all I would do that first day would be to watch.

  Yossi flipped six large pages of vellum in the center of the table, grunted, and shoved a page to a worker. Each page contained a drawing of a jewelry design, one a pendant with a double circle of gold with lion en passant in the center. Samuel had already created the gold circles, intricately joined with twists of flowers (garnets) both inside and between the circles.

  “That’s very pretty,” I said.

  Either they didn’t understand or didn’t care what I thought.

  Ely spoke to me in French. Did I see the pile of garnets in front of Yossi? They might appear to be facets, but they were precise slices that could be slipped into metal cells. It was an old technique, but still highly popular. They’d found the cameo of the two lions, already carved, in Italy. They made three such pendants every
day because the demand was great and the work comparatively easy. Some, no doubt, would find the work tedious, and it did take great patience; I enjoyed it at once.

  The second day, they worked on a brooch, again a double circle of gold only with filigree instead of garnets, an eagle instead of lions. This, too, was an old and popular design, and they’d had a special order. I preferred the cameo lion. In two weeks, I was permitted to paste topaz slivers around a field of pearls on a pendant. Ely explained that they made clasps for tunics, bracelets, rings, and even earrings, but pendants were both easier and more in demand.

  Samuel interrupted in poor French: Pins were tricky because of the fastenings, and earrings were even more difficult; for both, they were forced to go back to Roman designs. Garnets were their most popular item, readily available and easy to set. There were always garnets piled before us, and it was the first stone I worked on.

  One morning they placed a smooth, oval-shaped stone before me and asked me to identify it. I guessed emerald, though I knew that to be wrong: It was too blue in color and too opaque. Nor was it a sapphire. It was an Egyptian turquoise, an ancient stone that had been cut and polished centuries ago. Though I was exceedingly curious about how it had come into their possession, I knew better than to ask. With the turquoise, I learned that my teachers were more creative and had better taste than I’d first thought; they set it in a simple gold band and made a ring of it. When I complimented them in French, they both understood and were pleased.

  I continued to work with garnets, topaz, aquamarine, seed pearls, amethyst chips. Jacob, our best designer, piled jewels on a plate and twisted wires around them in a crude depiction of his ideas. Ely then painstakingly polished tiny gems until they caught every light and arranged them into tighter designs. All the work took weeks of patience. We shared a form of madness that we recognized in one another. How had Bonel known that this was where I belonged?