The Convert Read online

  5

  Since the weather is so mild, Hamoutal decides to go out into the hills alone. Her children stay with Agatha, her Greek attendant from Egypt, who came from Narbonne to join their household in the mountain village as soon as she heard the young couple planned to stay in Moniou. That day, Hamoutal plans to pick blue juniper berries from the thorn bushes, to be alone for a few hours. She sits down on a rock and daydreams, enjoying the beauty of the countryside in its mellow autumn mist, through which low, raking light is beginning to glimmer. She takes the road along the rim of the Nesque gorge, on the right side, and then makes a gradual climb through low shrubs and over sand-coloured paths strewn with pebbles. She draws a deep breath of fresh air. The fragrances are overwhelming. She sits down on an old Roman milestone jutting out from the sand. From there, she can see as far as the high Saint-Hubert plateau. The sun is warm and generous for the time of year; the last bees buzz in the wine-red vineyard. She closes her eyes and is immersed in memories of childhood.

  When her head nods to her chest, she wakes with a start; looking around in confusion, she sees a shed snakeskin under the stubby palm trees. But when she looks up, she sees something glint in the distance, out towards Saint-Hubert, something else that resembles a serpent – an enormous silver serpent. It’s moving, and it must be very large, hundreds of metres long, shining and glittering in the bright sunlight. She watches in fascination, without understanding what she’s seeing. She drinks a little of the water in her wineskin and eats a hunk of bread with some hard goat’s cheese. She feels contented, but also a bit concerned about whatever is moving there in the distance.

  Half an hour later, she gains a clearer view of what’s coming: an army on the move. Her astonishment turns to fear as she watches them marching straight towards the Saint-Jean plateau over the rough terrain now known as the Champ de Sicaude and then on to Malaval, past Vallat de Peisse, until more than an hour later the front lines reach La Plane and begin their descent into the valley of Moniou, following the same winding road she once took with David when they first arrived. There seem to be hundreds of horses. Countless riders are on the road, followed by foot soldiers. Their cuirasses, shields and lances shine in the sun. She can’t stop staring; over the past months, she’s heard all sorts of rumours from passing pilgrims, but she never expected to see an army like this for herself. Her thoughts leap to her father. She remembers his squabbles with her mother; she pictures him coming out of the swallow-filled stables, leading the skittish gelding on a long rein. She wonders whether he too will leave for Jerusalem, the city that now means something so different to her than it does to him.

  As those images play through her mind, she watches the front lines coming down from the plateau into the valley of Moniou. She leaps to her feet, sprints down the long road to the village, and arrives panting. Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, about half a kilometre away, the first knights have come to a halt. Their shouts and cries rise from the valley; their horses rear up and make a racket. All the villagers come out to watch, open-mouthed, from the low rampart. Moniou’s five soldiers stand guard at their lookout points near the gaol, choking back their anxiety. High in the tower, a hundred metres above their heads on the rock wall, the horn is sounded. The soldiers on the plateau respond to the signal with their trumpets. That’s reassuring, at least.

  Barely an hour later, a knight in glorious raiment with a silver cross on his armour fords the River Nesque, still called the Anesca. His horse ascends to the Portail Meunier. The knight knocks at the gate with his lance, and the sheriff enquires what he wishes from them. Not much, the herald says with a grin, just food and lodging for the honourable leaders of our holy army. How many men would that be? the sheriff wonders. About two hundred in all, the herald replies. The other knights and the foot soldiers can find what they need in the wilds around the village. You’d better start preparing. Deus lo volt. Slaughter all your cattle, build fires and fetch all the food stored in your cellars; the men are hungry and tired. They set off at five this morning and have barely slept for days. This valley is the perfect spot for a one-day bivouac; then we’ll head further north, towards the castrum in Digne.

  Without waiting for a reply, the knight turns his steed around and rides back down the road.

  The sheriff is in a panic, afraid the small community won’t be able to provide for all those men. After hasty discussion, a messenger runs up to the fort, taking the stairs in the wooden tower by the northern rampart. When he arrives panting at the top, he reports to the castellan, who’s on lookout with several armed men. The castellan comes down the tower stairs, and the priest and rabbi are summoned. Trying to meet the demand for provisions would ruin the village. Without delay a messenger is sent through the northern Portalet to La Loge, the hamlet below Saltus, to request reinforcements. The villagers are in utter confusion, gaping in astonishment at this matchless display of power and prestige. Some fall to their knees, cross themselves and pray. Others stare in deep disquiet at the endless human snake winding into the valley. The knights all reached their campsite a while ago; they were first joined by the lancers, and now by the foot soldiers. From the Saint-Jean plateau, a disorderly rearguard is now coming into sight. The villagers can hear them singing, shouting, laughing and roaring. Barking dogs jump up and down around a herd of sheep, which break into loud bleating. A huge cloud of dust obscures the view; silvery motes rise into the unmoved blue. A strange odour reaches the villagers’ nostrils. They huddle against the rocky slope, underneath their towers and lookout points, which are quickly manned. A few mothers with children flee to the caves and recesses in the cliffside, hidden from sight by wild bushes. The whole valley seems to quiver with unprecedented energy.

  Hamoutal has run home and bolted the door behind her. She tells her trembling son Yaakov to keep quiet, soothes the little girl on her lap, and holds her youngest child, still an infant, to her breast. Should she hurry to the synagogue, not far away, to see if David is all right? A large crowd has now formed outside the village’s lower wall; one colourful group of men is trying to climb the ramparts. Where the peaceful Chemin de la Bourgade runs today, horses are snorting, carts are rattling, and soldiers are roping poles together to batter down the central gate. Only now does it become clear to the people of Moniou that there is no escape from this; not until years after the coming catastrophe will they build a high defensive wall with reinforced gates. For now, they are helpless against this invasion of their small community. A second herald, accompanied by five knights, pounds on the Grande Porte around five in the afternoon, demanding to inspect the sleeping quarters. The guards reluctantly open the gate, and the five knights hurry to block the opening with a log so it can’t be shut behind them. In the narrow streets, the villagers cluster together behind the sheriff, the rabbi and the priest. Some houses are bolted shut, and their fearful, stubborn occupants exchange curses and threats with the knights before opening the doors. One knight slices a flimsy door to pieces with his sword, stamps the pieces to smithereens and storms into the low, dark house. He re-emerges with an aggravated look. Almost no one has prepared for their visit at all. The knight turns up his nose at the decrepit hovels and cramped, malodourous dwellings. He demands the homes of the priest and the local worthies. He also demands the church, which is just outside the wall near the Portalet, as an additional place to sleep. The priest sputters in protest and is walloped with an iron gauntlet. Fine, he stammers, Deus lo volt.

  Then the herald, irritated by the poverty he sees on all sides, wheels around and points to the synagogue on the far side of the village, near the little watchtower to the south, the Petit Portalet.

  So … what’s that? he asks, smirking. Are there Hebrew dogs among these rats? Where are they hiding? They must have luxurious beds for us, those usurers, right?

  Yaakov, who has been listening, runs up the hill to warn his father. David comes out into the street with Joshuah Obadiah, and they ask the herald what he wants. The man makes an ironic
bow, spits on the paving stones, and says he hasn’t asked them for anything, and they should keep their mouths shut till he’s finished speaking. His first demand is the synagogue for the night: they have one hour to remove their furnishings, because Christian knights will not sleep under heathen symbols. Joshuah Obadiah straightens his back and says with dignity that it is unthinkable for them to desecrate their place of worship. He too is struck with the iron gauntlet. The old man staggers; blood flows from his lip. David holds him up and snaps at the knight: you can hardly call that kind of behaviour Christian. The knight responds by drawing his sword and shouting, One more word and you will die here, betrayer of Christ. Deus lo volt!

  He turns his back on the frightened crowd that has gathered around him. You have until the sun passes behind the cliff, he snarls. Don’t disappoint God’s army, you pack of idiots.

  He leaves the village through the Portail Meunier, which is closed behind him with its large draw bar. The iron portcullis is lowered behind it, but that won’t do much good, since the Grande Porte below has been forced open and is under guard by several knights with drawn swords.

  The villagers break into whispers, hissed conversation and moans of despair. They crowd together, at a loss; some are saying they should start slitting the throats of their sheep, building fires and preparing their bedrooms. Others say they’d rather use their knives for something different. The priest bellows, Have you lost your minds? We have no choice. These are the knights of God on their way to Jerusalem, and it is our sacred duty to serve them.

  David and Rabbi Joshuah confer. They are willing to open up their houses, but not the synagogue. They will pass the night there themselves – almost the entire Jewish population, some hundred people, packed together on the floor of the synagogue to sleep, guarding their holy place while offering their hospitality. This plan meets with general approval. Everyone runs home and starts preparing. The women straighten up the rooms, fetch pillows and arrange their best sheets as neatly as they can on their primitive beds. Soon the air is filled with the wailing of sheep led to the slaughter; the smell of blood rises, the butchering begins, and not long afterwards the scent of roast meat permeates the village. Several knights have hiked up to the entrance to the village and ask to be let in. Their foot soldiers roll barrels of wine off a cart and carry them inside. The men drink their first toast and growl at the villagers not to stand and gawk. People retreat into their houses, not daring to take any food for themselves. Hunger gnaws as they smell their roasting sheep, which were grazing the dewy fields by the village just that morning. From the plateau comes a tremendous noise. The soldiers are felling trees; the entire bank of the Nesque, normally so peaceful, now resembles occupied territory. They strip the bark off the trunks and use the logs to build frames for large cloths, the roofs and canopies of their tents. Fires are built all around; they sing, yell, shout. As far as the eye can see, the valley churns with activity, all the way to the hills on the far side. Soldiers are setting up places to sleep for the night. The moon rises, large and fast, over the hills. Its silvery light makes the dusk glimmer. Below, the red and yellow fires burn, flaring and crackling up into the sky as the first stars come out.

  The village is now overrun. Knights and horsemen drift in and out, brazenly inspecting the rooms and shoving the villagers aside. Some cross their spears at the entrance to show that the house is taken. Their mood soon turns boisterous. They laugh and drink, and the heaps of food quickly dwindle to nothing – there’s nowhere near enough. Some of the knights raise a fuss, roughing up a few scared villagers. A fifteen-year-old boy tries to protect his father, who has taken a punch. He jumps up at the knight, who draws his sword and slices the boy’s head off. Blood spurts onto his armour. A group of villagers rushes at the horsemen who are telling tall tales of their exploits by the fire. The knights plunge their swords into their attackers’ throats.

  The violence ends as abruptly as it began; the onlookers, trembling for their lives, retreat into their houses. No one dares to pick up the young boy. David steps forward.

  A knight asks him what he wants.

  I want to give the boy a final resting place, he says.

  His southern, Sephardic accent betrays him.

  So you choose to provoke us, Jew-boy?

  No, David says, I choose to bury a dead man. The same as you Christians.

  Yes, but we don’t chuck them straight into the ground like you do, the knight says with a sneer. He turns back to his two drinking companions.

  Then one of them, a man named Guy from Carpentras, asks, Where do the usurers sleep? Have we seen their houses yet?

  The three of them jump to their feet and head for the synagogue, where Joshuah Obadiah and several other villagers are making beds for the Jewish community. Guy, well into his cups by this stage, says that these beds are fit only for dogs, not for knights. Obadiah explains that their honoured guests are welcome to sleep in their houses, but not in the synagogue. The knights don’t like that idea. They’d demanded the synagogue too. Their words turn threatening; they swear Joshuah hasn’t heard the end of this, cross themselves and stride off. Other knights swarm through the streets, all in search of something; a foot soldier grabs a woman’s skirts. Her husband puts his arms around her and tells the drunken man he won’t put up with such depravity. The man and woman flee into their home and barricade the door.

  Now more and more men are wandering around the Jewish quarter. It stinks of Hebrew dogs here, one of them shouts. The others laugh.

  Forget about those vermin, another one says, and a third retorts, Sure, but they won’t let us sleep in their synagogue. Who do they think they are?

  By midnight, the moon has risen high above the valley and casts its pale light on the rocky slope, which looks rugged and eerie. One by one, the fires on the far side go out. The stars sparkle, cold and bright. The shouts and laughter just below the ramparts go on for some time. Then it grows quieter. Some knights are still roaming the village in search of a place to sleep. They break down doors and drag villagers out of their homes. In the Jewish quarter, there’s a commotion by the synagogue. The Jewish villagers have bedded down on the planks, sheets and rags; they left the doors of their houses open, but those have all been taken.

  A few men break into the building, draw their swords and shout, Everybody out, now!

  Joshuah Obadiah stands up and tells them that all the houses are open to the knights, but this place is theirs and sacred to their religion.

  You’ll pay a heavy price for this, Jew-dog, one man hisses.

  A short while later, they hear the door being barricaded from the outside. Heavy stones are rolled down the streets, and beams of wood are wedged against the doors. They hear shouting from different directions and soon notice a burning smell. Someone is stoking a fire in front of the entrance, and the smoke is trickling in through a narrow window. The sleepers wake up and start praying. The children are crying; their mothers are rocking them. The noise outside has swelled to an uproar. Clanging swords, more cries and whoops of delight. They killed our Saviour, and now we’ll burn them alive, someone yells. Cheers and whistles, screams and singing, Deus lo volt! A rhythmic pounding on the old door, which soon catches fire. The people in the enclosed space panic, run for the exit, realise they are caught in a trap.

  Rabbi Obadiah, seeing that they are on the brink of catastrophe, has two other men help him gather up the simple menorah, the chanukiah, the old Torah scrolls, his Torah mantle, the ram’s horn, the list of the names of the faithful in the village, the letters he has received from the distinguished Rabbi Todros of Narbonne, other documents, and, finally, a few sets of tefillin left in the synagogue and a leather bag holding twenty silver pieces. They put it all in a large sack, which the youngest of the three swings onto his back. Then they open the secret exit in the rear of the synagogue, a small door that has been bolted as long as anyone can recall. Intended as an escape route, it was installed after a fire a century ago, which they’ve heard
old stories about. Now it creaks open, and they step out into an alley that runs in a semicircle along the southern rampart. They climb the stairs to the Petit Portalet, where the guard has left his post in the noise and confusion to join the fray in the village. The three men slip through the gate, where to this day a narrow goat path circles around to the left and up to the tower. After passing the great rock, the three men head south and then slide down the steep slope, ending up in a thicket somewhere in the Combe Saint-André. From there, they descend still further into the narrow, almost impenetrable gully, reaching two shallow caves, one above the other. They hide the objects from the synagogue in the darkness of the upper cave and then scramble down to the other one, so that they can follow the gully back to the road. A bear comes out, roused from sleep; in a heartbeat, he grabs one of the men, snapping his spine with his strong paws. The other man shoves the old rabbi out ahead of him, and they escape, gasping for breath, scratching themselves on the small, sharp palm fronds, the juniper bushes and the tangled branches. They run back up the slope and then down again, towards the village. They hope to return through the Petit Portalet, but there’s a fight going on there between some guards and a couple of drunk men. There’s no way through. They hurry all the way up past the fort, out of which dozens of heavily armed men are pouring. They reach the northern wooden tower, but the stairway is barricaded. In panic, the younger man throws aside a few boards, wiggles through the opening, and runs up the stairs. Joshuah Obadiah can no longer follow him. His heart is on the verge of giving out. Panting, he crumples to the ground, grabbing his chest, dizzy with pain. There’s a scrape on his head so deep that he has to wipe the blood out of his eyes. Up here, from the edge of the ravine, he can survey the disaster unfolding in his peaceful mountain village. Near the synagogue he hears shouting and screaming; some men have crowded onto the stairs and are using a large beam of wood to ram the doors. Flames rise high in the darkness, sending up thick clouds of sparks into the black night sky.