Stateless (42 page)

‘Of course I'm a true Christian. And while there have been many Satanic arses and warty pricks who've followed the blessed St Peter, this pope seems to be a good man, and he's probably quite correct. I'll certainly roast in the eternal fires of hell for the life I've led because of my whoring and hunting. Apart from those sins, I've lived a good life. I invite Bishop Fulk here every Easter and Christmas to enjoy my table. And I've even extended my beneficence to you, a Jew.'

‘True,' said Nimrod, ‘but look at the benefits that my presence has brought you. Scholars from across France and Italy and Germany come here to debate and discuss matters of the greatest import. Would they have come to the castle of Duke Henri Guillaume, even if he has the best wine in the world, without me being here? Think what my presence has brought to you, my lord.
Gloria in Excelcis.
'

Duke Henri laughed. ‘You know, there are times, Jew, when I truly believe that you should be burned at the stake. Yes, I think I'll have you roasted tomorrow, along with the pig I slaughter.' And the duke laughed again.

It wasn't the first time Henri Guillaume had made such statements and Nimrod felt the licence to counter. ‘Roast me if that is your wish, but not with a pig, I beg you. Think of the tenets of my faith!'

‘But if I burn you, you'll be a light unto other nations,' the duke laughed. He enjoyed making biblical jokes.

‘And when I'm fully burned, my lord, my flame will wither and you'll be cast into the same darkness which surrounded you before I arrived.'

Henri laughed. ‘Enough of this banter, Nimrod. I'm off to the hunt. Walk with me to the bailey and help me mount my horse. And while we're walking, you can explain some things to me. Your people come from Jerusalem; tell me about them. If I am to take the city from Muslims and Jews then I should know something of them, should I not?'

‘Indeed,' answered Nimrod.

‘And perhaps you can explain why you Jews don't hunt or ride horses or take part in tournaments. Why do you just study scrolls and manuscripts and books all day long? Why don't you ever seem to enjoy yourselves? You're a miserable lot. You know that?'

It was in these such moments that the duke revealed traces of an intellectual curiosity that defied his gruff demeanour.
As they walked out of the baronial dining hall towards the castle courtyard, Nimrod took some relief that the decision to go on the Crusade would see him and Jacob left behind to manage the estates. It would be a sign of trust and Nimrod found himself silently pleased at the prospect of that opportunity.

Nimrod spoke, even as he quickened his pace to keep up with the long strides of the duke. ‘My family is reputed to have come from Jerusalem, in the ancient times of King David. It is said that my ancestry can be traced back to the time of King Solomon the Wise. My name in Hebrew is Nimrod, son of Isaac the Cohen. The significance of the term “Cohen” means that the ancestors of my family were originally derived from the family of Zadok the Priest, who himself was descended from Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the brother of Moses. If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt my ancestry, then my forebears would have been priests in the holy temple built in Jerusalem by King Solomon of blessed memory. And that would have been two thousand years ago.'

Nimrod absently touched the medallion under his shirt again. It was an ancient piece of metal that had come down to him from his father, and his father's father before him. It was said to have been cast by the stonemason of King Solomon. But how much of that was myth and how much truth it was impossible to say. Yet the words on the seal around Nimrod's neck spoke volumes. An ancient Israelite named Matanyahu had cast a seal, which had later been copied. God only knew where Matanyahu's original seal was today.

Duke Henri looked at the Jew with scepticism. ‘Two thousand years? You can trace your lineage back two thousand years? God's blood, I can't even trace my family back beyond my great-grandfather; wine-makers who planted vines! But as far as I know, they could have been peasants in the fields. Certainly, the bishop thinks that I'm a peasant, the way he treats me.'

‘I've studied your family line, and I can assure you that what you think of your forebears is not so, my lord. When Hugh Capet was crowned as the King of France a century ago in the cathedral at Reims, your ancestors were already famous as vignerons and wealthy property owners. Soon after the Capet monarch visited, your family was ennobled. In this blessed region they had been known for centuries by their trade as Champenois. And though the line is indistinct, I have traced some of your family back to the time of the Romans, for it was they who planted these vineyards. So you have a long and proud ancestry.'

And turning his head away from his employer, Nimrod whispered to himself, ‘Nearly half as old as mine.'

‘I heard that!' bellowed Duke Henri. Nimrod smiled to himself but his mirth was quickly snatched away as the thin and wiry shadow of Chevalier Michel Roux fell between him and the duke.

Roux's hair was copper-red framing a ruddy complexion, pock-marked and deeply etched in lines. He was a bitter man and his diminutive stature did nothing to dilute the cold menace in his eyes. Michel Roux was Chevalier Commander of the Field to the duke and, in the coming Crusade, would no doubt lead Henri Guillaume's troops.

Roux looked Nimrod the Jew up and down as if appraising cattle for slaughter. Nimrod quickly looked down at his feet.

‘Be away, Jew; the duke's hunt is to begin and only men are required,' sneered Roux.

Hearing the joke, the duke let out a small laugh. ‘Back to your books, Nimrod,' he said. ‘And consult with Jacob. I shall need his full account of my assets before we set off on this Crusade.'

Jerusalem

1947

S
halman was alone.

Judit was away with his child, travelling to Russia to visit family, and Shalman had accepted the lie, with resignation. Alone, he wondered what other lies she'd told him; or what truth had ever passed between them. Suddenly, she had the money to travel by aeroplane back to Moscow! Did she seriously expect him to believe that? Why hadn't she just told him the truth? He'd accept anything, provided it was the truth.

He had a loaf of bread tucked under his arm as he walked towards his home. Where once he would have had his eyes perpetually raised to the golden dome of Islam, the crosses of the Holy Sepulchre and the Magen Davids of the synagogues that watched over the city and the souls of its inhabitants, now his gaze was downcast. Shalman stared at his feet and heard little of the buzz of the city around him. He'd willingly agreed to her going to Moscow because he hoped it would save their marriage; but after she had left, her lies grew and grew in his mind.

He had not been back to the dig site, had not seen Mustafa, since the disastrous village meeting. Without Judit, without
Vered, he was adrift, and so Shalman walked the streets of Jerusalem feeling utterly alone.

His life had shaped his senses. Growing up under the dominating, suspicious and armed glare of the British, he was ever alert to being watched. Years more of training under the tutelage of Dov and his indoctrination into Lehi had sharpened his awareness of people and events around him. And yet today Shalman walked with none of that muscular memory, the alertness of the freedom fighter. He was alone and his senses were all trained inwards. He did not see the man who was following him.

A thick-set man in dirty overalls paced some five metres behind Shalman and maintained that distance precisely. His eyes occasionally shifted from side to side but his focus never strayed from the target in front of him.

At a further distance away a dark car, a British Austin 14, so dirty its black paint looked grey, trundled along the rough and pothole riddled street. In the front seat sat the Irgun commander Immanuel Berin and beside him Ashira.

‘That's him,' said Ashira in a nervous voice. Berin didn't reply but brought the car to a slow stop. Berin didn't normally come into contact with lower-level operatives, but in this case, because it could involve Judit, one of the stars of Lehi, he'd decided to handle it himself.

‘We'll take it from here, Ashira. You be on your way home.'

‘You're not going to hurt him, are you?' Her voice was hard.

‘No. Of course not. We need to ask him some questions. We need the truth. And you have done well, my dear. You have done the right thing.'

Ashira quickly stepped out of the car. Berin slid the car away from the kerb again and quickly caught sight of his operative up ahead, still a precise five metres behind the unsuspecting Shalman. Berin waited for the cue.

The man in the overalls, who went by the name of Raffe, quickened his pace and slowly drew his left hand from his deep pockets. He held no weapon but he would need his hands free. The gap closed to three metres and Raffe turned his head to the right to catch the dusty Austin 14 in his peripheral vision. He then drew his right hand out of his pocket and with it a small red kerchief, which he then stuffed, half protruding, into his back pocket.

Berin saw the movement and knew the signal. The car had been little more than idly rolling but now he picked up the pace. Berin knew that Shalman was no ordinary citizen; he had been trained well and raised to fight, so he was not to be underestimated.

In ordinary circumstances Berin would simply have summoned Shalman – sent a message to meet and fully expect that he would come. But with what Ashira had told him about Shalman's wife and from what he had learned himself of Shalman's strange dealings with the Arabs, Berin did not believe his actions would be as easily predictable.

Whose side was this man on? Where did his loyalties lie? There were too many variables, too many unknowns, not least of all the motives of his wife and the apparent murder of a Jewish professor. For all Berin knew at that point, Shalman was just as likely to disappear as cooperate, and he was taking no chances.

Raffe looked over his shoulder once more and then with a small movement of his hand flicked the kerchief from his pocket and transferred it to his trousers. This was the signal. Raffe took two quickened paces to pull up behind and to the left side of Shalman. Berin accelerated past, then reached over and flung open the door to the car while Raffe seized Shalman's arm in his tight grip and, with his shoulder, pushed Shalman bodily into the car through the open door and into the front seat.

So smooth and fluid were the actions that, before Shalman even knew what had happened, the car door slammed shut and the car had accelerated sharply forward. Raffe in the back seat behind him snapped a hessian bag over Shalman's head and thrust the barrel of a pistol at the base of his skull.

‘Don't move and don't make a sound and you'll be just fine . . .'

When the bag was snatched from Shalman's head he thought for a moment he was staring at the sun. The room was small and dark but a bright lamp on the table at which he sat burned into his eyes.

The violence in the air of Palestine, the killings and explosions, maiming and torture, kidnapping and murders, made all its citizens cautious. Who had pulled him off the street struck fear into Shalman's heart. In the landscape of Palestine today, his kidnappers could have easily been Jewish or Arab or British.

As his eyes adjusted he found himself looking across the simple wooden table at Immanuel Berin. He quickly turned to see who else was in the room and any clues as to what or where the room was. There was only one door; it was behind him and in front of it stood a thick-set man in dirty overalls.

All the obvious questions filled Shalman's mouth: where am I? What do you want? But his tongue felt like rubber and he said nothing.

‘Don't be afraid, Shalman. You'll have to forgive the means by which I brought you here. These are dangerous times and I am an overly cautious man. You know who I am?'

‘Yes. Of course,' said Shalman. And then, finding a steadier voice: ‘I want no part anymore. I've left Lehi. My fight is over.'

‘Is it?'

After the airport explosion Shalman had told Dov that he wanted no more and since then he'd had no contact with any of the Jewish resistance groups. But deep down Shalman knew it was never going to be that easy or simple.

‘I have questions for you,' said Berin.

Shalman found his strength in a rising anger. ‘It was the bombing I did at the airfield. I'm not coming back. I have a daughter. You could have called upon me, sent me a message. You didn't have to snatch me off the street! I would have come.'

Berin pondered this for a moment. ‘This has nothing to do with you or your past, my friend. Maybe you would have come. Maybe not. But you say you're no longer one of us. So I have no guarantees, do I? A man in my position needs to be sure of things or else mistakes are made. And right now I am not sure of you, Shalman. You have left the fight, you consort with Arabs and your wife . . .'