Belaset's Daughter - By Feona J Hamilton Page 0,80

in the face of danger: to react so naively, and so like every other newly-wed!

Gregory’s sly teasing had the effect he had hoped for on all of them. There was a burst of laughter, and the tension which had been so palpable in the room, eased suddenly.

After all, it was true they were all safe, and, even better, all in one place. There was no need to fret about each other’s safety, or even, for the moment, worry about the future.

Gregory was right, and they should concentrate on relaxing and putting the dangers of the last few hours behind them.

* * *

BOSON BOOKS

-145-

Belaset’s Daughter

Gregory, riding back towards Milk Street, could see the black pall of smoke hanging over the Jewry. He entered the City through Ludgate, but with more ease than the others had left by the same route. He dreaded what he might see as he made his way back to his house, situated as it was, so close to the Jewry.

It was not long before his worst fears were confirmed. Turning a corner, with Hubert walking at his horse’s head, he saw the first of many bodies he was to see during that sad journey. It was a man, sprawled mercifully face down in the street. Although they were thus saved the sight of his face, what they could see was terrible enough. His back was a mass of bloody weals, and his clothes were in tatters. It looked as if he had been stripped and beaten to death by the mob. One leg, obviously broken, lay at an odd angle. The back of his head was stoved in, and, a few feet away, lay the yellow bonnet which he had been wearing, now muddy and soiled and obviously trampled on.

Beside him, Hubert had clutched the horse’s bridle so convulsively, that the beast’s head was pulled downward. It snorted, and tossed his head, then stepped sideways nervously, upset by the smell of blood, and by the smell of fear coming from the two people with it.

Gentling the horse, then urging it on, Gregory continued down the street. The number of bodies to be seen increased. Glancing up a narrow entrance, Gregory looked away again hurriedly, feeling the bile rise in his throat. There were bodies piled grotesquely in a heap, as though sheer numbers had jammed them together. But they had been massacred, and then someone had set light to them. Wisps of smoke still rose from them, and blackened faces looked back at him.

As well as the terrible sights which met his eyes, a dreadful smell was assailing his nostrils. Hubert, pale and silent, stumbled along beside him. The horse, growing more restless with every step, was becoming difficult to control. Gregory stopped and dismounted, and took the bridle on the other side from his servant. Together, they walked forward, Gregory with his hand across the horse’s nose, in an effort to calm it down. It came with them reluctantly.

The stench grew almost unbearable, as they reached the beginning of Milk Street. The Jewry was just on the other side of West Cheap or, rather, what was left of it. As Benjamin had said, the stone walls and floors remained, but smoke billowed everywhere.

Gregory’s eyes were smarting, and tears ran down his face from the effects of the acrid smoke wafting across their path. Now and then, there was a gap in the smoke, through which he could see into the Jewry itself. Bodies, looking like heaps of cast- off clothes, lay everywhere. Strewn among them lay animal’s bodies and parts of bodies. Pig’s heads had been thrown in the street, and even dogs lay among the pitiful remains. On the doorpost of the house nearest to him, which had somehow escaped the flames, Gregory could see a cross daubed, no doubt, in pig’s blood. Furniture, flung into the street in fury, as the mob rampaged through the houses, was still burning. Sudden licks of flame darted out of windows and doorways. There was no sound other than the occasional hiss and pop, followed by the noise of something falling. No sign of living humanity existed: the Jewry had become a massive funeral pyre.

BOSON BOOKS

-146-

Belaset’s Daughter

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Alone at last, and surrounded by his books, Gregory could allow himself to think what he should do next. The massacre, and its aftermath, through which he had ridden only a few hours earlier, had shocked him into a daze of horror. Other riots and attacks on the Jews which he