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Day Two
Thomas
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Thomas lifted one heavy boot and kicked in the door in front of him. Jehan, one of his Templar brothers, was beside him, and they were taking turns as they went down the street clearing the houses. Since these houses were to be sold to new owners, the proceeds going to the crown, Thomas saw no reason not to make the king pay for a new door first.
Besides, it gave credence to the fact that this was a raid rather than a hastily organized evacuation.
Thomas had never kicked down a door before, but after the last few houses, he thought he was getting the hang of it. Basically, for a locked door, it behooved one to aim for a place just below the latch. Sometimes the whole frame fell in, which was particularly fun, and that was the case this time, with his eighteenth door.
The Jewish weekly holy day began on Friday night at sunset, which had been roughly eight o’clock. More than an hour later, the last of the wagons laden with the few goods King Philippe was allowing them were trundling towards the Paris Temple. Five hundred people really wasn’t too great a number, not when they were spread about a whole quarter. Notre Dame Cathedral could hold that many, and it didn’t take an hour for it to empty after mass either.
Some Jews lived in other areas of the city, but since David had talked to the rabbis, they’d all come to these few streets. At first many, if not most, had refused to believe what was happening, but the weight of the rabbi conclave had persuaded the vast majority. A handful may have chosen to be left behind, but they weren’t on this street.
By now, it was mostly a matter of cleaning up, and the last five houses they’d entered had been empty. A few families had been asked to delay their departure, again to make the raid appear genuine. This was one of them, the substantial home of three generations of rabbis, one of them Jacob, the liaison (who wasn’t here since he was busy at the Paris Temple), his father, and his grandfather, Isaac.
Thomas and Jehan entered the house, finding the family of eight calmly looking back at them from the center of the main room on the ground floor. Unlike Thomas, they didn’t seem to be questioning authority. Their rabbis had told them it was time to leave, to gather what belongings they could, and to come with the Templars who’d broken down their door. And so they had done.
“Are any of you good at screaming?” Thomas asked, once he’d introduced Jehan and himself to the family.
The father looked askance, but one of his daughters, who appeared to be about sixteen, nodded. “I can.”
At Thomas’s gesture, she opened her mouth and let loose the most blood-curdling sound Thomas had ever heard, and he’d been in battle.
Her brother, younger than her by a few years, laughed, and Thomas put a finger to his lips. “Don’t ruin the effect!”
Then the family followed them outside, Jehan in the lead and Thomas bringing up the rear, smashing a chair on his way out the door for good measure.
Outside, Templar sergeants were herding the last stragglers in the general direction of the Paris Temple. The moon would have been full if they could see it, but it was covered by thick clouds, and the only light in the whole district came from the torches the sergeants carried.
A wind had come up since he’d been inside the house, and Thomas felt the first drops of rain on his head. He stopped beside Jehan to watch the family join the moving group. Then, all of a sudden, a door across the street opened and a family ran out one at a time. The mother, clearly in a panic, screamed as she clutched a baby to her chest. “Fire!”
The entire population remaining on the street moved at once. The sergeants began hurrying everyone along at a run instead of a walk, and those who couldn’t run were urged into the back of one of the covered wagons. Only four knights, including Thomas and Jehan, had still been occupied knocking down doors, and all of them converged on the house.
Another brother met them in the doorway. The house itself was so narrow Thomas thought he might be able to stand in the center of a room and touch both walls. “Upstairs. A lantern fell over. Etienne is trying to put it out.”
Thomas took the stairs two at a time, even though they were a bit rickety and he worried as he hit each step that his foot would go through the wood or the staircase would fall off the wall. Arriving at the top, he found himself in a loft. At the far end, Etienne was frantically casting around for something to smother the already well-established fire.
Unfortunately, the family had stripped the beds in preparation for their departure because no blankets lay to hand. Etienne had already removed his own wool cloak and thrown it over the flames.
“This isn’t working!” Even as Etienne spoke, flames shot up the wall to the ceiling, which caught fire too. Most Parisian houses, especially cheaply made ones such as this, were built from wood and plaster with tile roofs. The tile might not burn, but everything holding up the roof certainly would.
“There’s no more time!” Thomas grabbed Etienne’s arm. “We need to leave! It isn’t safe!”
Etienne allowed himself to be dragged back down the stairway and out the door. By the time they reached the street, the house’s entire upper story was engulfed in flames, threatening the neighbors on both sides and behind them. While many of the citizens of this street were gone, a few remained, gazing up at what once had been their neighbors’ home.
“Let it burn,” one of them said.
“I’ve lived in the city my whole life,” another said. “Let all of Paris burn for all I care.”
“It’s fitting for it to end this way, don’t you think?” said a third.
Thomas couldn’t blame them for feeling that way. They were being evicted from a city and homes they loved. Anyone would have been angry. Regardless, none made any move to deal with the fire.
But then the heavens opened, and the rain that had fallen on and off for the last two days began to fall again. The water couldn’t put out an oil fire, but wet wood didn’t burn well, and if it rained long enough, the fire would go out.
Jehan tugged on Thomas’s arm. “Leave it. We have a job to do, and this isn’t it.”
As if by signal, the rain began to pound down harder. Thomas had come prepared for battle, not a storm, and in a dozen heartbeats he was soaked. Etienne, who wore no sheltering cloak, since he’d used it to try to put out the fire, set off at a trot after the last wagon, which was even now disappearing around the corner.
Thomas backed away too. The street was empty, as was the one next to it and all the rest in the Jewish quarter.
They’d really done it.
Jehan at his side, Thomas hurried back to the Paris Temple, crossing the threshold as part of the last group to return. The big gates closed behind him with a thud. The far gate into the countryside was open, and people were already leaving by it for the next stage of the journey, which was a four-mile walk to the River Seine near St. Denis.
“That’s it?” Livia had been moving amongst the people in the crowded courtyard, checking names off a list, but now she clasped her list to her chest and stood with him under the roof of the gatehouse.
“As far as I know.” He grimaced. “If the truth comes out, history will revile us for serving David instead of Philippe.”
“No. You have it all wrong.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “You should be very proud. You must know it.”
“Must I?”
“Look into your heart. Is what we’re doing here right?”
He pressed his lips together without answering. These Avalonians had such a different way of thinking, it was hard sometimes to keep up.
Templars weren’t taught to think for themselves, though, of course, that he still did was why he’d questioned Christopher. Many years ago, it had been Thomas who’d freed David and Ieuan from Carlisle Castle after they’d been captured by his uncle, and he’d set the stables on fire in the process. In his child’s mind, their incarceration had been unjust. In all the years since, he’d never regretted saving them nor lost that part of himself that couldn’t blindly follow orders. He had to understand.
“While evil can prevail for a time, sometimes for a long time,” Livia continued, her eyes on his face, “that doesn’t mean good people should sit back and wait just because the odds of change are long. People need to stand up for what is right and act on it—as you have just done. As a great man once said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Thomas nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure he understood. He still had a job to do, however, and he began to move among the refugees. He had never spent any time with Jews before, and he found their manner off-putting. Then he came upon a little boy, who was looking around for his family and crying. He scooped him up and carried him along the line of people until he found his mother, who already had a child by each hand and was urging her aged father forward.
The woman’s husband held out his arms for the boy, at which point Thomas realized they were the family from the house that had burned. The father’s face was wet with rain, and his back bent by a pack, but his expression was resolute. “Thank you for bringing him to us. We—” he gestured to his wife, “—have no way to thank you properly for all you’ve done, but we will give you what we have.” He made an expansive gesture to include not only himself but everyone around him. “We all will.”
“We don’t want your money.”
“You ... you don’t?”
“No.” Thomas managed a laugh. He might not be sure of a great many things tonight, but he was sure of this. “Go with your family to England. Make a new life for yourself. That’s all we ask.”
