Departures

Avram sat silent so long on his stool that Dieter wondered if he had somehow offended him. At last the old Jew said slowly, “One thing you should remember always-you are not the only one ever hunted down Cologne’s streets.”

Dieter thought about that. He never really had before. Jews falling victim to mobs were just part of life in the city to him, like chamber pots being hurled into the street from second-floor windows or famine one year in four. The Jews, though, he realized, might not see it like that.

Indeed, Avram was going on, as much to himself as to Dieter, “No, lad, and not all wolves run on four legs, either. You ask me, the ones with two are worse. Keep clear of them, and you’ll do all right.” He opened the door.

Yesterday, Dieter thought as he stepped into the cool damp air of early morning, he would have had no idea what the old Jew was talking about. Now he knew. With a last nod to Avram, he started down the street. He would have to find some work to do if he expected to eat lunch.

CLASH OF ARMS

Medieval heralds were endlessly ingenious. This story springs from their habit of granting arms to all sorts of individuals. Every example of heraldry cited herein is genuine. Hmm. If heraldry really is a science, does that make “Clash of Arms” science fiction?

The tournament held every other year at the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia always produced splendid jousting, luring as it did great knights from all over Europe. Indeed, one tourney year the lure proved too much even for Magister Stephen de Windesore, who left his comfortable home outside London to travel to the wilds of Germany.

You must understand at once that Magister Stephen did not arrive at the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh to break a lance himself. Far from it. He was fat and well past fifty. While that was also true of several of the knights there, no more need be said than that Magister Stephen habitually rode a mule.

His sharpest weapon was his tongue, and at the castle of Thunder-ten-tronckh or, to be more accurate, in a tavern just outside the castle he was having trouble with that. The Westphalians used a dialect even more barbarous than his own English, and his French, I fear, was more of the variety learned at Stratford-atte-Bowe than around Paris. On the other hand, he spoke very loudly.

“Me? I don’t care a fig for cart horses and arrogant swaggerers in plate,” he declared to anyone who would listen. To emphasize the point, he gestured with a mug of beer. Some slopped over the edge and splashed the table. He did not miss it; it was thin, bitter stuff next to the smooth English ale he liked.

“You don’t like jousts, why did you come?” asked an Italian merchant whose French that was hardly better than Magister Stephen’s. The Italian was chiefly interested in getting the best price for a load of pepper, cinnamon, and spikenard, but he had an amateur’s passion for deeds of dought.

Magister Stephen fixed him with a cold gray eye. “The arms, man, the arms!”

“Well, of course the arms! Arma virumque cano,” the merchant said, proving that he owned some smattering of a classical education. He made cut-and-thrust motions.

“Dear God, if You are truly all-wise, why did You make so many dullards?” Magister Stephen murmured, but in English. Returning to French, he explained, “Not weaponry. What I mean is coats of arms, heraldry, blazonry-d’ you understand me?”

The Italian smote his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Ai, the stupidity of me! Truly, I am seventeen different kinds of the hindquarters of a she-donkey! Heraldry your honor meant! And I myself an armigerous man!”

“You, sir?” Magister Stephen eyed his chance-met comrade with fresh interest. He certainly did not look as if he came from any knightly or noble line, being small, skinny, excitable, and dressed in mantle, tunic, and tights shabbier than Stephen’s own. Still, it could be. The Italians were freer with grants of arms to burgesses than were the northern countries.

“Indeed yes, sir,” the merchant replied, paying no attention to Magister Stephen’s scrutiny. “I am Niccolo dello Bosco-of the woods, you would say. When I am at home, you see, I am to be found in the forest outside Firenze. It is a truly lovely town, Firenze. Do you know it?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Magister Stephen said. He was thinking that it was not unfortunate at all. He had been to Milan once, to watch a tourney and came away with a low opinion of Italian manners and cookery. That, however, was neither here nor there. “And your arms, sir, if I may ask?”

“But of course. A proud shield, you will agree: Gules a fess or between three frogs proper.”