consisted of so many faiths and races--Arabs, Lombards, Greeks, Normans, and, as in Mordecai's case, Jews--that an offer of refreshment could be an offense against some religious dietary law or another.
His lordship nodded; he felt better. The cushion was a comfort to his backside, the breeze from the sea cooled him, and the wine was good. He shouldn't be offended by an old man's directness; in fact, when his business was over, he would indeed bring up the subject of his piles; Gordinus had cured them last time. This was, after all, the town of healing, and if anyone could be described as the doyen of its great medical school, it was Gordinus the African.
He watched the old man forget that he had a guest and return to the manuscript he'd been reading, the drooping, brown skin of his arm stretching as his hand dipped a quill in ink to make an alteration. What was he? Tunisian? Moor?
On arrival at the villa, Mordecai had asked the majordomo if he should remove his shoes before entering, adding, "I have forgotten what your master's religion is."
"So has he, my lord."
Only in Salerno, Mordecai thought now, do men forget their manners and their god in the greater worship of the sick.
He wasn't sure he approved; very wonderful, no doubt, but eternal laws were broken, dead bodies dissected, women relieved of threatening fetuses, females allowed to practice, the flesh invaded by surgery.
They came in the hundreds: people who'd heard the name of Salerno and yet journeyed to it, sometimes on their own account, sometimes carrying their sick, blundering across deserts, steppes, marshes, and mountains, to be healed.
Looking down on a maze of roofs, spires, and cupolas, sipping his wine, Mordecai marveled, not for the first time, that this town of all towns--and not Rome, not Paris, not Constantinople, not Jerusalem--had developed a school of medicine that made it the world's doctor.
Just then the clang of the monastery bells sounding for nones clashed with the call to prayer from the muezzin of mosques and fought with the voice of synagogue cantors, all of them rising up the hill to assault the ears of the man on the balcony in an untidy blast of major and minor keys.
That was it, of course. The mix. The hard, greedy Norman adventurers who'd made a kingdom out of Sicily and southern Italy had been pragmatists, but far-seeing pragmatists. If a man suited their purpose, they didn't care which god he worshipped. If they were to establish peace--and therefore prosperity--there must be integration of the several peoples they'd conquered. There would be no second-class Sicilians. Arab, Greek, Latin, and French were to be the official languages. Advancement for any man of any faith, as long as he was able.
Nor should I complain, he thought. After all, he, a Jew, worked with Greek Orthodox Christians along with popish Catholics for a Norman king. The galley he'd disembarked from was part of the Sicilian royal navy in the charge of an Arab admiral.
In the streets below, the jellabah brushed against knightly mail, the kaftan against monkish habit, their owners not only not spitting at one another but exchanging greetings and news--and, above all, ideas.
"Here it is, my lord," Gaius said.
Gordinus took the letter. "Ah yes, of course. Now I remember. 'Simon Menahem of Naples to set sail on a special mission...' Nymm, nymmm. '...the Jews of England being in a predicament of some danger...native children are put to torture and death...' Oh, dear. '...and blame falling on the Jews...' Oh dear, dear. 'You are commanded to discover and send with the aforementioned Simon a per son versed in the causes of death, who speaks both English and Hebrew yet gossips in neither. '"
He smiled up at his secretary. "And I did, didn't I?"
Gaius shifted. "There was some question at the time, my lord...."
"Of course I did, I remember perfectly. And not just an expert in the morbid processes but a speaker of Latin, French, Greek, as well as the languages
His lordship nodded; he felt better. The cushion was a comfort to his backside, the breeze from the sea cooled him, and the wine was good. He shouldn't be offended by an old man's directness; in fact, when his business was over, he would indeed bring up the subject of his piles; Gordinus had cured them last time. This was, after all, the town of healing, and if anyone could be described as the doyen of its great medical school, it was Gordinus the African.
He watched the old man forget that he had a guest and return to the manuscript he'd been reading, the drooping, brown skin of his arm stretching as his hand dipped a quill in ink to make an alteration. What was he? Tunisian? Moor?
On arrival at the villa, Mordecai had asked the majordomo if he should remove his shoes before entering, adding, "I have forgotten what your master's religion is."
"So has he, my lord."
Only in Salerno, Mordecai thought now, do men forget their manners and their god in the greater worship of the sick.
He wasn't sure he approved; very wonderful, no doubt, but eternal laws were broken, dead bodies dissected, women relieved of threatening fetuses, females allowed to practice, the flesh invaded by surgery.
They came in the hundreds: people who'd heard the name of Salerno and yet journeyed to it, sometimes on their own account, sometimes carrying their sick, blundering across deserts, steppes, marshes, and mountains, to be healed.
Looking down on a maze of roofs, spires, and cupolas, sipping his wine, Mordecai marveled, not for the first time, that this town of all towns--and not Rome, not Paris, not Constantinople, not Jerusalem--had developed a school of medicine that made it the world's doctor.
Just then the clang of the monastery bells sounding for nones clashed with the call to prayer from the muezzin of mosques and fought with the voice of synagogue cantors, all of them rising up the hill to assault the ears of the man on the balcony in an untidy blast of major and minor keys.
That was it, of course. The mix. The hard, greedy Norman adventurers who'd made a kingdom out of Sicily and southern Italy had been pragmatists, but far-seeing pragmatists. If a man suited their purpose, they didn't care which god he worshipped. If they were to establish peace--and therefore prosperity--there must be integration of the several peoples they'd conquered. There would be no second-class Sicilians. Arab, Greek, Latin, and French were to be the official languages. Advancement for any man of any faith, as long as he was able.
Nor should I complain, he thought. After all, he, a Jew, worked with Greek Orthodox Christians along with popish Catholics for a Norman king. The galley he'd disembarked from was part of the Sicilian royal navy in the charge of an Arab admiral.
In the streets below, the jellabah brushed against knightly mail, the kaftan against monkish habit, their owners not only not spitting at one another but exchanging greetings and news--and, above all, ideas.
"Here it is, my lord," Gaius said.
Gordinus took the letter. "Ah yes, of course. Now I remember. 'Simon Menahem of Naples to set sail on a special mission...' Nymm, nymmm. '...the Jews of England being in a predicament of some danger...native children are put to torture and death...' Oh, dear. '...and blame falling on the Jews...' Oh dear, dear. 'You are commanded to discover and send with the aforementioned Simon a per son versed in the causes of death, who speaks both English and Hebrew yet gossips in neither. '"
He smiled up at his secretary. "And I did, didn't I?"
Gaius shifted. "There was some question at the time, my lord...."
"Of course I did, I remember perfectly. And not just an expert in the morbid processes but a speaker of Latin, French, Greek, as well as the languages
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