do more for them. I would have given anything to take just one boy or girl away from here and give them a warm, loving home. But then I’d have to leave the rest behind, and I couldn’t do that either.
So I told the children I was taking them someplace special where they would be safer until things returned to normal. Then I herded them together like a flock of lambs and set off down the Narrow Lane toward the South Gate, holding the kleperl aloft like a shepherd’s crook and fending off the flood of refugees streaming in the opposite direction. I always seemed to be swimming against the tide in this place.
The runoff from yesterday’s rains had inundated the area, and the lower end of the street was a sea of mud. The small door to the gate was partway open, and a handful of defenders gathered around Rabbi Loew like the last remaining pieces in a chess game protecting their king as he stood with his foot on the threshold calling Sister Marushka’s name and demanding to know the charges against himself and his fellow rabbis.
The sergeant of the guard replied that all of the men on his list were wanted for illegal possession of the proscribed and heretical books of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides.
“Books you can’t even read,” Acosta said, and he spat in the mud.
Rabbi Loew lamented the shortsightedness of his accusers. Hadn’t they learned that wherever they burn the books of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, eventually they will burn the Talmud and even the Bible itself? Even the freedom-loving Parisians had been goaded into burning twenty-four cartloads of Talmudic writings in a single day.
Acosta saw me approaching with a swarm of children in tow.
“I ask for butchers and you bring me orphans,” he said, with his palms turned up like a merchant appraising a shipment of bruised cabbages.
“But at least you brought something,” he added, nodding toward the kleperl. “I brought these—”
He opened his cloak and showed me a pair of well-worn cutlasses tucked into his belt.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to carry swords,” I said, pointing to one of his weapons.
“That’s not a sword, it’s an exceptionally large dagger.”
A bystander with the closely cropped hair and beard of one of Rabbi Aaron’s disciples saw this display and reprimanded Acosta: “On Shabbes, a man should not go out with a sword, a bow, a shield, a lance, or a spear.”
“Only if they’re being used as tools or implements,” I said. “It’s acceptable if they’re ornaments.”
“So they’re ornaments, all right?” Acosta told the bystander, who frowned and turned away in disgust.
“Do me a favor,” Acosta said.
“Anything.”
“When I die, don’t bury me anywhere near that schmuck.”
“Sure, if that’s what you really want.”
“Swear it.”
“All right, I swear.”
“Good. You know, I’ve been working in Rabbi Loew’s house for a couple of years now, and I’ve never had a moment to study with him. Maybe I’ll get to study with him in the World-to-Come.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. The Zohar says that if we are to be destroyed, it will never be on Shabbes.”
But time was passing, and our shadows were growing longer by the minute. Shabbes would be ending within the hour.
Rabbi Loew appealed to the populace to show some compassion and let the orphans through, but the Judenschläger weren’t having any of it, buzzing and jeering at his concern for the sad-faced children of exile.
Acosta’s lips tightened and his face grew white, as he kept his fury just below the surface like an old world thunder god, waiting for the moment to strike. All he said was, “I once saw a crowd of Castilians torture a full-grown ox just for fun. They do things like that. That’s their idea of entertainment.”
He took several deep breaths while the sergeant of the guard tried to persuade the crowd to allow the orphans to leave the ghetto unharmed. Where on earth was Sister Marushka?
“Enough of this,” Acosta said to me. “There is a time to lay down the glove and take up the sword.”
“Only trouble is they have a lot more swords than we do.”
“Better a noble death than a wretched life.”
“That’s a mighty fine sentiment, but are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“One hundred percent ready. How about you?”
“One can never be one hundred percent ready for anything like this. It’s not possible.”