Burning Twilight (5 page)

In that case, I had to wonder why the nobleman’s wounds were the most severe.

“N
u
, did you notice anything peculiar?” Rabbi Loew asked as we marched up the road toward Lord Strekov’s manor house.

“The attacks are becoming more violent,” I said.

“Which means?”

“Either the Evil Impulse is growing stronger within the killer’s heart, or else the first two victims were taken by surprise, while the nobleman had a moment to prepare, and, unique among the victims, was ready to fight back.”

Rabbi Loew agreed with my theory. “It all started with the bloody Hosts. They were a sign of some kind.”

“Not necessarily,” said Kassy. “For I have heard that the flour used in making the Eucharist may, under certain conditions, develop a type of mold that appears rusty red in color. That’s why I asked to see the wafers.”

“Ah. I didn’t know that,” said Rabbi Loew, raising an eyebrow at Kassy’s display of wisdom. “This is why the Talmud instructs us that ‘a woman recognizes the worth of a guest quicker than a man.’ ”

Kassy dipped her head and smiled like a self-conscious schoolgirl in acknowledgment of the compliment.

We had almost caught up to the funeral cortege. The full moon was rising over the misty fields, bringing out the villagers’ fears of spirits, demons, and the undead coming to suck their blood.

“It will soon be time for the
mayrev
prayers,” I whispered.

Rabbi Loew stroked his beard as he considered this.

“What would the great ReMo do?”

He was referring to my old teacher, Rabbi Moyshe Isserles of Kraków, who once delayed the
mayrev
services for nearly two hours so he could resolve a difficult case that allowed a poor orphaned girl to get married.

“He would probably put off the Shabbes prayers until our fair companion can be cleared of this unjust accusation.”

“Precisely, Rabbi Benyamin.”

They say that the material universe God created only lasts for six days at a time, and that Shabbes is needed to renew it another six days. But in this instance I figured that the universe would just have to wait a little bit longer.

E
ver since our masters were princes in Palestine, it has been our custom that the shrouds of the rich must be no different from the shrouds of the poor. But the Strekov family had no such customs. They had planted so many oversized monuments to their glorious dead in the mossy soil around their ancestral home that, with a little help from the fog, the place looked like a haunted castle, right down to the tarnished coat of arms over the gate with the double-headed eagle on a field of red and white, and a couple of ancient gravestones bearing the German form of the family name: Schreckenstein.

The great hall was drafty and cold, and the iron cressets filled with burning oil made the shadows dance like demented warlocks around an unholy fire. The bloody shroud the villagers had thrown over Sir Tadeusz’s naked wounds swayed in the breeze, as if the corpse were still stirring.

The men who had carried him to this resting place stood silently with their caps in their hands and their eyes wandering around the hall, marveling at the high-vaulted windows and the tapestries hanging on ropes of spun gold.

Lord Strekov was a broad-chested man with a weathered face framed by a thick mane of graying hair that was parted in the middle. His dark red velvet doublet was crisscrossed by two ribbons of brocade that formed a large black and silver X over his heart. He stood before us with his hands squarely on his hips and demanded to know who was guilty of this murder. A young noble who must have been his son, Sir Mateusz, stood by his side glaring at us, his eyes blazing with hatred.

Father Stefan explained that the woman being held under guard before him, Kassandra the Bohemian, was discovered standing over the body of Lord Strekov’s eldest son in the clearing shortly after having failed the trial by water, her body having been summarily rejected by the blessed spirits of the river.

“But these strangers,” said the priest, referring to us, “are conducting what they call an ‘investigation’ to root out the guilty party and spare the young woman’s life.”

“Who granted them such authority?” said Lord Strekov, his voice echoing around the pillars of his stately hall.

“My lord,” said Rabbi Loew, bowing deeply. “Since we were exiled from the Land of Israel, the Divine Presence accompanies us wherever we go.”

“Divine Presence, hell. When I find out who did this, I’ll grind them up like a bunch of Cossack dogs. I’ll even pay for the privilege.”

He dug a coin out of his purse and tossed it at me. I caught it in midair and saved myself the indignity of having to scrounge around on the floor for it, even though handling money is forbidden on Shabbes. Lord Strekov was impressed with my reflexes, and he smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.

The coin was a three groschen piece of little value, faced with a standing eagle whose tongue was sticking out so far it looked like it was being strangled.

“Well, since we’re now working for you,” I said, dropping the coin into my purse, “my first bit of advice would be that you’ll never completely crush the Cossacks, no matter how many horsemen you have at your command.”

“Don’t talk to me about conquering your neighbor’s land, Jew. Because you’re not innocent either. I’ve heard about what the Hebrews did to the Canaanites, and the slaughtering of the Philistines in Gaza.”

“So you know about our violent past. I admit that it’s rather shameful. Still, that’s nothing compared to what the Ca—” I stopped myself from saying
Catholics
. “—what the Conquistadors did when they arrived in the Americas and killed a million natives in the West Indies, and many more in Mexico and Peru.”

Lord Strekov stared at me, as if he were considering my words.

Finally, he said, “America? What is this America of which you speak?”

Father Stefan told him that about a hundred years ago a group of Spanish sailors claimed to have found a new land on the other side of the ocean, but Lord Strekov dismissed the priest’s words as so much nonsense.

“I expect better work from the people in my service,” he said, laying his hand upon his sword.

That’s when Kassy spoke up, God bless her: “My lord, surely you have heard of the Great Rabbi Loew of Prague? This is he, standing before you, with his disciple Rabbi Benyamin, and if we do not always understand all of their pronouncements, that is because they sometimes speak in tongues as only the truly enlightened mystics can.”

“
The
Rabbi Loew?” asked Lord Strekov, his eyes ablaze. “The rabbi who brought a man of clay to life by reciting a verse from the seventh chapter of the second book of Genesis?”

There is no second book of Genesis, but we heartily agreed with our host.

“If anyone can solve this dreadful crime, surely you can,” he said. “Join us by the
pripetshik
! We will take one last meal with our beloved son.”

“But Father—” Sir Mateusz protested.

But Lord Strekov silenced him, as the men who had carried the nobleman’s body up the hill grinned at the prospect of a fine feast at their lord’s expense.

“We gladly accept Your Lordship’s gracious offer,” said Rabbi Loew. “But we need to wash our hands first.”

The peasants rolled their eyes and shook their heads at our peculiar Jewish ways, but Lord Strekov ordered his servants to fetch a basin of water so we could wash.

I absorbed their suspicious stares as the servants brought out the basin. And when I said the blessing and washed my hands, you’d have thought we were sacrificing a goat in Satan’s name, from the way they stared at the swirling water. I finished the ritual and held my hands up, letting the drops fall into the basin. The ripples cast strange shadows on the bottom of the basin, the dark rings colliding with one another and forming an ever-shifting pattern like a watery spiderweb, which only reminded me of our urgent need to discover a pattern connecting the three victims, besides the missing shoes.

So I wasn’t prepared when young Sir Mateusz came at us drawing his sword and cursing, kicking the basin out of the servants’ hands and spilling its contents across the floor. I reached automatically for my knife—not that it would have done me any good—but the hotheaded youth’s father called him to task, and advised him to settle down and treat their guests properly. Sir Mateusz returned his sword to its sheath, but his bright blue eyes beamed defiantly at me for several seconds.

“What did you think of that little display?” Rabbi Loew asked, propping his staff against the table’s edge as we took our places at low end of the banquet hall, well below the salt.

“I don’t think he likes me.”

“I mean, do you think he was truly possessed by the spirit of vengeance, or was he just trying to redirect the guilt toward us?”

“Who knows what normal behavior is around here?” said Kassy. “These nobles can get away with anything they want. There was this Hungarian countess who—”

Kassy lowered her voice as people took their seats nearby, and told me the horrifying details of one noblewoman’s quest for eternal youth, which led her to bathe once a month in the blood of a sixteen-year-old virgin from her domains.

I winced at the idea of bathing in fresh buckets of blood still warm from the body. Then a company of servants came trooping under the archway bearing enormous trays of roast lamb, and the meat was carved up and served on wooden boards whose trenches filled with bright red lamb’s blood. We held up our hands and politely refused to eat such an abomination. A couple of the lord’s servants sneered at us, but Lord Strekov clapped his hands and ordered his servants to bring us something else.

My old friend Kazimir took the seat next to me and set to work ripping the bloody meat from a shank bone, chewing with his mouth open. Then he broke open the bone so he could suck out the marrow with a series of loud, wet slurps.

There must have been a closet Jew in the kitchen, because soon the servants reappeared with three portions of trout smothered in garlic, onions, vinegar, and pepper.

“Have some
vishniak
,” said Kazimir, spilling some cherry brandy into my glass.

“Thanks,” I said. “Would you like to try some of my fish?”

“I don’t eat Jew food,” he said matter-of-factly, and slammed back a heavy slug of brandy.

“Right. Well, uh,
na zdrovye
,” I toasted him, and took a sip of brandy.

“What are we going to do?” Kassy whispered. “Time is running out.”

I let the drink slide down my throat and warm my
kishkes
.

“In the Gospel of Mark,” I said, “there is a moment when it was so crowded around your Lord Jesus that the people couldn’t get through the door to hear him preach. What did they do?”

Kassy stared blankly at the table.

“They went in through the roof,” said Father Stefan, looking at me with new eyes.

“Exactly. When the direct route isn’t working, you have to find another way around.”

“Well, we better find it fast,” Kassy said. “I mean, we need to build a convincing argument based on material evidence, and we’re dealing with a man who’s never heard of the Americas.”

“Rabbi Troki was the same way,” said Rabbi Loew, dismissing her concerns with a wave of his hand. “Always too absorbed in his studies to keep up with the latest trends.”

“Trends? How could he not know about
America
?”

Father Stefan answered as plainly as his position allowed: “Lord Strekov has been extremely busy keeping a steady hand on his affairs and a roving eye on the peasant women, and peopling the land with his progeny.”

Something clicked in my head, and I asked the priest to tell me again about Father Szymon’s recent legal decisions.

But soon it was time to end the conversation as Lord Strekov called for us all to rise and observe a moment of silence in honor of his lost heir. A pair of servants brought in a bolt of white fabric and began to unfold it, revealing the Strekov coat of arms in glistening red and gold beadwork. Sir Tadeusz’s burial shroud was a family heirloom made of fine cloth with golden embroidery around the edges. It was twice the length of the nobleman’s body when fully unfurled, and the peasants stood there with their mouths hanging open, spellbound by its shimmering beauty.

Another pair of servants commenced the delicate task of gathering the coarse cloth that held Sir Tadeusz’s body in its bloodstained embrace. Bits of grass and earth came loose, and the servants were trying to slide the cloth from under his hips when a carving knife slipped from the folds of rough fabric and clattered to the floor.

For a moment all was still beneath the vaulted roof. The servants and revelers stood gawking like a bunch of gargoyles with rainspouts where their mouths should be. Then one of the servants reached out to touch the knife, and Rabbi Loew leapt to his feet.

“Don’t touch a thing!” he commanded as his staff fell to the floor.