The Fifth Servant (40 page)

           
“Take up your pen,” said the emperor.

           
“Yes, sire.”

           
The scribe hunched over the writing table, poised to scribble down the emperor’s words.

           
Emperor Rudolf II assumed a regal posture and began to dictate. “Whereas Mordecai Meisel the Jew has unhesitatingly given us loyal service and support whenever it was needed, and whereas he has lent us thousands of dalers for some little trinkets besides, and whereas he has sent representatives of his people to me on this day seeking imperial protection from false blood libel accusations, be it resolved that Mordecai Meisel, by virtue of his position representing the whole of the Jewish community, shall be granted immunity from paying taxes on the newly constructed synagogue.”

           
The pen stopped moving, then haltingly started scribbling the emperor’s words again.

           
“Moreover, this privilege shall pass on to his heirs in perpetuity. This synagogue shall be a haven from abuse and oppression. No officers of the law shall enter it, nor may any person enter Meisel’s home in order to disturb him or interfere with his private affairs without the express permission of the emperor.”

           
He broke from his pose to sign the document. Then he affixed his seal, and the scribe withdrew to dispatch the order.

           
“Now, let us discuss Rabbi Cordovero’s views on the Kabbalah.”

           
Rabbi Loew said that for the initiate, it was better to start with the
aggadah
.

           
“My time is short,” said the emperor, and he commanded Rabbi Loew to instruct him in the ways of the Kabbalah.

           
“Very well, Your Majesty,” said Rabbi Loew. “But where can such wisdom be found? You will not find it on any printed map of the world, marked with an
X
like a pirate’s treasure, for it lies on the other side of reason and judgment and that branch of alchemy which surveys the earth with measuring rods and assigns the highest value to gold. It lies on the side of inquisitiveness and kindness and mercy, which is symbolized by the metal that we value more highly, namely silver.”

           
The rabbi paused to allow the emperor to absorb this bit of information, which ran counter to the most commonly held beliefs about our people.

           
“Even the very dust under your feet may contain hidden mysteries,” said Rabbi Loew. “So it is with the Jews, who may be scattered like the dust of the earth, but as hard as men may try to trample us with their boots, we will persist, like the dust, and will not go away. In this same way, the source of truth may not be a glittering jewel like the much-coveted Philosopher’s Stone. It may initially appear to be of little value.”

           
“Then I may have just the tool you need for such a quest,” said the emperor. “You must observe this, for it is a most amusing curiosity. Step this way.”

           
He led us over to his workbench and swept his hand toward the cylindrical device that he had been peering into when we first entered the chamber.

           
“A Franciscan friar who men call Dr. Mirabilis and some of the Italian oculists have known for some time that a convex lens that can form an image of a faraway object will, if combined with an eye-lens with the correct—uh,
focal point
, I believe is the term—will magnify the image. So come forward, and if any of you have something that you’d like to see magnified, pray put it here. This apparatus only works with opaque objects. That is, it can’t bring the invisible to light, but virtually anything viewed here might reveal something hitherto unseen of its own peculiar texture. Why, even the dirt under your fingernails may provide clues as to what you had for breakfast.”

           
“We don’t have any dirt under our fingernails,” said Rabbi Gans. “We cleaned them for Shabbes.”

           
“Oh. Yes, of course.”

           
There was an awkward silence, then suddenly my hand flew to my chest as if it had a will of its own, searching for the shape beneath the folds of my cloak, in my inner pocket, finally clutching the pouch that I deposited there with such ceremony the day before.

           
“This, Your Majesty,” I said, removing the pouch. “I want to examine this.”

           
“What is it?”

           
“It is a sample of material that I collected from the floor of Federn’s shop. It may contain traces of the killers’ essential humors.”

           
It was a good thing the emperor was so fascinated by our “Jewish knowledge,” because when I dumped the contents out on a sheet of paper, he did not flinch or curl his lip in contempt, but eagerly took a pinch of the sweepings and placed it on a metal plate beneath the brass cylinder. He repositioned the device, aiming it more toward the light, and fiddled with one of the knobs until the image came into focus.

           
“There,” he said. “Yes, some of it certainly looks like ordinary dirt, but there are quite a few sparkles of light reflecting off what appear to be tiny bits of quartz. I’d have to summon the court geologist to be certain, but I’d say that this dirt has probably been combined with sand.”

           
“Sand? From where?” asked Rabbi Loew.

           
“It must come from the riverbank,” said Rabbi Gans.

           
The emperor went on: “And this looks like a hair from somebody’s head, or perhaps an eyelash, since it’s so short and raspy-looking, and what must be a tuft of coarse fabric of some kind, and—I say, this is rather odd.”

           
“What?”

           
“It appears to be a strand of fine silver thread.”

           
“The shop had been swept clean for Pesach the night before,” I said. “And the Federns weren’t wearing any clothes with fine silver thread that morning.”

           
“Have a look for yourself.”

           
It certainly appeared to be as the emperor had described. There was no mistaking the look of real silver, even though the true object was barely visible to the naked eye.

           
There was general amazement.

           
“This comes directly from God, who is lighting the way for us to find the guilty ones,” said Rabbi Loew.

           
But enough amazement. The hour was getting late. So I said, “This is all very well and fruitful, Your Majesty, but we actually came here to ask
you
a question.”

           
“Really? By all means, you may ask me anything you want.”

           
I saw the rabbis’ brows darken with trepidation.

           
“Will you grant us permission to examine the body of the victim?”

           
The rabbis’ eyes screamed
Are you crazy? How could you even think of asking such a thing?

           
“The young Christian girl?” said the emperor. “I don’t know. Imagine the reaction from the people—and the Church—at a time like this, when we need to keep a united front against the Turkish menace—”

           
Rabbi Loew appealed in the name of justice.

           
Rabbi Gans promised that we wouldn’t touch the young girl’s body with our hands or with any magical implements or with any implements that might even be
perceived
as being magical.

           
But none of that worked, until I submitted it to His Royal Highness that he graciously allow us examine the body “in the interests of science.”

           
He finally granted his
heavily conditional
approval. We asked him to put it in writing, just in case.

           
He did. Then he summoned one of his attendants and asked the young lad to accompany us to the royal dungeon.

CHAPTER 22

           
THE DUNGEON WAS NOT IN the new part of the castle. The imposing round tower lay at the farthest end of the old battlements along the rim of the “stag moat.” Maybe they called it a
moat
to mislead would-be attackers, because it was in fact a natural gorge a couple of hundred feet deep. I didn’t know much about old-style warfare, but the north side of the castle seemed to be
very
well defended.

           
The emperor’s attendant led us on without looking at us once. We followed along, not ready to speak our thoughts aloud in the presence of a Christian servant, even one as young as this lad.

           
The Daliborka was a thick-walled tower built to withstand a siege. No soaring arches, tall windows, or decorative details got in the way of its primary purpose of breaking the spirit of all who entered.

           
Rabbi Gans told me that the tower’s most famous resident was none other than Sir Dalibor of Kozojedy, a knight who actually fought for the rights of the peasants. He ended up being imprisoned in this tower for so long, they named it after him.

           
There must be an easier way of getting a building named after you.

           
The tower clung to the edge of the precipice. Its barred gate beckoned to us, and we had to turn our backs on the light of day and tramp down a flight of stone steps to reach the top level of the prison. Two guards were about to bar the way by crossing their spears (they love doing that), but the emperor’s attendant said some special words in the Silesian dialect, and the heavy iron door creaked on its hinges and we were in.

           
The first cell occupied the entire top floor. Any room this spacious was clearly meant for an aristocrat. It was also
very
cold, since no prisoner was being kept here at the moment. Except for the red brick floor, everything was stone, with a big, empty fireplace and man-sized windows that looked out over the whole city. It was actually a pretty nice view, but the price of the room was too high for me.

           
A passing bard had penned some lyrics and hung them on the wall:

           
When I was young, once upon a time,

           
Outside my hut, the birds did sing.

           
Now I live in a palace

           
But no birds sing outside my window.

           
We descended a narrow, tunnel-like staircase, and had to duck our heads under the low archway. This cell was much darker than the one above, with small windows in deeply recessed alcoves and a few wispy gray ashes in the pitifully inadequate fireplace where a lone candle had burnt down to a hard puddle of wax. An iron ring hung in the middle of the low ceiling, above a barred hole in the floor that must have led to the lowest level of the prison—a dark, windowless room with no doors, steps, or fireplace at all, but plenty of rats, judging from the scratching sounds of hundreds of tiny claws stirred by our arrival. The jailers probably lowered the hopeless prisoner through the hole by means of a rope or chain and closed the lid tight and forgot about him. Or her.

           
A slice of bread lay untouched on a tin plate. Jacob Federn had chosen to go hungry rather than eat leavened bread during Pesach.

           
Federn’s lips were chapped and slightly blue with cold, but so far the emperor’s intervention had spared him from being tortured.

           
His eyes lit up when he saw us, and he raised his arms to greet us, although he was too weak to lift the heavy iron shackles more than a few inches.

           
“My friends, have you come to get me out of here?”

           
“I’m afraid that we are still working to solve that particular problem,” said Rabbi Loew.

           
Federn’s arms fell with a heavy clanking of iron chains.

           
“But they did allow us to bring you this,” said the rabbi, handing over the small bundle tied up with a rag.

           
Federn’s fingers were so stiff with cold that Rabbi Gans had to help him untie the rag and spread out the contents—a cold piece of stuffed fish with a pinch of
maror
, a half-dozen round matzohs, a sealed bottle of wine, and a pair of thin, white Shabbes candles.

           
Federn nodded toward a tin cup of water, and I retrieved it for him. He cupped his hands, and I poured out a bit of the water so that he could wash his hands and dry them with the rag.

           
“They wouldn’t even let me make a Seder,” he said, as if he needed to apologize to us for this transgression.