“Please, master goldsmith,” Elisha interrupted, “I need to go.”
The rabbi put out his hands, pulsing them gently in the air. “Wait, please,” he said, his manner chastened at last. “I don’t know how to ask your forgiveness. I have treated you shamefully, as your host, if nothing more. What you need is rest and safety, and I did not offer them. I was . . . angered by Jacob’s letter. Pay it no mind.”
Isaac hesitated, his protective stance unaltered. “Are you fit to travel, Doctor?”
Where else would he go? Looking from one of them to the other, Elisha said, “In faith, no.”
“Please, sit.” The rabbi gestured them back toward the chamber. “My girl will bring you a meal and prepare a bed. I need . . . there are books I must consult.” He made a vague motion of his hand. “I will return.”
“Thank you.” Elisha returned to the comfortable chair he had abandoned a few minutes earlier and sank gratefully back into it, his hands shaking. He pressed them together, then slid them up, locking his arms across his chest, shoulders sagging.
“Herr Doctor.” Isaac came to Elisha’s side, pouring a fresh goblet of wine, topping it with water, retrieving the cape to cover Elisha’s shoulders and securing it with a pin that he plucked from his own velvet robe.
Elisha stirred himself to drink as the trembling retreated. “I don’t know what to make of you, master goldsmith.”
“Nor I, you.” Isaac retreated to a chair of his own, dodging the conversation by summoning one of the children and speaking at length in that other language.
Leaning against a cushioned arm of the chair, Elisha shut his eyes and let himself drift, using only enough strength to ward himself against intrusion. He remembered all too well his last visit with a family of Jews, opening his eyes to the sight of the Archbishop of Trier, Emperor Charles’s uncle and a man he had made an enemy. It would not happen again.
An older woman arrived some time later, with servants who laid Elisha’s meal. She talked with Isaac in the stiff, formal tones of a hostess with an unwelcome guest. They spoke of the palace and exchanged news of mutual acquaintances in Trier, Aachen, and Isaac’s home at Burghussen while Elisha devoured flat breads, meat, and peas prepared with unfamiliar herbs. By the end of the meal, his dizziness ebbed away, leaving him weary but clear-headed, strong enough to walk to the bed they had made up for him in an adjoining chamber. Every moment he stayed could put these people at risk, and left him no closer to finding or avoiding his enemies, but he needed rest. He must be ready in the morning to join the royal entourage, and prepared for whatever he might find when he got there.
Elisha began the work of attunement, understanding the place around him so that he could properly guard himself as he slept, but the small, dark room felt thick with absence: he thought of Mordecai, the first Jew he had ever met, the one who taught him so much, who showed how wrong folk were when they condemned the Jews. Mordecai watched over the silent Brigit, nurturing the baby that grew inside of her, and concealing both from Elisha’s enemies, who sought her still. And he thought of Thomas, Ludwig’s son-by-marriage, Elisha’s king, Elisha’s friend. The lock of his hair Elisha carried still felt warm, a comfort that reminded him of Thomas’s keen gaze and rare smile—and his utter faith in Elisha. Like the Jews here, Thomas believed Elisha was holy. Elisha remembered the short time he himself had been king. One long afternoon, he sat after Sunday Mass and blessed and healed, imparting whatever strength he could to a line of supplicants that seemed unending.
Tonight, outside his chamber, strangers who prayed to a God he did not recognize spoke in a language he did not know. The warmth of Isaac’s comfort faded in the darkness, returning Elisha to his customary chill. He lay in the dark, the vial of British soil pressing against a fresh scar upon his chest, tempting him to spill it, to conjure himself to London, back to Mordecai and the baby, back to Thomas, back home. Not since he lay inside his grave had Elisha felt so terribly alone.
Chapter 15
Heated voices woke Elisha, long after the candle at his bedside burned to nothing. Isaac and the rabbi, going at it again. By God, what fury lay between them? His few hours rest and the good meal gave Elisha strength to face the storm in the next room. Why was it so important to them whether he was or was not this wonder-worker Jacob claimed him to be? The rabbi noticed him first, falling silent. The goldsmith stood opposite, arms folded so tightly they creased wrinkles into his velvet, the gold cross on his chest winking in the firelight.
“What is it you think that I am?” Elisha walked forward, fit enough, but empty of patience for the Jews’ quarrel. He poured himself a glass of unwatered wine, a sweet richness worthy of Thomas’s table.
“Lamed-vov,” said the rabbi simply, and Isaac erupted from his place by the wall.
“Stop saying that!”
Elisha frowned. “If you’re the one who believes in whatever that is, why does it matter whether he says it?”
Smoke drifted between them from lanterns and fire, their dark eyes locked upon each other. “You’re going to have to tell him what it means, Christian,” said the rabbi, running his fingers through his beard. “You can see he won’t leave it alone.”
Isaac winced, and finally pushed away from the wall. “Jacob said that your works show you to be one of a few—”
“—thirty-six,” the rabbi interrupted, earning another black look from the goldsmith.
“A few men of each generation who strive to defend the righteous and suffer greatly on behalf of those they aid. They are given mystic skills to use in this cause, gifts of healing, and ways to travel that defy explanation. The name he keeps saying is simply the number. If one of them falls and ha-Shem cannot replace him with a man equally worthy, the world will end.”
“And you think I’m one of them.” Elisha stared at the scars on the backs of his hands, the scars the mancer-archbishop used to convince the people of London that Elisha was holy, a worthy king. “These thirty-six, do they rule your people?”
Both men looked shocked, the rabbi’s hand frozen in the tangle of his beard, the goldsmith shaking his head urgently. “Of course not. To do their work, they must be secret. Even from themselves.” He dodged Elisha’s gaze. “Some legends say that, if one of them is revealed, it means his death.”
“Ah.” To be holy to the Christians meant reverence and power. To be holy to the Jews meant to be invisible, on pain of death. And Isaac the goldsmith vented his fury whenever the rabbi named Elisha with that word, “lamed-vov”—the goldsmith strove to save his life; the rabbi, angry that Elisha was not even a Jew, taunted him with a name that served as a curse. Elisha drained his glass. “I’m grateful for your hospitality, Rabbi, and you, Isaac, for bringing me, but I should go. My enemies have mystic powers, too.” He gave a slight smile.
“Let him go, then,” said the rabbi, folding his hands behind him, perhaps to control the stroking of his beard.
Isaac took a step before the door. “But if he is, Rabbi, then we should give him all aid—his cause is our own. The very fact he is revealed shows that a terrible time is coming. The hidden ones don’t emerge for every imperial dispute.”
“Look,” Elisha began, but Isaac shook his head gently.
“You had nowhere to go tonight, did you? You fell as if from the sky, grievously wounded, and in need. Cold as death.”
The rabbi’s breath hissed in.
“The stories say that some of—these people—are so frozen by the suffering they relieve that they must be cradled in the hand of ha-Shem for a thousand years before they are warm again.”
Elisha reeled, his eyes squeezing shut against the sudden sting of tears. The cold that assailed him, he had invited it in. He took it to himself every time he called upon his power and felt it sink into his heart. It was not sacred, not a thing of compassion—God would not take Elisha into His hand after all that he had done. But if Elisha were terrible
and mighty, then his enemies were more dreadful still, and he still did not know their plans. The mancers set kings upon their thrones, to what end? Not for the just rule of the people, that much was certain. For war, for pain, for the suffering of thousands. For a moment, Elisha envisioned the world—England, France, the cities of Italy, the Holy Roman Empire, and beyond—linked in a maelstrom of pain that swept power back to the mancers, just as the master in his ring of flagellants gathered their misery and reveled in it.
Worse was coming, just as Isaac feared, and Elisha seemed to be the only man trying to fight, but he could not do this alone. Elisha shivered. A thousand years of warmth. Christ, would that it could be!
“You mentioned aid,” Elisha said carefully.
Isaac’s eyes lit up, his face aglow with a new kind of ferocity. “There are Jews in every city of the Empire, and beyond. You need never worry where you will rest or eat or hide. Through commerce and through faith, we spread news as fast as the emperor’s riders. Jacob meant to give you all this when he wrote his letter. If the rabbi were to write you one, if he were to speak about you, thousands would listen.”
The rabbi rumbled behind them.
Isaac said “we” when he spoke of the Jews. He was still a man of two hearts. “Information?” Elisha asked. “I need to know about things like what happened to Simeon, disappearances, people who can’t be trusted, places where people are taken, the flagellant cults and where they go.”
“These inquiries,” said the rabbi, his presence swelling slowly with faith and worry, “if my people were known to be asking, to be thinking of these things, we would be accused ourselves. It’s dangerous, these things you wish to know.”
Elisha faced the old man. “Even if they never asked a thing, Rabbi, but simply told me what they already know. My enemies work by rumor and silence. They think they can prey upon your people because nobody will care, because you’ll be too afraid to say anything. They want hatred and fear between us. Even if I learn only what’s being whispered in the market, that can be an aid to me.” As he spoke, Elisha realized he placed himself in the position of accepting the title that Jacob claimed for him, if only in return for the information that would help him try to stop what was happening. “I’m not holy, but I do have skills not given to many.”
“Scars, and blood, and . . . other men’s words,” the rabbi began, raising an eyebrow to Isaac, “I don’t know if this is enough.”
“You want proof.” Elisha put out his hand to forestall Isaac’s protest. “Is there someone in need of healing?”
“You are a doctor in any case,” the rabbi replied. “Perhaps you have medicines more efficacious than those we know.”
“No medicine can heal—” Isaac began, but trailed off at Elisha’s sigh.
“Can you give me Kefitzat ha-Derech?” The rabbi folded his hands, a prim smile on his lips.
“Not if I don’t know what that is.” Elisha’s fists clenched.
“Kefitzat ha-Derech,” Isaac echoed. “It means folding the way.” He pinched his fingers on both hands as if drawing a thread straight between them, then brought them together. “It means ha-Shem brings you from one place to another without passing in between.”
The Valley of the Shadow, but for these people, it had a name. During their stay on the Isle of Wight, he remembered Mordecai’s joy at finding a Jewish book and scouring it for information—for this name, for any sign that this Hellish mode of travel came not from the fiend, but from above.
“It requires blood, some connection between where I am and where I must go. When you saw me appear, Isaac, I used the bit of a relic that Brother Gilles had given me, and I knew where I wanted to go.”
“You drew yourself to the friar’s chamber?” Isaac cocked his head, and Elisha smiled grimly.
“It was not for the friar’s sake—I had to have a connection to a place I did not think my enemies could follow. There are many connections we share, places they can travel at will.”
“So you are not the only one with this skill,” the rabbi observed.
“I’m not—and the others are far from righteous. They can travel only where they have killed someone, or to the places where they’ve hidden parts of the corpse.”
The old man’s deep eyes narrowed, but he did not comment.
“You do have demons, don’t you, in your version of the Bible?” Elisha asked.
“Granted. So, you need connection, a relic.” The rabbi stalked about the room, took up an object the size of a fist and carried it over, cradled in his hand and placed it in Elisha’s palm. “Take me here.”
An irregular rock with one smooth side, perhaps chipped from a dressed stone, it was pale gray, clean of any dust or marking. “I can’t work with this,” Elisha said, turning it over in his hand.
“If you’re not what you claim—”
“I claim nothing,” Elisha snapped back, enclosing the stone in his fist, wrapping it in his awareness. It felt warm, inviting his inquiry. He forced himself to focus on it. “I work with the living and the dead, with blood and bones, this . . .”
“Many have shed blood for this stone,” said the rabbi. “I have done so myself.”
With a quick movement, Elisha reached out and caught the rabbi’s hand with his left, the stone clenched in his right. Again, he felt the strength of the rabbi’s faith, and his connection to the stone. Memories stirred the old man’s skin. He resisted Elisha’s grip, but did not pull away—he had the strength of a soldier beneath a scholar’s air. A stone that he and others bled for. A plain of rubble, small bits of stone, surrounded by high stone walls, thick, arched gates passing inside—a place he must not go, for fear of ha-Shem’s might. Why carry a stone from a place forbidden? For he had carried it, a long, long way. The stone echoed with the rabbi’s anger, fear, faith, despair, hope, layered over that of a thousand others. It rang very softly with the memory of the rabbi’s tears. Elisha caught his breath. When the rabbi bent his thought upon that place, a distant ruin on a sun-soaked hill, Elisha felt the way. Through the grief that joined the living man with his youthful tears, Elisha opened the Valley and let them be sucked away.
The torrent of fear and pain swelled around him, and Elisha realized his mistake. He swept back his own awareness, armoring himself and the rabbi with the chill he carried close to his heart, deflecting the horror of the Valley. He should have prepared the man for what they would feel—then he thought of Sabetha, the nun he had carried through the Valley, using its power to heal her. She declared it a beautiful place, so perhaps the rabbi’s faith, too, would defend him.
Elisha stumbled as they struck, his heart beating madly with the chaos of the Valley. The rabbi stood rigidly beside him, utterly arrested by the experience. They stood together in a shadowed darkness on a path of rubble, the barest edge of light creeping over the towering wall beside them.
“Doctor, you have taken me through Gehenna itself.” The revulsion in that single word delivered its meaning closely enough.
“Aye,” Elisha said, matching the rabbi’s hushed tone. “Forgive me for not warning you.”
Then came the sound that Elisha never thought to hear: the rabbi laughed. His free hand cupped over Elisha’s fist, the stone between them, and he gripped Elisha with joy, with fear, with a resounding fullness of spirit that shot gold into the black thoughts that assailed him. Not letting go, the rabbi looked up and gave a soft cry—as if no utterance would be enough to encompass his emotion. The pale light of dawn showed the wall of dressed stone, three arches piercing it nearby, a few tufts of weeds marking the trail. Dry air seared Elisha’s nose and throat with incense that wafted on the breeze.
“The sages say that Kefitzat Ha-Derech moves through the air of the demons. I felt the terror of that passage, as if I should be stripped spirit from bone, then you were beside me, all around me. Forgive you?” He laughed again, a sound both bright and painful.
“You are real. You are here,” he whispered, followed by a reverent string of syllables Elisha knew as prayer though he did not know the words.
Looking away, withdrawing his awareness from that disconcerting grip, Elisha asked, “Where are we?” He let his awareness spread around him, through the rock, through the wall, through the dry air of a distant desert. Somewhere below, a church bell rang. Lauds, the prayer of dawn. Echoes tremored through the air and stone, as if a thousand church bells tolled the hour throughout time. Yes, men had bled for these stones, fought to claim them and died to defend them. Men bargained for peace with any who won those battles. They bargained to be allowed to come, at almost any cost. And now Elisha stood, an unexpected pilgrim, in the company of a Jew at the very center of the world: the walls of Jerusalem.
Chapter 16
“We should go,” he breathed.
“Yes, yes,” the rabbi echoed with a sniff as if he held back tears.
Elisha recaptured his image of the rabbi’s chamber and all of its appointments. Knowledge, he had. Contact? His blood, drying on the toes of the goldsmith’s shoes. He wrapped them both in the frigid cloak of death, banishing the mad whirling of the shades, and slid through the Valley, emerging to the goldsmith’s startled cry. Releasing the stone to the rabbi’s grasp, Elisha stepped away from him, trembling with the force of the other man’s emotion. He did not ask if the rabbi were satisfied with this evidence. He did not need to.
The rabbi drew the stone close to his breast. “I need pen and ink, sheaves of paper. There’s much to do.”
“Where did you take him?” Isaac asked, but Elisha shook his head, reaching for the wine, and the goldsmith let the question rest.
The rabbi tugged a bell pull, summoning a yawning servant who snapped awake to fetch the supplies his master required. The rabbi prepared his writing desk, glancing at Elisha from time to time, then quickly away.
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