“It’s looking bad,” said the goliard, panting. “It’s looking bad, Reynevan. They’ll soon be on us. We won’t repel them.”

As if to confirm it, he was answered by battle cries and angry howling from the door. Fire glistened and flickered on blades.

“Death to the Jews!”

Rabbi Maizl Nachman ben Gamaliel stood up. He lifted his eyes towards the sky. And spread his arms.

“Baruch Ata Hashem, Eloheinu,” he called in a sing-song voice. “Melech haolam, bore meori haesh!”

The wall of the house cracked, exploded in an eruption of plaster, lime and mortar. From the cloud of dust emerged something that had been plastered up in the wall. Reynevan sucked in air with a whistle. And Tybald Raabe squatted down in shock.

“Emet, emet, emunah! Abracadabra! Abracaamra!”

The thing that emerged from the wall resembled a snowman, but made of clay, was more or less anthropoid, but in place of a head had only a slight protuberance between its shoulders. Shorter than a man of average height, it was as fat and pot-bellied as a barrel and walked on short, squat legs, its chubby arms reaching down to the ground. Before Reynevan’s eyes, the hands clenched into fists as big as bombard balls.

A golem, he thought, it’s a golem. A genuine golem, the legendary clay golem, the dream of sorcerers. The dream, passion and obsession of Radim Tvrdík of Prague. Pity Radim isn’t here… Pity he can’t see it…

The golem roared, or rather trumpeted like a monstrous clay flute. Fear overcame the Magdeburg gang crowded in the gateway; it was as though terror had paralysed the thugs, taken the power from their legs. They were frozen to the spot as the golem loped towards them at a rocking trot. They didn’t even defend themselves when it fell among them, regularly and methodically smiting and thumping them with its huge fists. Yelling, a dreadful yelling, tore apart the night air over Jawor. It didn’t last long. Silence fell. Only the oil burning in the puddles hissed.

Viscous blood mixed with brains slowly dripped down the wall by the gate.

The sun rose. The clay golem returned to its hole in the wall and stood there, merging with the stones and mortar and becoming invisible.

“I was dead and now I am alive,” said Maizl Nachman ben Gamaliel sadly. “Oh, but blood has been shed. Plenty of blood. May I be forgiven for it when Judgement Day comes.”

“You saved innocent people,” said Rixa Cartafila of Fonseca, nodding at a portly woman hugging and cuddling three little black-haired girls. “You defended the lives of your nearest and dearest, Rabbi, from those who desired to harm them. The Lord says: Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt. Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under Heaven. That you did.”