He took from his satchel a box of medicine, pleased with himself that he had prudently stocked up at the apothecary’s shop at the House at the Archangel.

“Take this,” he said, handing Rixa an electuary in a wafer. “Drink it with wine.”

“It’s bitter as hell.”

“Because it has aloes. It’s Hiera Picra, called by Galen species ad longam vitam. It’s also effective for women’s ailments.”

“I hope so.”

The candle flickered. The mice stopped scratching.

“Rixa?”

“What?”

“The fact you come from… That you’re a—”

“Jewess? Does it influence what I do? Of course.”

After quite a long silence, she unexpectedly began, “My family comes from the Xanten in the Rhineland. Almost all of them were murdered in 1096. A crusade! Deus lo vult! The Knights Emich and Gottschalk answered Pope Urban II’s call and put it zealously into practice. They began the fight for the Holy Sepulchre by massacring the Rhineland Jews. In Xanten, one boy, Yehuda, survived, apparently because he converted to Christianity. As Guido Fonseca, he settled in Italy, where he returned to the faith of his forebears, or, as you say, fell once again into judaica perfidia. His descendants, once again Jews, were driven from Naples in 1288. They travelled all over the world. Some of the family ended up in Bern. A Christian child vanished there in 1294. Without a trace, in unexplained circumstances. Naturally, it must have been a ritual murder, the Jews had kidnapped the child and put him into their matzoh. For that dreadful act, all the Jews were driven from Bern. My ancestor, a rabbi, called at that time Mevorach ben Kalonymos, moved to Weinheim in Franconia.

“In 1298, in the Franconian town of Röttingen, somebody reputedly desecrated the Host. An impoverished knight named Rindfleisch received a sign from God regarding that matter. The Jews are iconoclasts, the sign declared; anyone who believes in God must kill the Jews. Many believers were found; Rindfleisch soon became the leader of a horde of murderers with whom he began the worthy task. After the Jewish communities were wiped out in Rothenburg, Würzburg, Nördlingen and Bamberg it was Weinheim’s turn. On the twentieth of September, Rindfleisch and his thugs forced their way into the Jewish quarter. Rabbi Mevorach and his family and every Jew—man, woman and child—was driven to the synagogue and burned alive in it. Seventy-nine people altogether. Not many, bearing in mind that Rindfleisch had killed five thousand in total in Franconia and Swabia. Often using much more elaborate ways than burning.