Salanio put his forearm against my throat and bent me back over the stone railing of the bridge, then put a long fighting dagger to my cheek.

“You’re not supposed to carry weapons,” said I.

“And yet we all do,” said Salanio.

“Jessica can’t know about my plan,” said Lorenzo to his fat friend.

“And so she shan’t,” said Salanio. “Die, Jew!” He loosened pressure on my throat to rear back for the blow, then thrust the dagger at my chest. I felt fire across my ribs, but my great gabardine coat had saved me. Just as the chopines made me taller, so the big coat made me look wider, and Jessica had padded the shoulders to make it hang so. He had but slain my yellow hat, tucked away, and grazed my ribs with the blade, yet I screamed as if murdered indeed, and bent over as if catching my spilling guts. Then, as the knaves backed up a step to survey their murder, I leapt into the air, knife in chest and all, turned a backflip over the bridge railing, and plunged feetfirst into the black water of the canal.

The water was still warm with summer’s heat, and not terribly deep, but I knew if I should surface right under the bridge I would deliver myself into the hands of my enemies for the coup de grace. I am a good swimmer in better circumstances, trained by Mother Basil, the abbess at Dog Snogging, who would toss me in the Ouse River weekly to assure that I never met the same fate as my poor mother who drowned herself in that river.

I kicked, to level myself and swim underwater, far enough, I hoped, to surface by one of the stone walls of the canal, where I might escape in the dark. But even as I kicked, I did not move. The chopines were stuck fast in the mud on the bottom. I struggled to pull up one foot, only to have the other drive deeper, and the oversize gabardine, which had been pulled up over my head when I hit the water, was now sodden and constraining my arms as well. I bent and struggled with the straps that held Jessica’s boots to the stilts, but they’d been tightened fast, and my chest was already beginning to convulse, trying to pull in air that was not there. Perhaps I could get my feet out of the boots? I pulled at them, even as the panic rose in my throat, and I spasmed three quick times before I let out a few bubbles, but willed myself not to inhale and suck in my doom. Even so, the strength fled from my limbs and I began to feel my mind close like an iris. I could see a single torch or lantern somewhere above the water, just a quivering orange dot that faded as I lost consciousness.