“While your Israelite tribe, Rabbi,” continued the canon, “stubbornly and with great pleasure, lavishes the rabble with pretexts. Here you start an epidemic of the plague by poisoning wells; there you torture an innocent little Christian girl to death; there you let a child’s blood to make matzoh. You steal and desecrate sacramental bread. You engage in shameful usury and cut hunks of raw flesh from debtors who cannot afford your outrageous interest. And you earn your living from diverse other vile practices, I believe.”

“What should one do, I ask you, Reverend Father?” said Hiram ben Eliezer after a tense moment. “What to do, to avoid such things? I mean poisoning wells, torturing little girls, letting blood and desecrating the host? What, I ask, to do?”

Otto Beess said nothing for a long time.

“Any day now,” he finally said, “a special tax payable by all will be proclaimed, to raise funds for an anti-Hussite crusade. Every Jew will have to pay one guilder. Beyond what the Brzeg commune must give, it will also freely add… A thousand guilders. Two hundred and fifty grzywna.”

The rabbi nodded, making no attempt to haggle.

“That money will serve our common good,” the canon said, without special emphasis, “and, I would say, a common cause. The Czech heretics endanger us all. Mainly righteous Catholics, of course, but you Israelites have no reason to love the Hussites, either. On the contrary, in fact. It will be an opportunity, Hiram, to play a part in the vengeance, at least by making a donation.”

“Vengeance is mine,” replied Hiram ben Eliezer a moment later. “Thus says the Lord, Adonai. Recompense to no man evil for evil, says the Lord. And our Lord, as the prophet Isaiah testifies, is generous in forgiving.

“Besides,” the rabbi added quietly, seeing that the canon had fallen silent, hands pressed against his forehead, “the Hussites have only been murdering Jews for six years. What is six against a thousand?”

Otto Beess raised his head. His eyes were as cold as steel.

“You’ll come to a sticky end, friend Hiram,” he said, grinding his teeth. “I fear for you. Go in peace.

“Now,” he said after the Jew had closed the door, “it’s finally your turn, Reinmar. Let us talk. You mustn’t worry about the secretary or the seminarian. They can be trusted. They are present, but it’s as if they weren’t.”

Reynevan cleared his throat, but the canon didn’t let him speak.

“Duke Konrad Kantner arrived in Wrocław four days ago, on Saint Lawrence’s Day, with an entourage of ghastly gossip-mongers. Nor is the duke himself especially discreet. Hence, not only me, but almost the whole of Wrocław is aware of the intricacies of your affair with Adèle, Gelfrad of Stercza’s wife.”

Reynevan cleared his throat again and lowered his head, unable to endure the piercing look. The canon put his hands together in prayer.