Great Britain -- History -- Fiction; Space and time -- Fiction
'True, but the Barons had written first: _To no free man_. It cost me
two hundred broad pieces of gold to change those narrow words. Langton,
the priest, understood. "Jew though thou art," said he, "the change is
just, and if ever Christian and Jew came to be equal in England thy
people may thank thee." Then he went out stealthily, as men do who deal
with Israel by night. I think he spent my gift upon his altar. Why not?
I have spoken with Langton. He was such a man as I might have been
if--if we Jews had been a people. But yet, in many things, a child.
'I heard Elias and Adah abovestairs quarrel, and, knowing the woman was
the stronger, I saw that Elias would tell the King of the gold and that
the King would continue in his stubbornness. Therefore I saw that the
gold must be put away from the reach of any man. Of a sudden, the Word
of the Lord came to me saying, "The Morning is come, O thou that
dwellest in the land."'
Kadmiel halted, all black against the pale green sky beyond the wood--a
huge robed figure, like the Moses in the picture-Bible.
'I rose. I went out, and as I shut the door on that House of
Foolishness, the woman looked from the window and whispered, "I have
prevailed on my husband to tell the King!" I answered: "There is no
need. The Lord is with me."
'In that hour the Lord gave me full understanding of all that I must do;
and His Hand covered me in my ways. First I went to London, to a
physician of our people, who sold me certain drugs that I needed. You
shall see why. Thence I went swiftly to Pevensey. Men fought all around
me, for there were neither rulers nor judges in the abominable land. Yet
when I walked by them they cried out that I was one Ahasuerus, a Jew,
condemned, as they believe, to live for ever, and they fled from me
everyways. Thus the Lord saved me for my work, and at Pevensey I bought
me a little boat and moored it on the mud beneath the Marsh-gate of the
Castle. That also God showed me.'
He was as calm as though he were speaking of some stranger, and his
voice filled the little bare wood with rolling music.
'I cast'--his hand went to his breast, and again the strange jewel
gleamed--'I cast the drugs which I had prepared into the common well of
the Castle. Nay, I did no harm. The more we physicians know, the less do
we do. Only the fool says: "I dare." I caused a blotched and itching
rash to break out upon their skins, but I knew it would fade in fifteen
days. I did not stretch out my hand against their life. They in the
Castle thought it was the Plague, and they ran out, taking with them
their very dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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