Paris The Novel

Chapter Six




• 1307, October •


Jacob ben Jacob had been out all night and half the next day. He’d searched the main road that led toward the south, asked every farmer and passerby. Nothing. He’d searched other roads, farther to the east.

Not a sign. Either his daughter had taken some other way, or they were still hiding in the city. Or, just perhaps, it had all been a mistake, and she had come safely home after all. It could be so. He prayed to God that it was so.

But if not, then he faced a huge problem. How to explain her absence? Could he pretend that she had died? He went over the possibility in his mind. He couldn’t say that she had fallen sick. Quite apart from the fact that no physician had seen her, the two servants in the house would know it wasn’t true. Might she have had an accident outside the city? Could some story be concocted that would satisfy the authorities? Could the little family mourn behind an empty coffin, watch as it was lowered and bury the memory of his daughter safely in the ground?

But what if she came back again?

Yet somehow the business had to be covered up. No one must know what Naomi had done.

Jacob ben Jacob was a small man with thinning hair and pale, kindly blue eyes, and he loved his daughter Naomi with all his heart. But he also thought of his dear wife Sarah. She had gone gray when Naomi was still a little girl, but for all her loyal and silent suffering, the skin on her face was still as smooth and her eyes as bright as they had been twenty years ago. How much more would she suffer, if the business were discovered? Even her little brother would be implicated—at the very least the object of suspicion for years. As for himself—he tried not to think of what the consequences would be. And all this Naomi knew very well. He could not help it therefore if, despite his love, he cursed his daughter now.

The sun was already sinking when he crossed the Seine and made his way northward up the rue Saint-Martin. When he got to his house, he went in quickly. Sarah was standing in the hall.

“Well?” he cried. “Where is she?”

“I do not know, Jacob.” His wife shook her head sadly. Then she handed him a piece of parchment.

“What’s this?”

“A letter. It’s from her.”



Jacob slept badly that night. He rose at dawn and decided to go for a walk. Putting the letter in a pouch on his belt, and wrapping his cloak around him, he stepped out into the street. His house in the rue Saint-Martin was not far from one of the northern gates. From the gate, he took the lane that he and Naomi had taken so many times before that led toward the little orchard he owned on the high ground.

It was Friday, the thirteenth of October. A misty morning. As the lane wound its way to the upper slopes, he was greeted by the sight of the sun rising over the eastern horizon into a blue sky, while below, the great walled city and its suburbs were hidden by the mist, except for the towers of Notre Dame and half a dozen medieval pinnacles, which emerged and seemed to hang, as if by magic, over the silvery carpet. And as Jacob gazed at this lovely sight, he wondered: How could any soul, Jewish or Christian, fail to be uplifted by these exquisite citadels floating in the heavens?

Jacob ben Jacob loved Paris. It was his home, as it had been for his father and grandfather before him. Even as a boy, he’d loved the wide sweep of the Seine, the vineyards on the hills, the aromas in the narrow streets; even the beauties of Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, although they belonged to a religion not his own. And he still did. He never wanted to leave it. Yet now, the sight of Paris brought him nothing but despair.

He took out Naomi’s letter and read it once more.

There was no doubt about one thing. The letter was clever. Very clever. The huge lie it contained was obvious to him; but she intended anyone else who read it to believe what she wrote. And her trick might work. It might.

But that did not alter the one, awful fact. He had lost his daughter. Perhaps he’d never see her again.



Was it his own fault? Certainly. The Lord was punishing him. He had committed a terrible crime. Now he must pay the price.

Jacob shook his head sadly, and wondered: Had he been making bad judgments all his life? When had he started to go wrong?

Alas, he knew the answer to both these questions all too well.



His childhood had been happy. His father was a scholarly man who made his living as a physician. His standards were high. “The best Jewish scholars are in Spain and the south,” he liked to say, “but Paris is not so bad.” He also had a mild disdain for the intellect of the rabbi, of which the rabbi was aware. But to a little child, he was gentleness itself. Each night he would come in to little Jacob as he was going to bed, and say the nighttime Shema with him:

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad

Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One

And each morning he would repeat the prayer with his son again. His father also had many friends. And as he treated prominent Christian families as well as Jewish, and was well liked, young Jacob had grown up in an easygoing environment. His best friend, Henri, a handsome boy with dark red hair and alert brown eyes, was from a rich Christian family of merchants called Renard.

As far as Jacob could remember, his destiny had been decided from his birth. He was going to be a physician like his father. His father was quietly proud of the fact. His family and friends all understood it. As a little boy, the thought had been delightful to him. Everyone respected his father. All he had to do was follow in his footsteps, and he’d have a wonderful life.

He was twelve years old when he began to have doubts. He hardly knew why himself. Perhaps it was a talent he had for mathematics that did not find much outlet in the physician’s art. Perhaps there were other causes.

And then there were the patients. Sometimes his father would take Jacob on his visits, and let him watch him examining people; and afterward he’d explain to him the treatment he was recommending, and why. Jacob became quite good at spotting ailments and suggesting remedies. His father was pleased with his progress, and Jacob was proud.

Yet as time went on, he began to find that he didn’t enjoy it. First he was surprised, then concerned. The fact was, he didn’t want to spend his life with sick people. He admired his father very much, and he’d always hoped to be like him. But perhaps he wasn’t.

What should he do? He had no idea. And since he couldn’t explain his feelings in a satisfactory way, he’d felt too embarrassed and guilty to mention them to anyone. Certainly not his father.

So he tried to put the matter out of his mind. He told himself that he was being childish. And this was no time to behave like a child. For very soon he was to become a man.

The bar mitzvah that lay ahead of him was a serious but simple observance. All the Jewish families he knew celebrated it the same way. On the Sabbath following his thirteenth birthday, he would be called in the synagogue to read from the Torah and to recite the blessings. Unlike in some other communities, this would be the first time he’d be allowed to do so. Afterward, at the family house, there would be a small gathering of family and friends to celebrate the occasion.

Jacob was looking forward to it. He was well prepared for the religious part of the proceedings. He could read Hebrew just as well as he could Latin. From that day, in theory at least, he could be considered an adult. He was determined, therefore, to put aside these foolish uncertainties about his life before the day arrived.

It was a month before his bar mitzvah that he went for a walk with his mother’s cousin Baruch.

His father didn’t like Baruch. Jacob could see why. Baruch was about his father’s age, but there all resemblances ended. Baruch was corpulent and inclined to be loud and argumentative. He had little respect for scholarship. But he wasn’t stupid. Jacob knew that his mother’s cousin was richer than his father. Baruch was a moneylender.

He didn’t often come to their house, but he’d looked in to see Jacob’s mother that day, and as he was leaving he’d said: “So why don’t you walk with me, Jacob?” He’d turned to his cousin. “Your son never talks to me.”

“I never see you,” replied Jacob.

“Go and walk with your cousin Baruch,” his mother told him.

It was a fine afternoon. They’d walked out through the nearby postern gate and followed a lane that led toward the big compound of the Templars. Trying to make conversation, Jacob had asked Baruch about what he did.

“I lend money,” said Baruch. “Then I try to get it back.”

“I know this,” said Jacob.

“So what do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. How you do it, I suppose.”

“How does your father cure people? He gives them medicines they think they need. Then they get better. He hopes. I give people money they need. Then they get richer. They hope. I hope. Otherwise they can’t pay me back. It’s obvious.”

Jacob considered.

“So how do you decide whether they’re a good risk?”

“That is a good question.” Baruch seemed to soften a bit. “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all.” He paused. “You need security. The man has to pledge something for the loan, so you have to figure what it’s worth, and whether he really owns it. And you need a good head for numbers. If the risk is high, you’re going to need a higher interest rate to protect yourself. Are you understanding me?”

“I think so. You have to calculate.”

“Yes. But you know what. It’s not just that. It’s an art as well. You really have to understand the man’s affairs. And you have to judge his character. Sometimes that’s the most important thing of all. Character.” He shrugged. “So maybe it’s like being a physician. It’s instinct, you know. I’m a money physician. I look after people’s lives. It’s a terrible occupation.” He looked at Jacob to see how he was taking it.

“I think it’s interesting,” said Jacob frankly.

“It’s not so bad.”

“The Christians call it usury.”

“The Jews call it usury. It’s in the Torah. Thou shalt not lend money at interest. It says so.” He paused a moment. “You know something? The Torah is very good at telling you what not to do. But if there is no profit to be had, no interest, then there is no reason for anyone to lend, and so nobody can borrow anything. They can steal it from their grandmother, but they can’t borrow it.” He smiled. “But there is an escape clause. A Jew is not allowed to lend at interest to another Jew. But it doesn’t say that you can’t lend to someone who is not a Jew. So we can lend to Christians.”

“And the Christians are allowed to borrow from us.”

“By the same logic. They say they mustn’t lend at interest, because it says so in the Bible. But if a Jew is prepared to lend, then that’s all right. They say the Jew is probably going to hell anyway, so who cares? It’s one of the few occupations they allow us to follow, which is very convenient for them.” He made a dismissive motion with his hands. “They get the money. We go to hell.”

“But the Christians lend money too,” Jacob objected. “What about the Italian moneylenders, like the Lombards? I heard that they’re sanctioned by the pope himself.”

“Ah. But they don’t charge interest.”

“So how can they have any profit?”

“They charge a fee instead.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Mathematically? There is no difference. But the word is different.”

They were coming close to the huge compound of the Knights Templar now, and they had stopped to gaze at it.

“How is it the Templars are so rich?” Jacob had asked Baruch.

“They had huge land grants. For generations. They don’t pay taxes. And they lend money. The king owes them a fortune.”

“They lend for a fee, then,” Jacob said. “No interest.”

“Of course,” Baruch replied. “Actually,” he went on, “the Templars are interesting. They lend money. But that’s only part of it. They’re brilliant.”

“Why?”

“Look at their building. It’s an impregnable fortress. There’s probably more gold in there than any other building in France. It all got started when they transported bullion out to the Holy Land for the crusaders to use. They kept the money in fortresses out there, too. But that was just the start. Since then, they’ve built fortified bullion stores all over Christendom. So what’s so clever about that?”

“I suppose then they have bullion ready for any purpose, in any country.”

“True, but that’s not the point. The point,” said Baruch, “is that when you travel, you don’t have to take a lot of money with you. No armed guards. No fear of getting robbed. You just deposit your bullion with the Templars in London or Paris, get a receipt, and that gives you credit to draw on the Templars’ bullion deposits wherever you’re going. The Templars will charge you a large fee for the service, but it’s worth it. You’ve saved yourself a fortune in security.”

“Did the Templars invent this?”

“No. The old merchants around the Mediterranean have been holding credit balances with each other since time out of mind. But the scale of the Templars’ operations is stupendous. They’ve got enough stashed in some of their forts to pay for an army.”

“They must have to transport bullion themselves, sometimes,” Jacob said.

“Yes. But who’s going to attack a bullion shipment guarded by the Temple Knights. You’d have to be an idiot. Those bastards fight only to the death.” Baruch chuckled. “Funny, isn’t it: The only knights who always fight to the death are the ones protecting the money.”

Jacob had nodded and smiled. Yet his mind was in a whirl.

No doubt his cousin Baruch just thought he was having a chat with a boy who was going to be a physician. But his words were having a much more profound effect than he could have imagined.

As he’d listened to Baruch discourse on the art of moneylending, it had felt to Jacob as if someone were opening a door in front of him. This was an occupation that would use all his talents. This was the challenge he’d always been looking for. He just hadn’t known it. And with this realization came that wonderful sense of peace that comes to everyone when they find their natural metier. I could do that, he thought. That’s what I want to do.

And when Baruch had described the huge, international capacity of the Templars’ dealings, he had felt a sense not just of affinity, but of inspiration. It wasn’t only the scale that was fascinating. The efficiency of the operation, the intellectual economy, struck him forcibly. The endless possibilities of a credit system that spread all over Europe seemed to him one of the most beautiful and exciting ideas he had ever encountered. What could be better, what could be more interesting, than to take part in the workings of the universal world of money, the lifeblood of all enterprise, that knows no foolish boundaries, but can flow unimpeded from kingdom to kingdom? Though he did not quite know how to formulate the idea, he had just been given a glimpse of the wonders of finance.

“Could I come and work for you?” he suddenly asked Baruch.

“I thought you were going to be a physician,” the big man said in surprise.

“I don’t think so,” said Jacob.

“You had better talk to your father.”

Jacob promised that he would.

But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He meant to. He was certain what he wanted. But telling his father that he was going to turn his back on his birthright and wanted to work with a man his father didn’t like … It wasn’t so easy.

The next week he met Baruch in the street.

“Did you tell your father?” Baruch asked.

“I’m going to.”

“You can change your mind, you know.”

“No. I want to work for you.”

“I can talk to him if you want.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Don’t leave it to your bar mitzvah.”

But still he’d put it off. Each time his father smiled at him approvingly, or his mother said, “We’re all very proud of you,” it grew harder to broach the subject. How could he disappoint them all? And as the days went by he began to think that maybe it would be better to get through the business of the bar mitzvah and talk to his father about it afterward.

And so he’d let it drift, and drift … until the day.



He’d read well in the synagogue. They were all very pleased with him. That evening there were about twenty people in their house. His parents, their closest friends, the rabbi and Baruch had also been invited.

Baruch had looked at him questioningly, but Jacob had whispered, “I decided to talk to him after this is over.”

And everyone was congratulating him, and one of the neighbors’ wives said, “Just look at Jacob’s eyes. You have wonderful eyes, Jacob. Those are real physician’s eyes, just like your father’s.” And another of their friends chimed in, “He’s going to be a wonderful physician.” And someone said to Jacob’s mother, “You must be very proud of him.” And his mother said she was.

So for a moment, only the woman Cousin Baruch was talking to heard Baruch say: “He isn’t going to be a physician.”

“What do you mean?” she said, so that several people turned to look. “Of course he’s going to be a physician.”

“Suit yourself,” said Baruch. “I’m just telling you he doesn’t want to be a physician.”

Jacob’s mother heard that.

“What are you talking about, Baruch?” she demanded impatiently. She liked Baruch better than her husband did, because he was her family, but she didn’t like him that much.

Baruch shrugged.

“I’m just saying he doesn’t want to be a physician. He wants to work for me. Is that so terrible?”

“No he doesn’t.”

“Ask him.” He pointed to Jacob. And everybody looked at Jacob. And Jacob looked back at them, and wished that the ground could open up and swallow him forever.



“I am very disappointed in you,” his father said later that night. “I am sorry that you don’t want to be a physician, because I think you would be a good one. But to go behind my back … You talk to Baruch, with whom we are not close, before you even talk to your own father. Then you make a mockery of us all. Honor Thy Father and Mother: You break this commandment, on the very day of your bar mitzvah. Shame on you, Jacob. I hardly know whether to call you my son.”



That had been his first great crime. Even now, the memory of that day made him cringe with shame.

But in due course, he had started to work for Baruch, and for ten years he had continued with him, until Baruch dropped dead in the middle of an argument with somebody one day. By that time, Jacob had learned the business of moneylending very thoroughly, and he continued on his own. And thanks both to his skill, and to his father’s many friends in the city, he was able to do very well.

He had married Sarah, and been happy, and started a family.

So what had possessed him to make the terrible error of judgment, to commit the unspeakable crime that had brought tragedy to his own life, misery to his family, and now the loss of his daughter?



If one were to seek deep causes, Jacob considered, one could say that it was the Crusades that were to blame.

Two centuries ago, when the first crusading knights had set out to win back the Holy Land from the Saracens, they’d been successful. They’d taken Antioch. Then Jerusalem itself.

But it had hardly been a year before the crusading cause had degenerated. A huge, motley army of adventurers and looters had swept across Europe in their wake. Finding the Jewish communities in the Rhineland and on the River Danube, they’d robbed and slaughtered them.

Christian kings, and even the Church, had been appalled.

But in the decades that followed, another process had slowly begun, and the mood of Christendom had changed. For the huge, unwieldy Moslem empire had not crumbled. It had fought back. And so the long series of Crusades had begun. Some were successful—in Spain, the Moslem Moors were being pushed back. But other Crusades had been disasters.

Churchmen were puzzled. Why hadn’t God given them victory? Crusaders were frustrated. Everyone looked for scapegoats. And what better scapegoat than the Jewish community, which contained the moneylenders to whom kings, knights and merchants alike owed so much money? Soon, Jews were being accused of all kinds of crimes: even that they sacrificed Christian children.

In Paris, the Jewish community had occupied a quarter near the royal palace in the middle of the Seine, with a fine synagogue across the water on the Right Bank. In 1182, King Philip Augustus had turned their synagogue into the church of La Madeleine, and for several years the Jews had even had to leave his kingdom. With his city wall to build, and a crusading army to finance, he’d soon recalled them. The Jews of Paris had mostly lived near the northern city wall after that, grudgingly tolerated.

It hadn’t been until the reign of Philip’s grandson that the next attack had come. But when it did, it was cunning and insidious.

A Franciscan friar in Brittany named Nicolas Donin claimed that the Talmud not only denied the divinity of Jesus, but also the virginity of his mother, Mary. Soon the pope himself told every Christian king to burn the Talmud. Most of Europe’s monarchs took no notice.

But pious King Louis IX of France did. The saintly monarch who brought the Crown of Thorns to Paris, built the Sainte-Chapelle and encouraged the dreaded Inquisition was not going to fail in his Christian duty. He burned every copy of the Talmud he could find, and made French Jews wear a red badge of shame.

Jacob’s grandfather had worn the badge of shame. Yet even so, like most of the Jewish community in Paris, he hadn’t wanted to leave. And Jacob could see why.

Paris was still one of the greatest cities in Europe, far larger than London. It was an intellectual center. It had a huge trade.

By the time Jacob was starting to earn a living, things had seemed to be getting a little better. The grandson of saintly King Louis—tall, blond, Philip the Fair—had come to the throne. He claimed to be pious, but he always needed money.

“Finance my debts,” he told the Jews of France, “and I’ll protect you from the Inquisition.”



Jacob’s house had been in the rue des Rosiers. It was a pleasant street under the northeastern corner of the city wall. His business was prospering. He was about to get married. It had seemed that fate was smiling upon him.

Strangely enough, the first sign of trouble had come from the king of England. For the mighty Plantagenets had not been driven from all of France. They still held the rich lands of Gascony, in old Aquitaine. And in 1287, the English king had decided to kick all the Jews out of Gascony. By any standards, this was a distressing event. But at the time it had happened, Jacob had been busy making the arrangements for his wedding day. And besides, he need not concern himself too much with the follies of France’s enemy, the Plantagenet king of England.

The next year had been one of family loss. Sarah had given birth to a baby boy, but it was clear at once that the baby was sickly, and it was not a shock that it did not last a month. A few months after that, Jacob’s mother had died, very peacefully, and no one was surprised when his father, who was quite lost without her, had followed her before the year was out.

As a result of these changes, Jacob had suddenly found himself both head of the family, and still childless. He’d felt strangely lonely.

But then, a twelvemonth later, his little Naomi had been born. From the day of her birth, she’d been a strong baby. He’d been overjoyed. She’d continued to thrive. He was sorry that his parents had not been there to see it, but he faced the future with happiness, and hope.



Once, just once during those years, there had been a brief reminder that in the medieval world, the dangers of hysteria were never absent.

One Easter in Paris, a Jew he knew slightly, not an especially pleasant fellow, was suddenly arrested. The crime of which he was accused was serious, however, for he was accused of desecrating the Host.

A poor woman from a nearby parish claimed that she had brought a wafer to him from her church and that he had attacked it with a knife. Was it the truth? Who knew? But within days the story had grown. The wafer had run with blood. The blood had filled a bath. Then the wafer had flown about the house. Then the Savior Himself had appeared to the Jew’s terrified family. People often had visions, and they were often believed. In this case, a court had found the fellow guilty and, this being a religious crime, he’d been executed.

Jacob had shaken his head at the folly of it all, but he had not been astonished. One must be careful, very careful, that was all.



More serious might have been another development from across the sea.

It had been a July day. Jacob had been walking across to the Île de la Cité, and had caught sight of Henri Renard. He’d waved to him. And been surprised when Renard had hurried to his side and urgently seized his arm.

“You haven’t heard?” Renard had demanded.

“Heard what?”

“Terrible news,” Renard continued. “The Jews of England are all expelled. They’re to leave at once.”

Jacob had hastened home. By that evening he’d discussed it with the rabbi and a dozen friends.

“The fact that the king of England strikes the Jews does not mean that Philip of France will want to copy him,” the rabbi pointed out. “We have to wait and see. Besides,” he had added, “what else can we do?”

By the next day, most of the Paris community had come to the same conclusion.

But it was then that Jacob’s friend Renard had stepped in. He’d waited only days before he did so. Seeing Jacob in the market of Les Halles, he’d taken him to one side.

“We have known each other too long for you to take offense,” the merchant began quietly. “So forgive me if I ask you something, Jacob, that I’ve been thinking about ever since the expulsion from Gascony.” He’d paused, embarrassed. “Jacob, my friend, these are such dangerous times that I must ask you: Have you ever thought of converting?”

“Converting?” Jacob had stared at him in astonishment. “You mean, to Christianity?”

“It’s hardly unknown.”

Conversions had certainly happened in Spain. In France they were rarer. A generation ago in Brittany, five hundred Jews had converted all together—though that had been under the threat of death if they didn’t.

“It would bring you safety,” Renard pointed out quickly. “All the restrictions placed upon Jews would be raised. You could own land, and trade however you pleased. I’d gladly sponsor you for the merchants’ guild,” he added.

Jacob knew his childhood friend meant to be kind. But he was shocked all the same. He’d shaken his head, and Renard had not raised the subject again.

And indeed, the Jews of Paris had been left in peace. England remained closed to Jews. As might be expected, the English king soon replaced them with Italian moneylenders, sanctioned by the pope. But Philip the Fair did not follow his example. The Jews of Paris breathed easier.



For Jacob however, the next years had brought problems of another kind.

The year after the expulsion from England, Sarah had given birth to another child, a son. But the tiny boy had been sickly and had not lived a week. Eighteen months later she had suffered a miscarriage. And after that, nothing. For some reason his wife had failed to conceive. It seemed that Jacob was not to be blessed with a son.

He accepted this blow, as he knew he must, but he could not help asking himself sometimes: Why had God singled him out for this misfortune? What had he done?

The old rabbi who had failed to impress Jacob’s father had been succeeded by his son, a stocky fellow of about his own age. Naomi and the rabbi’s son were part of a group of children who played together, another reason to keep friendly with him, and so Jacob had gone to consult him. The rabbi hadn’t been much help, though. He found no fault with Jacob’s conduct, and told him: “We must accept what God decides. It may be for a reason you do not know.”

Was it from that time that the change within him had begun? Jacob himself could not say. There had been no sudden turning away. He’d attended the synagogue exactly as he had always done. But he got little pleasure or comfort from it. He was conscious of a sense that the Lord had somehow turned away from him, but whether this was a temporary trial, like the tribulations of Job, or whether it was something more permanent he had no idea. Occasionally he failed to go to the synagogue and his absence was noted. Yet each night without fail he said his prayers and took comfort from them.

His greatest joy was Naomi. He doted on her. With her bright eyes and dark curls, she was an enchanting little girl. He taught her the Shema and said it with her every night, as his father had done with him. He would sit with her on his lap and talk to her on all manner of subjects. He taught her to read so that by the age of eight, she could read and write better than most of the Jewish boys of her age.

He liked to take her about with him, and he showed her the wonders of Paris, including the great churches.

So he was none too pleased, one evening shortly after Naomi’s eighth birthday, to receive a visit from the rabbi, who’d asked to speak to him alone. Nor was his mood improved by the rabbi’s opening remark: “I’ve come, Jacob, not only for myself, but for some of your friends. For I must tell you there have been complaints. About your daughter.”

“What kind of complaints?” Jacob kept his voice quiet and even. “Has she done something wrong?”

“Not at all,” the rabbi answered quickly. “It is not what she has done …” He hesitated a moment. “Jacob, have you ever considered that it may not be seemly for a girl to receive too much instruction?”

“You mean that she can read and write better than a boy?”

“Not everyone likes that. You are treating her as if she were your son. But one day she will grow up and marry, and it is for the husband to lead the family in these things, not the wife.”

“Anything else?”

“You take her everywhere. This is your choice, naturally. But when she is older, she will have to restrict where she goes. To family, to friends. We hope you make her understand that it is not seemly for Jewish women to wander about the town. Especially …”

“Especially what?”

“Jacob, you have been seen taking your daughter into Christian churches. Is that wise?”

“We live in Paris. She should know what the inside of Notre Dame looks like.”

“Perhaps. But not all the community think so.”

“Is this all?”

“No, Jacob. It is not. She has been telling the other children stories. Of Saint Denis. Of Saint Geneviève. Of Roland.”

“But these are the heroes and heroines of France. Every Christian child in Paris knows the story of the killing of Saint Denis on Montmartre. They say now that he picked up his head and walked away with it. Absurd, but a children’s tale. I told her how Geneviève—supposedly—saved Paris from Attila the Hun. I find these stories absurd, but shouldn’t she at least know them?”

“When she is older, I would agree with you. But she tells these stories to your friends’ children, and they don’t like it.”

“They say nothing to me.”

“No. But to me they do.” The rabbi took a deep breath. “Jacob, we are sorry that you have no son, but Naomi is a daughter. You cannot turn her into a boy.”

“Have you any other advice?”

“You do not always come to the synagogue.”

“Perhaps this is the real reason you are here.”

“No. But if you turn your face from God, then God will turn his face from you. This is certain.”

“I am grateful for your concern.”

“I have told you only what is for your own good.”

Jacob stared at him. He was angry. But he was also hurt. And the fact that some of the things the rabbi said might be true did not make it any better.

“I will consider your advice,” he said coldly.

“You should. It is good advice. I shall tell your friends that it has been given.”

This was the last straw. Was this rabbi really trying to impose himself between him and all his neighbors? Was this his object?

“You are a fool,” Jacob suddenly burst out. “My father always told me your father was a fool. Your son will be a fool as well.”

“Do not speak to me like that, Jacob.”

“Get out.”

The next week, Jacob observed the Sabbath in his home. But he did not go to the synagogue. He did return the week after. But although he had many friends, an invisible bond between himself and the rest of the congregation had been broken. What else, he wondered, might his so-called friends say to the rabbi behind his back?



And then, as if to give the lie to the notion that God had turned His face from him, Sarah announced that she was going to have another child.

If Jacob was thrilled, he was also concerned. God might be smiling upon him again, but common sense told him to be careful. Two boys lost and a miscarriage: the record was not good. He resolved to take every precaution. He wished his father were still alive to give him guidance.

As the weeks went by, therefore, he protected Sarah night and day. He made her promise not to exert herself. If he was out in the city, he’d come back several times during the day to make sure that she was keeping her promise. He realized that he was giving less attention to Naomi than he usually did, and felt guilty about it. But though she was only eight years old, Naomi seemed perfectly to understand. Each evening he would read stories to them both in front of the fire.

They never discussed whether the baby would be a girl or a boy. The subject was too sensitive. But one day when Sarah was in her sixth month, a visiting neighbor remarked to him: “I see your wife is going to have a boy.”

“Why do you think so?” he asked.

“By the way she carries the child, the way she walks,” the woman replied. “I can always tell.”

And at this news, Jacob’s heart leaped for joy. But he said nothing even to Sarah. And he was glad that he had not. For a few days later, passing the kitchen, he overheard Naomi say: “I wonder if my father will still love me so much if the baby is a boy.” And he knew that his little daughter was right, and his heart went out to her. And he vowed on the spot that never, never would he love her any less, or show that he cared more to have a son than a daughter.

It was in the eighth month that things began to go wrong. The physician, a man whose judgment he trusted almost as well as he had his own father’s, took him aside and told him: “I believe this will be a difficult birth, Jacob.”

“You mean she may lose the child?”

“It may be difficult for both of them.”

“What can I do?”

“Trust in the Lord. I will do the rest.”

It was now approaching midwinter. Some mornings, the cobbles in the street were slippery with ice. He told Sarah that she must on no account go outside. He kept the fire burning night and day.

Two more weeks passed. Her time was drawing near.

Then one night came a knock on the door.

It was Renard. His friend came in quickly, embraced him, asked after Sarah and Naomi and then said in a low voice that they must speak alone.

They went into Jacob’s little counting house and closed the door.

“No one must know that I came here tonight,” Renard began. “What I have to tell you must remain a secret for your own sake and for mine.”

“You can rely on me.”

“I know.” Renard took a deep breath. “Jacob, I have a friend who is close to the counsels of the king. He has given me news that I share with you alone. I must ask you not to share it with others, however tempted you may be. Otherwise, I can tell you nothing. I beg you for your own sake and your family’s to promise that you’ll keep this secret.”

Jacob was not sure that he liked the sound of this. But he had no doubt that if Renard told him that it was for his family’s sake, then it was so.

“Very well,” he said after a pause. “Please go on.”

“The king has been persuaded to move against the Jews. I do not know when he will strike, but it will not be long.”

“What will he do?”

“I am not certain. But it’s not just a fine. It is something more significant.”

“It must be expulsion, then.”

“That is what I think.”

Both men were silent for a moment. Where would the Jews go? The King of France controlled far larger territories than when Philip Augustus had briefly expelled the Jews a century ago. The nearest possible refuge might be Burgundy, if the Duke of Burgundy would have them.

Jacob thought of Sarah in her condition, and of the unborn child. Must he wander the world with his poor little family? Would they survive?

Then Renard spoke. His voice was quiet, though troubled.

“Years ago, dear friend, I made a suggestion to you. I never raised the subject again. I respected your wishes. But when I see the situation now, as your friend, I must beg you to reconsider. For your own sake. For the sake of your family.”

“You are speaking of conversion.”

“I am. I needn’t remind you of the advantages. All the limitations placed upon Jews would be raised. You would be a free man. Your family would be safe. You could continue to reside here in Paris. I could do so much for you.”

“I must turn my back on my God to find safety?” Jacob said.

“Is it turning your back on God?” Renard responded earnestly. “What is it, Jacob, that we Christians say? Only that Jesus of Nazareth was the very Messiah that the Jews were waiting for. Those Jews who realized it became the first Christians. We are waiting for the rest of the Jews to follow them. That is all that divides us in our religion, my friend. And to me it seems but a small step to take. The ancient Jewish prophecies have been fulfilled. That is all. It’s a cause for rejoicing.”

Jacob smiled at his friend.

“You must talk to my rabbi,” he said wryly.

“One thing I must urge upon you,” Renard continued. “If you are prepared to take this step, you’d better take it soon. The Inquisition desires that all men should be good Christians—of course. On the other hand, the Inquisitors are suspicious of converts, because they suspect their conversions may not be sincere. While the information I have given you remains secret, your conversion should be acceptable. But once it’s known the king means to expel the Jews, then it might arouse suspicion.”

“This I understand,” said Jacob, but he gave no further answer before Renard departed.

Jacob did not sleep well that night. For a while, he lay in bed thinking. Then he got up and sat by the fire. Twice he took a candle and went softly to look at his wife, and at Naomi, as they slept. And all the time he pondered.

He did not care about the rabbi. He did not even care so much about the Jewish congregation. Not since some of them had shown themselves to be false friends.

But what of the Lord God of Abraham and his forefathers? If I have suffered when I have served the Lord my God, Jacob considered, will He not smite me with afflictions far worse, if I betray Him now? Besides, wasn’t the Lord making His face to shine upon him, by granting him a son at last? To turn away from God after such a blessing would be madness indeed.

Yet was the baby a son? A neighbor’s wife had said so. What of it? The truth was that he did not know. Besides, he’d lost two sons already. And now the physician was concerned about the birth itself. Even the safety of his wife was in doubt.

Hour after hour Jacob turned these things over in his mind. To trust in the Lord, or to betray his heritage. To save his little family, or to see them destroyed. Thus he passed the dark night of the soul. And it was only at dawn, when he heard his wife cry out in pain, and sent hurriedly for the physician, that, unable to bear it anymore, he had made the terrible decision.



Jacob had been baptized into the Christian faith a week later. Renard had made the arrangements with a priest, and it had been discreetly done. For Jacob had been so afraid that the shock of his conversion might cause his wife to miscarry that neither she nor Naomi had any idea of it until two weeks after his son had been safely born. They called the little boy Jacob, since it was the family tradition. During this time, he did not go to the synagogue, but allowed it to be thought that this was because he would not leave his wife’s side.

When at last he told Sarah, she had been greatly shocked. He explained to her in secret what Renard had told him, and why he had done it. When he had finished, she said nothing for a few moments, and then remarked with some bitterness: “So, I am to lose every one of my friends.”

Had she not been nursing her baby, and caring for Naomi, he supposed she might have said a lot more than she did.

As for Naomi, the little girl was mystified. The first night after she was told she was to be a Christian, he had come to say prayers with her as usual, and she had begun:

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu adonai ehad …

But there he had gently stopped her, and explained that from now on she should begin her prayers with a new prayer.

“It is a very beautiful prayer,” he promised. “It is addressed to the one Lord, the God of Israel, and of all the world. It begins ‘Our Father …’ ”

“Am I not to say the Shema anymore?” she asked.

And with a sudden pang of grief he found himself telling her: “Christians sometimes say the Shema, too, in Latin. But it’s better that you use this other prayer instead.”

When Naomi asked her mother about it the next morning, Sarah told her firmly that she must obey her father and that he knew best. But that afternoon she came in crying because another little girl had told her that the prayer was used only by the enemies of her people. Soon, none of the other children in the quarter would speak to her.

She could not be told the secret about the coming expulsion. It was too dangerous, and she was too young. Jacob could only watch her suffering and comfort her as best he could.

It was clear they had to move.

If Henri Renard had been the cause of all this pain, he certainly kept his promise when it came to helping his friend once he had made the fateful decision. He had already prepared the ground, both with the priest who baptized Jacob, and with a wide circle of influential merchants and their families.

“You’ll remember his father the physician, of course,” he’d say. “One of the most trusted men in Paris. So Jacob grew up among Christians like myself from his childhood. He couldn’t discuss it publicly, of course, but to my certain knowledge he has been considering converting for nearly a decade.” Technically, since he himself had broached the subject to Jacob years ago, this was true, if somewhat misleading.

As a Christian, Jacob was not supposed to practice moneylending. But in no time Renard had got him into the merchant guild. There were plenty of opportunities for a man of his skill and fortune to make money as a merchant, and he was soon an active dealer in the city’s great cloth trade. Renard had also helped Jacob find the house in the rue Saint-Martin.

“It’s only a short walk from Les Halles, and it’s in my own parish of Saint-Merri, so we can hear Mass at the same church,” he explained. And he ensured that the newly converted family—for Sarah and Naomi, however unwillingly, had also been baptized—were welcomed by their fellow parishioners. So at least they now had neighbors who spoke to them, and Naomi had the chance to make new friends.

The greatest relief for Jacob, however, had been the health of his newborn son. The birth had not been as difficult as feared. The baby was in good health, and within weeks was giving every sign of being robust. So far, at least, it seemed that God had not turned His face away from Jacob. Indeed, Jacob even wondered if it was possible that the Lord might be pleased with his conversion.

Strangely, during the whole business, the reaction that troubled him the most, the words that haunted him, came from a man he didn’t even care for.

The morning after his conversion had become known the rabbi came straight to his house.

“Is this true, Jacob ben Jacob? You have converted? Tell me this is not true.”

“It is true.”

He had expected the rabbi to be angry. But there was an even more striking reaction, a look so deeply carved in the lines of the rabbi’s face that it gave him a new dignity. It was grief.

“Why? Why have you done such a thing?”

“I have decided that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.”

It was not true. He could not tell the rabbi the truth. And as he stared at this man he did not like, he felt a sudden and terrible guilt. He longed to cry out: “I did it because the Jews are going to be expelled. I did it to save my family.” But he could not. There lay his greatest crime. He was doing nothing to warn his own people. He was going to wait as their doom approached, watch while they lost everything, including their homes, and were cast out to wander the world.

“Will you betray us then, Jacob ben Jacob?” the rabbi asked bitterly. “Will you be another Nicolas Donin?”

This was a searing accusation. For every Jew knew that Nicolas Donin, the Franciscan who’d persuaded Christendom to burn the Talmud, had been born a Jew himself. Nothing was more terrible, it was often said, than the vengeance of the traitor.

“Never!” he cried. He was deeply hurt. But it was the rabbi’s parting words that would haunt him.

“You call me a fool,” the rabbi said. “But it is you who are the fool, Jacob. You convert. You join the Christians. And you think: Now I shall be safe. But you are wrong. This I know, and this I tell you.” He shook his head. “You are a Jew, Jacob. And no matter what you do, no matter what the Christians say—believe me—you will never be safe.”



So Jacob attended church and learned what it was to be a Christian. In a general way, through his intimacy with friends like Renard, he had always known. But because it was his nature to be intellectually curious, he began to study the religion to which he had committed his family. The Old Testament he knew well. Now he studied the New. And he was interested to discover how directly, how intimately, the one grew from the other. To him, Jesus and his disciples did not seem like Christians at war with a Jewish culture they shunned. They were Jews. They were Jewish in culture, they obeyed Jewish laws, followed Jewish observances. They read from the Torah, and sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem.

As for the Christian message of love, who would argue against that?

When Renard had urged him to remember that the Christian Church had begun as a group of Jews who recognized that their rabbi had been the promised Messiah, Jacob had assumed it was to help him convert and save his skin. And it probably was. But, in fact, Jacob now concluded, his friend had spoken the truth. As he read the Acts of the Apostles, it struck him forcibly to what an extent the first Christians were Jews, and how easily—but for Saint Paul’s persuading the Savior’s reluctant family and friends to let the Gentiles join them—they might have remained a Jewish sect. Time, and the tragedies of history, accounted for all the rest.

But no man could ignore that long history. It could not be done. If the Church regarded him cautiously, if the rabbi no longer spoke to him, if his wife was unhappy and his daughter mystified, he could not blame them.

Meanwhile he waited, with a heavy heart and secret shame, for the terrible blow that was about to fall upon the Jews of France.

Weeks passed. Nothing happened. He wondered if Renard had made a mistake about the king’s intentions. Had he put his family through untold misery for no good reason at all?



But Renard had not been mistaken. The king had indeed been planning to strike at the Jewish community—but not in the way that he and Jacob had expected.

For in the year of Our Lord 1299, Philip the Fair announced that he would no longer protect the Jews from the Inquisition. The blow was as cunning as it was vicious.

What had the king done? Nothing. What might the Inquisition do? Anything. Was the king losing any revenues he might collect from the Jews? No. Was he proving his piety? Yes.

And what did this mean for Jacob?

“That I converted, thinking that my own people would be thrown out of Paris. Whereas now they remain here, and hate me more than ever. That I converted to be safe. Whereas now, the Inquisition will be encouraged to watch me like a hawk, and if they decide that my conversion was not sincere, they will say that I am a Jew after all, and they will attack me for perjury, and who knows what else. For all I know, they will burn me alive. That is what the king’s action means for me,” he said miserably to his wife.

“For us,” she corrected, grimly.



But the Inquisition had left him alone. In his favor was the fact that the Jews of Paris so clearly hated him, and that, thanks to Renard, the congregation of the Saint-Merri parish continued to embrace him as one of their own.

The family settled into a Christian life. It was strange to them not to celebrate the Sabbath on a Saturday anymore. The observance of the Christian Sunday was a far more lax affair. He missed the passionate intimacy of the Jewish Passover. He missed the haunting, melancholy sound of the cantor in the synagogue. But the Christian services had their beauty too.

“Our life,” he told his family, “is not so bad.”

Whatever she thought, Sarah saw no use in complaining. Little Jacob, growing up in an extended circle of the Renards and their friends, was too young to have known anything else. As for Naomi, she seemed to adapt. She made new friends. As far as Jacob knew, she never saw any Jewish children at all.

Jacob rented a storehouse nearby where he kept the great bales of cloth in which he now dealt. He took on an apprentice, who slept in a loft over the store to guard its contents. A year after converting, he had bought the orchard of apple and pear trees by the hamlet on the slopes to the northeast of the city, and on Sunday afternoons the family, often accompanied by the Renards, would usually walk out there and, after inspecting the orchards and gazing down upon Paris, return by another path that led them past the fortress of the Temple Knights and thence into the city. It was pleasant exercise.

Five years had passed in this manner, without incident.



Perhaps because it developed slowly, he never saw the crisis with his daughter coming.

He had taken the greatest care never to seem to neglect her for the baby. He continued to read and write with her and to teach her simple mathematics. He told her stories just as he had before. As little Jacob began to talk, he’d put the child on his knee and tell him a story, saying to Naomi, “Do you remember how I used to tell this story to you?” And sometimes he would get halfway through and say, “You finish it now, Naomi,” praising her when she did—so that soon she was proud of the fact that the little boy looked up to her as a second mother.

Naomi would help Sarah dress the child, and take him for walks.

“It’s good for her,” Jacob would say contentedly to his wife. “She’ll make an excellent mother one day.”

He was also pleased to observe that his daughter was going to be a beautiful young woman. As a little girl, the most noticeable thing about her had been her wide-spaced blue eyes, set in a round face surrounded by a mass of dark curls. But by the time she was eleven, her face was already turning into a lovely oval. The curls were becoming rich tresses that fell thickly below her shoulders. Men were starting to turn to look at her in the street.

He had often wondered if she would make a good bride for Renard’s eldest son, who was five years older. He didn’t like to suggest it to his friend, who had already done so much for him. “If he doesn’t like the idea, I don’t want to embarrass him,” he explained to Sarah. And Renard, so far, had never broached the subject himself. Jacob was also constrained by the fact that on the one occasion he had gently asked Naomi what she’d say if the offer were ever made, she’d said simply: “I like him very well, Father. But I think of him as a friend, not a husband.”

“Friendship is the best basis for a marriage,” her father had responded. “Your feelings might change.”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

And though he naturally had the right to choose her husband, Jacob loved his daughter far too much to make her unhappy.

“I’ll never give you to any man against your will,” he’d promised.

There was no shortage of offers from other families. He’d received three inquiries from worthy merchants in the city. He’d put them off for the time being, but there seemed little doubt that Naomi would have the chance to marry well.

Meanwhile, she displayed a wonderful understanding that delighted him. For having treated her more like a son than a daughter when she was young, he had found he couldn’t suddenly change his intellectual relationship with her just because she had a brother. Often, therefore, he would discuss his business with her, or the events of the day. It was especially enjoyable for him because she not only grasped matters quickly, but her questions were probing. She asked not what had occurred, but why. He remembered one conversation in particular. It had been a little before her thirteenth birthday.

“Why is it,” she’d asked him, “when the land of France is so rich, that the king is always short of money?”

“For two reasons,” he told her. “First, because he likes to go to war. Second, because he likes to build. When he’s finished enlarging the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, it will be the envy of all Christendom. And nothing in the world costs more than war, and building.”

“But why does he do this? Is this for the good of his country?”

“Not at all.” Jacob had smiled. “You must understand, Naomi, that when a simple man, a merchant let us say, inherits from his father, that inheritance is his personal property. He seeks to enlarge his fortune and to become more powerful. Often, he also wants to impress his neighbors.”

“This may be foolish.”

“Undoubtedly, but it is human nature. And kings are the same, but with this one difference. Their inheritance is an entire country. But they still view it as their property, to do with as they please. So, King Philip desires to enlarge his kingdom, especially at the expense of his family’s rivals, the Plantagenets of England. Down the generations, his family have pushed the Plantagenets out of Normandy, in the north, and both Anjou and Poitou, in the west. Now he hopes to press farther down the Atlantic coast of Aquitaine, and push them out of the great wine-growing lands around Bordeaux in Gascony. The king has also done very well in his marriage. His wife has brought him control of the rich plains of Champagne. This is a wonderful addition to his realm. But beyond Champagne he sees the lands of Flanders, with their rich towns, and he hopes to get some of Flanders as well.”

“This is all for his personal glory, then?”

“Certainly. He is just a man. In fact, rich kings often behave no better than spoiled children.”

“You think that wealth and power make men childish?”

Jacob laughed.

“I had never formulated the thought in quite that way, but you may be right.”

“So these things are not done for the good of his people?”

“Kings always say they are. But it’s not true. Or if it is, then it’s purely by chance.”

“But what of God?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t kings serve God? Aren’t they afraid for their immortal souls?”

“Intermittently.”

“I think that rulers should be good men.”

“And it does you credit,” her father replied. “But I will tell you something. A good man may not be a good king, Naomi. It all depends on the circumstances. There is something better than being good, in a ruler, and you will find it in the Bible.”

Naomi frowned, and thought for a moment.

“You mean King Solomon?”

“Exactly so. When Solomon became king, the Lord asked him what gift he would like to have. And Solomon asked for wisdom. I am happy if a ruler is a good man, but I would rather he were wise.”

“You do not think many kings are wise?”

“Not that I have observed.”

Jacob could see that the conversation had saddened his daughter, and he was sorry for it. But he wasn’t going to lie to her.



Looking back, however, he sometimes wondered whether he’d been wrong to speak to her so frankly on that day. Had this been the start of that disillusion that was to lead to tragedy?

It might be so. But there had been no sign of it for more than a year after that.

During that time King Philip of France, as usual, had been trying to raise money. He’d tried all the usual expedients. He’d taxed the Jews. He’d even debased his own coinage. But nothing had been enough. So he’d tried another ruse, sudden and unexpected.

“We’ll tax the clergy,” he declared.

There had been an uproar. The bishops had protested. The pope himself had told King Philip to remove the tax at once.

“Why did he do it?” Naomi had asked.

“The simple answer is because the Church has so much money,” her father replied. “Perhaps a third of the entire wealth of France is owned by the Church.”

“But the Church doesn’t pay taxes?”

“The Church may make a voluntary contribution to the king. But it is exempt from the usual taxes.”

“Because the Church serves God.”

“This is the idea.” He paused. “But you must also understand that there is more at stake. It’s a question of power.”

“Please explain to me.”

“It’s been going on a long time. Essentially, because they say they represent the divine power, the Church claims that it is a heavenly kingdom, not subject to earthly kings. That’s why there are Church courts, which often let people in Holy Orders off with a light penance for crimes that might lead to execution if they were ordinary folk. We see this in Paris every day, and many people resent it.”

“The students at the university are protected in this way.”

“Exactly. And at the highest level, popes have sometimes claimed that monarchs should answer to them for their kingdoms. A pope might even try to depose a king. As you can imagine, this idea is not popular with kings, even the most pious ones.”

“I did not realize it went so far.”

“It depends on the pope. Some popes have more lust for power than others.”

“But are they not acting for God?”

“That’s the idea.” He considered. “The great cathedral of Notre Dame is a monument to God, is it not?”

“Yes, Father.”

“You know, there was a cathedral there before the present one. But the great Bishop Sully said that the old church was not big enough, and so he built it again, in the new style. It cost a fortune.”

“It is very fine.”

“Yes. But do you know that Bishop Sully also told a lie. The old church was almost the same size. But Sully wanted something more splendid, so that Paris would be proud, and men would say, ‘Look what the great Bishop Sully built.’ To the glory of God, of course.”

“And your point is?”

“Two things may be true at the same time. The Church is there to bring men to God. But bishops and popes are men, like kings. They experience the same passions. In the old days, the days of Saint Denis, for instance, when Christians were persecuted, as Jews are now, their faith was probably more pure. But now that the Church is rich and powerful, there will be some corruption. I think it’s inevitable.”

Naomi looked down thoughtfully for a few moments. Then she turned her blue eyes on him.

“If the Church is corrupt, Father, why did you leave your faith to join it?”

He stared at her, taken aback. She had never asked him this question before. Of course, when he had first converted, he had given the expected reasons—that Christ was indeed the Messiah that good Jews had been waiting for. And he had often pointed out to his children, at appropriate times during the year, how closely the Christian Church was following this or that aspect of the original Jewish faith. But beyond that, the subject was never discussed. He was sure that Sarah had seen to that.

So had Naomi been brooding about it all these years? It sounded as if she had. And was this the moment of reckoning, when he should tell her the truth? “I converted to save your skin, and that of your brother, and your mother and, yes, my own as well.” Could he say that? He dare not. She was still a girl.

“Because I believe Jesus Christ was the Messiah,” he said. “You know this, Naomi.”

She continued to stare at him, but said nothing more, neither then nor for many months. Whatever her feelings, she kept them to herself. He hoped it was because she loved him.



And perhaps she might have kept silent forever—who could tell?—had it not been for an extraordinary event that took place in 1305, when Naomi was fifteen.

The dispute between King Philip and the pope remained at a furious stalemate until, quite suddenly, the pope had obligingly died. Within months his elderly successor had followed him to the grave—poisoned, probably. A new election was to take place in Rome, and Parisians waited to see whether the next pope would be any more friendly toward their master. The election was delayed. Word came that there was confusion in the Holy City.

It was mid-afternoon on a day in June when Renard arrived at Jacob’s house. The little family were all there.

“I believe I am first with the news,” he declared. And seeing this to be the case, he quickly continued. “We have a new pope. Can you guess who it is? The bishop of Bordeaux.”

“He’s not even a cardinal!” Jacob cried.

“No. But he’s French. He’s King Philip’s man. Our king must have been working behind the scenes.”

Kings often tried to influence papal elections, to get a pope who’d favor them, but this was an extreme case.

“He’s just a puppet,” said Jacob.

“Then listen to the most extraordinary news of all. The new pope is not going to live in Rome.”

“Not at the Vatican?”

“He won’t even be crowned in Rome. They’ll do it in Burgundy. After that he’s moving the papal court to Poitiers, right here in the domains of the King of France. There is talk of his moving down to Avignon in a year or two, but not to Rome. As of today, King Philip of France owns the papacy.”

He left them soon afterward to spread the news. When he had gone, Jacob shook his head.

“In time of danger, popes have sometimes left Rome before,” he remarked, “but this … I don’t know what to say.”

Sarah’s face was a mask.

Then Naomi spoke.

“I am not surprised at all.” She looked steadily at her father. “The Church is corrupt. You have told me so yourself. I don’t think the Church has anything to do with God at all. In fact, it disgusts me.”

“Don’t speak to your father like that,” said Sarah sharply.

But Jacob was not angry. He was grieved.

“You must be careful what you say, Naomi,” he said quietly. “Such words are dangerous. And for a convert, they are more than dangerous.”

“I am not a convert,” Naomi cried bitterly. “It was you who made me a Christian.”

“But you are a Christian now. No one, not even a servant in this house, must hear you say such a thing. It could place us all in great danger.”

Naomi was silent for a moment.

“I will say nothing,” she answered. “But now you know what I think, Father, and that will never change.” Then she went out of the room.



What could he do? There was nothing he could do. He understood her feelings. In many ways he shared them. She was shocked at the corruption. So was he.

And she was young. By the time she reached his age, she might accept that the best to be hoped for were small adjustments to an imperfect world. But for the time being, her mind was made up, and he must respect it.

He was grateful also that she kept her promise not to reveal her feelings. She went about her daily business, helping her mother, in her usual quiet and cheerful way. She accompanied her family to church without complaint. She still joined him when he told stories to little Jacob, and she even started to teach the child to read and write herself. He would have preferred to reserve this task for himself, but he was pleased if it gave her an occupation, especially in the dark winter months.

For her greatest pleasure was to go out. She took little Jacob for a walk each day. Whenever her father went out to his orchard, she would always gladly accompany him. She would walk across to the Île de la Cité and light a candle in Notre Dame. And since these visits appeared to the world as acts of religious devotion, her father did not discourage them.

“I think it helps her to get out of the house,” he remarked to Sarah.

And so their family life continued quietly, through the winter and into the spring. As the weather grew warmer, Naomi was able to walk a little longer. One day, she told him, she had crossed over to the Left Bank and visited the lovely Church of Saint-Séverin. With the warmer weather, her mood also seemed to lighten. Perhaps she had gotten over her shock of the previous year.

“The time is approaching,” Jacob said to his wife one day, “when we may have to start thinking about a husband for her. As long,” he added uncertainly, “as she isn’t going to start airing her views on the pope to any prospective husband.”



The visit from the rabbi came in the middle of June. He arrived at Jacob’s house a little before noon. Naomi was out with her little brother.

The rabbi had put on weight in the last few years. He sat down heavily on the bench in Jacob’s counting house.

“What can I do for you?” Jacob asked warily.

“What can you do for me?” The rabbi stared at him. “What can you not do for me?” He sighed, and shook his head. “You do not know why I have come to your house?”

“I do not.”

“The wise man does not know.” He nodded. “I am a fool!” he burst out suddenly. And then, very quietly: “But I know.”

Jacob waited.

“Your daughter, Naomi, goes walking by herself quite often,” the rabbi continued.

“Yes. What of it?”

“Where does she walk?”

“It depends. Sometimes to Notre Dame, or some other church.”

“And what does she do when she gets there?”

“Lights a candle. It is the custom. What is this to you?”

“Because your daughter does not walk to Notre Dame. She walks to other places.”

“Where does she walk?”

“She can walk to Aquitaine for all I care! But she is walking with my son Aaron. That is why I am here.”

Aaron. Her childhood friend. A stocky boy, some years older than Naomi. Nothing special. Jacob hadn’t given him a thought in years.

So Naomi’s outburst had caused her to start seeing her Jewish childhood friends again. He could understand her doing so, but it was not wise, especially to be seen in the streets with the rabbi’s son. It could give rise to misinterpretation. He wondered what other Jews she might have seen, and what she might have said to them.

“I did not know this. I will tell her she should not meet him anymore.” He almost reached out his hand to touch the rabbi’s arm, but decided not to, instead giving him what he hoped was a conciliatory smile. “I am sure Aaron is a good young man. But in our situation …” He shrugged sadly. “Their old friendship is no longer wise.”

“You have not understood,” said the rabbi. “They want to get married.”

“Married?”

“Yes, Jacob ben Jacob. Married. Your daughter wants to return to the faith of her fathers. She wants to marry my son and be a Jew again.”

Jacob gazed at him. Then he bowed his head.

So. She had deceived him. Completely. For a moment it was like a blow to the pit of his stomach. He sagged forward.

She had turned away from him. She was no longer his. Did her mother know? Had his whole family secretly deserted him? He took a deep breath.

She was young. He must remember this. She might read and write, and think for herself, and show wisdom. But she was still young, and probably in love. He told himself this quickly, before the pain grew too great to bear.

“You are sure of this?” he asked, without looking up.

“Yes. My son has spoken to me.”

“Such a thing is impossible.”

“Of course it is impossible.”

“Does she not realize that this would put her whole family in danger? My own conversion would be questioned.”

“Your family?” The rabbi leaned forward, and began to speak, in a low voice that was intense with anger. “Less than thirty years ago, Jacob ben Jacob, a Christian in Brittany converted to Judaism. Such a thing is very rare. We do not encourage it. But it happens. And when that convert died, he was buried as a Jew, in the Jewish cemetery. And do you know what the Inquisition did? They burned the rabbi at the stake. Because he let that man die a Jew, when he should have been buried in Christian, consecrated ground. Does this make sense? Not to me. But that is what they did.” He paused. “So what will happen to me and my family if the Inquisition says that we are stealing a Christian convert back to Judaism? Who can tell? But for taking your daughter’s soul into our evil clutches, they will probably burn me and my son as well. Our risk is not less than yours, Jacob. It is greater.”

“What have you told your son?”

“That I forbid him even to think of it.”

“And what does he say?”

“That he will marry no one else. I told him: ‘Then you will marry no one.’ ” The rabbi threw up his hands. “He thinks that they can go to live in another city where they are not known. Arrive there as a married couple. This is foolishness. I have told him no. But … I don’t know what they may do.”

“You don’t think …?”

“That there is a child on the way? No. Thank God. He says they have not … But we had better be careful. You must lock your daughter up, Jacob, to stop this madness.”

“It is what I will do,” he said.



He tried to reason with her first.

“My child, do you think I do not understand?” he cried. “When you are in love, the skies open, you think you see angels. Everything seems possible. But there are darker forces at work in the world, and I am trying to protect you from them.”

She listened to him. But when he asked her to promise never to see the young man again, she would not do it. And even if she had, he wasn’t sure he would have believed her.

From that day, despite all her protests, Naomi was kept in the house. She could not even take her little brother for a walk. Jacob told her that she could come out with him, if she wished. But she refused, because she would not speak to him.

Though he was under close watch himself, Aaron tried to see her, and three times tried to sneak a letter in to her. But Jacob and the rabbi managed to prevent all these attempts from succeeding.

In the home, the atmosphere was tense. Jacob was not sure how long the family could continue to live like this.

“I have men with whom I do business in other cities,” he suggested to Sarah. “Perhaps she could go and live with another family for a while.”

“And what might she do then? Will you have them keep her under lock and key?”

There seemed no solution to the problem. A month passed. In the Jewish calendar, they came to the fast day of Tisha B’Av.



King Philip the Fair was both ruthless and efficient. He’d shown it in getting a pope of his own. Now, on the twenty-second day of July, in the year of Our Lord 1306, which was the day following the Jewish fast of Tisha B’Av, he showed it again.

The preparations had been immaculate. No word of his intentions had leaked out. Renard the merchant had heard nothing. Every street, every house was known. The cordons were ready and moved into place during the night. And at dawn, his men struck.

The success was total. Every Jew in Paris was arrested. They, their wives, their children. Not a one was missed. By early morning they had been marched through the streets to the awaiting jails. There they were given the news.

They were to leave France at once. They might take with them the clothes on their backs and the paltry sum of twelve sous. Everything else was forfeit, to the king.

In the middle of the morning, Jacob met Renard in the street. They looked at each other.

“It came after all, then,” said Renard quietly.

“Yes.” There was no need to say more.

By mid-afternoon, much was known. The same thing had happened in every town in France where there was a Jewish community. They were to leave every territory that King Philip controlled. The usual reasons were given for the arrests—the Jews’ religion, their practice of usury—but nobody was fooled for an instant. Jacob was in a group of merchants whom a royal councillor addressed in the market of Les Halles.

“None of the debt owed to the Jews is to be forgiven,” the man explained. “Those debts are now the property of the king, and he will insist on their being honored to the full.” This was not popular. But the next piece of news brought groans. “Further, all debts must be repaid in the coinage in use at the time they were contracted. The king will insist upon it.”

This was devious. King Philip had just issued large quantities of clipped coinage. Clearly, he had no desire to be paid in his own debased currency.

The expulsion of the Jews from France was simple and straightforward. It was a confiscation of the entire assets of the financial community in order to pay the king’s debts.

It took a couple of months to complete. The last Jews of Paris didn’t leave until early October. During this time, Naomi was kept indoors, and Aaron was kept on a tight leash by the rabbi. At the start of September, Jacob heard that the rabbi and his family had gone.



For Jacob, the great expulsion brought horror. Horror at what was being done to his people.

True, he also felt vindicated. He could turn to Sarah and say: “This is why I converted. This is what I feared.” The pain he had put his family through had not been in vain. He had indeed saved them.

But at what price in guilt? Every day, as more Jews left Paris, people would watch them go. But not Jacob. He kept away. He didn’t want to see. Above all, he feared that they might look at him. For he couldn’t have met their eyes.

And then, God forgive him, it also brought relief. Relief that the rabbi’s son was leaving.

Where were the Jews of France going? Over the eastern border into Lorraine; or into Burgundy, or farther south. Or they might journey toward Italy, up into the alpine territory of Savoy. But wherever they went, young Aaron and his family were gone. That danger, at least, was past. Life could begin anew.



Or could it? The first few days were difficult. Naomi wanted to follow Aaron. She said so plainly. And though he sympathized, Jacob could not help feeling a little aggrieved.

“She knows the danger for her family,” he protested to Sarah.

“She thinks it could be avoided. Aaron would be out of France. She thinks we could say she’d been sent to live with some merchant in another city.”

“These things get discovered. The risks are too great. She should know this.”

“She thinks it because she wants it to be true.”

“What would they live off anyway? Aaron has no money now,” Jacob pointed out sadly. “The king’s completely ruined them.”

“He’ll be a rabbi. They always manage to live.”

“Well, she can’t follow him, anyway,” said Jacob, “because she doesn’t know where he’s gone.” And this was true.

But by winter, Jacob knew. He’d taken trouble to find out.

Aaron was far away, up in the mountains of Savoy.



If Naomi had been angry at first, after a time her temper subsided into moodiness. She was allowed once again to take little Jacob for walks, which she did listlessly. Often Jacob would come upon her sitting with her brother by the fire, but while the boy chattered, she would be staring off into space.

Jacob and Sarah both suspected that Naomi might be hoping to receive some word from Aaron, and they watched carefully to intercept any such message. But as far as they could tell, no message arrived.

December came and went. There was ice in the streets. Snow fell. And in those dark days of the year, their daughter seemed to be wrapped in a mantle of sadness.

They tried to behave as normal. They did their best to be quietly cheerful in her presence. Jacob told stories in the evening, as they all sat together, and she seemed to enjoy them. If he recounted some foolish joke he’d heard in the market, she would laugh quite easily. But as gray January began, he could see little joy in her face, but only resignation.

One day, returning home from some business, he saw her sitting on a bench by the fire. She was alone. She must have heard him come in, but she did not turn, as though silently letting him know that she wanted to be left alone. And he was about to go into his counting house, but then, thinking better of it, he quietly entered and sat on the bench beside her. He did not say anything, but observed the sad curve of her neck and the way she stared with stony eyes at the embers of the fire. And after a time he put his arm around her tense shoulders and said: “I am so sorry, my child.”

She said nothing. But she did not draw away.

“I know you are unhappy,” he continued quietly. “I am sorry that you wanted to leave us, but I understand.”

After a pause, she answered.

“The truth is, Father, that I no longer wish to live in a land where they do such things.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “Aaron’s father once told me, ‘You will never be safe.’ He may have been right. Whoever is born a Jew is never safe, no matter where he goes.”

“Why are we Christian, Father?” she asked.

And then, because it seemed to him at that moment to be the right thing to do, he quietly told her everything. He told her about Renard’s warning, and his agony over what to do, and how he had feared for Sarah, the unborn baby, and herself; how he had converted, and the agony it had brought him. He told her everything.

“I may have been wrong, my child, but that is what I did and why. And now I have caused you great pain, which was never my intention, and I am sorry for it.”

When he had finished, she was very still, and he wondered if he had made her angry.

“I did not know,” she said at last.

“There was so much danger, I did not dare to tell you. I wondered sometimes if your mother had.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He had removed his arm from her shoulder while he spoke. Now he put his two hands together in his lap, and stared into the fire himself.

Then he felt her put her arm around his neck and as he turned toward her, she rested her head against his shoulder.

“I understand, Father, that you did what you thought you must.”

“I hope you do,” he replied.

“You know that I shall always love you, don’t you?” she said.

He turned to look at her, and she smiled.

“Always,” she said. “You are the best father in the world. Didn’t you know?”

He could not answer, but he took her hand and squeezed it, and her words meant more to him, almost, than even the birth of his son.



From that day, she seemed to be less sad. Life began to return to its usual pattern. As spring began, Jacob asked Sarah if she thought they might begin to think about a husband for her again.

“Wait a little,” she advised.

“I leave it in your hands,” he wisely said.

At the end of May, Sarah told him, “I think she is ready.” And a few days later, Naomi herself remarked to him quite casually: “I am in no hurry to marry, Father, but when the time comes, I wonder if we should consider the Renard boy. I trust him and he has always been my friend.”

Jacob needed no further bidding. The very next day, seeing Renard walking along the street, he fell into step beside him. After a few pleasantries he remarked what a fine young fellow Renard’s eldest son had become.

“I’m pleased with the way that Naomi’s turning out as well,” he added.

They walked on a few more paces before Renard turned to look at him.

The two men showed their ages in very different ways. What little hair was left on Jacob’s head was gray. Renard by contrast, like many redheads, had kept all his hair, and showed little sign of aging at all. Only the deep, long lines that ran down his face like gullies betrayed his years.

“She is a beautiful girl,” he remarked. “I should think you’ll be looking for a husband for her soon.”

“Yes,” said Jacob.

“I remember so well,” Renard continued quietly, “those days when you converted.”

“I owe it all to you.”

“Naomi would have been about nine at that time.”

“Indeed.”

“How did she take it, then—and later?”

“Well …” Jacob hadn’t expected this question. “She is an obedient girl, so she did not question her father’s judgment. And it’s been so long now. All her friends are Christian. Her brother, of course, has been a Christian since birth.” It wasn’t quite an honest answer, but it was the best that he could make.

Renard nodded thoughtfully.

“You know my affection for you and your family, Jacob. I am glad of what I did to help you, and I would do it all again. But a marriage goes beyond that. My son loves your daughter as a friend. He will be her friend all his life. But he is also devout. Not all Christians are devout, God knows. But he is. Whoever marries my son will need to be devout. She cannot harbor any doubts.”

“Of course my daughter has no doubts,” Jacob said quickly. “None at all.”

They both knew it was a lie, but that he had to say it.

“We must speak of this again sometime,” the red-haired merchant suggested as he left him. But they both knew that they never would.

“I never thought he was so devout,” remarked Naomi, when her father told her about the conversation.

“Perhaps he isn’t,” said Jacob quietly.

But he was not discouraged. By the end of the summer he had begun serious negotiations with the merchants who had expressed interest before, and two other new candidates also came forward. By the end of September, he was able to present his daughter with as good a set of choices as any girl could reasonably hope for. For her part, Naomi gradually entered into the spirit of the thing. Indeed, by the time he showed her the final list, she’d become quite cheerful, and appeared to find the process amusing.

“I’d like to have a little time now, Father. Two of the choices I hardly know yet. Could I have a month or two?”

“Of course,” he answered with a smile. “Let us decide by Christmas.”



On Tuesday, the eleventh of October, Jacob was down in the Grève market on the riverbank when he happened to see Renard. The two men chatted for a little while. And Renard was just departing when he casually remarked: “Do you remember Aaron, the rabbi’s son?”

“Certainly,” Jacob replied.

“Do you know, I could have sworn I saw him in the street yesterday. I don’t suppose it was him. But if he has sneaked back into Paris, he’d better be careful. He could get arrested.”

Jacob stared at him in horror, but quickly recovered himself.

“I should think it’s unlikely,” he said, with a shake of the head. “He’d be a fool if he did come back.”

But the moment Renard was out of sight, he hurried out of the market at once.



“Where is Naomi?” he cried, as he burst into the house. Sarah told him she’d just returned from a walk with her little brother. “She’s here?” he demanded.

“She went out again. She’s gone to that stall she likes in the rue Saint-Honoré, to buy some ribbon,” her mother replied. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

Then, in low tones, Jacob quickly told her about Aaron.

“Not a word to anyone,” he cautioned. “Nobody must know. Go to the ribbon stall and see if you can find her. Then come back and meet me here.” Meanwhile he went to saddle his horse.

Sarah didn’t find her. Within the hour, Jacob was on his way. He crossed the river to the Left Bank and took the rue Saint-Jacques, the pilgrims’ path, that led toward the south. If they had started for Savoy, they would probably have gone that way.



And now, two days later, he knew he had lost her. Naomi’s cunning letter made that quite clear. For a long time, he stared at the shining carpet of mist over Paris. The rising sun was starting to strike the towers of Notre Dame, making them gleam.

He started to read the letter again.

It wasn’t long. After some expressions of affection, she announced that she had news that she knew must cause them sorrow. She thanked her father for offering her such a fine collection of worthy suitors, and allowing her to choose a husband from among them. But now she must make a confession. She loved another.

I love another. He is a good young man, but I know he would not be acceptable to you, for he has no fortune. He comes from Aquitaine, where his father is a miller. He came to Paris as a servant in a nobleman’s household. But now he is returning to Aquitaine. And I go with him.

I am his woman. We shall marry when we reach his home. He has promised it.

Do not try to follow us. It is too late for that. But you shall hear from me again, once we are married. Until then, I beg your forgiveness, my dear parents.

He could not fault the letter’s cleverness. There was not a word about Aaron, the Jewish boy. The miller’s son was obviously Christian. Of course, he didn’t believe in the existence of this boy from Aquitaine for a moment. But any outsider to whom the letter was shown would see no reason to doubt it. All they’d see was that she’d run off with a poor boy. She was already living with him in sin. She’d disgraced herself and her family. Such things happened.

Nor was there any hint that she might have gone to Savoy. Just a false trail to Aquitaine.

Once or twice, he still asked himself if there mightn’t be a chance of recovering her. What if he brought her back and married her to one of the eligible young men he’d chosen for her? But he knew it was useless. If Naomi was determined to run away with Aaron, then she was never going to settle down with a Christian boy, even if he led her to the altar in chains.

To make it believable, he’d probably tell a few friends what had happened, and set out for Aquitaine where, of course, he would not find her. Nor would any letter come from her. People would suppose that something had happened to her and her lover on the way, or that the young man had jilted her, and she was too ashamed to return to her parents.

He’d apologize to the families with whom he’d been negotiating her betrothal. He’d probably show them the letter. They’d hear about it anyway.

It would be highly embarrassing. But yes, he thought sadly, it would probably work.

For another hour, he paced about in his orchard, going over the thing this way and that, glancing from time to time at the the city below, where the mist was gradually thinning and the houses beginning to emerge.

After that, he decided to return home. Out of force of habit, he followed the path that he and Naomi always took, which led down the slope and into the city past the great fortress of the Temple Knights. There were still some wreaths of mist where the ground fell away beside the lane, but he could see the fort’s walls clearly enough from some distance.



He was about a hundred paces from the Temple’s gateway when he saw the crowd. He wondered what it could mean. Then he noticed a gleam of swords and armor, and saw that a cart was emerging from the gate.

Was this a bullion shipment setting off? He drew closer. There was something odd about the cavalcade ahead of him, but he couldn’t decide what it was. Another fifty paces, and he realized. The mounted men were not Templars. They were the king’s men-at-arms. There was also a troop of men following the cart. They weren’t armed, though. Some of them looked as if they were only half-dressed. As he stared, he saw that they were shackled together with chains. It seemed to him that he had seen some of their faces before. Then he realized.

They were Templars. Knights Templar. In chains.

“What is happening?” he asked a fellow in the crowd before the gateway.

“The Templars are being arrested.”

“Which Templars?”

“All of them. Every Templar in France. In all Christendom, I believe.”

“By whose orders?”

“King’s orders. And the pope’s.” The man grinned. “Same thing these days, isn’t it, now that our king owns the pope.” The fellow seemed rather proud that France now controlled the Holy Father.

“Upon what charge?”

“All kinds of crimes. They read the proclamation not an hour ago. Loose living, heresy, sacrificing to idols, magic arts, sodomy … You name it. They’ve done it all.”

“Heresy? Sodomy?” The Templars, sitting on their stupendous fortune, were often said to eat too well and drink too much nowadays. Jacob suspected people said this because they were jealous. And what if it were true? So did half the monks in Christendom. But sacrificing to idols? Magic arts? These other charges were clearly absurd. Jacob had no particular love of the Templars, but his sense of justice was outraged. “Is there evidence?” he asked.

“There will be.” The fellow laughed. “The Inquisition will see to that. After they’ve been tortured. You know the way of it.” They were going to torture the Templars, like common criminals. Like heretics. “Once they’ve burned a few at the stake,” the man continued cheerfully, “they’ll talk.”

“But what about all their forts, and their money?” Jacob asked. “What’s to become of them?”

“Forfeit. The whole lot. They’re bust, from dawn today.” This thought seemed to give the fellow particular satisfaction. “These Templars and their damned Crusades. They cost us a fortune and achieve nothing.” He shrugged. “Look at Saint Louis.”

So impressed had the papacy been by the piety of King Louis IX of France that ten years ago the builder of the Sainte-Chapelle, and supporter of the Inquisition, had been canonized as a saint.

“He went on crusade,” the man went on. “Got himself captured. And we, the people of France, had to pay his ransom. And all for what? He had nothing to show for his stupid war, and most of his troops died of disease. Damn the crusaders and damn the Templars who support them—that’s what I say.”

Jacob knew that most Parisians nowadays would agree. But behind this attack on the Templars, he realized, was a simpler and more brutal truth. By disbanding the order, the king had just canceled all his debts to them.

The heresy, the immorality and the arrests were all a screen. With the pope and the Inquisition in his pocket, King Philip the Fair was going to torture and burn God knows how many unfortunate men to get their bogus confessions. Every instrument of Holy Church was to be used. And all for what? To plunder the bullion of the Templars, and to renege upon his debts.

The expulsion of the Jews had been bad enough, but for the king to turn upon his own Christian soldiers, it seemed to Jacob, showed a cynicism that, in its way, filled him with an even deeper disgust.

There was no loyalty, no mercy, no interest in truth, nor thought of justice. There was no respect for God. There was nothing.



When he got home, Jacob told Sarah what he had seen. Then he went into his counting house and closed the door. He did not emerge all day.

In the evening his wife came in.

“Will you not eat something, Jacob?”

“I’m not hungry.” He stared at the table.

Sarah sat on the small wooden chair he used for visitors. She didn’t say anything, but she rested her hand on his. After a while, Jacob spoke again.

“Naomi said she didn’t want to live in a land with such a king. She blamed me for converting.”

“She is young.”

“She was right. I shouldn’t have converted.” He was still staring at the table.

“You did what you thought was for the best.”

“You know”—he looked up at her now—“I have no problem with the Christian doctrine of love. It is wonderful. I embrace it.” He shook his head. “The trouble with the Christians is that they say one thing, and do something completely different.”

“The king is corrupt. The Church is corrupt. We know this.”

“Yes, I know this.” He was silent for a long moment. “But if they are corrupt, then I am corrupt also.”

“What would you do? Stand before the king and curse him like one of the prophets of old?”

“Yes,” he cried, with sudden passion. “Yes, that is what I should do, just as the prophets of my forefathers did in ancient times.” He threw up his hands. “This, no doubt, is what I should do,” he added sadly.

“And what are you going to do?” Sarah gently asked her husband.

Jacob paused for a while.

“I have an idea,” he said at last.



Within a week all Paris knew. The lovely daughter of Jacob the merchant had run away with a poor miller’s son. It was a humiliation. His family was dishonored. But one had to respect his reaction.

For Jacob the merchant was leaving Paris. He, with his wife and son, were setting forth for Aquitaine, where it was believed the couple were, and would not rest until Jacob had seen his daughter properly married in church. Then it was their hope to return to Paris where, if the young man was up to it, Jacob would take him into his business.

Not many fathers would have done it. They’d have cast their daughter out. But it was generally agreed that he was showing a truly Christian spirit.

The luckiest person in all this, people also said, was the miller’s son. He was going to get an heiress for his trouble.

“If only I’d known,” joked one of the eligible suitors for Naomi’s hand, “I’d have run away with her myself.”

It took Jacob ten days to close up his business and put his affairs in order. The merchant guild wished him a safe return. The royal authorities gave him a travel pass and wished him luck.

In the last week of October, in the year of Our Lord 1307, Jacob the merchant set out in a horse and cart, taking the rue Saint-Jacques, the old pilgrim’s road that led up the hill past the university. Before passing through the gate, Jacob paused.

“Look back at the city,” he said to his son. “I shall never see it again, but perhaps you will one day. In better times.”

A week later, they reached Orléans.

Two days after that, however, instead of continuing southwest toward Aquitaine, they took another road that led them eastward. Journeying south and east by stages they continued another two weeks until they passed into Burgundy. And then they traveled another ten days until finally, looking eastward early one morning, Jacob said to his son: “What do you see in the distance?”

“I see mountains, whose peaks are covered with snow,” he answered.

“Those are the mountains of Savoy,” his father said.

By the time he reached them, he would be a Jew again.

And feeling a great weight of corruption and fear fall from his shoulders at last, he murmured the words he had missed for so long.

“Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”