1632

Some of it, she would decide, was ancient heartbreak. For all the savagery of the Holy Inquisition and the pitilessness with which the hidalgos enforced the expulsion, Spain and Portugal's Sephardim would never be able to forget Iberia, the sun-drenched land they had come to love, spending centuries helping to build, convinced that Jews had finally found a place of welcome and refuge. Until Christian royalty and nobility decreed otherwise, and they were driven out to wander again. Yet they retained the language, and recited the poetry, and cherished the culture for their own. Ashkenazim could huddle in their ghettos in central and eastern Europe, shutting the outside world from their souls. But not the Sephardim. Almost a century and a half had gone by since their expulsion from the land they called Sepharad, but it was still the highest praise, amongst them, to call a man hidalgo.

So she would conclude, as the years went by, that some of her response had been a child's, discovering-hoping to discover-that legends were not lies, after all. That there did exist, somewhere in the world, a nobility that was not simply cruelty and treason, veiled beneath courtesy and custom.

But there was more. That, too, she would conclude. There had also been the reaction of a woman.

For there had been the man himself. Handsome, yes, but not quite in the hidalgo way. Even in that moment of terror and confusion, she had retained enough of her wits to sense the difference. The man had possessed none of a hidalgo's raptor beauty. Simply a good-looking man-almost a peasant, come to it, with that blunt nose and open smile. And if his eyes had been such a pure blue as to give despair to hidalgos, there had been nothing in them but friendship and concern.

So Rebecca Abrabanel would conclude, over the years. But she would still find herself wondering about that moment. Hour after hour, at times. It was self-indulgence, perhaps. No other moment in her life, when she looked back, would ever bring quite such a glow to her heart.

***

"Yes-please! My father…" She lowered her head for a moment, shutting her eyes. Tears began leaking through the lids. Softly: "He is very ill. His heart, I think."

She opened her eyes and raised her head. The man's face was blurred by the tears.

"We are alone," she whispered. "No one-" A shuddered breath. "We are marranos." She sensed his puzzlement at the term. Of course. He is English. "Secret Jews," she explained. To her surprise, she managed a chuckle. "Not even that now, I suppose. My father"-she pressed her fingers down, as if to safeguard the gray head in her hands-"is a philosopher. A physician, by trade, but he studies many things. Maimonodes, of course, but also the arguments of the Karaites on the Talmud. And Averroes the Moslem."

She realized she was babbling. What did this man care? Her lips tightened. "So he was expelled by Amsterdam's Jews for heresy. We were on our way to Badenburg, where my uncle lives. He said he could provide us shelter." She jarred to a halt, remembering the silver hidden in the chests of books. Fear came again.

The man spoke. Not to her, however. He turned his head and shouted: "James, get over here! I think we've got a very sick man here."

He turned back. His smile was thinner, now, not the gleaming thing it had been earlier. But even through the tears Rebecca could sense the reassurance in it.

"What else do you need, ma'am?" he asked. His face tightened. "There are some people coming this way. Men carrying weapons. Who are they?"

Rebecca gasped. She had utterly forgotten about the band of mercenaries they had encountered earlier.

"Tilly's men!" she exclaimed. "We didn't think they had come so far from Magdeburg. We encountered them two miles up the road. We were hoping to escape down this path, but-"

"Who is-Tilly?" the man demanded. The smile was gone completely. His face was tight, tense, angry. But the anger did not seem directed at her.

Rebecca wiped the tears away. Who is Tilly? How can anyone not know? After-Magdeburg?

The man seemed to sense her confusion. "Never mind," he snapped. There came a shout from a distance. Rebecca couldn't make out the words, but she knew they were in English. A warning of some kind, she thought.

The man's next words were quick and urgent: "I only need to know one thing. Do those men mean to do you harm?"

Rebecca stared at him. Was he joking? The honesty in the face reassured her.

"Yes," she replied. "They will rob us. Kill my father. Me-" She fell silent. Her eyes flitted toward the place where the woman had been lying on the ground. But the woman was not there now. She was on her feet, walking slowly toward the farmhouse. Two of the hidalgo's men were helping her along.

She heard the hidalgo's voice, snarling. "That's good enough. More than good enough." She was startled by the sheer fury in his tone.