Shadow of Night(195)
“I’m young enough to sit at your feet like one of your pupils, Maharal.” Matthew grinned and folded himself gracefully into a cross-legged position.
“My students have better sense than to take to the floor in this weather.” Rabbi Loew studied me. “Now. To business. Why has the wife of Gabriel ben Ariel come so far to look for a book?” I had a disconcerting sense that he wasn’t talking about my trip across the river, or even across Europe. How could he possibly know that I wasn’t from this time?
As soon as my mind formed the question, a man’s face swam in the air over Rabbi Loew’s shoulder. The face, though young, already showed worry creases around deep-set gray eyes, and the dark brown beard was graying in the center of his chin.
“Another witch told you about me,” I said softly.
Rabbi Loew nodded. “Prague is a wonderful city for news. Alas, half of what is said is untrue.” He waited for a moment. “The book?” Rabbi Loew reminded me.
“We think it might tell us about how creatures like Matthew and me came to be,” I explained.
“This is not a mystery. God made you, just as he made me and Emperor Rudolf,” the Maharal replied, settling more deeply into his chair. It was a typical posture for a teacher, one that developed naturally after years spent giving students the space to wrestle with new ideas. I felt a familiar sense of anticipation and dread as I prepared my response. I didn’t want to disappoint Rabbi Loew.
“Perhaps, but God has given some of us additional talents. You cannot make the dead live again, Rabbi Loew,” I said, responding to him as if he were a tutor at Oxford. “Nor do strange faces appear before you when you pose a simple question.”
“True. But you do not rule Bohemia, and your husband’s German is better than mine even though I have conversed in the language since a child. Each of us is uniquely gifted, Frau Roydon. In the world’s apparent chaos, there is still evidence of God’s plan.”
“You speak of God’s plan with such confidence because you know your origins from the Torah,” I replied. “Bereishit—‘In the beginning’—is what you call the book the Christians know as Genesis. Isn’t that right, Rabbi Loew?”
“It seems I have been discussing theology with the wrong member of Ariel’s family,” Rabbi Loew said drily, though his eyes twinkled with mischief.
“Who is Ariel?” I asked.
“My father is known as Ariel among Rabbi Loew’s people,” Matthew explained.
“The angel of wrath?” I frowned. That didn’t sound like the Philippe I knew.
“The lord with dominion over the earth. Some call him the Lion of Jerusalem. Recently my people have had reason to be grateful to the Lion, though the Jews have not—and will never—forget his many past wrongs. But Ariel makes an effort to atone. And judgment belongs to God.” Rabbi Loew considered his options and came to a decision. “The emperor did show me such a book. Alas, his Majesty did not give me much time to study it.”
“Anything you could tell us about it would be useful,” Matthew said, his excitement visible. He leaned forward and hugged his knees to his chest, just as Jack did when he was listening intently to one of Pierre’s stories. For a few moments, I was able to see my husband as he must have looked as a child learning the carpenter’s craft.
“Emperor Rudolf called me to his palace in hope that I would be able to read the text. The alchemist, the one they call Meshuggener Edward, had it from the library of his master, the Englishman John Dee.” Rabbi Loew sighed and shook his head. “It is difficult to understand why God chose to make Dee learned but foolish and Edward ignorant yet cunning.
“Meshuggener Edward told the emperor that this ancient book contained the secrets of immortality,” Loew continued. “To live forever is every powerful man’s dream. But the text was written in a language no one understood, except for the alchemist.”
“Rudolf called upon you, thinking it was an ancient form of Hebrew,” I said, nodding.
“It may well be ancient, but it is not Hebrew. There were pictures, too. I did not understand the meaning, but Edward said they were alchemical in nature. Perhaps the words explain those images.”
“When you saw it, Rabbi Loew, were the words moving?” I asked, thinking back to the lines I’d seen lurking under the alchemical illustrations.
“How could they be moving?” Loew frowned. “They were just symbols, written in ink on the page.”
“Then it isn’t broken—not yet,” I said, relieved. “Someone removed several pages from it before I saw it in Oxford. It was impossible to figure out the text’s meaning because the words were racing around looking for their lost brothers and sisters.”