The Coffee Trader

25

Though still in bed, Hannah ate her soup that evening and chatted calmly with her husband. Miguel and Daniel both showed their relief, though the storm had not yet passed. Miguel had been doing his best to stay out of Daniel’s path, but that night Annetje brought him word that his brother wished to see him in his study. Miguel found him hunched over his writing table, scribbling in the light of a good candle. Three or four more flickered in the breeze of the open window. Daniel had been smoking an acrid tobacco, and Miguel felt a headache gathering its forces.

“How does your wife?” Miguel asked.

“I no longer fear for her life. These frights, you know, can be fatal to a woman’s delicate humors, particularly one in her condition. But the doctor tells me there is no risk to the child.”

“I’m glad. It’s a terrible thing.”

Daniel paused for a moment. He picked up a pen and then set it down again. “It is a terrible thing. What do you know of it, Miguel?”

Though he had considered how he might respond to this line of questioning for the better part of the day, Miguel still had no clear idea of what he could say to put matters at ease. Did Daniel want a confession, or did he want to be comforted?

“I can’t say for certain,” he told his brother at last.

“But you have ideas.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I can’t say that I have no guess, but I have no way of knowing for certain.”

“Perhaps you should tell me about your guess.”

Miguel shook his head. “It would be inappropriate for me to speculate. It is wrong to make accusations where I can prove nothing.”

“Prove nothing?” Daniel slammed his hand down on the table. “Is not the head of a pig proof? Recollect that you are staying in my house, and your actions have endangered my family. I nearly lost my wife and child today. I insist you tell me what you suspect.”

Miguel sighed. He had not wanted to speculate too wildly, but who could deny that his hand had been forced? “Very well. I suspect Solomon Parido.”

“What?” Daniel stared incredulously. He forgot to finish puffing on his pipe, and smoke drifted lazily from his mouth. “You must be mad.”

“No, it is precisely the sort of scheme to hatch from Parido’s vile mind, and I believe you suspect him as much as I do. He has been plotting against me, and what better way to sully my name than to leave this thing at my door as though I have brought it upon myself?”

“Preposterous. Your conclusions require a contortion of logic. Why would Senhor Parido do such a thing? Where would so righteous a man acquire an unclean animal?”

“Have you some better way to explain this madness?”

“Yes,” Daniel said, with the solemn nod of a judge. “I think you owe someone a great deal of money. I think this money may be the result of a gambling debt or some criminal doing, which is why the person you owe can’t go to the courts. This abomination upon the stoop of my house is meant to warn you to pay or face the most unpleasant of consequences.”

Miguel concentrated to keep his face from revealing anything. “How did you reach this fanciful conclusion?”

“Quite inevitably,” Daniel said. “Hannah found a note rolled up and slipped through the ear of the pig.” He paused for a moment, that he might study his brother’s response. “She tucked it away in her pocket for reasons I cannot guess, but the doctor found it and presented it to me with the greatest concern.” He reached to the bookshelf behind him for a small piece of paper, which he presented to Miguel. The paper was old and torn-clearly ripped from a document used for another purpose-and it was badly stained with blood. Miguel could not make out much of the writing except a few words in Dutch-I want my money-and, a few lines down, my wife.

Miguel handed it back. “I have no idea of its meaning.”

“You have no idea?”

“None.”

“I will have to report this incident to the Ma’amad, which will no doubt investigate. We can’t keep the matter quiet, at any rate. Too many neighbors witnessed Hannah’s distress.”

“You would sacrifice your own brother to lend a hand to Parido while he carries out his petty vengeance?” Miguel spoke so urgently that for a moment he forgot that circumstance suggested no more likely a culprit than Joachim. “I’ve wondered about your loyalties, and I always chastised myself for suspecting that you might favor this man over your own flesh and blood, but now I see you’re nothing but a player in his puppet show. He pulls your strings, and you dance.”

“My friendship with Senhor Parido is no breach of loyalty,” Daniel snapped back.

“Yet you value him over your own brother,” Miguel said.

“It need not be a contest. Why must I choose one over the other?”

“Because he has made it so that you must. You would sacrifice me for this man, and you would do so in an instant.”

“You know nothing of me, then.”

“I think I do,” Miguel said. “Answer truly. If you were asked to choose between the two of us, to make a choice in which you had to definitively side with one or the other, would you even for a moment entertain siding with me?”

“I refuse to answer your question. It is madness.”

“Then don’t answer it,” Miguel said. “You need not bother.”

“That is right. I need not bother. Why even speak of such choices? Senhor Parido has shown his goodness in the kindness he’s shown to our family, particularly after the harm you did his daughter.”

“It was no harm. It was but a silly affair and would have been of no lasting consequence if he had not allowed himself to lose all reason. I had a dalliance with his maid, and his daughter saw. Why must he make all this thunder over nothing?”

“There was harm, and permanent harm too,” Daniel replied harshly, “and if Senhor Parido feels anger over the damage done to his daughter, I for one cannot blame him, for you came close to doing the same harm to my unborn child.”

Miguel began to reply, but checked himself. There was something more to this affair than he knew. “What damage?” he asked. “She had a fright. It is nothing.”

“I should not have said anything.” Daniel looked away.

“If you know something, you must tell me. I’ll ask Parido himself if need be.”

Daniel put a hand to his forehead. “No, don’t do that,” he insisted. “I’ll tell you, but you must not let him know that you know, or that you learned from me.”

Despite his fear, Miguel could have smiled. Daniel would betray Parido if only to save his own flesh from the fire.

“More happened to Antonia than the senhor wanted the world to know. When she came into the room and saw you in your unspeakable act with her maid, she fainted.”

“I know that,” Miguel said testily. “I was there.”

“You know she struck her head. What you don’t know is that she and her husband in Salonika have since had an idiot child, and the doctors say it is the result of this injury. She can have nothing but idiot children.”

Miguel ran a hand along his beard and inhaled sharply through his nostrils. Antonia rendered unable to bear healthy children? He could not fathom the connection between her injury and its consequence, but he was not a medical man to solve such riddles. He knew enough, however, to figure out the rest. Parido’s own idiot boy was a shame to him, and Antonia had been his only hope of perpetuating the family, particularly since he had wed her to a cousin also named Parido. The parnass was a wrathful man by nature. What anger would he reserve for the man he believed had destroyed the future of his line?

“How long has he known this?”

“No more than a year. And I beg you to recall that you must not tell him I spoke of it.”

Miguel waved a hand at him. “No one told me.” He rose from his chair. “No one told me!” he repeated, this time far more loudly. “Parido had more reason to hate me than I could have known, and yet you said nothing. And now you doubt that he has sent this vile message to injure me? Your loyalties are as preposterous as your beliefs.”

“I won’t listen to any such lies about Solomon Parido.”

“Then we have no more to discuss.” Miguel hurried down the narrow staircase, almost stumbling as he did so. In his rage, he had nearly convinced himself that there was no more likely explanation for the pig’s head than Parido. Could there be any doubt that, in his rage and twisted sense of rectitude, he would do all he could to harm Miguel? Damn his brother for thinking otherwise.

In the damp of the cellar, he listened to the familiar scrape of floorboards as Daniel dressed and left the house. He had not been gone for more than a quarter hour when Annetje came down the stairs and handed Miguel a letter. It was addressed to Daniel and contained a circle in the upper corner.

The note was from the broker, asking confirmation of Daniel’s willingness to support Miguel’s trade. The letter was standard, nothing of consequence, but there was a line at the end that intrigued Miguel.

You have always been a respected man on the Exchange, and your friendship with Solomon Parido is more surety than any man could wish. Nevertheless, owing to your recent reversals and the rumors of insolvency, I hesitated before considering your guarantee solid enough to back your brother’s trade. Nevertheless, I shall gamble on Miguel Lienzo’s cleverness and your honor.

So Daniel was in debt. That explained why he insisted on receiving Miguel’s money right away. Well, it was no matter. Miguel forged a reply, which he gave to the girl to send off. She hesitated a moment, and only when pressed did she explain that the senhora had requested his company.

Hannah lay propped up, her head wrapped in a bluish cloth and her skin pale and wet with perspiration, but she appeared to be in no great danger. She was stretched out comfortably on that proper bed of hers, long enough that she could lie flat on her back, unlike the cupboard bed that tortured Miguel. This one had been built of an elaborate oak frame that rose above her. Among the wealthy Dutch, these new beds had become the fashion, and Miguel vowed he would buy one for himself the moment he left his brother’s house.

The bed had no curtains to part, so she lay there for him to see, her eyes wide and sorrowful. “We should talk quickly,” she said, her face grave but without accusation. “I don’t know where your brother has gone, so I don’t know when he will return.”

“I suspect I know where he has gone,” Miguel observed. “He’s gone to see Parido.”

“That may be,” she said.

Miguel took a step closer. “I only want to say that I am sorry for what happened to you, and for your distress. I never meant for you to be hurt. I promised you would not.”

She smiled slightly. “Your brother made more of it than was necessary. I was frightened for a moment, but I soon recovered. I have felt the baby moving all day as she always does. I have no fears there.”

She, Miguel noticed. Would she dare speculate on a girl child in front of Daniel? Did her speaking of it in front of Miguel constitute an intimacy?

“I am very happy to hear there are no lasting consequences.”

“I’m only sorry I couldn’t do more. I found a note, and I don’t know what it said, but I hid it thinking it might do you harm. Your brother took it from me.”

“I know. It was of no importance.”

“Do you know who left that vile thing there?”

Miguel shook his head. “I wish I did, but still, I thank you for your efforts. I’m sorry,” he said, taking a sharp breath, “that I behaved so poorly. I wish to discuss this matter with you again. Perhaps another time. When you are rested.” He had not planned to, but he took her hand in his and held it tight, feeling its coolness, the contours of her smooth skin.

He expected her to pull away, to chastise him for his unforgivable presumption, but she looked up at him as though this gesture of devotion were the most natural thing in the world. “I am sorry too-that I was so weak-but I knew nothing else.”

“Then we shall have to teach you what you want to know,” he told her kindly.

Hannah turned her head away for a moment, burrowing into her pillow.

“I must ask you something else,” he said, rubbing her hand with his, “and then I’ll let you rest. You mentioned Madam Damhuis. What more did you wish to tell me?”

Hannah remained motionless, as if she might pretend not to have heard him. Finally she turned back to face him with her reddened eyes. “I hardly even know. She was speaking to some men when I saw her, and I scarcely looked at all. But she thought I had seen something I ought not to have.”

Miguel nodded. “Did you know the men? Did they appear to you of the Nation or Dutch or something else?”

She shook her head. “I can’t even say that. I think they were Dutch, but one might have been a Jew. I am not certain.”

“You did not know them? You had never seen them?”

“I think one was her servant man, but I can’t say.” She shook her head. “Senhor, I was too frightened to see them.”

Miguel knew the feeling well. “I’ll let you sleep,” he said. He knew he should not do it, he told himself not to, that he would regret it, that it would only bring trouble. But he did it anyway. Before gently setting her hand down upon the bed, he raised it to his lips and softly kissed her warm skin. “And thank you, senhora.”

He didn’t wait for a reply but hurried out of the room, fearing he might cross paths with his brother on the stairwell, but no such thing happened.

Hannah closed her eyes, not knowing what to think, or even how. Miguel had forgiven her. He understood her. He had taken her hand and kissed it. Could she dare to hope for more than that? Oh, what had she done to deserve such mercy? She slid a hand down to the comforting bulge of her belly, caressing this unborn child, this daughter, whom she would protect from all the evil that threatened them both.

When she opened her eyes, Annetje stood before her. Her face was immobile, jaw thrust outward, eyes little more than slits. Where had she come from? Hannah had heard no one climb the stairs. The girl could do that; she went in and out of rooms like a ghost.

“You told him,” Annetje said, so quietly Hannah could hardly hear her.

She briefly considered lying, but what good would it do? “Yes,” she said. “I thought it important he know.”

“You foolish bitch,” she hissed. “I told you to keep quiet.”

“You must not be angry with me,” Hannah said, hating the tone of pleading in her voice, but there were things far more important than that tiny shriveled thing she called her pride. “The doctor said that I must not grow warm in temper, lest I risk the child.”

“The devil take your child,” Annetje said. “I hope he does, along with the rest of you heathen Jews.” She took a step closer.

Hannah pulled the comforter up to protect herself. “He won’t betray us.”

Annetje now stood over her, looking down with her cold eyes, green as the eyes of an evil spirit. “Even if he does not, do you think the widow will honor his silence? And do you think he is so clever that he can avoid betraying you, even without so meaning? You’re a fool, and you ought never to be allowed to have a child in your care. I came here with the intention of thrusting a knife up your quim and killing that wretched child of yours.”

Hannah gasped and pushed herself backwards.

“Oh, calm yourself. You are as timid as a rabbit. I said I came up here with that intention, but I have since changed my mind, so you needn’t move about like that. I only hope you are grateful that I am not seeking a more fitting punishment. And you’d better hope that the senhor is as good at keeping secrets as he is at learning them, because if you are betrayed, you can be sure I’ll not help you. If need be, I’ll tell your husband all I know, and the lot of you may go to the devil.”

Annetje hurried out of the room. Hannah listened to her feet slap clumsily against the stairs and then, in the distance, the slam of a door.

Hannah took a deep breath. She felt her pulse pound in her temples and she concentrated on soothing her anguish. But even more than fear she felt confusion. Why did Annetje care so much if Miguel knew about the widow? What did it matter to her?

Hannah shuddered. Why had she not seen it before? Annetje was in the widow’s service.

Within two days the doctor permitted Hannah to rise from her bed, but things had grown uncomfortably tense in the house. No one spoke more than a few words at a time, and Miguel remained out of the house as much as he could. On Shabbat he invited himself to the home of a West Indian merchant with whom he maintained a friendly acquaintance.

Not all had turned sour, however. He had received a message from Geertruid saying that she had gone to visit relatives in Friesland. She would be back in Amsterdam any day, but in the meantime she had heard that her man in Iberia had secured agents in Oporto and Lisbon and now traveled to Madrid, where he felt sure of success. The news was good, but nevertheless troubling in light of Hannah’s story. What secret could Geertruid have that she wanted kept from her partner? Did he dare trust her? Did he dare do otherwise?

He had received a few notes from Isaiah Nunes, who was finding it difficult to conjure up language that sufficiently expressed his irritation. He wanted his five hundred guilders, and the bonds of friendship that restrained him were growing increasingly frayed. Miguel had no difficulties penning his replies, which made vague promises of immediate action.

Meanwhile, the price of coffee continued to go up, stemming, Miguel believed, from Solomon Parido’s influence. He bought calls in anticipation of an increase, and he made it known that he bought them. On the Amsterdam bourse, that was enough to alter the price. Merchants who had hardly ever noticed coffee now began to gamble on its continued rise.

But Miguel still had no idea what Parido planned. Would he entice his trading combination to exercise the calls and buy large quantities, making a monopoly even harder to obtain? Further, such a move would destroy the value of Miguel’s puts, ruining his chance to erase his debts and putting him further in debt to his brother. But Parido’s strategy would have to be approved by all members of his combination, and most were not content to make business plans based on the desire to shame a rival. Buying calls would cause the price to rise even further, and since the market would become artificially inflated, the combination would have a hard time selling at a profit. Parido might not have the strength of his combination behind him, but he might happily content himself with the thought that Miguel would lose on his investments.

At the Flyboat that afternoon, Miguel turned and nearly collided with Isaiah Nunes, who smiled in the awkward manner of a guilty child. Miguel had been drinking coffee almost constantly that day, and he felt equal to anything, so he approached the merchant and embraced him warmly. “How are you, my friend?”

“Just the man I’ve been looking for,” Nunes said, without a hint of irritation.

“Oh? Whatever for?”

Nunes laughed. “I wish I had your easy way about you, Miguel. But come with me for a moment. I need to show you something.” He led Miguel to the back of the tavern near a window, and in the muted light he spread out a piece of paper he removed from his coat. It was his contract with Miguel.

“I hate to be so particular with you,” he said, “but I must bring some of the wording to your attention.”

Miguel had felt full of optimism as he strolled along the canal sides, his puts bought (though illicitly, with his brother’s money), Joachim no longer a problem (if he wished to unleash Hendrick), his agents in place (if he could trust his partner)-but now, confined in the dark tavern, the energy of the coffee began to work against him. He wanted to move, but it was hard to breathe. The quick words came not so easily as they once had. “I know what you have to say, my friend, and if you will but-”

“Hear me out, and then I will hear you. It is only fair, yes?” Nunes did not wait for an answer. “You see what it says here, of course.” He smoothed out the contract and pointed to a few neat and closely written lines. “It says that you will pay half the delivery cost upon demand of the agent-being myself-when such a price is demanded by the provider-being the East India Company.”

Miguel nodded eagerly. “I understand the terms-”

“Please. Let me speak.” Nunes took a breath. “You see the wording. It says here that the money must be paid when the Company demands it, not on the date of delivery. The Company may demand payment when it agrees to sell the goods and deliver them by the earliest date convenient. You understand that, yes?”

“Of course I understand that,” Miguel said, “and I have every intention of getting you that remaining five hundred guilders. I know you have had to advance the money out of pocket, but I assure you it will be forthcoming.”

“I am sure it will. I only wanted you to understand the terms of the contract because there has been some rather troubling news.”

This contract business had been irritating, but he now realized that Nunes had been building up to something. “How troubling?”

“I hope not too troubling. These things can always be resolved, I think.” He kept his voice steady, his back erect, like a man awaiting a blow. “I fear your shipment will be delayed.”

Miguel pounded the table. “Delayed? Why? By how long?”

Nunes let out a sigh. “It is an unfortunate business, but you know I can only factor out my requests to men on East India Company vessels. The ship that had been promised changed its plans in accordance with the will of the Company. It’s not going to Mocha at all, and it cannot therefore obtain coffee. What can one do with such bad luck?”

Miguel put his head in his hands. For a moment he thought he might faint. “Delayed,” he whispered, and then released his face and held on to the side of the table. He looked up at Nunes and forced a broken grin. “Delayed, is it?”

“I know this seems as though it bodes ill for you, but all is not so bad as you think,” Nunes said quickly. “My man at the Company promises to obtain the goods for us. It will only take a little bit longer. I asked for a delay of the payment, but the contract, as I showed you, only requires them to send the shipment upon the first convenient vessel, and it is for the Company to determine its own convenience.”

“How much time?” His voice cracked, and he had to repeat the question, again with a forced smile. He dared not display any fear, yet a tingling panic radiated out to his extremities. His fingers went numb, and he flexed his hands as though they had fallen asleep.

Nunes bobbed his head as if to encourage a calculation. “It’s hard to say precisely. There are so many details to consider when trying to organize a shipment. They must find a ship that sails the route in question and then make certain it has room in the hold. You had concerns about secrecy that I assume you still wish honored, which is something that cannot be accommodated on every ship. Each detail must be planned with the greatest care.”

“Of course, I understand that.” He lifted his hat and ran a clumsy hand across his head. “But you can speculate, can’t you?” The hat fell on the floor, and Miguel stooped to retrieve it.

“Speculate,” Nunes repeated, trying not to be made anxious by Miguel’s jittery antics. “Under these conditions, sometimes it can take a year to set things right, but I’ve already written some letters and called in some favors. I hope to have your shipment within two or three months of the original date. Perhaps a bit longer.”

Two or three months. He might yet avert disaster. With their agents in place, surely they could delay that long. Yes, there was no good reason why they could not delay. A few months meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, not if they had their coffee in the end. A year from now, they would laugh at those two or three months.

Then there was the matter of his investments, the puts that depended on the arrival of that shipment. The puts he had bought with his brother’s money.

Miguel had bet a thousand guilders on the price of coffee going down, and with no coffee to flood the market he had no way of manipulating the price. If he lost that money on coffee months before the shipment arrived, he could face a new ruin to make his last look like a mere inconvenience. Once the world knew that Miguel had committed Daniel without his brother’s permission, his name would be a byword for deception. Even if he avoided prosecution, he might never do business on the Exchange again.

“There is something else.” Nunes sighed. “The price of coffee, as you are aware, has gone up since we struck our first deal. Coffee has risen to sixty-five hundredths of a guilder per pound, which makes it thirty-nine guilders per barrel. Of course you knew that; you bought puts and such. In any case, you’ll have to pay another five hundred and ten guilders, half of which I’ll need immediately along with the five hundred you now owe, or you must reduce your order from ninety to seventy-seven barrels to cover the price difference.”

Miguel waved his hand in the air. “Very well,” he said. He had nothing to lose now by risking more debt. “I must have the ninety barrels, cost what they may.”

“And the money? I hate to be so insistent, but I am, myself, somewhat extended, if you take my meaning. Had I but a little room for my own affairs, I would not so trouble you, but right now seven hundred and fifty-five guilders signify quite a lot to me.”

“I’ve just now spoken to my partners.” The words sounded like gibberish to him, but he had told such lies so many times he knew he could tell them again, and tell them convincingly, in his sleep if he had to. He slapped his hands together and rubbed vigorously. “I’ll have to speak to them again, of course. They will be disappointed, but they love a challenge as much as I do.”

“And the money?”

Miguel put a hand on Nunes’s shoulder. “They promise to put the money in my account no later than tomorrow. Or the next day. I promise you will be paid by then.”

“Very good.” Nunes twisted out of Miguel’s embrace. “I am sorry about the delay. This sort of thing was always a possibility, you understand. Surely you considered a delayed shipment in your plans.”

“Absolutely. Please keep me informed of any news. I have a great deal to tend to.”

Miguel suddenly found the tavern unbearably hot, and he hurried outside, charging into the street-and without seeing Joachim until the man stood only a few feet away. If anything, the fellow looked worse than when they had last met. He wore the same clothes, which had grown filthier, the sleeve of his outer coat had a rip from the wrist almost up to the shoulder, and his collar was streaked with blood.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had much time for you of late,” Joachim said, “but I’ve been occupied.” He swayed back and forth a little, and his face flushed red.

Miguel did not pause to consider or contemplate or measure. Black swirls of hatred clouded his vision. He could feel nothing but all the rage in his guts, spurred on by the coffee, turning his humors black and evil. In an instant he was no longer himself but a beast, beyond all thought. He came toward Joachim and shoved him hard, using both hands and without breaking his stride.

The pressure against his flesh felt good and right. There was a momentary sensation of a fragile body against his hands-and then Joachim was gone, blasted out of existence. Miguel felt joy. Elation. He felt like a man. With a simple push he had banished Joachim from his life.

Only Joachim did not stay banished for long. Miguel had intended to continue walking, but he saw from the corner of his eye that his enemy landed somewhat harder than he had intended. He went down on his side, sliding like a fish tossed along a slick dock.

Miguel froze in his tracks. Joachim was dead. Only a dead man would lie like that, limp and motionless and defeated.

He struggled to break free from the haze of dreamlike disbelief. All his hopes had been dashed in a single act. What might he now expect? Trial and execution, scandal and shame. He, a Jew, had struck down a Dutchman; the Dutchman’s lowness would not matter.

Then Joachim moved. He stirred briefly and, with his back to Miguel, pushed himself to his feet. A crowd had gathered and there was a gasp as the onlookers saw his face, which had been scraped hard against the brick of the road. He turned slowly to show the injury to Miguel.

The skin on his right cheek looked all but torn away, as did the very tip of his nose. Neither wound bled very much, but both bled steadily, and the image of blood and dirt sickened Miguel. Joachim looked straight ahead and remained motionless, as though on display before a body of judges. Then, after a moment, he spat out a mouthful of blood and what looked like the better part of one of his precious remaining teeth.

“The Jew attacked that poor beggar, and without cause too,” he heard a woman say. “I’ll call the constable’s men.”

The relief vanished. Were he to be arrested for attacking a Dutchman for no reason-and there were witnesses aplenty to testify that the attack had been unprovoked-the Ma’amad would have no choice but to issue the cherem, and no temporary one either. All lay in ruins.

Except that Joachim saved him. Joachim had the power to destroy him in his hands, and he held back. Miguel had no illusions. He knew that Joachim had saved him only that he might continue his torments. A destroyed Miguel served no purpose.

“No need to send for anyone,” Joachim called out, his words slow and syrupy. He was surely drunk, though it seemed likely that the injury to his mouth also made speaking difficult. “I am content to settle this matter privately.” He took a halting step forward and spat another thick mass of blood. “I think we should make a hasty departure,” he said to Miguel, “before someone chooses to send for the law despite my best efforts to protect you.” He put one arm around Miguel’s shoulder, as though they were wounded comrades fresh from the field of battle.

Joachim stunk of vomit and shit and piss and beer, but Miguel ignored it all. He dared not show his disgust as he helped the poor fellow limp away from the crowd.

They walked toward the Oude Kerk with a slow and deliberate pace. Miguel couldn’t spare the energy to worry about who might see them. He only wanted to keep moving.

Once they were in the shadow of the church, Joachim pulled himself free of Miguel and leaned himself against a building, settling into the grooves in the stone. “You needn’t have attacked me,” he said. He put his free hand up to his cheek and then examined the blood.

“Have you not threatened to kill me many times?” Miguel answered blankly.

“I only greeted you, and you knocked me down upon the street. I wonder what this Ma’amad of yours would think, were I to report this incident.”

Miguel looked around, as though something might offer him inspiration. There were only thieves and whores and laborers. “I’ve grown weary of your threats,” he said weakly.

“Maybe so, but what does that matter now? You tried to fuck my wife. You have attacked me. Perhaps I should go right away to that fellow you mentioned, Solomon Parido.”

“I have no heart for this,” Miguel said wearily. “I never touched your wife. Tell me what you want so we may end our conversation the sooner.”

“I want what I’ve always wanted-my five hundred guilders. You might have given it to me because it was the just thing to do, but now that I have something you want, I am willing to take the money in exchange.”

“And what do you have that I want?”

Joachim wiped away some of his blood with the sleeve of his shirt. “My silence. You have brokered for a gentile and you’ve attempted to commit adultery with a Christian woman. And even more, I’ve seen you with your friend. I know where she gets her money, and I wonder if this Ma’amad of yours would be interested to learn.”

Joachim could have seen Miguel with Geertruid, but how could he know about Geertruid taking money from her husband’s children? It made no sense, but Miguel hadn’t the heart to find out how Joachim knew what he knew-he only wished to end the conversation. “I won’t discuss this with you.”

“With so much hanging in the balance,” Joachim said evenly, “I think you’ll find a way to get that money. You’ll borrow it, steal it-I don’t care, just so long as you get it to me.”

“Your threats are worth nothing, and they won’t change what is.”

Miguel turned away and began walking very quickly, sensing somehow that Joachim would not follow. His hands shook and he had to concentrate to make sure he walked properly. His luck this day could not have been worse, but nevertheless he believed with absolutely certainty that Joachim would not go to the Ma’amad. If he had wanted to ruin Miguel, he would have allowed the woman to call the Watch. But once Miguel was punished, the game would be over, and it now appeared that Joachim had become attached to playing it. He fed off his injuries, blossomed with the issuing of new warnings. It was all he had left.