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a faithful adherent of the Church. His faith had been my own.
    The priest walked to the door of the cabin and then back again. It was but a few steps, but he was too full of energy to remain still. “You need not worry. You may be sure we know how to value our friends.” The air of jollity had returned.
    “I am glad to hear you say so.” I removed a handkerchief from my pocket and began to wipe my brow.
    “And,” said the priest, “our friends must know how to value us.”
    The priest’s meaning was clear. An Englishman, secretly Catholic, within the circle of the Factory—this was a prize the Inquisition must claim.
    “I seek only to engage in trade,” I told him, still wiping at my forehead, my nose, even running the handkerchief under my wig, moving it askew so I looked disordered and, I felt sure, slightly deranged. More importantly, I looked vulnerable. “I have no desire to be caught in intrigues.”
    “No intrigues,” the priest said. “Certainly not. Never an intrigue. We would never do anything to harm the prospects of a gentleman if he is of use to us.” The priest nodded as he spoke, as if urging me to agree. “I shall report what I know to my superiors, and you mustunderstand the flow of power here in Portugal. Priests and Englishmen talk, and if the wrong man whispers in the wrong ear, secrets might be difficult to contain. If, on the other hand, you were to declare your willingness to aid the Church, that would be a different thing entirely. A favor done for the Church now and again could help you rise quite rapidly, I assure you.”
    I stared ahead blankly, like a man who had wandered mistakenly into a forest darker and more tangled than he had imagined. I allowed nothing of my real thoughts to show, but I considered how this news would move through certain channels in the Palace of the Inquisition. The Inquisitors would whisper and wonder and speculate how this new Englishman might be of use. One priest would speak of it to another until the news came to the man I sought, and he would look up. His eyes would grow wide. He would smirk, never suspecting that it was a trap that scented the air.
    Only a few hours in Lisbon, without even setting foot on land, and I had set things in motion. These people—my enemies—already danced upon my string. Unless I dangled upon their rope. That was also a possibility.
    I put my face in my hands as though I were overwhelmed, confused, full of regret. Only three and twenty, and I was in waters well out of my depth! I knew not what to do, and wished—oh, how I wished—someone would save me! “Might we not forget this conversation ever took place?” I begged.
    “That cannot happen,” the priest told me as he opened the cabin door. Halfway out, he turned back. “Go about your business. You will be contacted when it is convenient, but until that time you may take comfort in the knowledge that you will have the blessing of the Church.” Then he closed the door behind him with dramatic finality.
    With the priest gone, I let my false expression fall away, a burnt egg sliding from a pan. I was now in danger, and I welcomed it. The expectation thrummed through me. My skin tingled with the thought of it. All those priests and Inquisitors swarming about me, looking tosqueeze me like a lemon, filled me with eagerness and a kind of calm expectation and, indeed, gratitude.
    Gratitude, I decided, was most appropriate. Keeping my voice just above a whisper, I spoke the words of the
Shehecheyanu
, the ancient prayer of thankfulness at auspicious times. In London, I had become a Jew in truth, converting, learning the ancient rites of my people. I had not done so out of devotion, but out of defiance. Always, in the back of my mind, I had dreamed of this moment, when I would do what had been forbidden to my ancestors and forgotten by my parents. How long, I wondered, since Hebrew had been spoken aloud in Lisbon? Perhaps this was the first time in twenty or thirty or