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clay,” said Zizka, turning the lantern on me. “Who’s he?”
                Kromy said, “The new shammes of Jew Town . A newcomer.”
                “Newcomer, huh? You picked a hell of a day to start work. Think you can get your friends out of this?”
                “They’re not my friends yet. But they are my people,” I said.
                Someone outside swore at us, but I couldn’t make out the thick Moravian accent.
                Julie said, “How long do we have to sit here? We have a lot to do today.”
                “Really?” said Zizka, his eyes fixed on the dried bloodstains on the floor. “What’s so damn urgent, if you don’t mind telling me?”
                “We have to rid the house of khumets before midday.”
                My stomach tightened. Julie was such an innocent, she didn’t realize what trouble her plain speech was causing.
                “You have to rid the house of what ?”
                I said, “All traces of leavened bread.”
                “And why is that? Because you don’t want us to find all the evidence of blood in your Passover bread?”
                “We don’t cook with blood. The Torah forbids—”
                “Kromy, have you searched the house yet?”
                “Not yet, sir. I was waiting for more men, and I didn’t want to take my eyes off these Jewish swine for an instant.”
                Zizka nodded. “You two, go upstairs with Kromy and search the place.”
                “Yes, sir.”
                “What are we looking for?” said one of the guards.
                “Evidence of illicit wealth,” said Kromy.
                Zizka said, “Bottles, jugs, vials, basins—anything that might contain blood. And not just in the obvious places. The Jews are extremely clever about these things.”
                “Yeah, sometimes we hide it in our veins,” I said.
                Zizka glared at me as if he’d never heard a Jew talk that way before. Maybe he hadn’t. Kromy and the two guards left the shop and clomped up the outside stairs.
                Their first reaction to this crime is to seek vengeance, not justice . I had to do something to prevent a disaster. That such a mission was probably doomed to fail did not excuse me from trying. As Rabbi Tarfon says, “It’s not your job to finish the work, but you are not free to walk away from it.”
                Looking at the girl, I tried to imagine who could have done such a thing. Certainly not Jacob Federn. Nobody kills a harmless child and leaves the body in his shop to be discovered by an angry Christian mob the next morning. The only way out of this mess was to discover what was gained from this girl’s death. But how could I do that? They’d never let me openly question any Christian witnesses. They might not even let me walk around the Christian streets of Prague . I had to confer with the great Rabbi Loew about this. He’d know what to do.
                A great crash shook the ceiling as Kromy and his goons started tossing things around upstairs.
                I told the sheriff, “Somebody ought to tell the girl’s parents. They’ve been searching for her all morning, calling her name from one end of town to the other.”
                “I don’t need any advice from you, shammes,” said Zizka. But he dispatched a guard to Janek’s apothecary shop, then he ordered the three remaining guards to transport the victim’s body to the Town Hall.
                The guards knelt beside the girl’s body. Just as they began to lift, one of them gasped, dropped the girl and pointed. Her neck wound had begun to flow with fresh blood. They all knew that such a thing only happens in the presence of the