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into a small cell where a friar sat beneath a torch.
    The friar was someone new to the Toledo See, because if Espina had but once seen him in the streets, he would have remembered him without difficulty.
    He was a tall man with a very Spanish head that demanded attention; Espina fought the impulse to stare. His quick glance noted a mass of thick black hair, long and badly cut. A wide forehead, black brows, very large brown eyes. A straight, narrow nose, a wide mouth with thin lips, and a somewhat square chin with a slight cleft.
    Each of the features, if found with different features in another face, would have merited no interest. But seen here in this one man they combined in an extraordinary way.
    The countenance of the friar was nothing like the face of Jesus as Espina had observed the Savior's visage in statues and paintings. This was a face of more feminine quality emerging from features of masculine beauty, yet Espina's initial reaction was a kind of awe.
    A saint's face, the old shepherd Diego Diaz had called it. Diaz had been talking about this friar, Espina knew without a doubt.
    Bonestruca was beyond handsomeness; his face at first glance sent the viewer signals of reassurance and piety, the message that such complete and total comeliness must signify the essential goodness of God.
    Yet when Espina looked into this friar's eyes, they carried him directly to a cold and frightening place.
    'You have been about the town, asking questions concerning a reliquary but recently stolen from the Jew Helkias. What is your interest in this matter?'
    'I... That is, Prior Padre Sebastián Alvarez...' Espina wished to look anywhere but into the knowing eyes of this strange friar, but there was nowhere else to look. 'He asked me to enquire into the loss of the reliquary and the... death of the boy who had carried it.'
    'And what have you learned?'
    'The boy was a Jew, son of the silversmith.'
    'Yes, I have heard that.'
    The friar's voice was gentler than his gaze... encouraging, almost friendly, Espina thought with hope.
    'What else?'
    'Nothing else, Reverend Friar.'
    Friar Bonestruca's chest was hidden beneath the folds of his black habit, but his fingers were long and spatulate, with tufts of fine black hair between the second joints of his fingers and the knuckles. 'How long have you been a physician?'
    'These eleven years.'
    'Did you apprentice in this place?'
    'Yes, here in Toledo.'
    'With whom did you apprentice?'
    Espina's mouth was dry. 'With Maestro Samuel Provo.'
    'Ah, Samuel Provo. Even I have heard of him,' the friar said benignly. 'A great physician, no?'
    'Yes, a man of renown.'
    'He was a Jew.'
    'Yes.'
    'How many children did he circumcize, if you would suppose?'
    Espina blinked at him. 'He did not circumcize.'
    'How many babes do you circumcize in a twelve-month?'
    'Neither do I circumcize.'
    'Come, come, the friar said patiently. 'How many of these operations have you done? Not only to Jews but also to Moors, perhaps?'
    'Never... A few times over the years I have operated... When the foreskin is not properly and regularly cleaned, you understand, it becomes inflamed. Often there is pus, and to rectify... they... Both the Moors and the Jews have holy men who do the other, along with religious rites.'
    'When you made those operations, did you say no prayers?'
    'No.'
    'Not even a Paternoster?'
    'I pray each day that I will bring no harm but only good to my patients, Reverend Friar.'
    'You are married, señor?'
    'Yes.'
    'Name of your wife.'
    'Señora Estrella de Aranda.'
    'Children?'
    'Three. Two daughters and a son.'
    'Your wife and children are Catholics?'
    'Yes.'
    'You are a Jew. Is this not so?'
    'No! I have been a Christian these eleven years. Devoted to Christ!'
    The man's face was so beautiful. That made the gray eyes fixing upon his own even more chilling. They had become cynical eyes that seemed aware of every human failing in Espina's history, and all his sins.
    The gaze worked its way deep within his soul.