By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan Page A

relentlessly. “What about the Jewish God? The God of justice and wrath. Why do some people find the Jewish God more to their liking than the Christian God, the God of mercy and love?”
    For once, Serero seemed flustered. “Father Cáceres, the Christian understanding of my faith is like a blind man’s description of a beautiful valley, from the edge of a cliff: all darkness and danger.”
    The priest took a deep breath.
    Luis de Santángel intervened. “Please. This discussion is over.”
    Even Santángel could not help wondering whether this priest was not, after all, one of Pedro de Arbués’s spies, attempting to collect damning evidence of heretical thought, of clandestine conversions. Why was Abram Serero deliberately ignoring this danger?
    After the meeting, Felipe lingered. “Chancellor, my wife and I would like to invite you and your son for dinner.”
    The invitation surprised Santángel. None of his subordinates had ever violated the social distance between them in this manner. But neither had Santángel discussed the nature of angels with them, or entertained the notion that Jesus Christ was not morally perfect.
    “Please thank your wife, Señor de Almazón. I shall be happy to accept your invitation.”
    “Friday evening, then. At sunset.”
    The chancellor nodded, placed a hand on his aide’s back, and ushered him outside.

     
    Felipe de Almazón and his family dwelled two streets from Santángel, in a stone house slightly less impressive than the chancellor’s. His wife, Catalina, with a pale complexion, umber hair, and hazel eyes, greeted Luis and Gabriel warmly—an elegant, vivacious woman clearly at ease entertaining men of wealth and distinction.
    “Chancellor. What an honor. In more ways than you know, you’ve been like a father to my husband.”
    Gabriel glanced at his father. Santángel answered him with his eyes, then turned back to his hostess. “It is my privilege, madam,” he told Catalina.
    “We’ve sent the servants away,” Catalina ushered them down a hallway, “so we can spend the evening alone together, just your family and ours.”
    The chancellor thought this peculiar. When they entered the next room, he understood.
    Before them stood a long table, clothed in white linen. Two brass candlesticks and a jug of wine rose from a jumble of silver plates and goblets. A loaf of bread sat beside the wine, braided in the unmistakable manner of the Jews.
    To celebrate the Jewish Sabbath openly, to engage in Jewish ritual in one’s home, with one’s family, was a far riskier and less ambiguous undertaking than merely to discuss the fine points of theology with friends in one’s private study. The chancellor’s instinct was to walk out at once, and perhaps find a way to distance himself from his aide, but to do so would serve no purpose. Felipe de Almazón knew too much.
    Once again an image from his past, liquid and turbid, seeped into Santángel’s mind. As a child, in his parents’ home, on rare but resonant occasions, he had seen this very room, this tablecloth, these candles, this bread, this wine, these pulled curtains.
    Despite his better judgment and muted irritation, he stayed. Felipe clapped his hands together. Two young children, a boy and a girl, both fair haired, dutifully took their places. Gabriel stood rigidly beside his father, pressing his eyes closed. Felipe uttered prayers, carefully enunciating each syllable of transliterated Hebrew from a battered leather book. He broke the bread and sipped the wine, then sent the children upstairs to eat and play. The three adults sat down to share an elaborate meal.
    “I appreciate your cordiality,” said Santángel. “But this,” he glanced at the candlesticks, the loaf, the goblet, “is perhaps overdoing it.”
    “How so?” asked Felipe.
    “In weighing any proposition, one must consider the risks.”
    “Chancellor,” his aide assured him. “I would never endanger you or your son.”
    “You may already have