Damn Jews.... Again 1301

Fiend's fire crackled on Ignatius' fingers, a damning spell. But then, he was a priest who could afford some small damnation, which was no mean feat for Orimmo clergymen. This was a dark meeting in the redlain, where Lugdim's butchers drained their waste slowly into the Thymenes. The pungent sour-sweet smell of death turned up Ignatius' nostrils.

The Jews, the worst of the worst in Lugdim, criminals even when surfaced, were the only men Ignatius could take his grievances to. King Eduardo, the little whore's son, had decided not to return Ignatius to Orim. Or let him out of Whitehall, at that.

The Phalange had followed him in the streets as Proctors had circled the inner rings. He had reduced one bully boy to little more than shreds not fit to a redlain, all with a relatively mundane prayer, and the Phalange had given up. And when a tongueless Proctor had cornered him, silent grating moans coming from underneath the white cowl, Ignatius had merely fought back with monastic focus, eventually wrestling the pastoral staff from the spectre of a churchmen and jamming the blunt object into his fragile throat.

But Ignatius was more fearful now, as two dirty Jews stood before him. He had heard much of Jewish magic, and from what he knew, no Jewish male was without the gifts of their God. So, he kept the fiend's fire close.

One of the Jews, a dirtier one with the crazed eyes of a messiah and a beard to match, gave out a cackle, arching his hunched back as far as he could. "'Is Laird's man wants salv-ae-shun from 'e Laird's fair-saken, yesss?"

Something solid and slimy slivered its way past Ignatius' boots. He didn't bother to look; he couldn't bring his eyes from the two Jews. The relatively less dirty Jew, one with a well trimmed squared off beard and cold merchant eyes, stared at Ignatius just the same.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways. He always finds a path for the faithful.”

The merchant of a Jew smiled at that. Any customer assured of their own good fortune was an easy mark. The messiah of a Jew gave a crooked frown, his teeth getting in the way of his lips. After a moment of whispering between the two, with a mad cackle and a mercantile grin here and there, the merchant spoke.

“What can we do for you, Pilgrim?” The voice said much more than that. What can you do for us, Pilgrim?


Ignatius studied the mad Jew for a moment. What had he said in those whispers? The merchant’s place was obvious; crime was a business as any other. But few criminals could afford zealotry. He was unnerved.

“I need passage to Lugdim. Without Proctor or Phalange watching.”

The messiah gave a high pitched shriek of laughter. “We’ll poke ‘eir eyes out!” The merchant held his hand out, close to his friend’s mouth. “And what payment, Father?” The glint of money showed in his smile. Straighter teeth than the messiah.

“I…. have five and twenty bobbers.” The Merchant showed some disappointment in internal calculations. “Gold, not iron.” A moment of recognition and all was fine. “The Holy Number when we set off, the Serf’s when we land. And I can offer you sanctuary of the Father Church when we set foot in Gascon.”

Both Jews gave out a laugh at that. “Here, we can see the sky, Father. Why would we take the mines of Gascon? Why go out veiled, hmm?” The messiah gave his arching, cackling laugh. Some butcher shop let rotten offal slide ungraciously into the lain.

Ignatius was surprised. Most Jews, in Orim at least, would jump at the Church’s protection. “Yet, here you are criminals.” This time the merchant laughed. “Better than being in a Jew-hole. We, Orimmo, are only criminals because, by definition, the King cannot control us.”

The messiah gave out his laugh again. “Get back in your hole, you Jew! A Jew-toll for you!”

“Jews can only be butchers or blacksmiths. And only so many butchers and blacksmiths can be Jews. But any amount of Jews can be criminals.” He gave a smile, and brought his thumb to his nose. “Damn King Eduardo.”

“My offer of sanctuary still stands.” The merchant looked the priest over, wondering if he could aim higher than the twenty-five bobbers. He decided he could.

“And your rosary beads, Father.” Ignatius let his guard down for a moment, the fiend’s fire fizzling. What use would a Jew have for the beads, born of Lochaber amber and Orimmo blessings? But, he had no choice. If not for the trinket, and some Jews loved trinkets, he would have to pay many more bobbers.

And priests free of sin don’t make much.


The top half of a still bleating calf fell into the redlain, and a butcher's cries to his apprentice ran through the steep, bloodied alley.

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Bagdemagus was the worst sort of Jew. He was a long-lived Jew. And sure, it had brought him some fortune, in Alphonse’s service and earlier that of Faustus but his longevity was born and acted upon in damnation.

No one seemed to know quite how old he was. Even Bagdemagus himself sometimes forgot. But he remembered watching the Lion eat the Christ’s flesh, and he remembered the Nebuchad Captivity and the Nilotic Exodus and well, all those great events in the far off past.

He even remembered his moment of exile, although he could not give it a year. He had stood up before the Sanhedrin and declared that God was not Seven into Two and Twenty, but that God was Three wholes, One part in ten, Four parts in one hundred and One in a thousand and so on, before he was forsaken and thrown out, to forever wander.

It was the worst of crimes to deny the nature of the God Outside of Lines, the God who led Moise in his forty year Sacred Circle. And that denial had severed him from the bonds of life and death that any other Jew enjoyed.

It was not a longevity he could pass on. But Alphonse did not know this. Nor did Faust before him. Bagdemagus had discovered many things in his time, but nothing close to eternal life. He could drag Alphonse’s life on as long as possible, however. His travels to far-off Serica had yielded many delights….. and horrors.

The Serican formula of virgin’s blood and quicksilver would let Alphonse live on. But he would end a mindless spectre with an appetite one small virgin could never hope to quench and remain alive. How long it was until that moment….. well, Bagdemagus was studying just that. It was a relatively new formula to him.

Bagdemagus was a Jew deserving damnation.