The Compendium of Srem Read Online Free Page A

where you are from.”
    â€œToro. A province north of here.”
    â€œDo you still have family there?”
    â€œNo. My family was wiped out in the Battle of Toro. I was just a boy and barely managed to survive.”
    Adelard had heard of that—one of the battles in the war for the crown of Castile.
    â€œHow did you come to the order?”
    â€œAfter the horrors I’d seen, I wanted a life of peace and contemplation and good works. And that is what I had until the Inquisition changed everything.”
    Adelard had come to the Dominicans for very different reasons. The order provided him a place to pursue the philosophy of nature and to write papers explaining God’s Creation and how what he had learned bolstered the doctrines of the Church. Sometimes he had to stretch the truth to avoid censure, but in general his papers were well received and seen as a cogent defense of doctrine. As a result, when the pope decided that the Spanish Inquisition needed outside influence, he assigned Adelard to be one of the new inquisitors.
    But concerns about doctrine faded as the Compendium took command of his thoughts, much as it had since he’d opened it yesterday and begun reading. The ability of its text to appear written in the reader’s native tongue certainly seemed sorcerous, and yet… and yet it seemed so congruent with the civilization described within.
    Since his youth, Adelard had been fascinated with the philosophy of nature. When his father would bring home small game from the hunt, he would insist on gutting them, but doing so in his own way—methodically, systematically, so that he might understand the inner workings of the creatures. And even now he had reserved a room in the monastery where he could mix various elements and record their interactions.
    He wondered if there might be a natural explanation for the marvels described within the Compendium and for the wonder of the tome itself—something that would not violate Church orthodoxy.
    He would have to ponder this alone. He could not discuss it with Ramiro, who had not read it, and he might be risking his position, perhaps even his life, if he broached the subject with the Grand Inquisitor.
    They reached the large plot of land on the edge of town where Asher ben Samuel lived, and started down the long path that led to his house.
    â€œDoes it seem right that a Jew should have such fortune?” Adelard said as they passed through a grove of olive trees.
    â€œHe is a converso —no longer a Jew.”
    Even though they professed to be Christian, conversos were mistrusted and even held in contempt. Especially someone with the financial influence of Samuel. Was his “conversion” simply economic pragmatism, or had he truly rejected his old beliefs? Adelard suspected—nay, was convinced—of the latter. The problem was proving it.
    â€œYou are so naïve, Ramiro. Once a Jew, always a Jew.”
    â€œI have Jewish blood. And so, no doubt, do you.”
    â€œYou lie!”
    â€œThere’s hardly an educated person in Castile who does not carry Jewish blood.”
    â€œI was raised in France.”
    â€œProbably the same there. Even our own prior—were you aware that a grandfather in the Torquemada line was a Jew?”
    Tomás de Torquemada, the Hammer of Heretics, the Queen’s confessor… had Jewish blood? How was this possible?
    â€œThat can’t be true!”
    â€œIt is. He makes no secret of it. He has said that the purpose of the Holy Inquisition is not to stamp out Jewish blood, but to stamp out Jewish practices.”
    â€œAll right, then, if the Prior says it is true, I accept it as true. But even so, his Jewish blood and yours are different from Asher ben Samuel’s.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œThe prior and you were raised in the Faith. Conversos like him were not.”
    At the end of the path they found the high-walled home of Asher ben Samuel.
    Ramiro