The Day of Atonement by David Liss Read Free Book Online Page B

Inquisition long ago. They fled to France or the Levant or the Lowlands, as mine did, before coming to this country. These are men whose lives have not been directly touched by the Inquisition in several generations, but the anger runs deep. You defied our greatest oppressors, and that makes you a hero to them and to me.”
    I looked away. I had abandoned my father in the Inquisition prison. I had left my mother alone. Survival was not, in itself, heroic. The mere suggestion made me angry, and to my surprise I found myself embracing the anger. It was the first time since I had hidden in the hold of the packet ship that I had felt anything other than fear or sadness. I wanted to hold on to that anger, to nurse it like the spark that becomes a flame, because maybe it would burn away everything else.
    “Tell me,” Mr. Weaver said. “What skills have you?”
    “My father is a merchant,” I said. “I have learned much of his business.”
    “You can read and write? Have you a good hand? Perhaps you can be set up as a merchant’s clerk.”
    I shook my head. Making money for its own sake did not appeal to me. As a New Christian, my father had been forced into a merchant’s life—trade was considered too debased for Old Christians. I would not, if given the option, choose for myself what had so long been thrust upon my family. “I will do that if it is what you wish. I must do as you say. I know that.”
    “You must do as
you
wish,” Mr. Weaver told me, keeping his voice quiet and calm. “Or as near to it as we can arrange. I do not see that you need to pursue a trade that does not suit you.” He stood and put a friendly hand upon my shoulder. “Perhaps we ought not to speak of it at all. You are tired from your journey. I’ll have you shown to your room. You may sleep or rest, and when you are ready, we can discuss your future.”
    I looked at Mr. Weaver’s big hand. Even at his advanced age, hewas the sort of man no one would dare to trouble. I wished to be like that. I wished to be someone other men feared. “What is your trade?” I asked.
    “I am a thief taker,” he said. Seeing the look of confusion on my face, he added, “I am paid to find people and items.”
    “What manner of people and items?”
    “Lost or stolen items,” Mr. Weaver said. “People who are missing for reasons good or ill.”
    “But you’re called ‘thief taker,’ so you must find lawless men,” I said. “Do you find people who have done bad things?”
    “Yes,” Mr. Weaver said. “That is part of what I do.”
    “Do you hurt such men?” I asked.
    “If it cannot be helped,” Mr. Weaver admitted, somewhat abashedly, I thought. “I never seek to do violence, but I am prepared if violence is unavoidable.”
    I thought about that. The idea of finding someone who had done evil—and striking him, lashing him with a whip, running him through with a blade, or firing a pistol into his chest. All of these things had an undeniable appeal. I had seen how Mr. Weaver sniffed out Hastings’s crimes and then humbled him with but words and glances. It must be a wonderful thing to feel something other than powerless. London was a strange city, where Jews walked about openly and could demand justice of Christians. I did not know if I would ever grow accustomed to it, and I told myself I did not want to, that I did not want to let go of my anger. Yet part of me understood that I had come to a place where I might find it possible to live.
    Six months later I received a letter from Mr. Settwell. Illness had spread through the prisons. Many of the prisoners died, including my parents. They were gone.
    I retreated to my room, and Mr. Weaver did not trouble me. I remainedalone for four days. Sometimes I ate and drank. Sometimes I did not.
    On the fifth day, I appeared in Mr. Weaver’s study. I was thin and ill rested, but I set my face in determination.
    “I want to be a thief taker, like you,” I said. “I want to learn to hurt