The next month was easily the most challenging of Shmuel’ s life. He assumed that, like everything else he had done, what Jadwiga had to teach him would come easily. He had, after all, already been smuggling Jews around the Mediterranean and had even, with the help of that Assassin, bested a crew of pirates. How different could this be?
Quite a bit, it turned out. In the past, while he had done difficult things, and had suffered much, he had always done what he wanted to, or at least what he himself had decided to do Now, in service to a higher Good which had, to be sure, clearly chosen to serve, he was required to learn things that did not come naturally to him, and that he set aside his youthful spontaneity in favor of a rather strict discipline. In the mornings he would meet Jadwiga in an abandoned warehouse, where she trained him in fighting with a staff (more credible, she said, for a cleric, than a sword would be) as well as in a martial art which she said came from the East. In the afternoons she instructed him in the details of managing the existing network of safe houses, running messengers to make sure that were well staffed and supplied and remained secure. In the evening he ran with her as she vetted candidates for their “network.” At night he practiced –in his mind, for nothing could be written down– several cyphers which Jadwiga had invented. There was little time for for his own studies, to which he had started to return as he came back to life, and none for the vigorous polemics which he so enjoyed. Indeed, Jadwiga had informed him that he would have to master multiple identities and would only very rarely be able to “be himself,” generally only with her when they met to review his work and plan their next steps.
What was most difficult for Shmuel, however, was not knowing exactly who he was working for.
—So this network of yours, is it your own creation, or do you work with others?
—Many others, Jadwiga said. No one person could run something so complex.
—And who are they? Shmuel asked.
—I really can’t tell you, said Jadwiga, at least not very much. The truth is that I know only a little more than you do. We are pretty diverse in terms of background: followers of the old ways like myself, Ashkenazim like the rabbi, Christians who want to reform the Church in various ways (though not all of these, by any means, are friendly to us, as we have learned the hard way). Around the edges, people like your Assassin friend and, we hope, eventually your Kokab.
—And the aim?
—There is much debate, I hear, in the inner circle. Most of us joined to protect our own people and our own way. But some believe that we can go further, and change the face of Europe and perhaps beyond.
—And you?
—I am not so sure. I agree that something powerful is stirring. But I am not at all sure it is for the good. I see great concentrations of wealth and power emerging, like nothing this planet has ever known, and the rest of us, the vast majority, reduced to the status of tools. We have a long struggle ahead of us. But yes, in the long run, we will not just protect what was, but learn from each other and from the struggle and bring into being something greater.
Shmuel quickly became exhausted and fell ill again. Jadwiga moved him to a safe house outside the city while she nursed him back to health and then installed him with the rabbi’s student in an apartment near the synagogue. When she told him, shortly after this move, that she had to make a run back up to Gdansk he was frightened, both for her and because he was unsure that he could do the job for which she had so rigorous but so rapidly trained him.
–You will be fine, she said.
She looked him in the eyes and then kissed him gently on the lips.
–Do what you know how to, be careful, and when I return, perhaps …
But Shmuel was already in love.
The Desire to Be God 