A DRAUGHT FOR A DEAD MAN

It’s a three-day journey for Isaac of Girona, a blind Jewish physician, to the city of Perpignan to see his old friend Jacob Bonjuhes, another Jewish physician, marry his younger brother David to Bonafilla, the daughter of wealthy banker Astruch Afaman. Isaac is accompanied on his long trip by his daughter Raquel, his apprentice Yusuf, and Astruch Afaman’s retinue, including the sullen bride-to-be. The journey is enlivened, however, by mid-14th-century Spanish local color, including a visit with a Jewish farmer forced to convert and the unexpected company of the dapper and mysterious Felip. Upon his arrival, Isaac finds that his old friend Jacob is sheltering a mysterious patient, badly beaten, who refuses to reveal his true identity. Lodging a Christian patient in the Jewish neighborhood is dangerous enough, but it will be even more perilous if the men who tried to kill the wounded man find him again. Relying on Yusuf’s gift for gossip and his own deductions, Isaac identifies the patient as merchant Arnau Marça, who narrowly escaped the hangman by breaking out of jail, only to be ambushed by assassins. Arnau’s resourceful wife Johana, intent on using her position in the Princess Constança’s court to clear her husband of charges of trafficking in contraband, must avoid court intrigue herself. Meantime, Raquel investigates Bonafilla’s increasingly desperate resistance to the prospect of marrying the handsome and charming David.

Happy endings to each of this hardcover debut’s storylines make for a pleasant, if not entirely credible, visit to a not-so-pleasant time.