The Pope, Martin V, meant to erase me from the Christian world.
Excommunication.
Every trade route would be severed, and no merchant would try to deal with Bohemia.
That was the strategy of slow starvation the Pope was aiming for.
But do the old men of the papal court know, I wonder?
That the writ of excommunication had in fact set me free.
Something no king in Europe would dare do. Something that in the original history was only accomplished bit by bit around the nineteenth century.
To me the Jews are not 'the sinners who killed Jesus'.
They are simply capable people persecuted unjustly, citizens who will pay taxes to my country and live alongside us.
Discriminating against someone because their religion is different.
Rejecting someone because their skin is different.
In the twenty-first century where I lived, that was the sort of thing that got you socially excommunicated instead.
'If they want to curse me as a man bound for hell, let them do it to their hearts' content.'
If taking in those whom God has abandoned is the work of a devil, then I will gladly become the greatest devil of all.
Of course, matters in this world do not always go as I would like.
Barely half a day after the decree of Jewish equality was proclaimed.
As expected, the flames rose up from my own inner chamber first.
Murmur, murmur—
The audience chamber of the royal palace of Prague had turned into a chaotic marketplace.
Taborite priests in black cassocks with solemn expressions.
Guild masters in gorgeous silks with gold chains, their oily faces flushed red.
Men who in normal times would no more mix than water and oil had achieved a miraculous grand unification before the common enemy called 'the Jews'.
'Well, just as expected.'
When people hear the word riot they tend to picture ignorant men with pitchforks and torches.
But real resistance is not that sort of thing.
Well-tailored clothes.
Cultured language.
And the collective action of elites armed with the most powerful weapon of all, 'the greater cause'.
That is the poison that truly threatens royal power.
"His Grace Ulrich the First now enters!"
At the shout of the guard, as I stepped into the audience chamber, the market-stall clamor cut off dead.
But that silence was not the silence of respect. It was the precarious stillness of a pressure cooker about to burst.
I sat crooked on the throne and looked down at them.
An old priest standing in the front row.
His sunken eyes were full of blind fanaticism.
He was the priest famed as the most radical and extreme even among the Taborites, Jan Želivský.
"You have come, Your Grace."
Želivský bowed his head. He observed the courtesies, but there were thorns in his voice.
"In order to have audience with our busy king, the servants of God and the representatives of the citizens of Prague have gathered in one place."
"By the look of it, these are not the faces of men who came for a cup of tea."
I propped up my chin and answered dryly.
"Let us keep to business. Priest Želivský, are you the representative?"
"Less a representative than the loyal counsel of an old man who wishes to save Your Grace from a mistaken path, let us say."
Želivský clasped his Bible to his chest and stepped forward.
"Your Grace. Withdraw the decree."
"On what grounds?"
"It is said in the Scriptures, 'Be not yoked together with unbelievers.' How shall light and darkness keep company, and how shall Christ and Belial be brought into harmony?"
His eyes glistened with conviction. The look of a man who does not doubt for a speck that he himself is justice.
"The spirit of the Hussites is to return to the purity of the early Church. And the Scriptures say clearly that we must separate the holy from the profane."
"And so?"
"The Jews are those who denied Christ. They cannot become our spiritual brothers. Much less give them citizenship and let them live mingled with us inside the sacred walls of Prague? This is not tolerance. It is contamination!"
Želivský's voice mounted higher by degrees.
He looked around at the priests and merchants standing behind him, drawing out their response.
"We shed blood to purify this city! We drove out the corruption of the Pope and the rot of Rome, and sought to build a city of God that lives only by the word of Scripture. And yet!"
THUD!
He struck the floor with his staff.
"How is it that Your Grace would welcome as our brothers the cursed bloodline that nailed our Lord Jesus Christ to the cross?"
The crowd standing behind him sang out in chorus as if they had been waiting.
"Hear, hear!"
"Withdraw the decree!"
"Expel the heretics!"
I appreciated their 'righteous anger' with a blank face.
I had naturally expected this. That if I set the Jews free, the ones to object most loudly would be these priests of the Taborite faction, welded together by faith, even before the papal court.
Which is why I had been preparing for this situation for a good while already.
"Priest Želivský."
At the king's low call the clamor subsided for a moment.
"You took up a sword because you hated the Pope, did you not?"
"That is so! The Antichrist of Rome..."
"Why did you hate him? Was it not because he monopolized the truth, called you heretics, and discriminated against you?"
Želivský nodded reluctantly.
"...That is so, but."
"Then look at the state of you now."
I pointed a finger at Želivský.
"You are doing the very same thing the Pope did. 'We are holy and you are filthy.' 'We are chosen and you are cursed.' How is this any different from the Pope's logic?"
"Th-that and this are different! We follow the truth, and the Jews..."
"They are not different. The Hussites are treated as heretics and held in contempt across all of Europe right now. So are the Jews. They and we are in the same position, and we are neighbors under one roof."
I cut Želivský's words off flatly. At the words that the Jews were neighbors, Želivský's expression twisted into something beyond description.
I asked him.
"Priest Želivský. Do you love Jesus?"
"Of course! I love him more than my own life."
"Then you must love Jesus' family as well."
"...What?"
Želivský knitted his brows. Like a beast sensing a snare.
"The mother of Jesus, the Holy Mother Mary, of what people was she?"
"..."
"Jesus' foster father, Joseph?"
"...He was a Jew."
"Then Jesus?"
"..."
Želivský shut his mouth.
Not because he did not know the answer, but because he knew that the moment he answered, his own logic would strangle him.
But I did not stop there.
"Peter, the chief disciple of Jesus? The apostle Paul? They were all circumcised Jews. By your logic, Jesus was a heathen and Peter went to hell as well."
"That is sophistry!"
Želivský shouted, his face reddening.
"They are the ones who fulfilled the law of the Old Covenant and made a new covenant! But the Jews in that ghetto now are the ones who refused Jesus!"
"Refused, is it."
I snorted and drummed on the armrest of the throne.
"'There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'"
Želivský's eyes went wide.
"G-Galatians, chapter three, verse twenty-eight..."
My words went on.
"How about this one? 'For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all and gives richly to all who call upon him.'"
"That is... Romans, chapter ten, verse twelve..."
Želivský's pupils shook as though an earthquake had struck.
'I read the Bible diligently the day before, knowing this would happen, and found suitable passages in advance.'
If the opponent attacks with Scripture, you simply crush him with Scripture in turn.
It was fortunate that the original owner of this body, Ulrich, could read Latin. Otherwise I would not even have been able to read the Bible.
"This 'love of neighbor' you all speak of always comes with conditions attached. That he be on my side, that he speak my language, and that he be of benefit to me."
I furrowed my brow and looked down at the men in the audience chamber.
"Where in the Scriptures is there a footnote reading, 'Love your neighbor, but the Jews are excepted'? Is it written in the Ten Commandments, 'You shall not kill, but the Jews are excepted'?"
"Th-that is..."
"Does it not occur to you that taking a slap from the Pope and venting it on the Jews because they are easy targets is shameful for a Christian?"
I spoke toward Želivský as though pronouncing a death sentence.
"Priest Želivský, do not use the Scriptures to justify your own hatred."
"...Ah... aah!"
I took my gaze off Želivský, who had slumped down onto the floor, and fixed it on the potbellied man standing behind him.
The master of the Prague merchants' guild, a jeweled ring on every finger.
"Guild master."
"Eek, y-yes? Your Grace."
The guild master leapt forward, startled out of his skin.
"Did you also come here out of religious devotion? Were you so worried about the souls of the Jews that you could not sleep?"
"N-no! I mean, of course devotion is important as well... but we wish to speak of something more practical, a matter of order."
"Order?"
The guild master rambled incoherently, sweating cold sweat like rain.
"Your Grace, the Jews know nothing of commercial morality! They do not follow the guild's regulations and they disrupt the market by selling goods at absurdly cheap prices!"
"They disrupt the market?"
"That is right! And besides, they... use wicked magic! How else could they earn money so well? Honest Christian merchants cannot hold out against their sorcery. At this rate the entire commerce of Prague will fall into the grip of those people!"
"Magic, is it."
I let out a hollow laugh.
"Guild master. Shall we be honest with each other?"
I leaned forward and looked the guild master straight in the eyes.
"What you are afraid of is not wicked black magic. It is competition."
"...What?"
"You have all been living comfortably inside a fence called the guild all this while. No competition, and prices set however you pleased. And now the Jews come in and say they will sell better goods more cheaply, and that is what frightens you, is it not? That your rice bowls will be broken."
"Y-Your Grace! We are merely speaking of the economic order of Prague..."
"That is not order, it is monopoly."
I delivered a cold rebuke to everyone gathered in the audience chamber.
"In my kingdom there is no unjust monopoly. If you make goods better than the Jews and sell them cheaper, the people will buy your goods. And if not, they will buy the Jews' goods."
"But Your Grace! The Christian merchants are all about to starve to death..."
"Then starve to death."
Hisssss—
A silence as though cold water had been poured out.
No one could make so much as the sound of breathing.
I lifted my chin and drove the point home.
"As king I have a duty to protect my people. But if the cause is not war or a depression, and merely that you lost in competition, then that means nothing more than that you are incompetent. Do not try to hide your incompetence behind your religious devotion."
I took a gold coin from my pocket and flicked it into the air.
CLINK!
The coin fell to the floor with a clear ring. Rolling along, the gold coin came to a stop between Želivský and the guild master.
"If any among you can distinguish whether this coin belongs to a Jew or a Christian, come forward."
No one came forward.
Money has no religion. Before that simple truth, their justification was stripped shabbily bare.
The air of the audience chamber was like a bowstring drawn taut. A tension that felt as if it would snap at the slightest further touch.
I could read it in their eyes. Fear, and the shame laid down beneath it.
They vaguely knew that they were wrong. But they did not want to admit it.
Because to admit that they were wrong would be to admit that their faith was wrong, and to lay down the vested interests they held.
'Shall I leave it about here.'
They too were, after all, subjects of Bohemia. It was necessary to soothe them a little from this point.
I rose slowly from the throne. And I went down the steps one at a time.
The sound of the king's footsteps rang through the quiet audience chamber.
I came right up in front of Želivský and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Priest Želivský."
I called him in a low, settled voice. Želivský's shoulder flinched.
He trembled as though he had been burned by fire, but he did not dare shake off my hand.
"We are fighting to prove that the arrogant papal court of Rome is wrong and that we are right."
"..."
"And if we behave exactly like those men of Rome, what will the world say when it looks at us?"
I met Želivský's eyes.
In pupils glistening with fanatical faith, I could see an anxiety and unease he had not managed to hide.
"The Pope calls whatever differs from himself heresy and kills it. If we call the Jews heretics and drive them out, then what is there to distinguish us from the Pope?"
"That is..."
Želivský's lips moved. It was the expression of a man who wanted to refute and had nothing with which to refute logically.
I patted his shoulder gently a couple of times.
"I know. I know how hot your faith is. But true victory is not stabbing with a sword. It is showing that we are better beings than they are."
I smiled gently at Želivský.
"I need that steadfast faith of yours, Priest Želivský. Should you not hold the center steady so that the people do not lose the path of faith while mingling with the Jews? Driving them out is not the answer. Move them, embrace them, and prove the superiority of the Christian."
"..."
Želivský was silent for a long while.
Presently he let out a deep sigh and lowered his head.
"...If that is truly Your Grace's will. We Taborite priests will... guide them with prayer."
It was not a perfect surrender.
But this much was enough. At least they would not run out tomorrow to set fire to the ghetto.
I smiled with satisfaction and turned around.
This time it was the guild master's turn.
"Guild master."
"Yes, yes!"
"You said something just now, did you not? That the Jews disrupt the market."
"Th-that is so. If the Jews are allowed to sell goods freely, we small merchants will..."
"That is wrong."
I shook my head lightly.
"Why do you only think of fighting over a single slice of bread? Why can you not think of building a bread factory?"
"...A f-factory, you say?"
"The Jews have money. And they have an information network of their own that stretches across all of Europe. Vast capital and an information network you could not begin to imitate."
I put a hand on the guild master's shoulder.
"Those excellent glass works you all make, they do not fetch their proper price if you sell them only inside Prague. But if you send them to Venice or Constantinople through a Jewish trading company? How many times over would the price jump?"
The guild master's eyes went wide. The calculator inside the merchant's head was spinning furiously.
"That would be... three or four times, no... ten times at the very least!"
I broke into a broad smile.
"Do not try to compete with the Jews; cooperate with them and grow the pie of the market itself. Do not try to devour one another inside a cramped little well; go out to the sea and catch whales. Aboard the ship called the Jews, that is."
"Ah... aah!"
The fear vanished from the guild master's face, and in its place a greedy red flush spread.
Not a competitor but a business partner.
Not a thief stealing his rice bowl but a financier who would make the bowl bigger.
The moment I twisted their perspective slightly, the Jews began to look to them no longer like loathsome heathens but like geese laying golden eggs.
The guild master bent at the waist to ninety degrees.
"Your Grace, we have been far too shortsighted. Cooperation with the Jews... no, we shall seek out a plan for mutual prosperity at once!"
"Yes. Good thinking."
The murderous air in the audience chamber eased.
The priests had been persuaded by 'moral justification', and the merchants were intoxicated with 'future profit' and smacking their lips.
Of course, this would not make hatred centuries old vanish overnight.
But at least the pretext for raising a rebellion or inciting a riot on the excuse of the decree was gone.
'That puts out the immediate fire for now.'
But the real problem began from here.
However fine my words had been, in the end, if I could not show results, these men would bare their teeth again at any time.
This too was one of the countless problems I would have to solve going forward.
"The audience is ended, so withdraw now."
The people drained away like an ebbing tide, and only silence remained in the empty audience chamber.
I buried myself in the throne again.
As the tension loosened, fatigue pressed down on my shoulders.
"You may come out now."
At my words, someone who had been hiding all along in the shadows behind a pillar walked out.
A long white beard, deeply carved wrinkles.
But an old man whose eyes alone were blazingly alive.
It was the leader of the ghetto, Rabbi Abraham.
He seemed still not to have shaken off the shock of witnessing the absurd scene that had just unfolded.
A king citing Scripture to rebuke priests, and using greed to persuade merchants, in order to shield his own people.
"Your Grace is..."
Abraham opened his mouth in a trembling voice.
"...Might you be the reincarnation of Cyrus the Great?"