Free The Fifth Servant by Kenneth Wishnia Page A

put on his winter cloak, and together we went out to the street armed with nothing but the will to perform a mitsveh , a positive act, almost a holy deed, since it is written that whoever saves a single life is looked upon as if he had saved the entire world.

    CHAPTER 7
                WHEN THE I NQUISITOR’S CARRIAGE and retinue crossed the Vltava River into Prague , the waters were churning so violently that it spooked the horses. The driver said the river was riding high with early runoff from the highlands, but the Inquisitor knew this was surely the Devil’s work. And so was the slow fire eating through his guts. His backside also hurt from the long, hard ride down through the Brenner Pass , another sign of the Devil’s torment, but he took courage from the protective shield of the true faith that hung around his neck like a mantle of steel. Bishop Heinrich Stempfel had spent a lifetime sniffing out unbelievers and heretics, and was ready to confront the enemy in any form. He challenged the wicked ones to reveal their ugliness and try to keep him from exposing their sinful acts to the pure, bright light of truth.
                He winced as their hellfire clawed at his tender places, but he was damned if they were going to keep him from seeing this mission through to the end. His cause was just.
                Bishop Stempfel had his own priorities, but the new pope had given him his orders: Catholic Prague had been without a leader for two years since Archbishop Medek’s death, may God rest his soul, and that empty seat had to be filled by someone who was prepared to crush the gathering forces of Protestant heresy and reclaim the fractious Bohemian territory for Rome. As his caravan pulled into the courtyard of Our Lady of Terezín, with its Italian-style parish house, all arches and orange roofing tiles, Bishop Stempfel thought, “And here come a couple of the contenders.”
                Archpriests Hermann Popel and Andyel Zeman were positioning themselves at the head of a long red carpet, jabbing each other with their elbows while waiting to receive the Pope’s envoy with all the drums and colors and pomp and protocol appropriate to his station.
                A pair of liveried footmen opened the carriage door and placed a velvet stool on the flagstones for the bishop, who waited for them to lay an embroidered handkerchief on the cushion before he stepped down. He was followed by his closest aide, Grünpickl, and his scribe, Stuck.
                Popel and Zeman led a procession of choirboys holding pure white candles to greet Bishop Stempfel, who took a gilded casket from Grünpickl and presented it to the two archpriests as a gift from His Eminence in Rome to the faithful of Prague . It contained a holy relic, the bones of a child killed by King Herod of Judea during the slaughter of the innocents. Popel and Zeman opened the casket to gaze upon the objects of such long-term veneration. The bones were extremely well preserved. They looked only a few years old, clear proof of their miraculous powers.
                “Thank heaven you’re here, my lord,” said Popel. “The verfluchte Juden have spat in our faces for the last time.”
                “Can it wait till after breakfast?”
                “My lord, this sacrifice calls for swift vengeance.”
                “What form of sacrifice do you mean?” he said, looking over the faces of the innocent Christian boys whose well-being he had sworn to protect.
                Popel was surprised by Bishop Stempfel’s ambivalence. The Inquisitor was supposed to swoop into this sluttish city, which had opened its gates to every possible heretical belief, with the glowing cross of the True Faith emblazoned on his chest and a flaming sword in his outstretched hand. He put great emphasis on his next words:
                “My lord, I speak of the