The Book of Sarah

First of all we must agree that what comes next is fiction. What did I want to share with you? Oh, yes, let me tell you how I first contracted the divine disease. As I stated earlier, I was about eighteen years old. We were on our way up the east coast of Iberia, where I was to study with the great biblical scholar, Rashi, at his vineyard/manor house in the south of France. My father's tents were rich and commodious. Thirty retainers rode with us, including a dozen men-at-arms. I was mounted upon the young stallion given me by the son of the Caliph himself. None dared molest us. We were accepted in the great halls of Trinitarian lords, as well as those belonging to our fellow unitarian Muslim neighbors.This was a golden age, a symbiosis of three spiritual interpretations, a fountainhead of philosophy and learning. But  ugly cracks were beginning to appear in the alabaster facade of our rarified world . Not only on the facade, but in the very foundation itself. Demons of intolerance were busy whispering in dirty ears up and down the continent of Europe. Bands of common brigands swarmed onto the crumbling Roman hyighways, stirring up the peasantry and lesser nobility. They demanded a holy war of conquest, a blessed slaughter of all infidels, and the establishment of a Trinitarian kingdom, ruled from the radiance of Mount Zion itself. Ruled from the navel of creation. Ruled from Jerusalem. And as a show of piety, they killed every Jew, Muslim and Trinitarian heretic they found along the way.. Needless to say, they found us. Look to the next posting, for there you will learn more..