DEVORAH’S footsteps faltered as the knight brutally pushed her along. She felt him breathe his heated, sticky breath down her neck, the draft of air against her skin disgusting her immensely.

Still in a haze by the shock of her father's gruesome murder, she could see the neighbours now anxiously witnessing the spectacle in front of them.

Where had they been when she had been walking to the stream? When her father was being murdered?

And then she realized: it would not have made a difference.

They were here to witness and add, not help and prevent.

She couldn't believe that none of them were coming to her aid. All these years of living peaceful together in the same community must have meant nothing to them - or at least, not enough.

She recognized little Adélaïde hiding behind her mother's dress. The little girl she had tutored in mathematics was red in the face and her eyes were puffy because of crying.

Fury boiled deep down inside of her, as hot as the flames that had consumed her father. How could they? How could they turn their backs on her, on all of them, when they had lived together like a family?

The mob behind her and the knights grew exponentially as they made their way to the synagogue, shouting obscene profanities at all the Jews they had herded before them as if they had never known these people, lived with these people, been friends with these people - her people.

There were many people showing farmers-turned-soldiers which homes were owned by the Hebrews.

Devorah could only watch as the few people left, were forcibly torn from their homes, some daring to resist, some submitting right away. Her heart roared with relief as she realized that most had already sought asylum at the synagogue. Maybe the Crusaders would not dare to intrude in their holy sanctuary.

Her hope extinguished as  they stormed the next house and her heart stuttered in naked terror. She squeezed her eyes shut at the haunting screams and calls emanating from inside the house.

There were footsteps. Heavy, loud ones, the soles digging harshly and purposefully into the ground like a march. The soldiers, Devorah recognized. Horrified, she watched the entrance of the house with a furiously pounding heart.

A figure sprinted out. There was no metal that glinted in the sun, no swords that clattered against breast plates. It was Ferdinand, a child in arms and followed by his wife.

The few Crusaders behind her roared, obviously surprised. Many shouted, but almost none moved. The soldiers from inside the house came barreling out, cursing. Deborah felt strangely detached from the scene; she felt numb.

The cries of the people in the crowd were loud and crazy. Only when they started talking in hushed tones did she notice two men dragging Ferdinand to the centre of the crowd, not far from where she stood.

He visually strained against their tight grips, stemming all of his weight forward to propel himself away, but it was to no avail. He tried kicking, thrashing, but it only resulted in a brutal blow to the head.

They harshly forced him down; he dropped to his knees, the impact sending a painful jolt up his joints.

“No!”

Devorah turned her head to the frantically shrieking and sobbing woman.

“Ferdinand!”

She recognized Anna, his wife. In her arms was a two-year-old.

Two men held Ferdinand down, another raised his sword high, the blade glinting murderously in the noon sun light.

Devorah screamed. Her head was painfully wrenched back with a forceful tug of the hair. A man sneered at her, “Shut your mouth, whore.”

The soldier brought down his sword, the sharp edge whizzing through the air, and cut Ferdinand’s head off in one clean blow. A staggering amount of blood gushed from the veins and arteries. When the head fell to the ground, it bobbed a few times, then rolled to a stop in front of her feet. The body followed with a loud thump.

She lurched back - or tried to. The man holding her captive was too stunned and captivated by the head laying at their feet. He let his grip loosen and she stepped away.

With her face splattered with blood, waves of nausea overwhelmed her. Her stomach lurched and gurgled. Vomit came up leaving her with an acidic taste in her mouth. Touching her face, she sank to her knees, rocking to and fro, sobbing uncontrollably.

Someone seized hold of her hair again and pushed her forward as the crowd moved once more towards the synagogue. Fear had her in shackles like the invisible ones these band of monsters had her in. Her pulse was throbbing in her ears. She was scared. Horrified. Disgusted.

It was ironic; springtime had always been her favorite time of year. But now the wind had lost its crispness and was no longer robbing them of their heat; birds were busy feeding their chicks’ ceaseless ravenousness.

The beautiful lemony aroma of the blooming Magnolia trees close to the synagogue dangled in the air, bringing not comfort but anxiety; instead of life blooming, only fear, dread and hatred did so in her heart and soul.

What had started out as a small band of knights, led by a Count, had now grown into a crowd of around two thousand as peasants joined the riot. The knights’ garments with affixed crosses flapped in the wind. Intimidating and frightening.

As they continued down the street, she saw a very large crowd assembled before the synagogue. It was an uproar. Flashes of anger, taunting and sneering remarks were shouted at the Jews in captivity.

"Punish them!" the crowd shouted mindlessly and dangerously. There was a deep vibrating roar as they shouted and pounded their fists, some with weapons, into the air.

"Kill the murderers of Christ!" they ranted.

Devorah felt panic mount in her; she felt as if she stood below a mountain and the earth was rumbling, threatening to let all the rocks fall upon her, crush her. Anxiety grew in her face and body, her mind recounting the last attack she had witnessed. Her breathing came in gasps, sharp and shallow. Her body became cold.

She watched with finality as acquaintances of hers, friends of hers, joined the Crusaders, finding it in themselves to condemn the Hebrews for a murder that was not theirs.

The knights started bashing on the doors of the synagogue with their swords and axes. They pounded and screamed, as if the mountain of sounds would help just because of its sheer volume.

"Open up!" they shouted and the mob behind them went berserk, raging out of control. They started striking and thrashing at the door, but gave up minutes later as they could not enter the synagogue. Devorah’s heart soared in relief.

Her joy was short lived, as she saw men parting the crowd, surrounding and making way for a middle-aged man, who strode to the front of the crowd. She watched in dread as he raised his hand, slowly, and finally, the soldiers quieting down and the citizens of Speyer following suit.

His voice rose loudly over the heads of the people, echoing, his eyes cold and cruel, “I, Count Emicho of Leiningen, have come to save you, the Christians who are condemned. Do they not heed our Holy Father’s, and in that, God’s will. And you, Jews, who will seek to find the error in their beliefs and thus, may find redemption from Christ.”

The crowd roared in enthusiasm.

“Bring them forth!” he commanded.

Devorah was brought to the front and wrenched onto her knees. She saw as her fellow Hebrews - be it men, children, women or elderly - were taken to kneel beside her.

“You have committed grave crimes,” the Count began, coming to stand before them, his eyes cast down onto them in disgust. His face was taut with over exaggerated disdain to make sure that even the furthest person away could see it.

“Christ, our savior, was murdered by your people. You are the children of those who killed the object of our veneration, hanging Him on a tree; and He Himself had said: ‘There will yet come a day when My children will come and avenge My blood.’”

With his face uncharacteristic and his mouth in a forbidding line, he said, “But, God is forgiving. Here I stand before you, offering you salvation. Convert and devote yourself to God, saving yourself from hell and purgatory,” he paused, eyes sweeping across her and the other Jews - she felt a cold shiver run down her back, “or die and refuse heaven.”

Devorah felt her heart stop.

No, no, no.

She watched as the crowd roared in agreement and then she stared up at the count. He stood like a statue of stone above her; his heart and mind were as cold and hard as it. Gasps of shock went through the small group of Jews.

The Persecuted were forced to stand again. They were brought like sheep to a slaughterhouse to the stream she had found her father burning at.

A man Devorah had not seen until now, stepped forward into the shallow water, wading deeper until he was hip deep. One by one, people were brought forward into the water to be baptized. Men, women, and children.

Odelia, a woman Devorah knew as a teacher, who, even though, had agreed to be baptized to escape death, was putting up a fight as she was taken into the river to the man. She took in the same position as all her forerunners.

Standing in front of the Priest, she was held back with his left arm. He placed his hand in front of her face to close her nose and mouth for when he immersed her.

She kneeled down into the water to be immersed, but shoved his hand away from her face. He forcefully grabbed her face while saying, "Do you agree, before God, to accept Christianity as your new religion?"

"No," she screamed hysterically, shrieking and thrashing in the water, the fluid splashing against the man’s face and clothes - he was unfazed, "Never! I choose Kiddush ha-Shem."

The man remained still and shoved her away. “You have made your choice,” he said in a calm and dangerous tone, “You have decided to choose death and condemnation over God and heaven. You will face your sins at the threshold of death and the afterlife and be thrust into the place Christ sees fit.”

While being dragged out of the Rhine, she struggled no more. Everybody stared in surprised silence as she was thrown to her knees. Other than Ferdinand, she had willingly surrendered. A knight raised his sword and brought it down in a sadistic delight.

Cries of men, women, and children echoed into the now darkening afternoon. After making an example of Odelia, the baptisms continued faster than before. Another nine people preferred to be martyred like Odelia. Standing there awaiting their fate, they now looked at death, the way the angel of death did.

Utter horror filled her as she felt the soldier, who was currently restraining her and who had until now remained motionless besides his laughter and cheering at the executions, moved. A numbing realization set upon her. She was going to die.

She was going to meet her end, just as her father had, this day.

Oh, her father. How her heart ached at the thought of him. How she wished he was here, alive. He might have met a more durable end that way.

The water was cold as she first stepped into it. She felt the slight pressure of the stream against her skin as she trod forward; the grip of the soldier behind her was warmer than ever, the sound of the birds chirping more pronounced.

The last rays of the dying day blinded her as she stared at the priest, ready to hear his question and ready to renounce the mere thought of saying yes to it.

The brown eyes that bore into hers were emotionless, the voice that spoke deep and loud, ”Do you agree, before God, to accept Christianity as your new religion?”

Devorah raised her head high-

“No!”

The cry was not hers. Her head snapped to the left, where the vast majority of the crowd stood. She found Karl, desperately screaming at her, pulling against the grips of two soldiers. “Don’t! Devorah, your father would not have wanted this!”

She tore her gaze from him and blinked the tears away - her father was gone. And who knew if he had wanted her to live and renounce who she was, or die with her sanity in tact?

“Do you agree, before God, to accept Christianity as your new religion?” the priest asked again harshly.

“Say yes, you murderer! Or else I might just make sure that friend of yours won’t make it out of here alive, converted or not,” the soldier behind her whispered.

“Devorah, don’t!”

She saw as Karl was thrown to his knees, a man striking him forcibly across the face. “Save yourself!” Terrified, she watched as multiple soldiers made to take out their swords to silence him forever.

“No!” Devorah screamed in panic. “I’ll convert. I accept. I devote myself to your God,” she said quickly, desperately, ”Just- let him be!”

The member of the clergy before her began whispering in a language she did not understand, and as he finished, he put his hands on her head and the baptism followed.

As the last of the Jews had been taken care of, the crowd stood and watched as the bodies were set alight. The flames ripped their way through them, the tendrils of smoke desperately reaching out to the bystanders. Eleven people had died today.

Devorah knew that more would follow.