Meet Nathaniel Ben Ruben

In The Deadliest Hate, Miriam first meets Nathaniel ben Ruben at The Pegasus, a sleezy waterfront inn. She wants him to carry a message to Judah that she will be arriving on her cousin’s ship, the Orion. She tells us about that encounter:

The public room seemed virtually empty save for the ferocious flies. I figured the boarders must have supped last night on rotten fish and rancid mutton washed down with stale beer. Adding to the foulness were the tang of putrefying garbage from the kitchen and the stench of human waste from the latrine.

Propped up in the corner on a wooden stool, leaning against a slanted wall, dozed a bronze-skinned dwarf, his weathered face lined with dirt, his chin sunk to his breast, his graying Hebraic beard splayed across his chest. I cleared my throat to check whether he was sleeping deeply, but the sound came out like a gag. In response, his eyelids fluttered, and scratching his little potbelly, he made a blubbery sound with his lips. Then, coughing up an oyster of phlegm, he opened his eyes and spat the slime into the chamber pot below his dangling feet. When he saw my sandals, he started, raised his head, and rubbed his eyes as if to clear his head.

Nathaniel ben Ruben becomes an enduring character in the Miriam bat Isaac series. In The Deadliest Sport, he is implicated in the locked-room murder of a slave, and in “The Beggar” in The Deadliest Returns, he returns to Alexandria to find the lovechild he left behind. A bit uncouth but worth having on your side. To encounter him yourself, just click here.