The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner

Utrecht.
    In the months following, Dirk Kerckrinck took Ruth to his Latin classes at the house of his teacher, Franciscus van den Enden, on the Singel canal. Van den Enden was a Flemish radical who funded the publication of his own revolutionary ideas by teaching Latin to the children of wealthy and fashionable bürgers. He also had daughters of his own, girls whom he had educated so they were able to hold their side in debate with the outspoken young intellectuals who sought shelter under his roof. If van den Enden suspected the true gender of the awkward youth Kerckrinck insisted on bringing to his tutorials, he never spoke out. The charismatic teacher, mentor to many, could not help noticing that the young man did not shave and his voice was of suspiciously high timbre.But the boy was bright and his enthusiasm for learning phenomenal. Almost as phenomenal as another of van den Enden’s prodigies, Benedict Spinoza.
    The slight, dark young man with the handsome face was already famous for his very public excommunication from the Sephardic community. Now, bereft of family and friends, Spinoza had not only abandoned his Hebrew name of Baruch for the Latin equivalent, Benedict, but had actively carved out for himself a new family of like-minded intellectuals. The sons of merchants who, like him, sensed there was a greater meaning beyond the commerce and banality of prosperity that was making the Dutch nouveau riche flabby and self-regarding. Suspecting that the youth also had a Hebrew background, Spinoza warmed to Felix van Jos immediately.
    Oblivious to Ruth’s true sex, Spinoza took to instructing the young valet himself, perceiving the youth’s precociousness as a mirror of his own. After the Latin classes when Kerckrinck and Spinoza retired to the beer halls to drink and discuss politics, Spinoza always insisted that the shy youth accompany them. There Spinoza held court, arguing his theory of a God that encompassed all of nature, all of the universe and, even more controversially, that this God’s power was not the power of a king, but of nature, of life.
    Fascinated, Ruth would watch as Spinoza, holding up an empty beer glass so that the light shone through it like a prism, continued his soliloquy, oblivious to the rowdy revellers around him.
    ‘Everything flows from God, but we are limited by imposing our human perceptions upon him. Man designs God according to his own image and the image man has of himself is flawed. It is not our so-called free will which makes us want or desire something, but the disposition of our mindand body at any given time. Our only freedom lies in exercising reason to such a degree that we transform the passive emotions and the confused ideas which enslave us into a clear awareness of what motivates us. Reason knows exactly and precisely what must be done. Never forget that, young Felix.’
    As Spinoza spoke, Ruth felt as if the air itself had suddenly congealed then broken into shards of shining clarity. She saw a way she could apply his philosophies to her own life and the choices she had made so far to pursue her intellect.
    It was there in the smoky tavern, between the rowdy students and the whores, that Felix van Jos alias Ruth bas Elazar Saul decided that she would consciously rein in her passions and serve God through a vigorous and rational pursuit of knowledge at the expense of all else.
    Often when Spinoza looked at the youth with his soft cheek and luminous green eyes, he found himself wondering why the boy always refused to drink beer and fell into an uneasy silence when the subject inevitably turned to women and the latest sexual conquests. The philosopher assumed he must be virgin and was on the brink of suggesting to Kerckrinck that they pool their money to take him to a brothel when, drunk and morose one night, Dirk confessed that his young valet was female and a Jewess. Worse, that he had begun to lust after her.
    Deeply shocked, Spinoza—who regarded women as inherently