Eliyahu waved his hand grandly and drove the tongue-tied Slavic servant out. Facing the two guests from the Republic of Venice, he maintained a smile, as if the situation was a world apart from dealing with Columbus, who supposedly fled into debt and met his doom at sea.
After all, as a Jewish merchant lending money, he had no king to rely on, no nobility to pledge allegiance to, like a floating weed in the Catholic World. Although he appeared to be wealthy and carefree, he was really rootless and dependent, walking on thin ice at times.
