A Bed of Spices (16 page)

But as long as there were no fights, Rica chose to ignore it all, although she kept a sharp eye on her cousin Lorraine, who teased and strutted much too boldly. Already there had been arguments over her, and her parents seemed not to notice the girl’s wantonness.

Even now she bent low over Rudolf’s shoulder, her breasts nearly spilling free of her low tunic. She smiled ripely. Next to Rica, Etta made a low noise.

Rica patted her hand. “Fear not, sister,” she said. “See how Rudolf turns away? He likes not that forwardness.” Rudolf had flushed a dusky red and he shot the twins a glance, as if to see if they noticed. Shaking Lorraine’s hand from his velvet-clad shoulder, he crossed the room. He bowed before Etta.

“I would dance, if you would grant my favor,” he said.

Etta smiled and gave him her hand. As the two whirled away, Rica nodded in satisfaction, lifting her brows toward Lorraine, who shrugged and turned her attentions to a more willing partner.

Humphrey, who should have censured the girl, snored loudly, slumped in his place. His wife, pinch-mouthed, watched Etta and Rudolf dance.

“Minna,” Rica said, “I have had enough of this place. Will you walk with me?”

“I had best stay,” she said with a grim glance toward her sister. “Else Lorraine will likely bring the castle walls down with her games.”

Rica kissed her with a smile. “You’re a brave girl.”

She made for the winding stairs in the west tower, which led to the dark walk over her own chamber. Huddling deep into the folds of her cloak, she pulled up the hood and stepped into the soft, drizzling rain.

To one side, two men-at-arms chatted lazily. One of them was Lewis, who had his eye on Minna. “The weather’s foul for a walk, my lady,” he said.

“And below the air is foul with drunkenness,” Rica returned sharply.

He laughed and stepped aside to let her pass.

The two men murmured as she walked toward the end of the square over which they stood guard. At the edge, she stopped and gazed out into the wet darkness in the direction of Strassburg. It was not so late there were not glimmers of lights left burning beyond the city walls, though the tiny orange flickers were only twinkles in the darkness. She crossed her arms.

Which of those lights might lead her to Solomon? What might he be doing at such an hour? He had many brothers, he’d told her. Did he play chess with them on rainy evenings or did he study by the light of the fire?

Did he, she wondered, think of Rica, as she thought of him?

She shifted, lifting her face momentarily to the cool rain, letting it wet her skin.

For the past few days, in each spare moment, she haunted the priest. It was, in part, a need to escape the endless chores the extra guests put upon her time, and a way to feel more than a workhorse, carrying and fetching for others. In his little rooms nearby the chapel, she pored over his small collection of books, seeking knowledge of the Jews.

What little she found only made her hunger to learn more. All of her life, the streets of Strassburg had been populated with the Jews, the merchants and moneylenders who made the building of cathedrals and cities possible, they with their yellow circles and strange customs and separate lives. Yet, till now, she’d had no cause to wonder over them.

Because of Solomon, she longed to learn. She wanted to know what he ate and how he slept and what songs he sang. She wished to know all the things that made his life his own.

From the embrasures of the great hall, left open in spite of the rain to let the stench of food and too many bodies out into the night, came the robust sound of drums and a pipe and a lilting horn. A shout of many voices cried out in greeting, and in her mind’s eye, Rica saw the revelers jump up to the new dance.

She turned back toward the city. Solomon could never be a part of the merrymaking in that great hall, so it held no interest for her.

Lewis walked up behind her, his scabbard clinking against the waist-high wall along the walk. “Lady, the hour grows late, and I fear you will be ill if you remain in this rain.”

She nodded. “You’re right,” she said, and put a hand on his arm in gratitude as she turned.

“It saddens me to see your lightness descend to such worry, pretty Rica,” he said with a smile. “Is there aught I can do to put the mischief back in your eye?”

For a moment, Rica said nothing as she stared out toward the city. Then, softly she said, “Only if you can start the world anew.”

Puzzled, the vassal looked at her. She sighed. Solomon alone seemed to see there was more to her than a pretty smile, that she had a hunger for things beyond herself.

“There is naught you can do,” she said gently. “But I can ease your worry by retreating from this cold spot. Good even.”

She steered clear of the noise of the great hall and went instead to her chamber. The tedious, endless details of feeding and housing so many, of entertaining them all the while the skies poured days of rain, wearied her. And since Rica had been teaching Etta what she could, the tasks became doubling draining.

A knock sounded at the heavy oak door, and for one moment, Rica was tempted to pretend she was already abed. It was bound to be Etta or Lorraine— the one whining, the other preening—and Rica did not wish to listen to either tonight.

But she called out and the door opened to reveal

Minna on the threshold, the stub of a tallow candle in her hand. “I hope I do not disturb you,” she said in a small voice.

“No, cousin.” Rica drew the girl into the room.

Around her eyes were deep hollows of strain, as if she had not been sleeping well. “What disturbs you?”

Minna began to cry. “I cannot sleep for fear of dreaming!” she said and pressed her face into Rica’s breast. “I dream of them over and over and wake up screaming. Lorraine only shouts at me and my mother thinks I am foolish, but Rica, I am so afraid of dreaming again!”

“Shh, shh,” Rica held the trembling girl and stroked her hair and hummed quietly. When Minna had settled a little, Rica drew her to a bench beneath the rushlight. They sat side by side and Rica took her hands. “Tell me what so frightens you, little Minna.”

“The pestilence.” Her fingers tightened painfully on Rica’s. “There were such horrors as we came that I

could not bear it… TWe had to tie cloths over our mouths for the stench. Whole villages, Rica, where nothing moved at all. Not even the birds sang, as if they knew some horror—“

She bowed her head, and tears began to run over her face. “Even the cats and the dogs and the babies just lay there with no one to bury them.”

Rica made a low, sympathetic noise and drew Minna back into her arms. “Ah, those are nightmares indeed. And there is naught I can say to take away the things you have seen.”

“Why has God let this happen? Are we so terrible to be punished thus?”

Clasping the child’s head, Rica stared at the shadows flickering on the wall. There was no answer to give her. “I think it is not God, Minna,” she said at last. “I think it is not a punishment, only some natural thing that has run wild.”

“I do not wish to live in a world where such things are natural.”

“Ah, but you have no choice.” She lifted her head and pinched the wet cheek gently. “You are here now. There is naught you can do.”

“May I stay and sleep with you, cousin?” she asked, and bit her lip. “Just for tonight—and perhaps tomorrow?”

Rica smiled. “I will be glad of the company. If your dreams still plague you, I will fetch a potion from the midwife tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” Minna breathed more easily and laid her head on Rica’s shoulder. She was asleep almost instantly.

Holding the slim body of the girl against her, with the cold of the stone wall behind her and the hiss of the burning rushlight overhead, Rica felt oddly calmed. There had been so little time the past few days to think or breathe or take a moment to sit quietly.

Her eyes fell upon a silver crucifix fixed to the wall. The now familiar mix of joy and shame washed through her. It was shameful to kneel in the confessional and hear the prayers of penance Father Goddard gave her when she knew she lied by omission. She had even felt a flush of guilt yesterday when taking honey from the hives, for the scent of beeswax reminded her sharply of that wooden confessional in the chapel.

She sighed. It would be easier if she could regret her actions, but she did not. How could she repent of something that gave her such sweet and piercing joy?

In the autumn, Solomon would be sent away.

Then Rica could go to the cathedral in Strassburg for full confession. Until then she would avoid the com-munion table as well as possible, and pray to Mary, who understood the needs of women. Mary, virgin or not, surely knew more of a woman’s heart than priests who were only men.

Autumn—when the stars and portents said evil would befall them. Idly stroking Minna’s hair, Rica thought now it was the pestilence toward which those ill omens pointed. Perhaps this was the last season any of them would see.

In that light, her love for Solomon seemed a precious gift, not the guilty secret she thought it.

Tomorrow, she would go to Helga’s on the excuse of procuring a sleeping draught for Minna.

One by one the vassals and maids and guests filtered out of the hall, and when there were only a few left, gamboling in one corner, Rudolf took his lady’s hand. “Rica,” he said, “let me walk with you to your chamber.”

The girl blushed delicately, and whispered her consent. Next to her, Lorraine inclined her head toward Rudolf, leaning over to kiss Rica good night.

“Sweet dreams,” she said, and laughed as she caught Rudolf’s eyes on her neckline, a neckline cut so low her nipples nearly showed. Nay, he could see the dark creast when she bent, and she knew it—

Whore, he thought violently. If he’d not had so much to drink, he could control the carnal leap of his flesh, but after so much mead, he felt only a hazy anger. With more force than he meant, he grabbed Rica’s hand, crushing her fingers in his own as he tugged her toward the stairs.

At the small noise of pain she made, he slowed and loosened his grip. In the shadowy recesses of the circular stairs, her blond hair seemed to catch all the light, and her wide lavender eyes were as innocent as Lorraine’s were knowing. Before Lorraine, Rudolf had thought Rica to be lusty. Now he knew differently.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

She did not speak as he moved closer, but her eyes grew even larger as he lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed them.

The sounds of the hall reached them, boisterous and shrill, as if to emphasize the quiet here in this dark, silent stairwell. Across his vision flashed the heavy breasts of Lorraine, obscuring the virtuous beauty before him. Angrily, Rudolf bent to kiss Rica’s mouth.

He kissed her hard, needing the taste so long denied to remove the evil taunting him. Passively, she allowed it. It fueled his frustration. How dare she? How dare she walk so boldly through the streets of Strassburg and wander the countryside and challenge his judgment and yet kiss him like some fainting maid?

Roughly, he pushed her against the stone wall and pressed into her. A small frightened noise escaped her throat. The sound inflamed him. He tasted blood on her lips and felt the push of her hands against his chest. A panicky movement in her body made him think of a frightened bird. Still he held her and kissed her, and somehow his hands were at the shoulders of her tunic. He fumbled, his member engorged and pressing into the folds of her skirt, seeking the heat between those long white thighs. He tore her tunic in his hurry to touch her breasts.

Rica made a noise of horror at the sound and her fighting passed frightened, moved to frantic. She scratched at his face and neck as his hands kneaded the fullness of those naked breasts below the tatters of silk, and he met the pain with exultation—now she suffered as he did. Now she knew the punishment a man could inflict. Now she would begin to learn who was master, as ordained by God.

Once before it had been like this; once before he had tangled with her in a dark passage, but it had not been so violent then. Now she pulled at his hair and bit his lip and he shook with his need to have her.

Struggling, he lifted her skirts and grabbed the supple flesh of her bottom. All at once, she froze and beat at him fiercely. “No, my lord!” she whispered. “We cannot!” She shoved at him at a vulnerable moment and he lost hold, slamming against the opposite wall in the narrow stairwell. “No!”

Blinking, he stared at her, her hair wild with his caresses, her tunic torn to expose one white breast, her lips swollen and one bleeding. To his horror, the sight nearly made him lose control, and he left her, stalking through the darkness to his chamber, sure she was a demon.

Just as Rica settled Minna on her bed, another knock sounded at the door of the chamber. “God’s teeth,” Rica muttered under her breath and went to open the door.

There stood Lewis with Etta leaning on him, her lip bloody. “Forgive me, my lady, but I thought it would be better to bring her to you than to your father.”

“What happened?”

“I know not.” His mouth hardened. “I found her weeping on the steps nearby here when I went to fetch the new guard. No doubt some drunken louse mistook her in the darkness for a serving wench.”

Gently, Rica took Etta from him and led her into the room. There was an alarming pallor in Etta’s cheeks, but when she looked up at Rica, there was no vacant look about her eyes, only an abject misery. A sharp ripple of relief passed through Rica’s chest—and she realized anew how tenuous Etta’s recovery was.

As Rica settled her on the bench, she slumped against the wall.

Rica made a low, furious sound. “Seek him out who did this to her,” she said in a harsh voice. “Say naught to my father. I will avenge my sister this mistreatment.”

Lewis, standing uncertainly by the door, narrowed his eyes. “I cannot leave such work to you.”

“Do you doubt me? Will you trust me thus far and no farther? Think you I am incapable of wreaking justice for my sister?”

He only stood, implacable, for a moment. Then he shifted, glancing once to limp Etta, then away. “I do not doubt you. When I learn the beast’s name, you will have it, but you must promise to give me the pleasure of witnessing your vengeance.”