A Bed of Spices (22 page)

Then he reached for his cloak and flung it sideways, and tumbled Rica backward to it. Stretching himself over her, he kissed her and pressed his body into hers. There was at first a glorious shock as his supple flesh moved over her, the crisp hair on his chest and legs a rough ‘luxury against her skin. She flung her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. “Oh, Solomon, I do like this.”

He chuckled. “I somehow knew you would.” He kissed her in his elaborate, thorough way. “There’s more.”

He shifted and stroked her leg, deepening his kiss as his hand moved higher and higher. A new, intense kind of heat flooded her, as if in anticipation. She closed her eyes and felt herself open to him.

“This is all I have to give you, my love,” he said against her jaw, and his hand settled in the folds of her womanhood. With slow power, his graceful fingers coaxed a swelling pressure from her body, until she felt herself damp and hot and aching for something she could not name. At the very instant she was certain she could not bear another second of the torture, he bent over and suckled her breast while his fingers danced their clever steps.

With a cry, she burst.

But it was not the quick, sharp thing she had imagined. It was slow and deep and nearly endless, a rippling, swelling pleasure so intense she lost herself in it.

And then Solomon knelt over her. His mouth took hers with bruising hunger, and with uncontrolled movements, he shifted her legs close together. “I cannot go away from you today like this.”

In the lost and glorious moment, she would have done anything, given him her very life if he asked it. Instead, she felt his member move in tight against the heat he had touched with his hands, and he began to slide against her. Not in her, where she wished him to be, where he no doubt longed to settle, but safely outside.

Then it didn’t matter that the joining was not exactly what they would have wished. A wild rhythm built between them. Rica clutched him and writhed and arched. Solomon grasped her and shivered and pressed. And all at once, together, they tumbled into blessed release, an explosion of love and consummation.

He fell against her, his head nestled into the crook of her shoulder, his hair spilling over her jaw and mouth. His hands were clutched hard at her shoulders. Rica held him close, trying to gather into memory the heat and silk of his back, the sweaty press of his chest on her breasts, the pressure of him between her legs.

And suddenly, she found herself bereft and weeping for the loss that would come. She turned her face into his jaw, feeling his ear grow damp with the seeping tears.

He lifted his head and cupped her scalp in his palms. “Ahh, my Rica,” he whispered, and caught a tear on his lips.

He kissed her eyelids and mouth. “I love you,” he said fiercely. “It matters not who we are forced to wed by church or family—you and I now belong to each other forever.”

She stared at his beloved and familiar face. In wonder, she touched his mouth. “You have not said that to me before.”

“That I love you?” A grimness twisted his mouth. “For love only would I risk all that I have,
ahuvati
. For love, I risk death.” He kissed her reverently. “Never doubt it.”

No, she did not doubt, looking into the passion of his black eyes. With a trembling hand, she smoothed curls from his forehead. “And I love you,” she said quietly, as soberly as he had. “No matter what man holds the power of husband over me by church, you are the spouse of my heart.”

He kissed her, as if sealing the words forever between them. Rica felt their souls passing lip to lip, melding and mingling until naught could part them.

***

Rica lingered much later than usual. Even when the sun had nearly settled over the mountain and they had dressed again, she stood with Solomon against a tree, kissing him. She had nearly left three times, but each time, one or the other would think of something to say, and they would stand a little longer, sharing soft kisses and murmurings.

“I must go,” Rica said at last. She sighed and moved a little, her limbs lazy with the delights uncovered this day. “If I do not return soon, my father will not let me out again for a long time.”

“At what hour shall I look for you tomorrow?” he asked, tangling his fingers with hers.

“At Sext, by the Ill.”

He squeezed her fingers and kissed her lightly once more. “I will be there.”

This time, she gathered herself and pushed away from the tree and away from Solomon and began to walk down the hill. She turned once to wave to him, and he grinned, then blew a kiss toward her. Rica laughingly caught it and pressed it to her lips. Then he was gone, disappearing into the trees.

It was only then that the lateness of the hour struck her. With a clutch of terror, she saw the lowering sun and wondered just how long she had lingered with him in the meadow. Had she been missed?

She thought of the naked tangling on the forest bed and grabbed up her skirts as she began to run. What if someone had seen them?

As the castle walls came into view, she slowed her pace, brushed back her hair, straightened her gown. Her lips felt swollen, her skin ruddy with the last hours—how could anyone look at her and not know what had just transpired?

Rudolf sat in his customary place next to Charles on the bench in the hall, eating with pleasure the meat he had denied himself these past days. There was mead on the table, and wine, and good ale, but Rudolf carefully left these alone, opting instead for weak beer.

So when one of the twins came through the doors with a serving maid, his senses were still alert. He watched her as she made her way along the edges of the loom, keeping to the shadows. In spite of her lowered head and the expressionless blank of her face, there was an agitation about her Rudolf thought interesting.

As she settled next to her sister, he saw once again how very different they were. Etta was by far more the peasant than Rica. Rica’s figure was slim, her bearing more delicate. Even her eyes and her voice were lighter. Etta, next to her, was disheveled, as if she’d taken no time to neaten herself before coming to the table, and as he watched, she ate with the appetite of a wolf, as if she were starving.

Rudolf lifted an eyebrow, smiling to himself. When his Rica was yet a slim, lovely goodwife in his castle, this sister would be a broad-hipped matron, doubtless missing a front tooth or two. He shuddered to imagine it.

His eyes washed over the long neck of his Rica, with whom he’d spent the afternoon in the bailey. The neck of her gown had been low enough that when she bent for a flower, he saw the yellowing traces of his fingers on her breast. Appalled all over again, he knelt at her feet to beg forgiveness. She had only laughed lightly and touched his shoulder. “I tempted you overmuch.” flow he had longed to kiss her! Instead, he’d contented himself with kissing her fingers. Preparations had begun for the Feast of the Assumption—summer was all but gone. Soon, he felt confident, he could speak to Charles about a day for the wedding. His suit was all but won.

He glanced once more toward Rica’s pitiful, peasant sister Etta—and found her staring at him with the most evil eye he had ever seen. Her nostrils flared in a gesture of disgust, and she looked toward his neck, then back to his face.

Before he could stop himself, he guiltily touched the remnants of the rash his hair shirt had left like a blazing collar around his neck. Realizing what he’d done, he snatched his hand away. Too late.

Etta’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Rudolf felt sure that it was not the gaze of a woman slightly befuddled. No, there was fierce intelligence in the cunning hatred he saw, and it chilled him.

With a hand that trembled the faintest bit, he poured another cupful of beer. When he looked up, the peasant sister was gone, leaving only his shining, soft Rica at the table once more. He smiled and took pleasure in her gentle blush.

All would be well. A few weeks—that was all the time he needed. Then they would be safely wed, and out of the reach of this evil sister.

Solomon walked toward
home. He wandered, really, lost in his thoughts, wrapped in the magic that was Rica. His flesh glowed with the imprint of her body, and his heart seemed a bright fire. He ducked below the low-hanging arms of pine trees, unmindful of the lateness of the hour.

He reached the gates of the city just after sunset. The bells for Vespers were ringing. In the narrow purpling gloom of the streets, he heard men making merry in alehouses along the way, and the shrill cry of a babe from the rooms above a furrier’s shop.

Some noble’s dog had escaped its tether and the cheerful beast loped along behind Solomon for a bit, stopping now and again to snuffle at refuse. Solomon paused in the face of the creature’s relentless good humor to scratch his ears. The dog sniffed eagerly at Solomon’s sleeve. “You smell Leo, eh?” he said. “But he would never let a stranger coddle him. You are a spoiled thing.”

The dog licked his palm, then, seemingly satisfied, headed back the way he had come. Solomon smiled, watching him. Who could fathom the mind of such creatures? He’d never owned a dog—there were ordinances against any but the elite having them in the city—but he had grown fond of Leo.

Unease prickled the hairs at his neck. Alerted, he turned slowly, scanning the shadows. Nothing moved. A mean-faced shopkeeper stood in the doorway of his shop, staring with hatred, his arms folded over his chest.

Solomon looked at him for an instant, then walked quickly away, his dagger ready in his sleeve. He felt the malevolent eyes bore into his back as he walked, but the man did not follow. Solomon’s lips twisted bitterly—there would have had to be a gang of them if beating was their intent. Against a group, the dagger would have been little help.

There was in the air now an evil sentiment toward Jews, as if they were to blame for the horrors of the plague. Solomon shook his head. He had seen his own people lying dead of the scourge with the rest. God had not protected Catholic or Jew, child or bride.

But the facts mattered little in the face of terror. Rumors of hangings, thin at first, gathered weight with the passing months and the swelling of the plague. The list of towns and cities fallen to the blight grew longer daily—Bordeaux, Lyon, Paris. So grew the reports of the burning and hanging of Jews.

How long could Strassburg hope to be free of it?

These were his thoughts as he stepped through the doors of his father’s house. “At last you wander in,” Jacob said, and nodded toward a chair. “Sit.”

Still tangled in his thoughts, Solomon said, “Papa, there are things—”

Jacob interrupted. “You will not go again to the midwife.”

Solomon stared at his father, stunned for a moment into silence. The old man’s black eyes bore a hole through him, burning down to the secrets of this day.

Against his will, Solomon flushed, even as he gathered his arguments. “But we are making such progress!” he protested and leaned forward earnestly. “I am learning the science of these plants, Papa. I am beginning to see how they mesh, and what properties there are. The possibilities are endless!”

A flicker of doubt broke the harsh aspect of Jacob’s face. Solomon seized upon it. “If you need me here more, I will not go so often.” He spread his hands, as if in easy compromise, lifting his brows. The ruse shamed him, but he could not bear the thought of seeing Rica no more. They had so little time as it was.

“No. You will go no more. There are others with the midwife’s lore. Seek them out.”

“Papa!”

“No more!” he roared. “I have spoken.”

Sullenly, Solomon sank into his chair. There was no breaching that voice.

“Go,” Jacob said harshly. “Your mother has bread and meat for you.”

His mother smiled as Solomon came to the room where she sat, embroidering by the fire. He kissed her head. “I am not hungry,” he said, “though I thank you for remembering me.”

She squeezed his hand in silent sympathy. Asher had gone to Mainz, so Solomon was alone when he retreated to his chamber. His mind awhirl, he sank to the stool before his table, where the poems he had transcribed were spread. With a bitter twist of his lips, he stared at them.

His body still rippled with the sense of her, of his Rica, all around him. He had only to close his eyes to see the shimmer of her hair falling around them, to see her standing by the tree, her cheeks flushed with their play, her eyes soft with love as she kissed him.

A bolt of yearning shot through him and he buried his face in his hands. For all the women there had been in his life, he had not loved till now. He had not known it would be so broad and wide a thing, so engulfing.

With a moan he cursed himself. There was no greater fool than he, no one who had loved so unwisely as this.

Rousing himself, he shed his cloak and set to work on the poems. Somehow, though all else was lost, he would find leave to get them to her.

In her chamber, Rica lit a tallow and sat with a sigh on the bench, throwing open the shutters to let in the clean evening air.

As she leaned back against the cool damp wall, she smelled the coppery water of the Rhine mingled with new growth. She closed her eyes.

All at once, the long, long day caught up with her. In the morning, there had been chores and household accounts, and a lesson in overseeing the brewhouse for Etta.

And now, there was Rudolf to think on; Rudolf, who bore the marks of a hair shirt around his neck; Rudolf, whose guilt had betrayed him when he caught her gaze upon him; Rudolf, who had treated Etta like a whore.

There was Etta, who had lied to protect him. Or had she? Perhaps not all was well in the mysterious mind of her sister. Perhaps she had believed some version of the story she told to protect him.

Rica shifted and a host of sore muscles protested the movement. The best part of the day flooded back through her, not only in her mind, but in the palms of her hands and the small bones in her spine and in her mouth. She lifted her hands to her face, smelling Solomon on her palms, and smiled.

Solomon had fiercely said there was no evil in their joining, and she swore it was true. Where this morning had lived a restlessness in her spirit, there now glowed pleasure, lush and glowing. As if he were the pen and she the page, Solomon had written a new life for her.