A Bed of Spices (28 page)

His mother had silently tended his wounds, which were not, when all was finished, so terrible. A cut on his shoulder, one lower on his back, a split in his lip from hitting the ground. His legs and arms and shoulders were black and blue.

He would not die.

Nor would he trade the beating for the kisses he had shared today with Rica. He would go now to Montpellier with the feel of her soft flesh in his hands and the sound of her voice in his ear. Like pressed flowers, his memories would go with him always.

He drifted in and out of sleep. Beyond his locked door, his father raged, then all fell silent. He heard, once, his mother weeping. Solomon, unmoving on his pallet, dreamed of Rica swirling all around him like a being of light, gold and rose and smelling of lavender.

But as dawn filtered into the room, so too did the new reality of his days come into his mind. No more would he go to Helga’s to laugh and tell bawdy tales. No more would he peer into the deep violet eyes of his love. The magical summer had disappeared into the mist, no more to be his. No more.

At the door, he heard the lock click and Jacob appeared in the wan light. He was haggard, the lines deep around his mouth. Hollows marked his cheeks above the thick heard. “So,” he said.

Solomon waited, feeling his father’s exhaustion and sorrow. Jacob nodded to himself and stepped into the room. “I did not see what was under my nose,” he said. “The blushing and sighing—I should have known there was danger.”

“Papa,” Solomon whispered.

“One day,
beneleh
, you will be as wise as your namesake. I wish only it had come sooner.”

Filled with unexpected shame and sorrow, Solomon struggled into a sitting position, groaning at the protest of his battered body. He knelt on the cold flags. “It grieves me to know I have given you pain. I beg your forgiveness.”

“The heart of a young man speaks more loudly than all the wise words of all the wise men in all the world.” He touched Solomon’s head. “You will go to Montpel-lier in two days—my tradesmen tell me the pestilence is fading there, and you should return to your studies. Until then, you must eat and regain your strength. Your mother is bringing bread and stew.”

Jacob turned as if to leave, then paused. “Grieve her now and be done with it. She marries in five days.”

Solomon closed his eyes, overwhelmed by a vision of her weeping on the cathedral steps.

For a moment longer, Jacob paused. Then he turned without speaking and left Solomon alone. He locked the door behind him.

For a long time, Solomon did not move. Light crept in through the shutters and fell in slim shafts to the pages of the poems he had copied so laboriously for Rica this summer. He stared at them.

No greater fool than he had ever been born. How could he have believed for even a single moment that they might fly away from here together? Rica was strong and intelligent, but she would be no match for the life they would live together.

And yet, even now, he would risk it for a few more hours of loving her. For himself. To have her waiting when he had finished with his classes; to sleep entwined with her; to laugh before a fire on cold evenings…

He closed his eyes, sick with yearning. Oh, yes. In selfishness, he could do it.

For Rica’s sake, he could not. As his mistress, she would be scorned and snubbed and called vile names. She was used to comfort and servants and the obsequious attention the nobility took for granted.

It would not be long before her starry-eyed passion faded. Then she would begin to blame him for the life of which she had begged him to make her part, and the shimmering thing that lived between them would die.

No. For Rica, and for himself, he would not take her to Montpellier. Better she should have the life she had always known. Better he should grieve now than lose her by degrees.

***

Rica awakened groggily to the urgent whisperings of Lewis, who shook her shoulder roughly. “My lady, come quickly.”

“What?”

“Helga sent me—‘tis your love riding away. If you hurry, you may bid him farewell.”

With a cry, Rica sat up. “Turn around then, and let me rise.”

“I will wait in the passage.”

Rica dressed, her hands trembling as she rushed. A heavy velvet surcoat would keep her warm in the damp, early dawn. A cloak, tossed as afterthought over her shoulders, would shield her from the mist.

It was only as Lewis led her through the passages and out beyond the castle to the deserted road that her heart began to pound. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and crouched near a tree, her hands trembling violently.

Lewis said, “I will be waiting at the small door through which we escaped, to let you in.”

“Perhaps I will never see you again, Lewis,” she said, a bolt of “joy swelling her grief-shrunken soul.

His eyes were sad. “Nonetheless, I will be waiting.”

Rica turned back to wait, watching the road eagerly. A thick mist obscured all but a few feet of the hard-packed earth, and all sounds were muffled. Behind her on the hill rose the castle in grim splendor, the jail from which she would cheerfully flee.

A mule emerged from the mist, with a dark-cloaked figure riding on it. Rica stood up, peering to see if it was Solomon who rode so disguised. The man rode listlessly, his head bent. Was it he? She could not tell.

Not until he was nearly even with her did he look up. Rica gave a glad cry—for it
was
Solomon who came so despondently from Strassburg. “Oh, my love,” she said, stretching out her hands, “did you think me so fickle as to let you go?”

No smile or sweet greeting came from his lips. He only stared from beneath his hood, his eyes grim. Rica let her arms fall, wondering if she had done the right thing. “Do not stare so,” she protested. “You are frightening me.”

“And you frighten me, Rica!” He dismounted and took a step toward her. “Are you mad? Was one beating not enough?”

“No!” She moved forward, imploring, unable to stop herself. “I mean, I do not wish you to be beaten—‘tis
only that I
could not bear to see you go. I have been distraught these last days, wondering how you fared.” With a hesitant hand, she touched the healing split in his lip. Softly, she asked, “How do you fare, my love?”

He stared at her, his eyes burning in his pale face. Abruptly, he grabbed her arms in a fierce grip. Rica, thinking he was drawing her close, clutched at his sleeves, nearly weak with relief. “I have little to take with me, Solomon, but I lay my life at your feet, and will gladly follow where you lead.”

“Rica! You cannot go. There are those who will behead you, and hang me, for this passion.” He gripped her arms with bruising strength. “At best, they will treat you as a whore.”

She stroked his jaw, traced the line of his brow. “I have been the daughter of a petty lord these many years and it serves me not.”

In his eyes she saw his weakening, saw his love shining and hungry. His gaze swept her lips. “You do not know what you say.” There was a weary sound to the words.

In the distance, muted by the mist, came the sound of a horse. Solomon looked over his shoulder, then with a savage cry, he pushed Rica away. She stumbled on her cloak, landing ignobly in the grass at the side of the road. Stunned, she stared up at him.

“You are a witch!” he said in a low, angry voice. “You have cast some evil spell over my senses these last months. Leave me now!”

“Solomon, no!” She struggled to her feet, unmindful of the grass and dust clinging to her clothes. “You do not mean what you say. I love you.”

The thudding hooves echoed more loudly, and Solomon glanced again over his shoulder. When he turned back, there was a cruel look in his eye. “You are not the first girl I have taken to amuse me,
fräulein
.” His lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “Nor will you be the last. Go marry your knight and live your silly noble life—I am done with you.”

Rica stepped back. “You lie, Solomon,” she said.

He laughed, the sound cold and mirthless. “Do I?”

Doubt wound through her, but she tossed her hair from her face. “You love me, and you will suffer for this.”

For one long moment, he stared at her, his sensual mouth set in hard lines, his eyes glittering chips of obsidian. “Good day, my lady,” he said, and rode into the mist.

Before the other rider could discover her there, Rica turned and ran through the trees toward the door where Lewis waited. He let her in without a word. Rica, smarting with humiliation, brushed by.

But back in her chamber, she collapsed. Her life was ended.

The night before the wedding, Olga brought word that Etta had asked for Rica’s company. Wearily, Rica left her tasks and went to her chamber.

Rica had seen no one these last days. Olga and Helga, gentle guards, brought her food and helped her ready her clothing and belongings for the journey to Rudolfs fief to the east. Dangerous country, she’d heard, where still barbarians roamed. When Rica overheard Olga whispering this to a younger girl, Rica had only wished the barbarians would find them both and kill them before she had to endure a lifetime of Rudolf’s caresses. As it was, she had stowed away a cache of herbs to drug herself with in order to endure her wedding night.

It was the only rational act she had been capable of these last days. She moved in a dull stupor, close to tears much of the time, and yet too weary to indulge them. Listlessly, she brushed velvets and mended linen, and in the evening, when at last her well-meaning guards left her, she dove into the refuge of sleep.

Even the walk to Etta’s chamber wearied her. She wondered if the evil spell would ever lift.

Etta sat nearby her bed, adorned prettily in her rose surcoat with its rich embroidery. A gilded circlet shone round her forehead, and her hair hung in loose waves over her shoulders. A bath had been laid, and Rica could see steam yet rising from the scented water.

Etta smiled and rose to kiss Rica’s cheek. “Let me bathe you, sister, this one more time.”

Rica closed her eyes and pressed cold fingertips to the lids. “I do not wish to bathe. I have no joy in this marriage—nor should you.”

A bright strange light bloomed over Etta’s face. “I am only a subject of the Lord’s will.” She rounded Rica’s unmoving form to untie the laces at the back of her gown. “I have found joy these past days in prayer.”

Rica caught the gown. “Etta. I have
not
prayed, nor will I. I go unclean to Rudolf der Brumath.” She pulled away. “‘Tis the only rebellion I have.”

“Drink this wine with me then, sister. We have only tonight to be as we were for so many years.” The color in her cheeks was high, and Rica thought she might already have been indulging a little in the wine. “I will miss you,” Etta said. “They have said I will go to a nunnery.”

Stung by her own selfishness, Rica took the cup from her sister’s hand. “We have had our struggles this summer, but I feel cheated we are now to be parted.”

Etta bowed her head. “I would change only the way this has ended.” Her voice was hushed.

“As would I.”

“‘Tis unfair indeed that we should
both
lose all,” Etta said, and lifted her eyes. Her pupils were overly large or perhaps only seemed so against the high flush of her cheeks. There was clarity in her words. “I know it was the Jew you loved, Rica.”

Rica sank down to the bench and poured a cupful of sharp new wine. “How did you know?”

“I saw you kissing him at Helga’s that day. Through the branches of a tree before I went inside.”

“I could not tell you,” she said.

“I know.” She reached across and took Rica’s hand. “I pray for him, too.”

Briskly, she stood. “Now let me do this last sisterly thing for you,” she said with a smile. “The bath is hot and sweetly scented. Drink your wine and let me wash your hair.”

Rica drank deeply, draining the cup. Perhaps drunkenness would give peace to the grief so haunting her. At least for a little while.

She extended the cup and, as Etta refilled it, shed her clothes and stepped into the bath.

It was not without sorrow that Charles fetched Rica the next morning. She waited calmly in her chamber, her hair dressed with flowers, hands folded in her lap.

“Come,” he said.

For a moment, she simply looked at him and he saw all the things she would not say. Pale blue circles below her eyes showed her weariness, and there was heaviness in the set of her shoulders, as if they carried some great weight.

But it was the resignation around her mouth that most pierced him. He felt as if he were sacrificing her to some terrible fate. “By the saints, Rica,” he said fiercely, “he is no ogre, bent on devouring you. I am not long for this world. He will see you well cared for.”

With dignity, she stood up. “I am ready.”

They walked through the passageways without speaking. It was a silence Charles longed to fill with words of love and protest. How he would miss the child! She had been his most steadfast companion these many years.

Outside Etta’s door, he nearly spoke these thoughts, but thought better of it. It would only make the parting more painful. He opened the door—and swore, for the girl was still abed.

Next to him, Rica touched his arm. “Leave her, Pappi,” she whispered. “Do not force her to watch her beloved wed another.”

Pierced, Charles nodded and closed the door gently.

The party traveled to Strassburg in the bright morning. Next to Charles, Rica rode nobly, without speaking. No animation lightened her features and he finally forced himself to stop looking for signs of acceptance in her. No matter to him if the day were more like a funeral than a wedding—the end result would be the same.

It wasn’t until the vows were spoken and the deed was sealed that he realized he’d been holding his breath, afraid she would somehow rebel at the “last moment.

Standing there in the sun, Charles felt a tight catch of foreboding as Rudolf bent to kiss the hand of his new bride. His heart fluttered in its cage of ribs. Had he erred in giving his blessing to this union? Had he been so stubborn in his own goals that he had overlooked some crucial detail?

He looked at the faces gathered around them. Lewis watched with a grim expression. Helga pressed her lips together. No joy lit the cheeks of any who knew the pair. Only the poor townsfolk, glad of any break in their routines, cheered.