A Bed of Spices (4 page)

“You did not die.”

There was no answer to that. Solomon had puzzled over it a dozen times, a hundred—not only his own survival, but that of others who stood in the midst of the victims and never fell ill. What protected them? And what of those who sickened unto death, then recovered? Was it something they ate or some blessing or a way of breathing?

It was the kind of question he longed someday to answer, the kind of question that made medicine endlessly fascinating. He had learned much at Montpellier, but Helga had taught him in a few short months more than he dreamed an unschooled woman could know. There was a logic in her herbs and potions he had missed in his studies of humors and purging.

Beyond Helga’s knowledge were the Arabians, with whom he had a burning desire to study; their excellence was renowned.

“Ah, Solomon,” said his brother in disgust. “You dream and leave me when I speak to you of pressing things.” He stalked away, calling over his shoulder, “It is no wonder you cannot play chess! You have no brain!”

Smiling at Hershel’s impatience, Solomon let him rush ahead while he lingered, watching birds pick along the banks. His gaze fell upon the silhouette of Esslingen’s castle, nestled on a hill alongside the Rhine. From this distance it looked small, a toy for a child, and beyond it rose the Vosges, blue against the sky.

It was a reassuring sight, torn from a more peaceful, less crowded time. Long ago. Solomon smiled, thinking of the beauty contained now within those walls—a princess or an angel, with lips lush and ripe as strawberries…

His flesh grew warm, and for a long moment, he let himself dwell upon the beauty of the girl he’d seen in Helga’s garden. After only one glimpse of her, she haunted him at odd moments.

He thought of Hershel’s warning. Solomon knew he was weak in matters of the flesh. Women. He sighed. There were so many beautiful women! He found them endlessly alluring—their eyes, their hair, their swaying bodies, their lilting laughter. There was a promise of pleasure in their soft mouths and clean hands and white breasts.

And it seemed as long as he could remember, there had been girls willing to share their glories with him—the daughters of merchants and stray gypsies and pretty peasants and lusty married women, bored with their lot. Precisely because he’d been approached so often, because he knew himself to be weak in matters of lust, his brother need not have worried. Solomon allowed himself to think of the treasures of women, of
many
women, happily and hungrily, but he never allowed his attention to be fixed upon one single beauty for more than a little while. Thus were his passions satisfied and thwarted all at once. It was a simple matter of discipline.

So as he walked back through town, even though it was Sabbath and he should have at least tried to keep his thoughts pure, he admired every girl and woman he saw, covertly but thoroughly. Thus was the beauty of the angel in the castle purged again from his mind.

Three days flew by before Rica could find leave again to return to Helga’s cottage. She was eager to tell the old woman about Etta’s triumph at supper one evening, about her response to the handsome Rudolf, ah—about all of it.

It wasn’t until she entered the yard that she admitted she had also hoped to find the young man Solomon there. Upon seeing only Helga grinding rosemary on a stump, she felt an irrational sense of disappointment.

“Hey, my pretty,” Helga greeted her. “Sit down and help me, girl.” Her red face shone with a film of perspiration, and her skirt immodestly showed her calves. “Oh, and don’t be looking at me that way. If you were an old woman like me, you’d lift your skirts to the wind, too.”

Rica smiled, sinking down upon a stool. “It is a hot day.” she agreed, then lifted her surcoat over her head and hung it on a tree. Even in her tunic, her skin felt sticky. She envied Helga her age and freedom.

“What will you have me do?” she asked. “I am yours this whole afternoon to do your bidding.” The words were teasing, but both knew how Rica prized her forays to the cottage.

Helga handed over the mortar and pestle. “Grind away. And when you’ve finished, I could use a bit of weeding in the gardens. My old back ails me.”

“Mmmm.” Head bent, Rica asked innocently, “Where is your helper? Have you chased him away so quickly?”

“Well, I’ll not be working
him
that way. Too many things to teach before he goes back to his fancy school.” She heaved her considerable frame upright. “You know my thoughts on physicians, you do. If I can send one off with some knowledge of true healing, I’ve paid for a goodly number of my sins.” She grinned, showing a mouthful of broad white teeth, teeth of which she was inordinately proud. Still had every one she’d grown, she was fond of boasting.

Rica smiled, breathing the pungent scent of crushed rosemary. “Of course,” she teased, “it is
painful
for you to have such a healthy young man in your clutches for hours each day.”

“Oh, it’s a sore trial,” Helga agreed, shaking her head. “Were I a maid…”

“Were you a maid, you’d keep your skirts down like the rest of us.”

Helga pinched her cheek. “See that you remember it, girl.”

Rica flushed. So her interest had been noted. “I am no fool for men, like some I know,” she said, piqued.

“It only takes one man to make a woman a fool,” Helga returned, her voice light. “None are above it.” With that, she bustled toward the cottage.

Rica ground the rosemary, staring off toward the mountains, hazy blue beneath a heat-whitened sky. Sweat trickled over her scalp and between her breasts, both tickling and annoying. A fat old fly buzzed and lit upon her shoulder; apparently liking the taste of the salt on her flesh, he returned persistently. In the forest beyond the cottage, grackles and merles and starlings twittered and sang. It was hot, but peaceful, too.

Away from the castle, she always felt a sense of lightness. Here, in Helga’s simple yard, she could just sit and be, without worrying over Etta or her father, or wondering whether the girls in the brewhouse were ruining the ale.

The rattle of a harness reached her. Helga’s voice, bawdy and teasing, boomed out. It was the peddler, no doubt, come to flirt and talk awhile with the midwife. Helga would fetch him a cup of ale and together they’d while away an hour or so, exchanging ripe faux invitations that neither would ever act upon. A safe and pleasant entertainment, Rica supposed, and wondered if she’d flirt with peddlers when she was old.

She leaned against the tree, feeling rough bark against her back. Dappled shade fell over her skirts, looking cool, but providing little shield from the heat. She blew a strand of hair from her eyes.

She had no idea how long she sat there, with the mortar between her palms. From time to time, she stopped to push her dampened hair from her face and pull the linen of her tunic from her slick skin. She was in the act of lifting the fabric from her flesh when someone held out a cup of water to her.

“Your face is flushed,
fräulein
,” said a deep male voice in concern. “You must have some water.”

With a shiver, Rica recognized the voice. She’d heard him speak no more than a handful of sentences, but the rich sound was burned into memory. She looked up to find Solomon standing alongside her, a faint smile on his mouth, a wooden cup grasped between his extraordinarily beautiful, clean fingers. She accepted the offering without looking away. “Thank you.”

In deference to the heat, he carried his heavy jupon, wearing only a light tunic, loose at the throat to show a brown chest and dark curls of hair. “You should take care with this heat, you know,” he said, settling on the stump Helga had vacated, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “Perhaps the work would wait until another day.”

The water slid down her throat, deliciously cool. It seemed she could feel it all the way into her belly, and for a moment, the sheer pleasure of the feeling outweighed even the glowing presence of the young man.

“Ah, no,” she said when she’d drained the cup. “If I leave this work, there is only more awaiting at the castle—most of it hotter and more boring than this. I’d rather sit here.”

He smiled, pulling a plume of grass from its sheath to chew on. “So it is with me.” A tumble of black curls fell over his forehead. With a careless gesture he tossed them back. “My brothers tease me for walking out here every afternoon, but otherwise my father would find some unpleasant task for me to attend.”

“Yes.” She felt a swirl of awareness and looked away, afraid her thoughts would show.

He seemed to be perfectly at ease. “I saw Helga with the peddler. Do you wish for help?”

“Oh, it is a job for only one, I think.”

“Well, then, do you mind if I sit with you until Helga is finished?”

“I do not mind,” she said quietly. But perhaps she did. Perhaps she would do something foolish if he stayed, talking so easily to her. “You have been studying medicine?” she asked politely.

“For almost five years at Montpellier.”

“And what brings you home so soon?”

He bent his head, using the feathery end of the grass to brush a beetle away from his toe. “Have you not heard of the pestilence,
fräulein
?”

“Only a little. Is it so bad?”

“They say ships with the whole crew dead washed to shore in Italy,” he said. “From what I saw, I know it to be true.”

Rica frowned, turning the mortar in her hands. “My father’s vassal believes it is a punishment from God.”

“Do you share his belief?”

“No. Do you?”

“No.” A slow smile spread over his beautiful mouth, giving a warm glow to his dark eyes. Rica suddenly saw a flicker of something hot and pointed, an expression he hid quickly behind lowered lids—so quickly Rica wondered if she had imagined it.

“Where is your sister today?” he asked, twirling the grass between his fingers.

“She stayed behind to do her tapestry. She does not come abroad with me often.”

“Helga said she will not speak.”

“She is very timid. She speaks to me, and to our dog. I think she will begin to speak to a vassal because he is beautiful.” She bit her lip, realizing she had said more than she intended. “Did Helga tell you also what happened to her?”

He shook his head and sunlight glossed a hundred loose curls.

“When we were six,” Rica said, “my mother and sister had been out to gather blackberries and my mother turned her ankle, so they were slow getting back.” Between her palms, the mortar turned slowly. “Soldiers found them just after dark and carried them to a meadow. There were six of the soldiers. They took my mother by force, over and over until she died, and then began on my sister.”

Rica looked at him, seeing in his face not the aghast horror she saw so often when the story was told, but a resigned and terrible sorrow.

“So,” he said, “her timidity has reason.”

“Yes.”

He looked at her steadily. This time, his gaze softened. She felt it trail like the tip of a finger over her cheek and jaw, and slide over her mouth. Without thinking, she returned his exploration, seeing the plumpness of his lower lip and the fine brown skin at the neck of his loosened tunic.

The bowl of rosemary slipped from her fingers and fell to the earth. With a small cry of embarrassment and chagrin, Rica bent over to retrieve it at the same instant Solomon also reached for it. Their hands brushed. His hair swept her cheek, smelling of sunshine and heat. Rica wanted to press her mouth into it.

Endlessly, the moment stretched, with his fingers over her own, his head bent over her breast, his hair upon her face. He looked up.

Rica met his eyes almost against her will, feeling a thready pulse in her veins. Up close, she saw there was no break in the color of his eyes at all—the black irises faded into the black middles, giving them the look of a pond at night.

Yet, like a pond, his eyes glimmered and shifted. A puzzled frown touched his clear, wide brow. “If it did not seem mad, I would swear I knew you,” he said.

A ripple of the same recognition had whispered through Rica upon seeing him the first time, and in an effort to hold to sanity, she tried now to recall where they might have met. Perhaps it was only as simple as passing in the roads of the city.

She shook her head infinitesimally.

Flushing, Solomon stood and handed her the pestle. “Forgive me,” he said with a short, formal bow. “But it would be best if I find some other task for my hands.”

Rica did not raise her eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “That would be best.”

It was only when he had turned away, flinging his jupon over his shoulder, that she allowed herself another glimpse of him.

It only takes one man to make a woman a fool.

Rica knew how foolish this particular attraction was. Poets and poems aside, to indulge even a fleeting fantasy would be a lunatic’s move.

In sudden panic, she gathered the herbs and donned her surcoat, and found Helga still chatting with the peddler. Rather than interrupt them, she gave a little wave as she passed a few feet away, knowing she would have to explain the next time she came. In the morning. He came only afternoons.

But as she whistled for Leo, she felt Solomon’s gaze once more. She turned to find him standing in the shadow of a grove of pines, watching her. She lowered her head and kept walking.

For the first time, she realized all the poems she so loved were grounded in tragedy. Of tragedy, she’d already had her fill.

From his shadowy post, Solomon watched her stride away toward the castle that loomed atop the hill, all whitewashed stone and bleakness.

There had always been talk of the great beauty of Charles der Esslingen’s twin daughters, the sort of lusty talk men indulged while in their cups.

Once more, he was stunned. This afternoon, leaning against the tree, staring so dreamily toward the hills, she had been the most singularly beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Her tunic, damp with the heat of the day, clung to her breasts and waist and long thighs, revealing her form in a manner that seized him fiercely. He had watched, stricken, as she tugged the fabric from her flesh; watched as it settled back like a fond hand over her graceful curves.