Darker Jewels (36 page)

Rakoczy’s dark eyes were not hampered by the gloom of the bedchamber. He went directly to her standing chest and removed one of two heavy cloaks hung there. “Put this over your night rail,” he recommended. “That way the servants will not stare.”

She took it from him, her eyes lingering on his face. “My servants will not return for a while yet.”

“Then I will serve you, if you will have me,” said Rakoczy, opening the door for her, revealing his manservant waiting, an oil lamp in his hand. “And your women will take their supper before they come to you. Rothger, those clothes”—he indicated the bundle by the door—“take them. They will need to go to the laundress at once.”

“No,” said Xenya with repulsion. “No. I want to be rid of them. Give them away. Bum them.”

Rothger glanced at Rakoczy for confirmation.

“By all means, if that is what my wife wishes, see it is done. And make sure that the clothes do not go to anyone in the household.” He looked at Xenya, studying her face. “Am I correct to assume you would rather not have them around you again?”

She nodded emphatically. “I hate them.” Her outburst ended as quickly as it came. “Thank you,” she murmured to Rothger.

He bowed to her. “I will be pleased to carry out your wishes.” He handed the oil lamp to Rakoczy.

As Rakoczy took it, he motioned to Xenya to accompany him, but was not surprised when she hung back. “Is something else troubling you? Tell me.”

There was no trace of impatience in his question, but she winced as if reprimanded. “The servants will be shocked that you come with me; they will remark upon it,” she said apologetically. “Men do not attend their wives in the bath, not in Mos- covy.”

“Tell them it is more of my foreign ways,” he advised her as he bowed to her in the European manner, elegant in spite of his austere clothing. “Courage, little Xenya. You are safe with me.”

Now that he carried the lamp she could read his features, and she was reassured enough to answer sharply. “You have many foreign ways, and no doubt the servants gossip about all of them.”

“No doubt,” he said, smiling his approval as he led the way down the stairs and through the central part of the house, taking no heed of the inquisitive glances that followed them through the long corridors to the rear of the building, or the whispers that came after.

The room with the bath-barrel was steamy; the barrel itself blackened by water and smelling faintly of pine and rough soap sweetened with sandalwood.

“Give me your things,” said Rakoczy as he swung the heavy door closed.

Now that she was alone with him again, Xenya wavered in her resolve. “You must not look at me.”

He hung the lamp on a hook by the door. “But Xenya, you are beautiful.”

She blushed furiously and shook her head with vehemence. “No. I am too thin; everyone says so.” It was as much a plea for agreement as denial; she knew that beauty was dangerous.

“It must be my foreign eyes that see you beautiful, then,” he said, adding gently, “I will do nothing you do not want, nothing you do not like. But Xenya, I will not lie to you; I find you beautiful.”

“I do not want you to look at me,” she said crossly, her fear increasing.

“All right,” he said, and held his hand out for the cloak. “Let me put that aside. You may remove the night rail and enter the bath while my back is turned.”

Her acceptance was terse, more gesture than word. She shrugged out of the cloak abruptly and shoved it toward him; she moved quickly and gracelessly toward the barrel. “You must not look,” she reminded him as she tossed her night rail aside and scrambled into the large half-barrel. The water lapped over the sides and a new surge of steam filled the room.

Rakoczy hung up her clothing and selected one of the drying sheets from the chest by the door. He set this where it would not get wet, then turned his attention to Xenya, who huddled in the barrel as if seeking protection from marauders. He decided not to confront her and instead asked, “Is the water warm enough? If it isn’t I will order more heated for you. Have you found the sitting wedge? Do you have soap? Do you need anything more?”

“No,” she said at once, and sharply. “It is quite satisfactory.” In fact, she thought, it was almost too hot, but she did her best to surrender to the heat of the water, wanting to convince herself that there was nothing more for her to do than lie back and let her sinews thaw. All she could think of was Rakoczy. She sank halfway to her knees so that the water lapped her collarbones.

“If you wish anything, tell me.” Rakoczy sat on the bottom step of the short ladder leading into the barrel.

“Anything?” She laughed once, very sadly. She was almost floating in the water, and it filled her with a sense of dreamy other-worldliness. “If I could have anything, I would wish to be invisible.”

“Invisible?” he whispered.

She did not hear him. “I would wish to banish ... so much. Years and years . . . But foreign though you are, and alchemist too, you cannot do that, can you, my husband?” She leaned back so that her head rested against the worn wooden staves.

“Perhaps not,” he granted her, tom with compassion for her he could not bring himself to express. And from that a sudden esurience redoubled within him, of such intensity that it left him shaken. “But there is solace I can give you, Xenya.”

She had begun to spread out her hair around her, watching it fan through the water. “Solace?” she asked.

Rakoczy did not answer at once. “There could be solace. It is little enough to offer you.” His voice grew deeper. “But Xenya, it is all I have.”

“Solace?” she repeated. “How can you give me solace?”

Now he hesitated, aware that this tenuous intimacy between them could easily shatter. “For those of my blood, the pleasure we take is only the pleasure we give.”

“Pleasure.” She shifted her position in the barrel, her arms against the sides as if to gain strength from the wood itself, and to rem
in
d her of the barrier it provided between them. “How would you . . . what pleasure do you have that I would want?” “You have
your
pleasure,” he said quietly. “And what I have comes from you. There is no other.”

“That is your solace? Your pleasure? And with it you banish grief.” She made the last an accusation.

“Hardly that,” said Rakoczy. “But pleasure can assuage grief, make it endurable, at least for a time.” He stared down at the wet planks under his fine black boots; the soles were thick, lined with his native earth.

The rain grew louder, more intrusive in its steady beating as Moscovy setded into night. Two streets away the Church of Saint Pavel rang its bell for the end of Mass, and gradually the other churches joined in the brazen call, blending with one another and the rain.

“What pleasure do you find?” Xenya asked a short while later, when she had taken time to hear every distant echo of the end of sunset Mass. “How is it my pleasure?”

“In your fulfillment.” He said this without preamble. “For those of my blood, it is the only pleasure we know.”

Xenya scowled at the repeated word
pleasure,
but was unable to deny her fascination with what Rakoczy told her. “What do you mean? For women their fulfillment is children.” She said this as the rote lesson it was.

He turned on the steps and looked upward through the drifting wraiths of steam at her face. The light from the lamp put half his features into stark shadow, and softened the rest. The glowing depths of his eyes were enigmatic. “I mean that if you can find pleasure, I can find it with you.”

“But you are impotent,” she said brusquely.

“That is why the pleasure must be yours.” He moved a little nearer. “If you will have it.”

She sank deeper into the tub so that only her head was out of the water; her hair provided a veil. “If I will have it?” she repeated, watching him.

“Yes.” He was seated on the top step now, bending toward her. Inwardly he was shocked at his profound desire, his longing; he had been a dream for too many and for too long. He yearned for knowing response, for reciprocity.

“You are trying to persuade me to . . .” She wavered in her accusation. “What
are
you trying to persuade me to do?”

Her directness required the same of him. “I am trying to persuade you to let me love you.”

She moved as far from him as she could in the barrel; the hazy light made her eyes seem enormous as she stared at him. “Love me?”

His calm, compelling gaze never left her face. “Yes. Will you trust me? Only a litde? I will do nothing you do not like. There is no reason for me to, and no benefit.” He held out one hand to her, the sleeve of the cassock trailing in the water, his dark eyes were so gentle that she could not look away from him. “Will you let me? I will not hurt you, or shame you. If anything I do is distasteful to you, you may tell me to stop; I will.”

She continued to stare at him, half in apprehension, half in enthrallment. She thought he was unlike anyone she had ever known. “What. . . what would you do? What
can
you do?”

“I think, perhaps, I can give you pleasure,” he said, his hand still extended to her. “Well? Will you let me try? Xenya?”

For an instant she recalled her mother Galina on the morning of her wedding: how adamantly she had urged Xenya to be a true wife to her husband, to shut the past away forever and strive to please the foreigner. Was it possible, she wondered, that her mother would not curse her if she became Rakoczy’s true wife— as truly as he could have her? Very slowly she reached out and took his hand and attempted to compose herself for what was to come.

He slipped his fingers through hers and tightened his grip just enough to draw her toward him. “I want to touch your body. Will you let me?”

“How am I to stop you?” For all her intentions, her voice had a shrill note.

Rakoczy released her hand at once. “I will touch you if it is what
you
want, Xenya.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand. “All right, you may touch me,” she said, not certain it was true.

He was very still. “Is that what you want? What you
want,
Xenya. Or do you believe you must permit—”

“I don’t know!” she snapped, but did not release his hand. “And I want. To know.”

“Well enough,” said Rakoczy softly, and reached for a soft: bath brush with his free hand; his movements were slow and deliberate, never hidden or unexpected. He began to work the brush over the arm she had extended to him, keeping the pressure light and firm at once. From her arm, he went to her shoulders, and from there to her back.

“What are you doing?” she asked in bafflement as he continued to ply the brush.

“Do you like it?” he asked for an answer.

“Yes,” she said, and was about to say more when he started on her other arm.

“Then I will continue,” he said quietly. “Since it pleases you.” A short while later he set the brush aside and began to massage her shoulders, his small hands restoring pliancy to her flesh as he tangled her hair. He said nothing, his whole attention fixed on what he was doing.

Xenya was astonished by him. Without realizing she was doing it, she began to lean into his hands, to move with them. Her eyes were half-closed as she drifted in the hot water. She heard Rakoczy’s voice, low and sweet, by her ear.

“I want to touch your breasts.”

She was jolted out of her reverie. “What?”

“I want to touch your breasts. Do you want me to?” he asked with the same serenity; he continued to knead the tension in her back.

“I...
you may try,” she said, and caught her lower lip between her teeth. She felt the curve of the barrel against her back.

He did not move his hands at first, and when he did, he worked down her sides, staying behind her as he gradually discovered what he sought. In gentle, sure movements he began to rouse her, his massage long since turned to caresses. His cassock was soaked.

For Xenya the sensations rocking her body were so new and unsuspected that she was not certain they were pleasant or shocking. She was increasingly awed by the depth of her response. She was terrified that Rakoczy would leave her, for she felt she was on the edge of a precipice.

“I want to touch inside you,” he whispered to her.

She did not want to speak. The enormity of what he sought overwhelmed her. There was nothing she could say.

His hands stopped their delicious tantalization and moved away.

“No!” she cried out. “Go on.”

Rakoczy put his hands on her waist. “I want to touch in—”

“—inside me. Yes.
Yes.
If...
if it is necessary,” she said, with no strong notion of what she meant. She hoped that whatever he did it would not take long or be too unpleasant, for she was loath to give up the rapture expanding through her, making her lightheaded and luxuriously sensual.

But what he did with her was wholly enjoyable, a slow-gathering exploration that served only to increase her apolaustic fervor.

He did nothing in haste, giving her time to learn and savor the passion of his touch, so that when his lips were on her throat for that brief eternity while her spasms encompassed her, neither of them was alone.

Text of a letter from Father Krabbe to Archbishop Antonin Kut- nel, opened and read by the houseman Yuri.

In the Name of the Trinity, may Our Lord bless and protect you, Excellency, and guide you in times of peril.

This will be the last letter I will be able to send this year, for winter is nearly upon us and soon the roads will no longer be passable. Therefore I wish to inform you that the conditions of the Court have worsened in the last two months, in large part because Czar Feodor is not capable of maintaining the tasks of his office, and has had to rely on Nikita Romanov, his uncle, and Boris Godunov, his brother-in-law, with the result that these two powerful nobles are often at cross-purposes, which leads to deceit and treachery. Since it is not within Czar Feodor’s abilities to put an end to such conduct, it increases and has spread throughout the Court in greater abundance than before. All those with any link to the Throne, no matter how tenuous, are beginning to wish for supporters to advance their cause.