A Bed of Spices (19 page)

She leaned over and kissed his mouth. “I am glad, then, that you found them all silly.”

The temptation to tease her was irresistible. “Did I say they were silly? No, I just thought them more interesting for other things.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “So you are like all the rest.”

“I am a man,” he said with a deliberately casual shrug.

Her silence stretched so long he looked up and found a puzzled frown on her brow. “Have you had so many women?”

For a moment he did not reply, unsure what answer she sought. But to now, he had not hidden any part of himself from her.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I do not like to say it, because it seems boastful, but there were many willing even when I was quite young.” He gave her a rueful smile. “A boy thinks women are magic.”

Her lashes swept down. “The day I saw you in the city, they all stared at you. Young and old, rich and poor. All of them.” She lifted one white shoulder in a half shrug. “It made me jealous.”

He shook his head slowly and touched her jaw, aware that Helga might return at any moment, but unable to resist touching her for a little while. “Know this, Rica,” he said in a low voice. “In all those women there is not one to match you. They have known my flesh. You have known my heart, and stolen my soul.”

He kissed her, felt her fingers fall in his hair. Her mouth was like a pot of honey, dark and sweet and infinitely delicious. He wanted to stay, supping it, for all of time.

She pulled away, lowering her head. “Helga will come and find us this way and I will never be able to see you at all.” Her eyes glowed a blue as dark as the mountains. “I could not bear it.” She stood up. “Are you hungry?”

His stomach clawed him at the thought. “I had forgotten—but yes, I would eat.”

As she bent over the pot, he admired her long, sleek arms and the strength in her back. “Tell me what else you studied, Rica,” he said to distract himself.

“What else I studied,” she echoed and gave him the wooden bowl of stew. Settling on a three-legged stool, she sipped her mulled wine. A rosy tint stained her cheeks.

“Ahh!” he said with a chuckle. “It embarrasses you. Now I am even more curious.”

“Twas nothing very much.”

Amused by her reticence, he ventured a guess. “Was it some forbidden text of the womanly arts?”

She looked at him, her embarrassment forgotten, a gleam of eagerness and surprise mingled on the intelligent brow. “Do such things exist?”

His mouth was full and he could not answer for a moment. He nodded. “So I have been told.”

“Now there is a book I would be pleased to see.”

“If you are so curious, I could teach you what you wish to know of such arts.”

“I have no doubt you could, but it is not for myself I would wish to read such a thing.”

“No?”

Primly, she lifted her chin. “Twould be for the education of my sister, who will soon be wed.”

Solomon frowned, thinking of the vacant expression in the young woman’s eyes. Rica’s twin, and yet not Rica at all. “I thought she was not”—he stumbled here—“er, well enough to marry.”

“Have I not told you of the miracle of my sister?” A brilliant smile curved Rica’s lips and she leaned forward eagerly.

Much as he struggled to pay the view—so innocently exposed—no heed, Solomon found his gaze drawn to the swell of milk-white breasts above her gown, to the velvety sheen of her skin. He remembered the softness against his face from the day beside the Ill, and for a moment he ached to reach out.

When he lifted his eyes, he found her looking at him. Ashamed, he shook his head slightly. “Forgive me.” Ruefully, he smiled. “I am showing myself again to be like all men.”

“From you I do not mind it,” she said quietly. Her eyes darkened. “When I cannot sleep,” she whispered, staring intently at him from her stool, “I think of the way your hands felt upon me.” As if to illustrate, she placed her palm flat on the rise of her breasts over her tunic. “It comforts me.”

“Comfort,” he echoed ironically. Slowly, he moved close, and pressed his mouth to the curved places above her bodice. She sighed against him, regretful, but full of longing. He drew back. Kneeling there, he put his hands around her waist and kissed her mouth once more. “I think of my hands on you, Rica, but it gives me no comfort. When can you meet me again?”

She laughed, touching his chin. “I think it should be soon.”

“I will look for you every day.”

Jauntily, she lifted her cup in a toast. “To that day when I may join you.”

He chuckled and reached around for his own cup, touching the rim against hers. “To that day.”

They drank together, and then unaccountably, both of them laughed. “Ah, Rica,” he said, “you are good for my dark soul. You remind me to laugh.”

“And you remind me that I am more than a slave to the whims of others.”

With effort, he returned to his place on the bench, mindful of Helga’s near return. “Tell me of your sister and the miracle.”

Helga rode a mule through the forest to her cottage. She had taken the babe to the hut of another woman deprived days before of her own child. The woman’s milk had begun to dry, but would come back quickly. It was as well, she muttered to herself. In a few months, the babe could be weaned to sops if it survived, and by then the papa would be recovered from his deep grief.

The rain had ceased. The first light of morning stained the sky, and it looked as if the storm might at last move on.

Outside her cottage, Helga paused, afraid of what she might find inside. Her choice to send Solomon back here had been a measured one—she had seen the depth of his distress and had known Rica would comfort him.

Helga snorted, thinking on the silliness between the two of them that afternoon. As if she were blind! Pah! Rica’s face shone like a jewel when he appeared, had since the first time she had met him, there in the garden.

Not that Helga could blame the girl. His virility crackled around him like a hot light. The most ordinary acts, when given life by Solomon, were imbued with a sensual grace even innocent girls could sense.

And Rica, though innocent, had always been possessed of passion. The pair of them, that first day, had ignited each other. Helga, wise to the acts of men and women, had watched the flame grow and blaze more with each meeting.

Had she wished to halt it, she could have. She might have forbidden Solomon to come to her again. She was not always entirely certain why she did not— except that she knew a little of forbidden passions herself. She had loved Charles der Esslingen for nigh on twenty-five years, since the first time she had laid eyes upon him. It was a source of grief to know he was dying, that even the small times she spent with him would soon be taken.

She prayed now that Solomon had shown wisdom, and she would not enter her cottage to find the young lovers entwined in forbidden embrace.

Outside the cottage, her courage deserted her, and creeping around to one side, she peeked in the shutters.

In the orange light of the fire sat Rica on a stool, her gilded hair streaming around her like silk ribbons. She held a cup in her hands. As Helga watched, Rica laughed, showing pretty white teeth and the dimple deep in her cheek. Solomon sat opposite, leaning forward, an answering smile on his red mouth. His hair tumbled in black, curls around his strong face.

But it was their eyes Helga saw, their eyes that plucked at her heart and made her sorrow for the future. For in twin pairs of eyes she saw not the lust she had believed, but love. Adoration, given and received. As Helga watched, Solomon’s smile gentled and he stood up to pour himself more wine from the pot by the stove. He paused before Rica, his hand on her shoulder. He said something Helga could not hear, then knelt and kissed her so gently, so sweetly, so longingly, Helga was moved to her soul. Tears welled in her throat—for there was no hope for that gentle love. Doomed they were, and damned, too.

Turning away, she pressed a hand to her pinched heart. “Sweet Mother of God,” she whispered. “Oh, help them. Help them.”

The last week in July
, Humphrey, together with his wife and daughters and their party, assembled in the bailey with first light. Rica, up since long before dawn helping to prepare the baskets of food they would take with them, stood next to Minna as slivers of gold sunlight began to shine over the wall into the damp, cool courtyard.

Nearby, Lorraine flirtatiously bid farewell to a pair of Charles’s vassals. Rica rolled her eyes. “Your father would do well to get her married—quickly,” she commented.

“Yes.” Minna made a face. “But I fear she is smarter than my father. She twists him about her finger like a piece of string.”

“So I have seen.” Touching Minna’s cheek, Rica paused, looking deep into the girl’s eyes. “And you? Do you have thoughts of love as yet? For there is a vassal here who thinks much of your beauty. He will speak to your father, I think, before much time has passed.”

Minna frowned perplexedly. “He has been most discreet—I cannot think who you must mean.”

Rica smiled at this sweetness. She glanced around the bailey and spied Lewis standing near the gate, deep in conversation with another man. “Tis Lewis, there, who has been smitten.”

Minna glanced cautiously over her shoulder. “Him?” she squeaked. Her cheeks flooded with color. “But he is the most beautiful of your father’s men. How can it be he would not claim you? Or your sister?”

Lewis spied them looking at him. With a sure grin, he plucked a rose from a vine climbing the bailey wall and crossed the grass. Holding out the pale pink flower, still beaded with dew, he bowed. “A token, my lady, to carry with you on your travels.”

Speechless, Minna stared at him. The flower shivered in her fingers.

Gently, Lewis lifted the trembling hand and kissed it. “May God keep you well.”

Again he bowed and turned away, but not before Rica caught the good-humored wink he sent her way.

All at once, harnesses jingled as men began to mount. The horses milled restlessly, their hooves making soft thumping sounds against the earth. Minna turned to Rica with a small cry and hugged her. “Why do I fear I will never see you again, dear cousin?”

With foreboding, Rica thought of the warnings of the stars for the coming autumn. Against her lips, Minna’s hair was fragrant and cool, her body slight and precious. “We will meet again, Minna,” she whispered. Impulsively, she added, “Pray for me.”

“Yes, as I have done,” she said fiercely against Rica’s ear. “As I always will.” She released her and allowed herself to be helped atop her palfrey. “Take care, Frederica der Esslingen.”

Rica lifted her hand in farewell. The party turned and, with a shout, rode without hurry through the gates just as the sun lifted above the castle walls to splash yellow into the churned yard.

In their wake, the party left silence. The priest, called out to give blessing, wandered back to the chapel, yawning. Kitchen maids, their attention stolen for a moment by the grandeur of so many horses and men-at-arms, giggled to one another and made for the gardens and scullery and bakehouse. Castle guards, too, departed to their tasks, and Rica heard one chuckle in the still morning.

Standing alone, his hawk on his arm, was Charles. In the gentle morning light, he appeared much as he might have in his youth. His hair was gilded, the silver strands invisible, and his bearing was steady. His belly was flat—for he had lost much weight these last weeks.

Smiling gently, Rica crossed to him. “Does it sadden you to see them go, Papa?”

“There is danger now in travel. I worry a little over their safety.” He shook his head and gave Rica a grin. “But, no. My brother has always made too much noise for my liking—and that daughter of his nearly started a war with her games.”

It seemed an age since last she’d had her father’s attention. She realized with a start that she had missed him. Impulsively, she took his arm. “Will you walk with me awhile, Pappi? We can sit by the peach trees and break our fast.”

“A man would be a fool to turn down the company of so beautiful a maiden on so glorious a morning.” He called to Olga, coming out of the kitchen. “Send sops and ale to the lower bailey.”

“And fruit!” Rica added happily.

They walked past the gardens slowly. Rica, her hand tucked into the crook of her father’s arm, admired the rich abundance—late cabbages and thick onions; greens and herbs. Bees clustered around the lips of flowers. A pair of sparrows flitted from the wall to the garden, seeking worms.

Leo, gnawing on an enormous bone beneath a tree, looked up as Rica passed. His tail wagged lazily, but Rica could see he had no desire to leave his prize, so she did not call him.

“You are fond of that dog,” Charles commented.

“He lends me freedom.”

“Ah, yes. Your precious freedom.” He smiled. “I pity the husband who must tame you.”

“Since it is you who must say aye or nay to my betrothal, I trust you will not saddle me with a man who wills me to be tame.”

A faintly troubled expression furrowed Charles’s brow for a moment. “So Helga warns me, too.”

They reached the peach orchard and settled on a stone bench surrounded on three sides with gillyflowers, blooming red and pink and white in the warming sunshine. Their spicy scent perfumed the air.

“Ah, I am glad it is no longer raining,” Rica said with a sigh, shaking her hair from her face as she leaned back on her palms. She tilted her face toward the sunshine and closed her eyes. “It seemed it would go on forever.”

“As it did the night you stayed so long at Helga’s cottage?”

Startled, Rica looked at him. Seeing the teasing light in his eyes, she smiled. “And Etta thought she did so well to fool you.”

He laughed. The sound was husky and warm, and it was only as it fell into Rica’s ears that she realized how long it had been since she had heard it. “In truth,
liebling
, if you are more than five paces from me, I cannot tell the difference.” He touched her hand. “But if Etta speaks, I know it is she.”

“She will be disappointed.”

“So do not tell her.” He shrugged. “There’s little enough harm in the game. It is a miracle, Rica, all that she does now. I see her in the kitchens and hurrying about the baileys and I always think to call your name.”