A Bed of Spices (5 page)

He swore under his breath. Too much. In two meet-ings, he absorbed more deeply the details that made her than of dozens of women he saw every day. Tearing his gaze from the sway of her hips, he focused upon the cool blue mountains. Discipline. His few moments of admiring this beauty were ended.

His father would have been proud. Solomon had always been the mote in his father’s eye, the son he chased down from rooftops and yanked away from fights and punished for sneaking away to the river. It had been Solomon that Jacob had found kissing a cousin when they were seven, just as an experiment; Solomon that Jacob whipped for less innocent explorations when he was ten and thirteen.

His father no longer had to intervene and Solomon took pride in his discipline. Not even a beauty so great as Rica’s could tempt him.

But into the glow of pride slipped a vision of her ripe breast, poised inches from his mouth a few moments before—as if in invitation. For one blazing instant, he had allowed himself to imagine tipping forward to kiss that rise of soft white flesh.

Instead, he’d swallowed his desire, only to look up and find himself ensnared in the lure of her wide and innocent eyes. Remembering now, he sensed a ripple passing over his skin. In her eyes had been the most alluring and curious combination of innocence and seduction; her mind did not know what her body promised.

Henceforth he would arrange to come in the morning to Helga. It was only a few months until the pestilence spent itself, surely. Then he could return to Montpellier.

Relieved, he wandered back to Helga’s yard to grind the rosemary that Rica had begun. Discipline and avoidance. Together they would protect him from this dangerous attraction to a forbidden woman.

The sound of
the cock crow filtered into Rica’s chamber along with the first, faint light of day. A drizzling mist fell from low clouds. Rica shivered a little as she unshuttered the embrasure and pulled her wrap more closely about her.

On the river, a barge passed slowly on the current, and peasants from a village to the north walked already toward the city, a wagon loaded with wool behind them. Rica wished she were among them, walking toward the bustle of the market, toward the noise and color and bargaining. From her narrow window, she could sec Strassburg, obscured somewhat by the mist. It looked like a fairy kingdom, soon to disappear.

It was her conscience she wished to submerge in that noise and confusion, in the pleasure of baubles and fine fabrics. That same conscience had awakened her long before cockcrow.

As if to bring the point to bear, the sound of the bells for Prime rang softly in the air. She sighed and pressed her forehead to cool stone.

Today she must make her confession. Although it had been several days since the disturbing encounter with Helga’s student, she had not yet solved how best to accomplish her ablution.

It was not only the afternoon in Helga’s yard that concerned her, for that had happened quickly and she had carried herself quickly away from temptation. Even the old priest would laud her effort. There was, she thought wryly, no sin in the act of being tempted, only indulging.

Or was there? Thoughts were sins—she had confessed and been absolved of many evil thoughts.

Moving from the window, Rica began to pace. She had deliberately taken herself to Helga’s in hopes of seeing the beautiful young man again, even knowing he would never be her husband. Was there sin in that action? Was there sin in looking upon a beautiful person? God had created all beauty, even that of men. Would not admiring the perfection of a man be giving glory to the Lord, much as admiring the perfection of the sky?

Here she let go of a snort. There was the small matter of the difference in her thoughts as she admired the sky and as she admired the man. They somehow kindled quite different visions.

So how to confess it? She pursed her lips and settled the matter, knowing even as she did so that there was a certain duplicity involved. It could not be helped. Priest he was, and as such sworn to keep her private thoughts private, but if she were in danger or he perceived her to be so, she had no doubt he would alert her father.

And Rica would find herself married in a trice.

It was not that she did not wish to marry. She simply did not wish to do so
yet
. Marriage would mean leaving her father and her sister, would mean leaving all she knew and found dear. Forever.

Restlessly she leaned on the embrasure, looking down toward newly planted fields and the vineyards sloping down a hill. Everything was covered with a faint greenish gray mist.

Every night since the afternoon at Helga’s, Rica had found her thoughts upon Solomon. Each night as she closed her eyes to sleep, she remembered the brush of his hair upon her cheek and the hot black eyes and the wide, apple-red mouth. His rich laughter hung with ghostly insistence in her ear.

The first night, she had pushed away the ribbons of memory. But no matter how she guarded the gates of her mind, persistent visions of him slipped through. Finally she had yielded to the pleasure they gave, the warm tingling they spread through her, night after night. It seemed a small sin.

Why did this man stick so ferociously in her thoughts? There were many men who flirted with her, men of great virility who had made plain they would take her gladly to wife for the pleasure of bedding her.

She had never given a moment’s thought to any of them. None of them had spoken to her as Solomon did, as if she were a creature of reason with thoughts in her own right. No man had ever expressed curiosity over her musings.

He spoke with her as if she were his equal.

Even the thought of his voice sent a lingering ripple of that dangerous restlessness through her limbs. Perhaps the priest was right. The illicit poetry of which she’d grown so fond had left the mark of lust upon her.

She straightened suddenly. Brooding would certainly give no help. Shivering in the dampness, she washed and dressed quickly. There were chores to be done before mass.

***

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Rica knelt upon the stone flags, taking pleasure in the cold of them against her knees. Through the thin linen screen, she could hear that the old priest’s breathing had eased with the cooler weather and perhaps the tea she had brought for him to drink.

She twisted her rosary between her fingers and found herself confessing a multitude of minor sins— losing her temper with the worse-tempered cook, who refused, once again, to listen to Rica about her father’s diet and had given him a rich pasty. She confessed to the small duplicity she and Etta had practiced at supper one evening—she playing Etta, Etta playing Rica with bangles and a low-cut gown.

The memory made her smile. Etta, under the rich attention of Rudolf—who thought himself to be charming Rica—had bloomed. She said nothing, but Rudolf seemed to think little of this; wine had made him full of himself.

Father Goddard made a small noise and Rica knew he, too, was amused.

There had been no dreams of bloody revenge this week, for which Rica silently gave thanks. And she had read none of the forbidden poems.

“I have another sin to confess, Father,” she said softly, bowing her head. A rush of heat stole into her cheeks. For a moment, she wished desperately to spill all of her wanton longings, to tell the priest and be absolved of her sins.

Her pause stretched so long the priest prompted her gently. “There is no sin so deep the Savior cannot cleanse it.”

Rica squeezed her eyes closed. In a rush, she said,

“I think my thoughts have been overtaken by the demon of lust, Father,” she said in a mortified voice. “I have entertained many impure thoughts about a certain man this week.”

“Ah.” His voice was gentle. Perhaps even understanding. “It is a common enough sin for a girl of your years,” he said. “It is time you married. Have you any other sins to confess, my child?”

Vastly relieved, Rica sighed. “No, Father.”

Her penance was remarkably light, Rica thought, emerging from the chapel into gray day. For a moment she stood just beyond the archway, uneasy with the knowledge that she had not fully confessed.

The drizzle had eased a little. In no hurry, Rica wandered toward the kitchen gardens, which lay wet and perky at one end of the bailey. Against the gray day, the green of the plants fairly hummed. The sight eased her. She bent to pluck dead blossoms from a tangle of beans, smelling wet earth and decaying leaves as her hems dragged the ground.

To one side were the modest herb gardens that served the ordinary needs of the castle. Peonies thrived, their bright pink heads dotted with lingering moisture. There were fine stands of lavender, the blooms gloriously purple, their leaves a soft gray-green. Rica pinched a stalk and lifted her fingers to her nose.

“Mistress?” said a voice behind her. “Cook’s ailing. She sent for ye.”

Rica followed the girl to the kitchens, where the cook sat in a corner, holding her belly, an unearthly moan cutting through the clatter and noise. Rica knelt beside her. “What is it?”

“A terrible pain in my gut,” she said, then in a lower voice, “and blood in my piss this morning.”

Stones, Rica thought. It wasn’t the first time Matilda had suffered thus. “Go to your chamber and I will fetch Helga.” Distractedly, she patted the woman’s shoulder as she scanned the faces assembled. “Gertrude,” she said, and a small, buxom woman stepped forward, her hair contained beneath a tightly tied scarf. “See to the morning meal and I will come help you later with supper.”

To another girl, she said, “Help her to her room. Give her some chamomile if she’ll take it.”

Lifting the hood of her cloak, she made for Helga’s cottage, pleased that whatever the means, she could be abroad on such a gloomy, soft morning.

At the cottage, it was plain Helga had already been called away. The cat rubbed Rica’s skirts, meowing hungrily. Churned mud in the yard told of horses riding through some time ago, for the edges of the hoofprints were blurred and softened by the rain. A birthing, no doubt. At a loss, Rica picked up the damp cat and let him curl against her as she scratched his ears. He meowed again, as if to tell her that he enjoyed the ministrations, but it was only an ephemeral expedient.

Rica grinned. “Oh, you’ll surely starve, you poor thing. A meal or two missed would be good for you. She spoils you—cats are supposed to chase mice for their meals.”

The cat opened one yellow eye in censure, and Rica laughed. Enjoying the silence and the comfortable companionship of the animal, she wandered through the wet gardens, trying to jog her memory. What did one do for stones? The sad faces of pansies caught her eye. Yes, that was right. Pansy and yarrow. She frowned, trying to remember the rest.

A crack of branches came from the forest and Rica turned, hoping it was Helga. Instead, a hooded man emerged. Water from the sodden trees clung to his shoulders and hood. Not until he was nearly upon her did he lift his head.

Solomon.

She could not quell the sudden, quick leap of her heart. In the dark cloak, with the hood framing his face, he looked somehow mysterious and dangerous. He was a large man, and sturdy. For the first time she realized that his thick tumble of hair was all that made him seem youthful. Now those curls were hidden and she saw that his face carried the unmistakable hard lines of a man full-grown, a man well acquainted with the foolish fantasies of maidens.

As if he could read her mind. Rica flushed.

He paused a foot or two away from her. “What brings you out on such a dark day,
fräulein
?”

Rica let the cat go and gestured nervously toward the cottage with hands that felt suddenly clumsy. “The cook has stones, I think, and I came to fetch Helga for her. It appears she has been called away.”

Solomon looked at the cottage and back to Rica, his lips twitching. “So it appears.” With his hands folded before him, he said, “Perhaps I may be of assistance.”

She hesitated. If she did not accept his offer, she would either have to wait for Helga—and a birth could sometimes be a lengthy thing—or send a messenger into Strassburg for another doctor. “If I send to town, the physician will likely kill my cook with purgings and bloodletting,” she said and measured him. “You’ve not yet learned the more serious butcheries of your trade.”

He laughed, tossing his head back in genuine amusement. The hood fell away from his hair, and Rica found her eyes on the even brown skin of his throat. “A smooth and terrible insult,” he said. “But perhaps there’s some truth to it.”

His rich smiling eyes sent a memory of her imaginary kiss through her mind. She bowed her head. If she walked to the castle with him alone, would her traitorous impulses lead her into another sin?

And yet, there was no help for it. “You will come?” she asked, striving for a formal tone.

He inclined his head, then paused. “What have you to treat her?”

“Nothing very much.” She frowned toward the gardens. “I was trying to think—yarrow and pansy is all I remembered.”

“So, you
are
a lazy student,” he remarked.

Rica nearly bristled, but she caught the gleam in his eye. How could she keep herself aloof if he teased her? She smiled reluctantly. “I am content to learn only what I must.”

“Lazy and honest,” he said with a grin. “Hmmmm.” He gestured toward the cottage. “Helga has what we need.”

They walked to the cottage and he lifted his chin toward the eager cat. “Find him a morse! to eat while I gather the herbs.”

The cottage was dim in the gray day, but homey enough. Herbs in various states of readiness hung from the beams on the ceiling, their scent agreeably mingling with the old smell of a cook fire.

With an air of confidence Rica found reassuring, Solomon riffled through the jars and bottles and boxes on the shelves. In her turn, Rica found a pot of stew left from the meal Helga had cooked and spooned a bit into a battered wooden bowl, shaking her head as she did so. “Truly spoiled, you are,” she said to the cat and patted his haunches.

Solomon finished and waited at the threshold of the open door. A wash of pale light touched one side of his face. “Shall we?” he said with a courtly gesture, indicating Rica should precede him.