The Olive Conspiracy (20 page)

“
Come back to my room,” Noach
called to her. “We’re going to do the candle blessing before we go
downstairs.”

It felt right in Shulamit’s heart that there
should be a ball on Shabbat. What better way to segregate the
ordinary days of the week from the special night than by dressing
up and turning the palace magical?

When she got to her father’s room, she found
every single guard they’d brought standing there waiting for her.
They were the only other people in the palace of their faith, so
here they all were, ready to share the ritual.

The candles were there, waiting, as well. King
Noach lit a fire stick against one of the lamps burning on the wall
and handed it to Shulamit. She lit the candles,
one, two
,
then covered her eyes.

“
Bless you, our Lord, King of the
Universe…” Noach intoned.

Shulamit felt the specialness of Shabbat close
in around her, almost like the mother she’d hardly known.
I
want…

She didn’t have words to complete her prayer,
but she didn’t need them. A comforting peace infused her
anyway.

Confident and excited on her father’s arm,
Princess Shulamit left the room and headed toward the
festivities.

***

Lights twinkled everywhere, and the room was
filled with happy people in lavish dress. A troupe of musicians
gave song in a corner, and efficient servants circulated holding
trays of treats. Shulamit noted with delight that the air smelled
of orange blossoms.

“
Noach, my friend!” King Fernando
was upon them, his queen at his side. “I am so eager for you to
meet—” And he whisked Shulamit’s father away. She stood by herself
for a moment, peering round for Carolina.

“
Shulamit! Over here!”

Princess Carolina was standing over by a great
marble column, holding a little crystal goblet of dark red wine.
She waved her other hand, beckoning Shulamit over.

“
Your dress is—”

“
What a marvelous—”

Both girls paused and giggled. “You first,”
said Carolina.

“
That’s a beautiful dress.”
Shulamit was dazzled by the array of pink and white lace, and the
skirt that bloomed from Carolina’s waist in such an enormous froth
that Shulamit wondered if she had trouble walking through single
doorways.

“
Yours as well, dear
Shulamit.”

Shulamit grinned, half-ecstatic,
half-self-conscious about her strange smile. “Lilac’s my
favorite.”

“
You wear it well.”

Something over Shulamit’s shoulder attracted
Carolina’s attention, and a bright light flared into her eyes.
“João! I can introduce you to the Crown Princess of
Perach.”

Shulamit turned to see the guitar player from
the previous night standing beside her. He had a frank and friendly
face, and his hands were full of party snacks. “Can’t let our
beautiful Infanta go hungry.”

“
Here, I will give my port to
Shulamit so that I can give this my full attention.” Carolina held
her glass out, and Shulamit accepted it automatically.

She looked down at the glass.
I guess I’ll
get to say the wine blessing anyway…
The words were easily
mumbled out of earshot, and then she took a tiny sip. The heat of a
more intense alcohol than her people’s fare burned through her
throat, followed by deep sweetness and a complexity that reminded
her of raisins.

“
João, may I present the Crown
Princess Shulamit, daughter of Noach, of Perach, heir to the throne
and great lover of books.” Carolina gestured grandly. “Shulamit,
Visconde João Carneiro de Façanha. My friend,” she added, with a
face that Shulamit would later recall as “complicated.”

João bowed deep, then restored himself and
smiled as he took Shulamit’s free hand. “I am honored.” As he
lifted Shulamit’s hand to his lips in a dry kiss, she noticed a
large ring on his hand. She narrowed her eyes and thought maybe she
could make out the figure of a ram’s head, or at least something
with curling horns.

“
João thinks as you do, Shulamit.”
Carolina daintily ate the food he’d brought her. “He wants to take
away the beating sticks from the men who watch over the
workers.”

“
Positive rewards, Caro—not
punishments!” João looked at Shulamit. “So you agree with me that
the workers should not be beaten?”

“
Of course they shouldn’t!”
Shulamit exclaimed, happily surprised that her… rival… or whatever
he was… was also her unexpected ally, and confused about what that
meant. “We wouldn’t do that kind of thing back home. It’s
cruel!”

“
We’ll have to work together to
convince our Caro, then.” João looked at Carolina affectionately.
“Just think, lovely princess, how terrible it would be if someone
ever were to hit you like that.”

“
I think I should have them thrown
from the window,” Carolina said casually.

“
Those men don’t deserve it any
more than you do.”

“
Yes, but I am the
Infanta.”

“
Your pride in that is built on
their pain, dear one.”

“
I should make you get me another
glass of port if you’re going to scold me all night.” Carolina
finished off whatever little burst of bread she’d been eating. “Or
take little Shulamit for a dance.”

“
I’ll do both. But first, the
dance. Then we can all find more food.” João held out his hand to
Shulamit, and with a shrug, she abandoned her glass and accepted
it.

Thankfully, Imbrian court dances didn’t require
too much intimate contact between partners, so the dance with a
strange man didn’t feel too threatening. João was even relatively
skilled at buffeting her around the dance floor to make up for each
time she lost track of the steps. “I hope you’re enjoying your time
here in Riachinho de Estrela!”

“
I am,” said Shulamit. “I haven’t
been outside the palace grounds, but even just inside the wall,
Carolina’s shown me so many beautiful things.”

“
I’m sorry you had to see some ugly
things too. Here, no, this way.” He guided her to spin the other
direction, his limbs remaining at a safe distance.

“
I’m not used to the class
difference being so…”

“
I am, and I don’t like it. Things
can be different.”

“
I hope you’re right,” Shulamit
replied.

“
She’ll understand, some day. I
won’t give up,” said João, his eyes far away on the beautiful
Infanta. “Some day.”

***

The hour had grown late, and the
other landowners with whom João had been conversing in a men’s
smoking room begged his leave and departed. Returning to the
ballroom, he scanned the swirling finery for Princess Carolina. The
guests were thinning out, necessitating smaller dances for those
still with energy, and he noticed that the other king and princess
were among those who had already departed. He surmised they must be
upstairs and asleep somewhere.

Carolina, however, did not look
sleepy. Instead, she looked radiant and relaxed, stretching one arm
over her head over in a corner by the curtains and potted orange
trees in full blossom.

João loved the look that sprang into
her eyes when she saw him. It made him feel twice as alive, like
he’d never grow tired of it, like it called out to its brother
spark within his own heart. “Be careful, princess, someone might
see how perfect you look in that unusual pose and paint or draw you
like that.”

“
You can if you like,” she tossed
off, clearly pleased.

“
Ah, but we’ve been over this,”
said João, drawing closer so they could speak intimately. “I have
no hand for drawing.”

“
But you could take lessons!” She
was enthusiastic and flushed. He wondered if she had just danced,
and he’d found her just after the dismount.

“
I have a farm to manage,” he
reminded her, imagining that he was curling one lock of her
glorious, black hair around his finger as he wished he could. “When
am I supposed to practice?”

“
You practice your
guitar.”

“
You would have me grow rusty at
guitar just to draw you? No, I don’t think so.”

“
Never.” Carolina paused. “I wish
you had it with you now.”

João smiled at her and lifted her
hand to his lips. This, at least, was permitted and actually quite
common and understandable. If she shuddered into the contact, if an
exhalation thicker than normal escaped her divine lips, he was the
only one to know.

“
Tell me that story you were
telling my father and King Noach earlier,” said Carolina. “They
were laughing and I want to laugh too!”

“
Oh, that?” João smirked and shook
his head with disbelief, thinking of the ignorance he was about to
relate. “Refugee nobles from Zembluss were at my farm looking at
seed, to start over. I showed them the new strawberries we
developed, the ones as big as peaches. I thought they’d love
it—beautiful stock, best we have to offer. Instead, they refused to
believe it was natural—actually outright accused us of
witchcraft!”

Carolina giggled. “Just because
they’d never heard of it before?”

“
Not just witchcraft, dangerous
witchcraft. As if eating it would cause sickness.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me
they’re the type who think everyone in the clergy is corrupt.” In
Imbrio, sorcery was the purview solely of the clerics.

“
Considering what’s been going on
up there, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t trust their own
mothers.”

“
People are already
dying.”

“
Your father asked me to go to
Zembluss.”

“
What?” Carolina exclaimed, her
rose of a mouth going slack, drooping on the stem. “But he said
Imbrio would remain neutral!”

“
He wants me to observe and report
back.” João picked up her hand again, but held it low and out of
sight, so that he could massage her palm with his thumb. She
gripped at his hand as if drowning. “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving
for at least a month.”

“
He trusts you.” Soft words, barely
breathed. “Promise you’ll come back safe to me.”

“
Of course I will.”

She was an ice sculpture, he
reflected, ice protecting them both from their separate fires.
Imbrio had winter and he knew what would happen if his bare skin
touched an ice sculpture that had only slightly begun to
melt.

He imagined himself getting stuck to
her, unable to leave without ripping the very skin from his
body.

“
Will you take your guitar?” she
asked in a low voice, already sounding stronger. The ice was a
castle now.

He nodded. “Of course! It’s part of
who I am.”

“
At midnight, will you play? And
I—here—I will sing? Or at dawn. Whichever you prefer.”

“
Sunset,” he decided. “It’s the
prettiest.”

***

The day after the ball, a warm, gray rain
rolled in and made it very easy to stay in bed. The servants who
brought her breakfast told Shulamit that Carolina was still
sleeping off the ball, after staying up all night, so she saw no
reason to get dressed in a hurry. She lounged around in her pajamas
all morning, practicing her Imbrian on local books or reading those
she’d brought from home, and generally lolling around in the wide,
lavish bed. Shabbat morning really felt like Shabbat morning under
the spell of such intense goofing off.

She also used the time to bathe in great,
luxuriating detail. Perhaps today, with the wet weather, was the
opportunity she’d been waiting and praying for—a day spent indoors
with Carolina, socializing in her chambers. They were grand and
stately, and had two wonderful, tantalizing ingredients:
privacy
and
a bed
.

In the bath, scrubbing away every trace of dead
skin, she organized her thoughts. Her father’s books, her only clue
to what lay ahead, gave her ample strategies.

One idea was to offer to braid Carolina’s hair.
After yesterday in the boat, she could even pass it off as
returning the favor. Then, with tender touches, she would make
Carolina feel relaxed and pampered so that she might open up for
more.

That’s how it went in one of the stories,
anyway.

Another story started with a conversation about
comparing their bodies. “I wonder whose breasts are bigger!”
certainly wouldn’t work in this situation, because it was obvious,
but maybe if Shulamit pretended she was curious about bigger
breasts up close, since hers were yet so small…

She finished off her breakfast pastry in the
bathtub while daydreaming that Carolina was in there with her. Her
stomach began to cramp, which she put down to nervousness. Nerves
were natural, of course—for today might be her first kiss. She
hoped it would be more. Looking down at her body under the scented
water, she realized that she might, within a few hours, be sharing
it with another woman for the very first time.