A Bed of Spices (35 page)

Wrapped in the sacred comfort of their union, they dozed, tangled and satisfied.

After a time, Solomon stirred. He moved in drowsy contentment and felt at once the gentle weight of Rica curled close to him. A swelter of joy blazed in his heart, and he shifted to look at her asleep, feeling wonder at the pale blush on her cheek and the curve of her lip. Her hair spilled around them like magnificent cloth.

Thus he had dreamed of her a thousand times, alone in his room or on the road, or despairing in Montpellier. Tenderly, he brushed her jaw with his fingers and touched her silky shoulder where it lifted through her hair, then, feeling his passion rise again, he followed the path of that hair over her breast. So soft, so round and supple. The pink tip pearled against his fingers.

With a soft moan, he kissed her neck. She stirred. Her hands stroked his chest, and sinuously, her thigh moved against his. He kissed her neck and her shoulder, and pushed her hair away so he could take her taut nipple into his mouth.

Oh, the taste of her! He moved his hands over her sleek form, over the hollows of her back and the rise of her hips and the sweet curve of her bottom. She made a small noise, whispery and sweet, and he tasted the bow of her ribs and the hollow of her navel.

She began to move restlessly, as if she didn’t know what next came, and Solomon, through his haze, smiled before he bent over the juncture of her thighs, and there placed the heat of his mouth.

But there had been too little time between them and he could not wait as long as he wished. Her little cries and impatient movements aroused him to a feverish state; the brush of her legs against him nearly hurtled him beyond the gates.

And so, he tasted again the hollow of her navel and the pert tips of her breasts and the lavender scent of her neck. He settled between her long white thighs and drove home.

He did not think it could be so shattering twice, so strange—that light moving around them, that shimmering melding. But it was the second time like the first, as if some magic, some power beyond them, had found expression here in this joining.

When he lay spent against her, catching his breath, she teased him with a soft laugh. “I can see I have much to learn, my love.” She kissed his ear. “It will be a pleasure to be your student.”

“It will be a pleasure to instruct you,” he said, and chuckled wickedly. “Perhaps we can find those texts of instruction in which you were so interested.”

Her eyebrows rose.

A rumbling growl from his stomach punctuated the moment. “I think I’m ready to feast. Are you?”

“I am famished.”

“Good.” He rose and slipped into his shirt, and found her kirtle for her to put on.

Rumpled and flushed with loving, she rose and donned the shift. It was a flowing garment, white linen with wide sleeves, and it made her look like an angel. “Ah, Rica,” he said, shaking his head in wonder, “I am the most fortunate man in the world tonight.”

She cut him a glance. “No, husband. I am the lucky one.”

They ate hard-boiled eggs and chicken cooked in garlic. It was the most delicious meal Solomon had ever consumed.

“This is beautiful,” Rica said, passing him the silver chalice filled with wine.

“Helga left it for us. Perhaps it was her wedding gift.”

“Perhaps.”

Darkness filled the room, and the candles were lit, and still they sat and talked of inconsequential things.

When they had finished the meal and sat over the shared cup of wine, Rica inclined her head. “Tell me about your illness, Solomon.”

He frowned. “Did I tell you I was ill?”

“I am not blind. You are far thinner than you were. Although,” she raised her eyebrows as she looked at the picked clean remnants of the bird, “your appetite seems to have returned full measure.”

“See how good you are for me?”

“Truly, Solomon, I would hear your tale. Was it plague?”

He sobered. “Yes,” he said on a sigh. He sipped the wine and repeated the story of the mad villages and the despair and the suddenness with which he’d fallen ill when the peasant girl stopped him.

“Oh, Solomon.” She took his hand. “Who cared for you?”

“The girl.” His memory of her was fragmented— barefooted and filthy and terrified that first day as she stood on the side of the road and shouted him down. The lingering images were flashes of her strange eyes, gray with darker circles around the iris, and her black hair, wild and tangled on her slim shoulders. “She was young, only twelve or thirteen, the only one left in her village. Everyone else had died.”

“What was her name?”

He gave her a quizzical glance. “Why?”

“I want to burn a candle for her.”

Solomon smiled and kissed her fingers. “Her name was Giselle.”

She jumped up. “I forgot your present!”

She brought the package back to him, and he opened it and stared in surprise. “Rica, where did you find it?”

“Do you like it? I can take it to the bookseller again and find another if there is something you would rather have.”

“No. I am pleased beyond measure. ‘Tis a hard book to find these days.” He looked at her. “But how did you know, Rica, to look for him?”

Her smile was secret and sweet. “You talk so much, and must forget what you say. I remembered when you spoke of him.”

He kissed her. “Thank you.” Then he tugged his own gift over from its hidden spot on the bench. “Tradition tells me I should give you a belt,” he said with an ironic smile. “This seemed a better gift for you.”

When she tugged off the wrappings to expose the gift, her face shone like a sky full of stars. It was the poems of Omar Khayyam he had copied for her last summer.

He watched her face intently as she traced a sketch of a chamomile blossom with her fingertip. “Is this your work?” she asked quietly.

“Yes. I wanted to leave it with you last summer, but—”

She raised her eyes and he saw in the vivid blue irises a tumult of emotion. “If you had given it me before, I would not have let you ride away to MontpeIller without me.”

There was subtle grief in her words. It reminded him that she, too, had suffered in their months apart. With one finger, he traced the curve of her cheek. “I would that I had it to do again, my love. I would spare you the sorrows you have known these months.”

She launched herself forward into his arms. “I am so blessed to have found you, Solomon.” She met his gaze. “Husband and lover, teacher and friend.”

Deeply moved, he kissed her.

For all of that night and the next day, they were thus. Rica felt drunk with happiness as they laughed and played, and sometimes sat cozily side by side on the bed, reading their precious texts. They debated a little, but neither had much heart for true thought. The pleasure went too deep.

She thought she would never grow tired of looking at him. She opened her eyes when he moved inside of her to watch the dark hunger rise in his cheeks and soften his mouth, she watched his throat as he made luxurious sounds of satisfaction, she admired his mouth when it glistened from her kisses.

She watched him move, naked and without shame as he tended the fire, or poured watered wine into a cup for them. His muscles below his golden skin moved in perfect symmetry, as beautiful as fish gliding through water.

And when he bent, so serious, over his book, she watched him then, too, seeing the scholar, the thinker, who pursed his lips and frowned and absently plucked at a curl behind his ear.

It was this serious man who said to her, late on Tuesday, “In the morning, we go back. I wish to speak with you.”

Rica nodded.

“I must help my father finish his business here,” Solomon said. “It will take about six or seven days, I think. Then I will ride with him to Mainz and see him settled.” He smiled, a glitter of mischief in his dark eyes. “Then I will return for you and we will go to Cairo.”

Rica laughed in surprise and delight. “Cairo?”

“Does that please you, love?”

“Oh, yes.” She thought of the painting, and of her longing, since she was a child, to see the lands to which the Crusaders had traveled. A prickle of gooseflesh rose on her arms. “Very much.”

He nodded, then sighed a little. “I do not know the best way to speak with your father, Rica. You must know he is dying—he will not see this summer.”

She lowered her eyes, resisting his words though she knew them to be true. “I have seen that he grows worse each day. But I don’t like to think of his pain over this. Let me think on it a little, and ask Helga what would be best.”

“So be it. I will send word as soon as my father is settled, and tell you a place to send to me as to what I should do.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Solomon, I do not wish to leave here. I do not wish to be without you for even a few days.”

His gaze softened. “Nor do I, Rica. But a few days now, and then we will be always together.” He held out his hand to her. “Come. We must make the best of this little time left to us, yes?”

She laughed and rose to meet him.

A sudden sharp pounding came at the door. Rica whirled, her heart in her throat. In alarm she looked at Solomon, who had also got to his feet, and hastily donned his jupon, buttoning it a little.

The knock sounded again, and Helga’s voice came through. “Rica! Tis me. Open the door. I must talk with you both.”

Rica flew across the room. “Helga! You frightened me. What is it?”

The midwife bustled into the room, her hair slipping free of its braids, her breath coming in rushed little gasps. She looked at Solomon and her face was grim. “The mob has deposed the council and put new men in their places.”

Solomon went white. “When?”

“This afternoon. They did not wait for the news from the conference, but acted while the bishop and mayor were gone.”

While she spoke, Solomon dressed quickly. “Has there been any move toward the Jews?”

“Not yet.” Helga looked at him miserably. “But there is talk that they are to be arrested.”

Rica, bewildered, then dismayed, whirled toward Solomon. “You cannot mean to go!”

He looked at her sadly and touched her cheek. “My father is there, Rica.” He bent and kissed her longingly, sweetly. “In a few days, I will send to you, and we will be gone forever from this place. Have faith, my love.”

But she could not stop her tears. She clung to him for a moment, then stepped back and straightened her shoulders. “Go with God,” she said.

Once more, he kissed her and then Helga, and he was gone, into the black and menacing night.

There was yet
a light burning at his father’s house. Solomon found Jacob in his shop, working feverishly by the light of a tallow. A stab of guilt touched him. “Papa, I came as soon as I heard.”

Jacob looked up wearily. “So,” he said in a dull voice, “you found her.”

There were no lies left in him. Joy had burned them to dust. “Yes.”

“My lie—it was only to protect you.”

“I know, Papa.”

“There is little enough joy in our lives,” he said. “So little. I cannot be sorry if you have found a measure of it.” Grimly he bent his head and pinched his nose at the bridge.

“Come, Papa, you are exhausted. Have you eaten?”

With a wave of his hand, Jacob dismissed the question. “I have been trying to make sense of all this, trying to find ways to—” He sighed. “All my years I have been in this city, and my father before me, and his before him. And now at the whim of evil men, I am forced to become an exile.”

In the dark room, with the single tallow flickering between them, Solomon leaned forward. “Why would you wish to be here amid all this hatred, when there are places so much better?”

“It is not better, Solomon, only hidden better.” He roused himself and glanced toward the shuttered windows, as if seeing what lay beyond them. “This place is in my bones,
beneleh
. The way the mountains look on summer afternoons, and the way the river flows, and the smell of the forest, the sound of the bells and the monks and the square—all these things are
mine
, too.” He slammed his fist on the table. “And because of foolish lies and fear, I am chased from my home and lose my business, a lifetime of work? What is there in Mainz for me?”

“Your wife,” Solomon said, newly met with the word and its meaning. “Your sons and grandsons as they come.”

Jacob nodded, but it was a weary gesture.

Gently, Solomon took his father’s arm. “Come, King Jacob. I will fix you something to eat, and you must get some rest. In the morning, we will work out what to do.”

Charles did not return until Thursday. Rica, who had been watching from the walk, raced down the twisting steps toward the bailey gates when she saw his small party returning on the road. Their defeat was plain from a single glance at their slow-moving band.

She met her father at the gates and gave a small cry at the gray color of his cheeks. “Help him dismount!” she cried to a nearby vassal. “Do you not see he is ill?”

Charles looked at her but was too spent even to speak. With a nod, he allowed himself to be taken from the horse, where only sheer stubbornness had evidently kept him.

They helped him to the hall, where Rica insisted they leave him for a time. “Stay close,” she said. “He will need to be carried to his chamber.”

She bent over her father and removed his cloak. His eyes were closed, his face an unholy shade of pale gray. His skin was cool and clammy.

A maid scurried in with tankards of ale and loaves of bread and cheese. “Get me water and a cloth, quickly,” Rica said. The girl, wide-eyed, ran to comply.

Rica bent over him, loosening his overtunic at the throat. His breathing was labored and scratchy. “Oh, Papa,” she whispered. “Try to drink some ale.”

He seemed not to have the strength to lift the cup, and she held it to his lips so he might drink. He managed a few mouthfuls. The maid had returned with the water. Rica touched the girl’s arm. “Thank you. Now tell Cook I must have my father’s tisane. Quickly.”

Then to a vassal, standing nearby in readiness, she said, “Go to Helga and bring her here.”

“As you wish, my lady.”