“I am not sure I remember them clearly,” she fibbed, trying not to reach out to him, although she did relent enough to take his hand, and allowed herself to be distracted from his probing. “How beautiful your hands are. I hadn’t noticed that. And small. Yet you have such strength in them.”
He studied her face. “You needn’t answer me if you would prefer not to.”
This gentle regard lessened her reserve, though she continued to address his hand, not daring to look into his compelling eyes. “I dreamed, more than once, that we lay together, that you wanted to please me. And I allowed it.” She almost whispered this to him, not out of embarrassment, but to enforce the secrecy of their developing liaison. “You seem to know what I want, so my dreams tell me that I am correct. Frater Anteus has told me the dreams are the work of the Devil, when I have Confessed them to him.”
“I would like to give you pleasure, for both of us, and not leave you to dreams alone,” he said, remembering the many times he had become a dream for a sleeping woman to give her pleasure and to gain sustenance for himself. He was standing less than half a step from her, but aware that she would not trust any attempt to rush into her desires. “When you are ready.”
“I have been ready since Edfu; I felt drawn to you as saints are to God. I had not known until then that such fire was within me, ready to ignite. If it is God’s work, then I thank Him most fervently for His gift. If it is the Devil’s, I cannot cry shame upon him for it, since I am taken by it willingly,” she murmured, her eyes once again brimming with tears. “I might have said something before now, come to you, but Heneri and Sorer Imogen would have denounced me at once, and I would have been stoned for my hopes, and you would have been left in the desert much as Gudjei was. For pilgrims, the thought is the same as the deed and the punishment for the deed must be enforced.” She recited the last as if repeating a lesson.
“That hasn’t changed,” he said, stepping back from her.
“But there is a need within me, one that I have never known, and though the monks would damn me for this need, if it is of the Devil, still I’ll welcome what it brings, for now. The joy may not be lasting, but it is still joy.” She crossed herself, and was surprised when there was no odor of brimstone or pain in her body.
Sandjer’min did not move. “Consider what you’re saying, Margrethe. I will gladly give you all that I have to offer you, I will do all that I may to provide you what you seek. I will be honored to give you pleasure, but not if it costs you your life.”
“I’m not afraid.” She did not raise her voice, but there was a steely shine in her light-blue eyes like the glint off a polished blade. “Now that I am alone, I am in my own hands. Neither the King of England, nor the Church, nor my family, nor anyone in Sieur Horembaud’s company will care what becomes of me, and neither God nor the Devil have moved me according to Frater Anteus, but the Devil is prepared to corrupt me. What must I do, then, but listen to my heart.”
“Perhaps you should be,” he said, “afraid.”
“I don’t think I am important enough to stone, even if I should be accused of adultery,” she said distantly. “My station in life is known but it means little here, I believe. The Aquitaine is very far from this place, and Sieur Dagoberht is only a baron, and an invalid. I will return to him, but I will not deny myself the—”
“Stoning is a painful death,” he told her, recalling what it had been like at Patmos, nine centuries ago; he had come close to the True Death then, and his ribs had taken almost a year to heal from their several breaks.
“All deaths are painful,” she corrected him. “Those that seem less so still hurt, for it is the soul leaving the body, and what worse separation is there for the living?” She turned in a circle, her face showing no emotion.
“Your faith teaches that you will return to your God,” he pointed out, wanting to find some way to lessen her distress.
“Or burn in Hell for eternity, or wander in Limbo, with unbaptized souls. God will choose who may sing His Glory in Heaven, and we can but praise Him for His Grace. I fear I am among the damned, or God would have made it possible for me to pray for Sieur Dagoberht with Heneri and Sorer Imogen. But that is not before me now—you are.” In the next breath, she took a long step to his side, reached for his hand, and placed it over her small, firm breast; she gathered her courage and met his eyes. “I may never have another chance.”
“Bondame…” he said cautiously.
“Does this please you?” she asked, rubbing his palm against her cotehardie to stiffen her nipple.
“Very much,” he said, “but you know you are taking a risk.”
“I know. I feel condemned already. But I cannot endure this loneliness. I am lost in this place, as if all the expanses we have traversed are nothing more than cages with invisible bars. If my pilgrimage is to ask God to restore my husband, then why does He impose this isolation upon me? How can that bring healing to Sieur Dagoberht? It is as if I were suffocating, or that I were drowning in a swift river.” She opened the front of her cotehardie and moved his hand inside, to touch her skin. “If we lie next to your bed, no one will see us.”
“They may hear us,” he warned her.
“I will keep silent. Will you? I know you will.” She opened the front of her cotehardie to her waist. “Before I lose my courage, Sidi, let me know my dreams.”
“There is no reason to rush,” he said, slowly easing her cotehardie off her shoulders to drop onto the canvass floor, leaving her naked but for close-fitting drawers; he reached for the light coverlet on the bed and handed it to her. “Put this where you want it. I’ll tie the tent-flap closed.”
“I will,” she said with a quick nod.
He took three steps, then bent to tie the three canvass strips together; as he turned to her, he saw she had spread the coverlet on the floor next to the chest and was removing her drawers, stepping out of them with care. She was thin and her muscles were taut from their travels, but the look that suffused her face was beguiling; he went to her, and dropped on his knees between her and his earth-filled chest. “I’m sorry I have no pillows to offer you,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
She dropped onto her side, rolled onto her back, and extended her arms to him. “Take off your garments,” she urged quietly.
“Perhaps later,” he said.
“Why not now?” Her voice was sharper.
“I have … broad scars. They are not pleasant to look upon.” He stretched out next to her.
“Oh. Then how will you…”
“Let me show you,” he said, and kissed her half-open lips, feeling her desire increase as his tongue touched hers.
She moved her leg over his hip, straining to get completely close to him in spite of his clothing. When she pulled away from the kiss, she was breathless. “You burn like the wings of angels,” she whispered.
He kissed her again, this time as lightly as a butterfly alights on a flower, and she shivered with the sensations that coursed through her. “Lie back, Margrethe.”
She moved her leg off his hip and did as he asked, her hands at her sides, her eyes on him, filled with wonder and eagerness.
“Tell me what you dreamed, what gave you the most pleasure,” he said softly, “and I will try to make it so.”
“Kiss me. Kiss me all over, in diverse ways,” she murmured, excitement taking hold of her.
Now he kissed her brow, her ears, her eyelids, her nose, her cheeks, the sweet indentation at the juncture of her jaw and her neck. As he did this, he began to caress her breasts, slowly, tantalizingly, evoking delicious responses that left her astonished. His kisses moved down her neck and replaced his fingers on her nearer breast.
She gave a soft sigh and tangled her fingers in his hair. “That is so good,” she whispered.
“Then I will do it some more,” he said, moving to her other breast and blowing lightly on her nipple before taking it in his mouth.
Margrethe inhaled through teeth clenched to keep
from moaning. She was trembling again, her passion seeming to be greater than her body could contain; as his hand moved down her abdomen toward the cleft between her thighs, she wanted to tell him to go more slowly, that she could not stand to have this end too soon. Responding to her need, he moved his hand languidly, taking time to touch the arch of her ribs and her hips as well as to stroke her body while his mouth dallied at her breasts. As her pulse became more regular, he recommenced to move his hand downward, into the light-haired tangle that concealed what the poets called her most lovely rose; his mollescent touch stilled the sudden twinge of uneasiness that had rattled through her as his finger found the bud hidden in the sea-scented folds. She stretched with sinuous grace, her fervid fancies of her dreams now seeming girlish and trivial compared to the ecstasy building within her, expanding through her torso into her limbs so that there was no place he could touch her that did not enhance her arousal. When he slid two fingers inside her, she felt her spasms begin, and sighed that it happened so soon even while her senses rioted in rapture. His kiss this time was long, luxurious, and certainly not like a farewell.
“Take a little time to rest,” he said very quietly. “There is more for you if you want it.”
“For you, as well,” she said. “You only used your hand. Or did I not notice you tupping me?”
“Only my hand,” he agreed.
“Then you are not satisfied,” she declared, speaking more loudly than she had intended; she dropped her voice, “Unless you released your—”
“No, I didn’t. I do not … function that way,” he told her, aware that she was not yet prepared to deal with his true nature, or his impotence. He drew her close to him again. “Do you want more?”
“Yes, of course I want more,” she said, struggling to keep quiet. She wriggled to get nearer to him the whole length of his body.
“Then you shall have it,” he murmured. He stroked her back, from shoulder to leg, his hand light, warm, and clever; there were sensations she had not until this night, imagined were possible. She marveled at each one as he explored her, occasionally biting her lip to keep silent, but reveling in what he was doing to her, and the occasional kisses he bestowed conveyed a sweet delirium that left her stimulated at a level that she was amazed she could sustain. His esurience was growing keener, the sound of her heartbeat summoning him to the sharing of her fulfillment. There was such magnificent release building within her that he restrained himself from pressing to her gratification, feeling from her that there was a greater awakening occurring within her than she anticipated. He continued his sensual ministrations, exalting in her discoveries of the delectation of her body.
This time when she felt the gathering within her, she pulled him as close to her as she could without disrupting the work of his hands. “It is nearly here,” she said, her lips against his earlobe.
He did something wonderful to her, and the spasm was once again upon her, but more intensely than before, an experience of transports that could not possibly be other than heavenly. The jubilant waves continued while he bent to her neck, delicately taking what he had sensed in her from their first meeting. Their unity enveloped them both, and lasted for longer than he had expected. As her culmination faded, she lay back, sublimely replete, and stared up at him, her eyes shining.
“How did you do that?” she asked, astonished.
“I followed where your desire led,” he answered, brushing wispy tendrils of pale hair back from her brow.
“But you didn’t use me,” she said, and then clapped her hand over her mouth because she had spoken too loudly.
“Not as you mean, no; I share your own fulfillment.” His quick smile gave her a frisson that was an echo of her rapture. “Those of my blood seek touching and knowing.”
“Is that why you…” She fingered the two small cuts in her throat.
“Yes, so I can know you more completely,” he said. “You offer me your self, and what is more your self than your blood?” He kissed the place he had nipped her, little marks no larger than flea-bites.
She pondered this. “And this enables you to touch me without … without…”
“Yes.”
“What do you gain from it?” she asked, trying to decide if she believed him.
“Life. To touch you so closely brings me nourishment in body and soul,” he said, then held up his hand in warning as three men walked by the tent. One of them carried a torch, and its flickering light gave a short-lived brightness to the interior.
She gazed at him. “What are you?” she breathed.
“… and we will have to depart in two days, according to Frater Anteus,” said one of the men speaking in Bohemian.
“What does Pater Venformir think?” another man asked.
“He has said nothing yet,” the third remarked. “He’ll announce his position after Mass tomorrow morning.”
“So it is go south or go north, but go?” said the second man, his voice fading as they moved beyond Sandjer’min’s tent.
“It seems so,” the third man said; his voice was deeper than the other two’s, and it carried farther. “Tsega agrees, or so Teklile Brehane told Pendibe.” The light from their torch became a bright spot, and then faded into the general glow of the camp.
“So we leave in two days,” said Sandjer’min softly as the men passed out of earshot. “We’ll have to prepare quickly.”
“Which way will you go?” She did her best to keep the worry out of her voice. “I know what you said before I implored you to love me, but men will say many things at such a time.”
“Do you mean will I escort you back to the Aquitaine? I meant it,” he told her, and felt her wince at the tenderness he offered with his pledge. “And I will require nothing from you for doing it, unless you care to offer.”
She sighed, welcoming his reassurance. “How will you arrange this?”
“I will inform the Aba’yam of my intentions in the morning, and I’ll set Ruthier to getting us ready to depart.” He sat up, angling his knee so that she could lean against it. “We will travel separately from any pilgrims. Going with pilgrims could lead to problems.”
“What problems?” she wondered aloud.
“Suspicions. Accusations. Punishments.” He kissed her forehead. “We need to get beyond this place without attracting attention.”
“What are you, Sidi,” she asked him again, “that you should fear these things?”
He was ready to answer her, at least in part. “I am an alchemist.”
She gasped as softly as she could. “And a physician?”
“Yes; among other things.” He could feel her uncertainties return. “You have nothing to fear from me, Margrethe.”
“But from others?” She touched his face. “Are you in danger from others?”
“From time to time,” he answered, his memories ranging back three millennia, and what had befallen him.
“Could we go with Temi and Lalagia? Wouldn’t that help?” She sat up. “I could convince them to travel—”
“We could, but it wouldn’t be wise for any of us,” he said.
“We will go by river?” she persisted.
He shuddered inwardly. “I believe we must. The Inundation is largely past, and the river is faster than the desert.” He did not add that three foreigners alone on the sands would surely attract the attention of robbers, slavers, and kidnapers.
“I will have to say good-bye to Sorer Imogen, to let her decide if she wants to remain an anchorite here.” She frowned. “If she has changed her mind, she will want to go south, into the mountains; she’ll want me to go with her.”
“I doubt she will leave.” Sandjer’min got to his feet, then helped her to rise. “I’ll give you a vial of medicaments for eyes; if anyone questions you for being out, tell them you wanted something to stop your eyes hurting.”
“I’ll do that; thank you.” She reached for his arm to help her up, and was surprised at the strength in it. “Will you arrange for the asses and hor
ses?”
“Certainly. Tell Ruthier what you require of him, and he will put himself at your disposal.” He went to untie the tent-flap closures. “You must be careful to behave toward me as you always have, and I toward you.”
“Yes. Yes.” She took his hand. “Will this be the last time, though it is the first time?”
He answered with an unguarded smile, infusing his face with an emotion she could not identify, but which held an element of hope. “I trust not, unless it is your preference. I would be most appreciative of any opportunity to gratify your longings.” There were many things he had to tell her, particularly if they were to lay together more than six times, but that was for another time: now it was sufficient to kiss her thoroughly, give her the medicament from his bag, and lift the flap for her departure into the starry night.
* * *
Text of a safe passage from Aba’yam Emerta Hodilleilo of the Church and Monastery of the Redeemer, for Rakozcy Sandjer’min and Bondame Margrethe de la Poele of Rutland, wife of Sieur Dagoberht Gosland, Baron du Creisse-en-Aquitaine, for a voyage to Alexandria, written in Coptic, Arabic, and Church Latin on papyrus to be carried the duration of the journey, along with three messages to be delivered to Coptic churches along the Nile.
Be it known to all, Christians, and followers of Islam, and worshipers of ancient gods, that the man who carries this, Sidi Rakoczy Sandjer’min, is acting on my behalf, performing a service for the Church and Monastery of the Redeemer near the old city of Meroe, known for its care of the sick, injured, and dying as well as those troubled in their thoughts. I, Aba’yam Emerta Hodilleilo, extend my protection to this man and to his servant, Ruthier, the noble lady he escorts, Bondame Margrethe of Rutland, and to the horses and asses that may travel down-river with them. Any who do not honor this safe passage, in any way, insults me and traduces the honor of the Church and Monastery of the Redeemer, and will be cursed from now until the End of Days when all men shall be judged before God. Any who extends himself on behalf of Sidi Rakoczy Sandjer’min will be rewarded in the life that is to come.
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