Puzzled, she examined him more closely. Bruises marked him head to toe, darkest around his hips and legs. It seemed he had been beaten fiercely. Perhaps he'd been set upon by the bandits who owned the forest?
At his wrists, raw red rings marred the flesh—the marks of binding. One finger was swollen at the joint, and when she probed it, she found another small break.
There was no lack of strangers on the road to Lichfield, for pilgrims and knights and monks traveled the road daily. But few ventured from the road to the forest, and none ever came so far as the village of Winterbourne unless by intent.
Pursing her lips, she glanced at the dog, and suddenly wondered if its fear meant it, too, had been beaten. "Come here, my little friend."
The beast whined and, tail down, crossed the floor. Gently, Anya stroked him, feeling the long sinews of his body below oily gray-and-black fur. Her hand grazed a lump on his side, and the dog yelped, turning to nearly bite her. He stopped short of it, licking her wrist instead.
She rubbed his ears in apology. "They beat him senseless and kicked you aside, I think."
Anya called Mary, her most trusted servant, covering the knight with a fur before the woman came into the chamber.
"Bring me wine and rosemary, and a cup of ale," she said. "And a bone for the dog."
"Ye want me to fetch the priest, too?"
Anya straightened. "He'll not die."
"Aye, milady, but what if he does? Will ye send him to his grave with no—"
"No priest," she said firmly, and looked at the girl. "Just the wine and broth."
Mary scurried out. No doubt she would whisper this new story in the kitchen, to add to the others that made Anya's defiance of the church infamous. It mattered not. There were so many now, her fate was sealed. The priest himself had damned her—what more could the servants do?
* * *
Christian drifted. In his dreams, he stood at the mouth of hell, his skin blistered by the heat. Beyond, standing unharmed in the flames, the Beast laughed at his folly, and Christian tried to protest that he was the wronged; that it should be his father, not he, who should be burning here.
Hell shifted, became a cold battlefield, and he was dying of thirst. An animal chewed his body. He screamed, but it did not stop. Then he was walking somehow, and each step shot agony through him, but he could not find his dog. In his dream, he cried out, "Ysengrin!" and at last, the dog appeared, licking his fingers.
He had no idea how long he had thrashed and wandered, but it was Ysengrin's tongue that roused him slowly. He came awake by pieces, to a dizzy sort of awareness. He lay in a bed, warm with furs and the heat of a wall nearby. Flickering candles winked in the dimness. Christian could see little; his head thundered, and his shoulder burned as if there were still creatures tearing at it with their strong teeth.
In a chair nearby the bed was a woman, slumped beneath another fur. Who are you? he wanted to ask. How came I to be here? He had been so sure he would die at the hands of the bandits. But his lips cracked when he moved them, and all that came from his throat was a dry croak that sounded not of words at all.
It was enough to rouse the woman. She came awake instantly, tossing away the fur to stand up and take his hand. She touched his head, and his cheek, and reached for a cup. "A little water?" she said.
He found he could not even nod, but it was not necessary. She cradled his head against her breast and lifted the cup to his mouth. The liquid flowed over his parched lips and tongue like a magic potion, silvery and cold. Greedily, he gulped, closing his eyes to taste it more deeply.
Before he finished, she took it away, and he wanted to shout at her to give it back. As if she sensed his frustration, she murmured something soothing, and her voice was deep and strangely settling. Her breast made a plush cradle for his aching head, and her cool hands smoothed the heat from his cheeks. He thought she sang, but oblivion came to him too quickly to be sure.
* * *
The knight hung at death's door for several days. Between other tasks, Anya kept watch over him, patiently feeding him ale and broth and water, mere drops at a time. In the morning, and again at night, she washed him with cool water, head to toe, to break the fever that still raged wildly; then pressed cloths soaked in wine and rosemary to his bruises.
She accepted no help with the task, and could not say why. It seemed the strange, broken knight was her own atonement, a silent penance she performed. As each day took him further from the mouth of death, she began to revere the moments she spent tending him, and let nothing interfere with the intimate tasks.
He was long and golden, with strength in his arms and legs, and perfect symmetry in each thing—his feet were as beautifully made as his brow. Candlelight gilded the hair on his chest and legs until he seemed to glow like a god from another world.
She had never wanted a man, not any of them. And she told herself she admired this one only because he was purely under her control. He was weak as a babe, and needed her, as any of the helpless creatures of the fief might.
But it was a lie even as she thought it. Not even burning with fever was he helpless or weak. Even in the deepest stupor, he exuded a strange dormant power. Sometimes she found herself sitting for long, uncounted minutes, simply staring at him. In those lost minutes, she felt awash with a queer sense of her own body, arrayed around her, made of flesh and bones and empty limbs.
Then some sound would bring her again to herself, only Anya of Winterbourne. Appalled at her yearning, she bustled away, afraid some might observe her covetous glances and make sport of her wish to have that which would be forever denied.
* * *
By the fifth day, he seemed on the mend. Anya left Geoffrey with him and went about her chores. The accounts had to be watched carefully, for the wars and floods and miasmatic winds had given them all poor harvests this year. Not only Winterbourne suffered, either. All her brother's holdings were strained. If the villages and manors were to survive, they could tolerate no waste.
She was weary with keeping watch, a weariness she felt in her neck and grainy eyes. Twice, while recording the day's expenditures, she yawned mightily.
Stephen, captain of her men-at-arms, approached her midmorning. "My lady, I would have a word with you."
She gestured for him to join her. Behind her in the hearth, a fire burned and crackled, smelling of pine. A multicolored young cat scattered rushes playfully, digging below them in fierce delight. Anya chuckled and scooped Esmerelda into her lap, taking a small pleasure in the tiny bones and body against her hand. The cat kneaded her kirtle, purring. "Is there news of my brothers?" she asked.
"William has sent word he cannot leave the monastery."
She sighed. "Gave he a reason?"
Stephen shrugged. "The struggle between Lancaster and the king has given the church much to worry over."
Deliberately, she lifted her cup and drank of the ale within, trying to rein her disappointment and temper. "The piety of my brothers should alone win my entrance to heaven," she said, setting the cup precisely back in the ring it had left on the table. "A monk and a pilgrim—and no one to feed the peasants." With a bitter smile, she looked at him. "'Tis well one of us was not so deeply smitten."
Stephen shifted uncomfortably, turning his eyes from her face. "My lady, it is not wise to flaunt your unbelief so. There is talk—the priest may send word to the bishop…"
"The priest is a doddering idiot who cannot even speak the Latin of the mass and drinks away the villeins' tithes. My brothers are high placed and will intervene on my behalf if it comes to that. You needn't worry."
"Aye, my lady." He stood, but made no move to go.
"Is there more?"
He cleared his throat. "Think you it wise to bring the stranger here so?"
Anya stroked the cat in her lap. "A Christian could not leave a man in the forest to die."
"But he is unknown—perhaps there is a price on his head! Nor can we afford the luxury of another mouth to feed this
season."
She met his gaze squarely. "Perhaps he is a saint in disguise."
"But—"
"I will hear no more of it, Stephen. He will stay."
She could see he longed to debate the point. Instead, he inclined his head. "As you wish."
Geoffrey ran from the chamber behind the hearth. "My lady! Come quickly. He has awakened!"
Dropping her quill, Anya leapt to her feet and hurried after him.
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A BED
OF
SPICES
(Excerpt)
by
Barbara Samuel
Author's Note
Two thousand Jews perished in the Strassburg fire of February 14, 1349, but the sacrifice did not, of course, halt the advance of the plague. Within a few weeks, the city fell prey to the Black Death.
Throughout that summer, plague and pogroms raged through Germany. Some Jewish refugees fled to the east, some were successfully protected by the ruling princes of their territories, some converted to escape the flames.
In Mainz, a curious thing occurred. Throughout the summer of 1349, the Jews of that city secretly collected arms with which to protect themselves. When the killing mob descended in August, two hundred of them died over several days of fighting. The Jews, at last defeated by the greater numbers, retreated to their homes and set fire to them.
Within twenty years, Jews settled in nearly all the communities once more, but they were under much stronger restrictions. Thus did the era of the ghetto begin.
Part One
Strassburg—Summer 1348
I should like to hold my knight
Naked in my arms at eve
That he might be in ecstasy
As I cushioned his head against my breast.
~ Countess of Dia
My poor heart she has caught
With magic spells and wiles
I do not sigh for gold
But for her mouth that smiles;
Her hue it is so bright She half makes blind my sight.
~ Judah ha-Levi
Prologue
Charles der Esslingen stood near the embrasure of his chamber and looked to the courtyard below. His solar filled the top floor in the keep of the old castle, and the builders had been generous with light so high, where arrow slits and protection were no longer necessities. Buttery May sunshine splashed into the room, warming the sweet herbs in the rushes beneath his feet.
It was a glorious view, and all he surveyed belonged to him; all had been won with his sword in his youth. There was the keep and the manor, the upper and lower baileys with their whitewashed walls. Beyond was a meadow dotted with sheep, their newly shorn bodies oddly naked. There was a forest, thick with game birds and animals, a vineyard where grew some of the finest Rhenish grapes in the empire, and an orchard where apple and pear trees flourished. In the distance, beyond his eye's reach, was a smattering of peasant dwellings and the fields with their new crops.
In the greening baileys, the morning bustle had begun. Scullery maids washed pots in a tub nearby the open kitchen door. Another girl gathered herbs in her apron from the garden close to the wall. A vassal paced the walk in obvious boredom.
As Charles lifted his cup, his daughter Frederica bustled from the kitchen, headed with purpose across the grass. Taking in the busy swish of her skirts, he half smiled, feeding his hawk a crust of bread. "On her morning rounds," he commented to the bird, who cocked an eye toward the yard.
The vassal on the walk called out to Rica in some jest Charles could not hear. She paused to laugh over her shoulder, and the sound rang through the hazy morning, teasing and ripe, like the girl herself.
Charles stepped closer to the embrasure to watch her progress. Chickens scurried in alarm before her, squawking in protest of the flying skirts. Within the confines of the bailey, she was bareheaded, and her hair glistened in the morning sun as if laced with silver and gold, the tresses flowing well past her waist. The dark woolen cotehardie she wore clung to the curves of breast and hip that had been so long in coming, and even the billowing surcoat hid little of the final result of her long wait for a woman's body.
The vassal on the walk had kept pace with her, calling out. Ignored, he finally stopped, but looked after the girl with such wistfulness and frustration that even her father had to laugh.
Rica slipped into the brewhouse. Charles turned from his post, still smiling softly at the besotted youth on the walk. Poor fool was hardly alone.
He sipped from the cup of wine his servants had brought him, along with a dry bit of stale bread from last night's supper. Rica teased him over his indulgence in early morning food—she teased everyone about something—but Charles grappled with weakness enough as it was. Without food in the morning, he sometimes shook like an old woman.
A soft sigh came from the corner. Charles eyed his second daughter over the rim of his wooden cup. Head bent over her needlework—her endless, endless needlework—she was utterly still but for the flying fingers.
Etta. Her hair, too, streamed over slender shoulders and a fine, lush woman's form. The face was oval, as pale and flawless as a field of fresh snow at evening, her lips red and tender. As if she sensed his gaze, she lifted her eyes to her father. Fringed with almost unnaturally long lashes, the irises were a deep purplish blue.
His daughters. Twins. So utterly identical that no one would have been able to tell them apart but for the tragedy that made the physical similarities almost a parody. The tragedy that was, perhaps, his judgment from God for the violence of his youth.
Etta, for all her shining loveliness, had no besotted youths trailing in her wake. She rarely went abroad. She never spoke to anyone except Rica, who swore that Etta was not simple-minded, only deeply wounded somewhere in the darkest heart of her.
Without a smile or any acknowledgment, she lowered her gaze back to the tapestry on her lap. A familiar pluck of grief touched his heart. To have lost his beloved and beautiful wife so violently ten years before was sorrow enough. That his six-year-old daughter had been so brutalized was beyond his imagination.
The dark thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a vassal at the door of his chamber.
"Ah, Rudolf," Charles said in greeting. "Come in. Tell me what you have learned."
The young man settled on a bench nearby the wall and rubbed his hands to warm them by the fire. "The pestilence is widespread, my lord. They say there has never been such as this."
Charles grunted, chewing his hard crust of bread.
"They say that India is gone, so littered with bodies the stench travels for a hundred miles. Italy has suffered the same fate for nearly a year. France is in chaos . . . now the pestilence moves north."
"And what, pray tell, have the famed doctors and astrologers to say?"
"A demon in the air and an alignment of planets," Rudolf said in disgust. "It should be plainly obvious it is a punishment from—"
Charles raised a weary hand and pressed with the heel of his palm to his chest, trying to ease the ache there. Thin rumors had wound through the countryside for many months, telling of the disease. With the rumors came grim prophecies of death for all mankind. "Heard you a tale of its look?"
"Yes, the sufferers—"
"I need no more gruesome stories. Tell the guards to watch for it in travelers along the river. We will admit no such victims here."
"Yes, my lord." Rudolf stood, and he cleared his throat. His nerves were betrayed by the clutch of his fists at his side. "Have you given thought to my suit?"
"I have." Settling himself upon a stool, Charles waved toward a bench and Rudolf sat, back straight. Against the sunlight, his hair took on a glorious blaze of yellow, the ends curled at his shoulders, his handsome face earnest. Rudolf had served him well. The link to his powerful family would help erase the less noble blood running through Charles's own veins. Beyond that
, Rudolf was the most besotted of the field of Rica's admirers. He would make a good husband to her. "I will agree to the betrothal—"
Rudolf jumped to his feet in exuberance. "Oh, thank you, my lord!"
Charles forestalled any further display. "There is a condition."
"Anything."
"She is headstrong," he warned.
Rudolf gave him a rueful smile. "Of that, my lord, I am all too aware."
Charles walked to the embrasure. Rica stood now in the gardens, conversing with a servant. He gestured to Rudolf, who joined him.
"She is also a romantic girl," Charles said slowly. "Her head is filled with the tragic poems written by the ladies and knights of the courts." He paused. "I want you to take the summer to woo her, so I am not forced to wed her against her will."
"And if I cannot capture that wild heart?"
"I think I know a little of the romantic dreams of young girls." Charles inclined his head. "You are not without your gifts ... I watch the eyes of the women here."
Rudolf flushed darkly. "Foolish wenches with only coupling to fill their brains."
"Seemed a lovely pastime when I was a youth," Charles said mildly, but raised a hand once again to forestall Rudolf's protestations. This was the only flaw of the young man—a certain grim piety that manifested itself at odd times. "Speak not to Rica of religion and God," he cautioned. "She is not concerned with matters of the spirit at this point in her life. Women grow more serious when their bellies swell."
"She is all I wish as she is," Rudolf murmured, leaning out to watch her, his eyes glowing. "Whatever I must do to win her—" He straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. "You need not worry. For the summer I will be a model of courtly love."
"Good." Charles turned away. "If summer's end finds her still reluctant, I will tell her of the betrothal and you will be wed. By All Saint's Day, you will have a wife—willing or no."
The Black Angel (The St Ives) Page 34