A Bed of Spices by Barbara Samuel

sweetness and passion mingled here in this beauty.
    He tasted her jaw and throat and shoulder, feeling the gilded hair brush against his face.
    The screech of a magpie overhead intruded momentarily. The sound served, for Solomon found himself at war even as he touched her. She was a virgin, the daughter of a powerful lord, a Christian. And until his touch, she had not known the carnal hungers of a man.
    He had told her yesterday it was not lust. But this fierce and biting madness was evil, whatever he called it.
    Yet even as he thought these things, he found himself suckling her throat and tasting the rise of her collarbone. His hands of their own accord roamed over her back, gauging the curves below her velvet surcoat.
    Suddenly, she shoved him away and rolled free. “No!” she gasped, and stumbled in haste to her feet. “We must not!”
    Flung backward into the grass, Solomon stared at her, breathing raggedly. As he sprawled there, stunned into sanity, he saw that her lips were swollen, that his beard had left marks on the tender flesh of her jaw and along her neck, that her hair was tangled and littered with bits of grass.
    All at once, he was deeply ashamed. He fell to one knee and took her hand, pressing his forehead to her fingers. “Rica, forgive me.”
    Her free hand lit in his hair. For a moment, she said nothing, only stroked his head silently as he knelt before her. At last she said quietly, “The priest brought me the Bible last night, as instruction.”
    He lifted his eyes.
    She sank down to her knees, to look at him face-to-face. “I made a confession to him that I had spent many hours thinking of a certain man in ways that were not chaste.”
    Solomon lifted his fingers, seared by this admission, but she caught his hand before he could touch her. “Father Goddard said there was more to God’s world than prayers,” she said, “and he brought me the Bible to read, with a place specially marked.”
    Her eyes softened. “It was,” she said with an ironic smile, “the Song of Solomon.”
    “Ahhh.” He closed his eyes and leaned forward to press his forehead against hers, feeling as if he might weep. “And yet, this is impossible, Rica. We cannot love each other.”
    “I know.”
    For a long moment, they simply remained as they were, their fingers tangled, foreheads pressed together, all else forgotten.
    Solomon finally felt calm enough to stand, and tugged Rica to her feet. “We must take care of you before you return to your father,” he said.
    “Take care of me?”
    He nodded, shame still pricking his belly, and touched the reddened places on her chin. “Let me soothe these marks.”
    She blushed. “All right.”
    Growing nearby was a stand of comfrey. Drawing on the teachings of Helga, he dug a little of the root-stock and walked to the riverbank to rinse it clean, then bruised it with his fingers.
    As he knelt before Rica, she lifted her face trustingly to his ministrations.
    His heart caught and began anew its fierce pounding. With effort, he swallowed his desire and pressed the herb to her chin gently. She would see that he did not only wish to hold her splendid form in his arms; that his fascination for her stemmed from the nimble mind she owned as well as the lust of the flesh that carted away his reason.
    But as he tended her, his hand shook with his restraint. After a moment, he paused and breathed deeply. Once, twice, three times. When he was calmer, he blotted her white cheeks with a bit of his tunic. “Tell me what you most like to study, Rica.”
    “I do not know,” she said, and smiled at him. The gesture caused her dimple to flash, and the corners of her eyes turned upward. “In truth, I like the poems best, the stories of knights and ladies—there! Now you may laugh at me for the foolish woman I am.”
    He found his hands had steadied with the conversation. “That is not foolish,” he said lightly, bending to retrieve the poultice. “Romance gives the world lightness and