The Bloodletter's Daughter by Linda Lafferty

slightly aroused. The dark pubic hair stretched to his navel in a thicket of tangled hair.
    She raised her eyes and stared hard at the little silver cross, sparkling through the suds.
    Marketa swallowed hard and reached for his groin.
    But her hands betrayed her. Instead of the assurance and deft touch she had working his muscles, her fingers froze, numb and useless.
    She moved closer to him and reached again for him, determined to complete the bath. But her hands merely hovered, paralyzed.
    Jakub opened his eyes and saw the girl frozen before him, her face stricken with fear. He reached out gently toward her shaking hands, soapy and wet. He held them in his own and looked up at her terrified eyes.
    “You do not have to touch me,
slecna
,” he said quietly. “I’ll wash myself there.”
    Marketa’s eyes filled with tears, and she tried to wipe them away, but the man held her hands like trapped birds.
    “All right,” she whispered. “But please do not tell my mother. Promise me you won’t.”
    “I promise,” he said. Then he realized what had transpired and looked in her blue-gray eyes. “Your mother was looking for a supplement, was she?”
    Marketa nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
    “Well, she shall have it,” he said gently. “Bring me water to rinse.”
    At last her hands were released, and they flew back to her sides.
    “Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “I will fetch the rinsing bucket.”
    As Marketa returned to the bathing stool with a bucketful of water, she saw Jakub’s lips moving, his head bowed. Then he quickly kissed the cross around his neck. As he let it go from his hand, it bounced on his chest and swung like a pendulum, in a little arc.
    “Doctor Horcicky, I fetched your rinse water if you are ready.”
    “Yes, yes, by all means before the soap dries. Thank you.”
    She poured the warm water over his head and back, and he took the bucket from her and finished rinsing the rest of his body.
    “Are you preparing to take the orders, sir?” she asked him as he shook the water from his face.
    “No, not at all. I am the king’s imperial chemist and physician,” he said. “Do not allow this cross to confuse you. I was raised in a Jesuit monastery. I have had it since I was a boy. But again, I have not the virtues of a priest, I assure you.”
    She gave a curt nod and handed him the bath sheet. She did not look up at his eyes or down at his groin. Her eyes were fixed on his chest and the cross.
    Jakub wrapped the coarse sheet tight around his waist. He saw Marketa’s eyes were fighting back tears and she bit her lower lip.
    Jakub reached his hand out and tilted her chin up, urging her to look into his eyes.
    “You have done nothing wrong,
slecna
. I will not tell your mother, I promise.”
    Her eyes sought his, begging for confirmation of his promise.
    “Come here,” he whispered, looking into her eyes.
    Jakub’s lips met hers, warm and moist. It was a kiss as surprising as it was brief. Without thinking, she stepped closer and for a moment their bodies were pressed together and Marketa drank in the smell of his clean skin and hair.
    At the sound of Lucie’s booming voice from the next room, Marketa jumped back. She straightened her kerchief, her cheeks aflame.
    “Come,
slecna
,” he said, his hand still resting gently on her shoulder. “Show me the barrel.”
    As Marketa accompanied the physician to the soaking barrel, all the other bathers’ heads pivoted toward the tall, well-muscled man. He walked with a posture and grace that spoke of his years at the Prague court.
    No one recognized him as the poor, awkward boy raised within the walls of the Jesuit monastery, just a quarter mile from the bathhouse.
    As was the custom throughout southern Bohemia, bathers at the Pichlerova bathhouse were not segregated by sex; men and women were set in wooden barrels side by side. Instead, they were grouped according to their choice of conversation. The brewers would often prefer to soak