17. Sabbath Blessings

 

Layers of delicate lilac surrounded Princess Shulamit’s tiny body, flowing down to the floor. She twirled in front of the glass, stretching out her arms. A ball! She’d practiced the foreign dances with her father, back home, but she knew that one look at Carolina and she’d manage to put her foot down in three places all at once.

“Princess Brainy!” Her father’s voice boomed from out in the hallway. “You’re beautiful already. Let’s go.”

“Just a minute!” She rotated sideways, checking the glass again. Her braids were staying in place where she’d tied them, together behind her back. Carolina’s silver ribbon was still there from this morning; she hoped the Imbrian Infanta would forget to ask for it back.

“Come back to my room,” Noach called to her. “We’re going to do the candle blessing before we go downstairs.”

It felt right in Shulamit’s heart that there should be a ball on Shabbat. What better way to segregate the ordinary days of the week from the special night than by dressing up and turning the palace magical?

When she got to her father’s room, she found every single guard they’d brought standing there waiting for her. They were the only other people in the palace of their faith, so here they all were, ready to share the ritual.

The candles were there, waiting, as well. King Noach lit a fire stick against one of the lamps burning on the wall and handed it to Shulamit. She lit the candles, one, two, then covered her eyes.

“Bless you, our Lord, King of the Universe…” Noach intoned.

Shulamit felt the specialness of Shabbat close in around her, almost like the mother she’d hardly known. I want…

She didn’t have words to complete her prayer, but she didn’t need them. A comforting peace infused her anyway.

Confident and excited on her father’s arm, Princess Shulamit left the room and headed toward the festivities.

 

***

 

Lights twinkled everywhere, and the room was filled with happy people in lavish dress. A troupe of musicians gave song in a corner, and efficient servants circulated holding trays of treats. Shulamit noted with delight that the air smelled of orange blossoms.

“Noach, my friend!” King Fernando was upon them, his queen at his side. “I am so eager for you to meet—” And he whisked Shulamit’s father away. She stood by herself for a moment, peering round for Carolina.

“Shulamit! Over here!”

Princess Carolina was standing over by a great marble column, holding a little crystal goblet of dark red wine. She waved her other hand, beckoning Shulamit over.

“Your dress is—”

“What a marvelous—”

Both girls paused and giggled. “You first,” said Carolina.

“That’s a beautiful dress.” Shulamit was dazzled by the array of pink and white lace, and the skirt that bloomed from Carolina’s waist in such an enormous froth that Shulamit wondered if she had trouble walking through single doorways.

“Yours as well, dear Shulamit.”

Shulamit grinned, half-ecstatic, half-self-conscious about her strange smile. “Lilac’s my favorite.”

“You wear it well.”

Something over Shulamit’s shoulder attracted Carolina’s attention, and a bright light flared into her eyes. “João! I can introduce you to the Crown Princess of Perach.”

Shulamit turned to see the guitar player from the previous night standing beside her. He had a frank and friendly face, and his hands were full of party snacks. “Can’t let our beautiful Infanta go hungry.”

“Here, I will give my port to Shulamit so that I can give this my full attention.” Carolina held her glass out, and Shulamit accepted it automatically.

She looked down at the glass. I guess I’ll get to say the wine blessing anyway… The words were easily mumbled out of earshot, and then she took a tiny sip. The heat of a more intense alcohol than her people’s fare burned through her throat, followed by deep sweetness and a complexity that reminded her of raisins.

“João, may I present the Crown Princess Shulamit, daughter of Noach, of Perach, heir to the throne and great lover of books.” Carolina gestured grandly. “Shulamit, Visconde João Carneiro de Façanha. My friend,” she added, with a face that Shulamit would later recall as “complicated.”

João bowed deep, then restored himself and smiled as he took Shulamit’s free hand. “I am honored.” As he lifted Shulamit’s hand to his lips in a dry kiss, she noticed a large ring on his hand. She narrowed her eyes and thought maybe she could make out the figure of a ram’s head, or at least something with curling horns.

“João thinks as you do, Shulamit.” Carolina daintily ate the food he’d brought her. “He wants to take away the beating sticks from the men who watch over the workers.”

“Positive rewards, Caro—not punishments!” João looked at Shulamit. “So you agree with me that the workers should not be beaten?”

“Of course they shouldn’t!” Shulamit exclaimed, happily surprised that her… rival… or whatever he was… was also her unexpected ally, and confused about what that meant. “We wouldn’t do that kind of thing back home. It’s cruel!”

“We’ll have to work together to convince our Caro, then.” João looked at Carolina affectionately. “Just think, lovely princess, how terrible it would be if someone ever were to hit you like that.”

“I think I should have them thrown from the window,” Carolina said casually.

“Those men don’t deserve it any more than you do.”

“Yes, but I am the Infanta.”

“Your pride in that is built on their pain, dear one.”

“I should make you get me another glass of port if you’re going to scold me all night.” Carolina finished off whatever little burst of bread she’d been eating. “Or take little Shulamit for a dance.”

“I’ll do both. But first, the dance. Then we can all find more food.” João held out his hand to Shulamit, and with a shrug, she abandoned her glass and accepted it.

Thankfully, Imbrian court dances didn’t require too much intimate contact between partners, so the dance with a strange man didn’t feel too threatening. João was even relatively skilled at buffeting her around the dance floor to make up for each time she lost track of the steps. “I hope you’re enjoying your time here in Riachinho de Estrela!”

“I am,” said Shulamit. “I haven’t been outside the palace grounds, but even just inside the wall, Carolina’s shown me so many beautiful things.”

“I’m sorry you had to see some ugly things too. Here, no, this way.” He guided her to spin the other direction, his limbs remaining at a safe distance.

“I’m not used to the class difference being so…”

“I am, and I don’t like it. Things can be different.”

“I hope you’re right,” Shulamit replied.

“She’ll understand, some day. I won’t give up,” said João, his eyes far away on the beautiful Infanta. “Some day.”

 

***

 

The hour had grown late, and the other landowners with whom João had been conversing in a men’s smoking room begged his leave and departed. Returning to the ballroom, he scanned the swirling finery for Princess Carolina. The guests were thinning out, necessitating smaller dances for those still with energy, and he noticed that the other king and princess were among those who had already departed. He surmised they must be upstairs and asleep somewhere.

Carolina, however, did not look sleepy. Instead, she looked radiant and relaxed, stretching one arm over her head over in a corner by the curtains and potted orange trees in full blossom.

João loved the look that sprang into her eyes when she saw him. It made him feel twice as alive, like he’d never grow tired of it, like it called out to its brother spark within his own heart. “Be careful, princess, someone might see how perfect you look in that unusual pose and paint or draw you like that.”

“You can if you like,” she tossed off, clearly pleased.

“Ah, but we’ve been over this,” said João, drawing closer so they could speak intimately. “I have no hand for drawing.”

“But you could take lessons!” She was enthusiastic and flushed. He wondered if she had just danced, and he’d found her just after the dismount.

“I have a farm to manage,” he reminded her, imagining that he was curling one lock of her glorious, black hair around his finger as he wished he could. “When am I supposed to practice?”

“You practice your guitar.”

“You would have me grow rusty at guitar just to draw you? No, I don’t think so.”

“Never.” Carolina paused. “I wish you had it with you now.”

João smiled at her and lifted her hand to his lips. This, at least, was permitted and actually quite common and understandable. If she shuddered into the contact, if an exhalation thicker than normal escaped her divine lips, he was the only one to know.

“Tell me that story you were telling my father and King Noach earlier,” said Carolina. “They were laughing and I want to laugh too!”

“Oh, that?” João smirked and shook his head with disbelief, thinking of the ignorance he was about to relate. “Refugee nobles from Zembluss were at my farm looking at seed, to start over. I showed them the new strawberries we developed, the ones as big as peaches. I thought they’d love it—beautiful stock, best we have to offer. Instead, they refused to believe it was natural—actually outright accused us of witchcraft!”

Carolina giggled. “Just because they’d never heard of it before?”

“Not just witchcraft, dangerous witchcraft. As if eating it would cause sickness.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me they’re the type who think everyone in the clergy is corrupt.” In Imbrio, sorcery was the purview solely of the clerics.

“Considering what’s been going on up there, it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t trust their own mothers.”

“People are already dying.”

“Your father asked me to go to Zembluss.”

“What?” Carolina exclaimed, her rose of a mouth going slack, drooping on the stem. “But he said Imbrio would remain neutral!”

“He wants me to observe and report back.” João picked up her hand again, but held it low and out of sight, so that he could massage her palm with his thumb. She gripped at his hand as if drowning. “Don’t worry, I’m not leaving for at least a month.”

“He trusts you.” Soft words, barely breathed. “Promise you’ll come back safe to me.”

“Of course I will.”

She was an ice sculpture, he reflected, ice protecting them both from their separate fires. Imbrio had winter and he knew what would happen if his bare skin touched an ice sculpture that had only slightly begun to melt.

He imagined himself getting stuck to her, unable to leave without ripping the very skin from his body.

“Will you take your guitar?” she asked in a low voice, already sounding stronger. The ice was a castle now.

He nodded. “Of course! It’s part of who I am.”

“At midnight, will you play? And I—here—I will sing? Or at dawn. Whichever you prefer.”

“Sunset,” he decided. “It’s the prettiest.”

 

***

 

The day after the ball, a warm, gray rain rolled in and made it very easy to stay in bed. The servants who brought her breakfast told Shulamit that Carolina was still sleeping off the ball, after staying up all night, so she saw no reason to get dressed in a hurry. She lounged around in her pajamas all morning, practicing her Imbrian on local books or reading those she’d brought from home, and generally lolling around in the wide, lavish bed. Shabbat morning really felt like Shabbat morning under the spell of such intense goofing off.

She also used the time to bathe in great, luxuriating detail. Perhaps today, with the wet weather, was the opportunity she’d been waiting and praying for—a day spent indoors with Carolina, socializing in her chambers. They were grand and stately, and had two wonderful, tantalizing ingredients: privacy and a bed.

In the bath, scrubbing away every trace of dead skin, she organized her thoughts. Her father’s books, her only clue to what lay ahead, gave her ample strategies.

One idea was to offer to braid Carolina’s hair. After yesterday in the boat, she could even pass it off as returning the favor. Then, with tender touches, she would make Carolina feel relaxed and pampered so that she might open up for more.

That’s how it went in one of the stories, anyway.

Another story started with a conversation about comparing their bodies. “I wonder whose breasts are bigger!” certainly wouldn’t work in this situation, because it was obvious, but maybe if Shulamit pretended she was curious about bigger breasts up close, since hers were yet so small…

She finished off her breakfast pastry in the bathtub while daydreaming that Carolina was in there with her. Her stomach began to cramp, which she put down to nervousness. Nerves were natural, of course—for today might be her first kiss. She hoped it would be more. Looking down at her body under the scented water, she realized that she might, within a few hours, be sharing it with another woman for the very first time.

With deep breaths, she tried to calm the twisting in her belly.

Dressed and reading again, she looked up when she heard the knock of a servant on her door. “Yes?”

“Your Highness.” The maid bowed low and didn’t meet her eyes. “Princess Carolina is awake, and invites you back to her room for lunch and board games, if is your pleasure.”

Shulamit grinned and clutched her book to her chest. “Yes! I’ll come with you. Thank you.” She hopped out of bed. Even her nervous stomach couldn’t suppress the sparks of fiery anticipation that radiated through her.