An impostor wouldn't know about Rivka being a woman.
"I've been thinking about those stories they tell of Captain Riv." She tried to make her voice light and airy, to sound amused. "You know, all the ridiculous ones we were laughing at earlier."
"They are terrific, aren't they?" the maybe-Isaac agreed.
"I think the most ridiculous is the one where they say he performed his own bris even though he was only eight days old," Shulamit continued. She was fiddling with the ends of her scarf like mad, and the sweat on her palms was doing unpleasant things to the fabric. "What do you think of that?"
"Oh, well, you know Riv," said the man with a chuckle. "It could have happened just as they say. After all, I don't know—I wasn't there!"
I've got you, thought Shulamit, and a wave of energy suffused her body. And now I will trap you like the rat you are.
Fear flashed into her mind for a moment as she considered the possibility that the impostor might be there to inflict violence or even molestation on her person. But they were alone together in the garden, and he seemed all too willing to keep his distance, now that he'd handed over her earring. Nothing about his body language felt threatening, and in fact, she should have known he wasn't Isaac all along. Even though he towered to Isaac's height, and even though his torso was as broad, he seemed somehow more of a lump than a great majestic cedar tree. He had Isaac's form, but he didn't have the power of soul to command it as Isaac did.
No, he was here for some other reason. And the large, empty-looking bag he was carrying by a shoulder strap gave her a pretty good idea why. "In any case, I'm glad Riv has such a fearsome reputation. It's good for the palace." Continue the meaningless small talk. Keep him here while you think.
Shulamit had to lure him somewhere there would be enough guards to overpower him quickly, but also somewhere he would find the bait plausible. She first thought of the treasury but couldn't think of a reason to suggest visiting the royal vaults late at night.
"Yes, Riv is quite an amazing man."
Don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh. "I suppose you feel pretty lucky too." Then she almost kicked herself. What if the comment scared him away somehow? She didn't want him to feel pressured to perform for her, to come up with new remarks. She had to keep him by her side until she'd figured out a way to trap him. "I'll tell you something else I feel lucky about. Him bringing his mother to the palace. One more set of hands to watch the baby. She's such a nice person. And it doesn't take very much to keep her happy—I'm grateful for that." Prattle, prattle. "Just clothing and jewels, really—"
Jewels. Yesssss.
She studied his face as surreptitiously as she could. Did she detect a note of excitement at those last words of hers? Jewels. So she needed to lure him with the promise of her jewels. But they were in her private dressing room, which adjoined her sleeping chamber, and there were definitely no guards in there.
"Some women are easy to please," the impostor agreed.
"I am, too, in a way," Shulamit found herself commenting. "Just give me a good book and something violet to wear." Wear! Her clothing—her clothing came from Ben, and in Ben's room right now all the off-duty guards were playing their game.
If she could only—
"Anyone can see your love for the color violet," said the impostor, "on your lovely new clothes."
"That reminds me, Isaac," she said carefully, laying a trap with every word. "I'd love your opinion on my new necklaces. After all, I love jewelry too."
"Oh?" He definitely seemed interested. She'd seen that look before, on the real Isaac's face—but about Rivka, not jewels.
"I don't know which to wear with my new outfit," said Shulamit. "One is—" She thought frantically, trying to figure out what would be ridiculously easy to fence. "—dozens of tiny diamonds, strung on chains so delicate they seem nearly invisible."
"Sounds very lovely, Majesty." The look on the impostor's face reminded her of a dog anticipating table scraps.
"And the other—well, as you know, I'm tiny, so I don't like to wear something so large as the gold one," said Shulamit, knowing that gold could be melted down for resale. "But I'm tempted by its amethyst stones. There's my love for violet again."
"They both sound like they'd suit your new clothes," said the impostor. "Perhaps I could—"
"Would you look at them for me and give me your honest opinion?" Shulamit could barely breathe, but she forced herself to smile. "Without my father here..." She looked away at the passion blossoms dramatically and sighed, feeling secure in some way of the heart that he was there, in that moment, guiding her. Princess Brainy, he had called her.
"Of course!"
"I've left them in the dressmaker's studio. I meant to try them on earlier when we were doing the fitting, but then the baby—"
"Yes, I understand."
"Can you come with me now? It should be quiet in there."
"Lead the way!"
To your downfall, you rat. She did her best to walk casually out of the garden. If she moved too quickly he might get suspicious. But she was also afraid he'd lose his nerve if she went too slowly. They passed a couple of servants scurrying around, who bowed to the queen, but she didn't give any sign to them that the man beside her wasn't Isaac.
With every passing moment, she grew more fearful that he'd know something was wrong. She couldn't lose him now. Better tempt him further. "Do you mind if I leave you alone in there for a few moments while you look at the necklaces?" she asked the impostor. "I want to go check on Naomi. All the leftover scraps of fabric from the tunic and the trousers are still piled up on the worktable, so you can just hold the necklaces next to them and let me know what works."
"Oh, that's fine, Majesty!"
She could tell now that he, too, was doing his best to hide his emotions from leaching out into his voice—in his case, unexpected rapture. Majesty, not "Malkeleh," she couldn't help noticing. Well, I guess we're all lucky he isn't very good at this.
"Let me just slip in there for a moment to make sure Leah isn't undressed," Shulamit murmured. "I could never forgive myself if I interrupted her privacy like that."
"Naturally, Majesty."
When Shulamit touched the door handle it felt rough and clammy in her nervous hands. She opened it a sliver and slid inside quickly, shutting the door behind her. "Everyone!" she hissed.
In the golden lamplight, she saw that half a dozen guards were seated around a low table on the floor. They'd been silently studying Ben, who was deciding his next move in Pirate's Payout. At her entrance, all eyes moved toward the door.
"The man with me isn't Isaac; he's an impostor. Capture him instantly and ask no questions 'til he's yours." She barked out these orders in a sotto voce hiss, but clearly enunciated.
"What?" one of the guards asked, but they all readied themselves.
Shulamit opened the door slightly and stuck her head out. "All clear, Isaac! Leah's not even in here."
The door swung open, and Shulamit stood back to avoid the commotion as the guards seized the pretender. "What? What are you doing?" he demanded to know. "I am Isaac! I am your commander's favorite!"
Shulamit ignored his appeals and simply stood back and watched. When he had been secured and forced onto the ground, glaring at everyone, she simply muttered, "Good work."
"What's going on?" asked Ben, who was still holding the game piece with a look of confusion on his face.
"This man has gained admittance into the palace by using some form of magic to pretend to be Isaac," Shulamit explained. Shouting and clamor erupted from the guards.
Then, from the shadows in the corner of the room, a shape emerged. It was Rivka, wearing her steel drum by its shoulder straps. She bounded across the room in only a few strides, the visible parts of her face red and her eyes explosively angry. Shulamit had never seen her so furious before. She watched, silently, as Rivka marched straight up to the prisoner.
Crash went the drum over his head, and he slumped over. Rivka's shoulders moved li
ke the curls of a whitewater rapid and she was breathing heavily.
"Wait, no, Riv—we need to question him," Shulamit found herself saying.
"He's not dead," barked the captain. "Just knocked out."
"Good."
"Captain!" protested one of the guards, who were all looking at Rivka in horror. "How could you do that without knowing for sure it wasn't really Isaac?"
Rivka simply cast them a look of scorn as a familiar lizard crept out from within her voluminous barbarian hair and crawled to the top of her head.
"Look, he's changing!" Ben pointed at the intruder.
"His control on the magic is slipping because he's unconscious," explained a deep bass voice coming from the lizard on Rivka's head.
The guards hastened to tighten the ropes around the prisoner as he shrank into the size of an ordinary man. His skin darkened; his hair grew longer. "Wait, I know this boy," said one of the guards.
"I do too," said Shulamit grimly. "He was at the booth with the juice seller the day of the violin concert."
"Yes, I think he's her nephew," said the guard.
"He's starting to wake up," said another guard.
Shulamit walked up to Caleb and crossed her arms in front of him. He groaned, so she hoped he could hear her.
"You idiot," she growled. "I have a baby. I haven't worn real jewelry in six months."
Chapter 13: The Thorny Rose
Rivka paced outside the security cell, a wolf on the hunt. Inside, Caleb was alive, but he swung in and out of consciousness like a broken door. The palace doctor was insisting that he be allowed to rest until morning, so a few of the guards secured him before leaving him be. When the last of them left, she tried to enter.
"Riv, no."
She turned, looking at the queen. "What?"
"You can't go in," said Shulamit, small but commanding, as Rivka herself had taught her. "You'll kill him."
Rivka paused. "No, I won't." Even as she said it she knew she was just saying words. Would she? How could she not?
"Right. Riv, that was scary, but we need him alive. We need to get him to talk."
"What he could have done—" Her hands balled into fists so hard, she felt her nails digging into her skin and almost relished the pain because it felt like combat.
"He was only here to steal." Shulamit's voice was quiet and calm. "But whoever sold him that magic could sell it to someone else, and next time, they might not just steal violins or copy trade secrets. We could have a murderer on our hands unless we put a stop to this, and he's our best clue."
Rivka's skin crawled, and she wanted to hit something. The stench of a violation she could not put words to hung all about her in the air. "I... am... so angry."
She shivered as Isaac's tiny lizard feet scampered down her body so he could reappear in human form just behind her. When he was there, she leaned back into him gratefully, feeling the stone masonry of his bulk support her weight.
"Your anger is justified, every bit of it," Isaac reassured her. "Now, if you could redirect it for now, and save it up until tomorrow morning, you'll be able to use it to our advantage."
"You hear that?" Aviva, who had come floating in with the infant princess asleep in a wrap after the commotion was over, commented to Shulamit within earshot. "Fletching. He doesn't take away Rivka's arrows; he just helps her aim."
"Isaac, go wear her out," Shulamit commanded. "Go... spar, or something." She spoke confidently, but she was hovering awfully close to Aviva and the baby.
Rivka eyed her critically. "Are you sure?"
"Tivon's got everything under control. Go rest. I need you to intimidate him in the morning, not be falling asleep because you stayed up all night stomping around."
"Yes, Queenling." Shulamit was right. And what she needed—"Not sparring," she added, just for Isaac, in their own language. The look she gave him wasn't flirtatious—it was a pleading demand.
They went back to their room without another word.
He closed the door and began kissing her, thoroughly, nurturingly—but with the force that she needed. She pushed against him, craving contact in every way. Her fingers took comfort in the bulk of his chest, his arms, his back. This was real. This was Isaac.
"You're safe," she found herself saying. Oh, so that was what this was about.
"How could I be otherwise?" he purred in his deep voice, touching her in ways that made her feel as if she had the sun itself between her legs. "My Mighty One defends me."
They made love quickly, his powerful thrusts giving her energy something to complement besides rage and offense.
"You don't have to worry about anyone attempting that nonsense again," said Isaac. "Some of those guards are tremendous gossips, and by afternoon, stories of your reaction will be all over the marketplace. Who would want the legendary Captain Riv after his throat, held back only by the queen herself? In the morning, you'll take that anger, and when you direct it at that foolish young man, he'll fear you and he'll give us exactly what we want."
"Mmmhmm..." Rivka was gazing at Isaac's face up close, finding solace in the familiar features.
"And I'll watch you do it and fall in love again."
"Your arms feel good around me. Hold me everywhere." She wanted to feel his body like a heavy blanket; she wanted him to be the realest thing, and the closest.
"Every time I tell you I love you," he murmured as he wrapped her in his cloth-covered muscles, "I know how lucky I am to be able to tell you at all."
She rested her head against his biceps and listened; she knew the story he was leading into, and she found its predictability comforting—especially when flavored by the vibrations his voice caused in her body at this close range.
"When I was under the curse, so many years ago..."
It had only been four years since she and Shulamit had lifted the curse that had imprisoned his human form in a mare's body—a mare that could still turn into a dragon but had lost the power of speech—but in that time, they had grown so many wonderful relationships that in some ways it seemed remote. Still, it was easy to put herself back there if she thought about it—her, roaming the lands as a lone mercenary, and he, the horse she rode without realizing it was the man she'd loved, whom she believed dead in battle.
"...Every moment of those three years I loved you. I loved you when I was a dragon, the only place my human soul still lingered; I loved you when I was a horse and could only think of you as 'my shiny.'"
She caressed him, listening peacefully.
"I loved you, and I badly wanted to tell you," Isaac continued. "But the curse took away my voice, and left me illiterate as well. So I had nothing left but my loyalty."
"But you knew I still loved you because I called to you when I touched myself." Now that she knew that the dragon she'd slept against had been him and not just a beast, a pet, a steed—she wished she'd said more at the time.
"I did, and I told myself that such privileges should have been enough—sleeping curled up around you, knowing you still cared."
She snuggled into him. "What kinds of things did I moan?"
"Just my name. Sometimes I wondered what you'd do if I shifted my tail to help you along."
"If I'd only known it was you..."
"But you didn't, so the most loyal thing I could do was restrain myself. To do otherwise would have been betrayal. If I had, you might have killed me or at least left me to myself, and you'd have been right."
"I know now," she barked, moving his hand between her legs.
He smirked with admiration as he grasped at her with practiced fingers. "Insatiable woman!"
"Greedy dragon," she retorted.
"Mighty One."
Slowly his fingers moved in and out of her and she grew languid in his arms, still listening to the story. Not every act needed a direction. Sometimes, things just felt good.
"Then, one day, I remembered that there was still one dignity of a man's life that I could still manage. I could bring you flowers."
/> "Roses."
"I could bring you roses. I tried to clasp a rose from the rosebush, with my left paw..." He curled the fingers of his left hand inside her, mimicking the action, and she threw her head back in pleasure. "...My claws could easily separate it from the bush, but it fell to the ground. I tried to pick it up, but the stem was so tiny and my claws were so big that I couldn't curl my fingers tightly enough to grip it. I kept trying, but they were all the same. And when I tried to bite it off, I got a mouthful of thorns."
"Your poor mouth." Rivka ran her fingertips over his lips, and he responded by nibbling them.
"I knew I couldn't think too hard about it, or I'd slip back into that awful horse form."
"Shiny!"
"Yes, you were my 'shiny' when I was a horse." He still sounded a little embarrassed about it. "I didn't know what was male and female; I just knew that whatever the stallions wanted from me in my mare form, I very much didn't, but I wanted it with you, and that you were my shiny."
"Sorry for those times."
"Forgiven." He kissed her on the nose. "Finally, I just grabbed the whole rosebush out of the ground in my back paws, and I flew to the bank of the river where you were bathing."
"You liked it when you saw me bathe."
"I still like it when I see you bathe. So, you stepped out of the river, your hair wet and dripping down your body..." He painted his right hand down her body, following the water's path. "Your muscles were toned and shining with water, and I struggled to stay in my dragon form."
"I just thought I was naked by myself, taking a bath. I remember you bringing me that whole rosebush and thinking to myself how little I understood about dragons."
"I laid it at your feet."
"I picked one single rose and smelled it."
"And you patted me on the head. For one moment I was a man again—a real man."
"I asked you—"
"You smiled at me, and you said, 'You strange beast! Couldn't make up your mind which rose, so you had to take them all?'"
They said these last words together. This was not a new story.
"No," Isaac intoned. "I knew which rose. My rose... my rose is thick and sturdy enough that she would fill my grasp rather than slip through my fingers. My rose..."
A Harvest of Ripe Figs Page 9
