"Do you catalogue my feats, then?"
"Each," he replied. "Back to that first moment I knew I loved you, the first time you beat me during our sword fighting lessons."
"It was raining," she remembered.
"You stood there, hair wet, water dripping everywhere, staring at me, confused and triumphant... You were an avalanche."
After five years they had grown used to kissing with the cloth mask in the way. He smelled the sweat of her busy afternoon on it.
"I remember those old days..." His fingers were in her hair now. "I, bored and frustrated in the countryside, and you, proud and eager, but rough around the edges..."
"I love you because you never tried to smooth me out."
"No," said Isaac. "I sharpened you."
Chapter 22: Ripe in the Fullness of Harvest
"Vimaaaa! Vima!"
"Vima's right here; she's just looking at the celery," said Shulamit to the tiny child, who was now old enough to walk, as long as her hand was firmly inside of at least one of her mothers’. "See that man? He's selling vegetables. Celery, parsley, carrots, cilantro..."
"Vima."
"Yes, she's right there." This happened all the time. She couldn't figure it out—sometimes it would be her own week, sometimes Aviva's week—Naomi seemed to switch back and forth at random. She was happiest, of course, when she could see both of them.
"I'm here, baby girl!" Aviva turned around, the bag on her shoulder now full of celery and parsley. She bent down to nuzzle the princess's nose. "I just had to get vegetables. You like your vegetables!"
"Veh."
Aviva took Naomi's other hand, and the two women walked the painstakingly slow but blessed walk of toddler parents.
"Hard to imagine she'll be queen someday," Shulamit murmured. "Especially when she drools like that."
"You drool when you fall asleep in my lap," said Aviva.
Shulamit stuck out her tongue.
"Your Majesty!"
Whipping her head around, a smile spread across her face as she spotted Esther of the Singing Hands waving from the entrance of a nearby shop. "Esther! You've come back."
"Yes, but only for a little while. I wanted to see Liora, to thank her for everything she did for me last year, and we were passing through anyway."
"Aaaa!" said Naomi.
Esther bent down to address her directly. "Why, your Highness, you've grown so much! My goodness!"
"Naomi, do you remember Esther? She's the one who makes those pretty noises," said Shulamit. "Remember when she stayed in our palace?"
"I think you have a lovely name, Naomi," said Esther. "Can you say 'Esther'?"
"Ima Vima," was her response.
"Vima?" asked Esther.
"It's what she calls me," Aviva explained.
"The original plan was for me to be Ima and for Aviva to go by Mammeh, which is Ima in their language." Shulamit gestured behind her at the ever-present Rivka and Isaac. "But she's a smart little thing, and she must have picked up on the 'viva' part of Aviva. So now she's Vima."
"Like a bima in a temple," said Esther. "How funny!"
"I can accept Aviva as a temple," Shulamit joked flirtatiously.
"Esther!" called a deep, youthful voice from inside the shop. "What about this one?"
"Micah, you already bought her that hair ribbon in Ir Ilan, and you made that little woven bracelet," Esther admonished him. "You need to save some of your pocket money for rosin and strings or you'll wind up short again like that time Liora had to bail you out." She smiled self-consciously at the queen. "I'm sorry, he and one of my baby sisters are special to each other. He writes to her constantly."
"No need to apologize," said Shulamit. "That's part of the responsibility! I'm sure Aviva and I will have the same kind of conversation with this one in another dozen years. You're doing a great job with him, by the way."
"Thank you so much," said Esther. "I have to tell you—sometimes it's intimidating... and I'm so young myself. But I'm not doing it alone. I have Tzuriel's full support."
Shulamit's eyes twinkled. "I was hoping his name would come up. So he's still around?"
"Yes, he's actually around here somewhere buying supplies." Esther looked around. "He's not here to sell anything this time. We're just passing through." Micah emerged from the shop, and she put her arm around him, which he accepted for two seconds before untangling himself.
"Have you seen much of each other?"
"Yes, he joined up with Liora and I when our tour reached the Sugar Coast," said Esther, "and then, when the tour was over, Micah and I took him back home with us. He set up shop in Lovely Valley and got to know my family. So did Micah. It was such a balm, I can't tell you, after what I'd been through..." She took the queen's hands in hers. "Thank you—for setting me free."
"Of course," said Shulamit, bowing her head slightly in acceptance of the honor. She looked deeply into Esther's eyes. "You're a daughter of my realm, and even though I'm just a few years older than you are, that makes you my daughter too. Your welfare was entrusted to me by the memory of my father. I'm only grateful I was able to help you. It's the best part of the job."
"Really? Not the new clothes and the roomful of books?" Aviva teased, the infant princess hefted up now onto her ample hip.
Shulamit raised an eyebrow. "Better than every purple dress in the kingdom."
"You still didn't say anything about the books."
Shulamit made a grotesque face, and it had its intended effect. Both Aviva and the baby burst into peals of laughter.
"You two are so cute!" Esther exclaimed. "Oh, I'm sorry. Was that inappropriate?"
"Don't be so afraid," Rivka interjected. "You're not a bother, you've never been a bother, you're not inappropriate, and you're a very lovely woman."
Esther chuckled. "You sound like Tzuriel."
"He's right," Rivka said. "So, nu, tell us! Shulamit is of course trying to be delicate, but there is nothing delicate about Riv Maror. When's the wedding?"
Esther burst out laughing. "We'll be married in the Sugar Coast—maybe even on the beach!—but I guess that'll be up to all his aunties, and then we'll be back on the road." She was beaming. "Up north this time, back through Imbrio and Zembluss and probably even as far as where you two come from."
"You must be so excited, Micah," said the queen warmly.
"Sure!" he said enthusiastically. "The only thing I'm worried about is how I don't speak any of those languages up there. I mean, Tzuriel knows plenty of languages, but then I just stand around looking clueless."
"Well, don't forget that if they worship as we do, their prayers will be in our language," Shulamit reminded him. "So they've got to know at least a little bit."
"Sure, if I want to bless stuff. But what if I want to tell them I'm thirsty?"
"Ikh bin dorshtik," said Isaac.
"You'll do fine," Rivka reassured him. "The best way to learn a language is to live in the place where they speak it every day. When I was traveling the lands as a mercenary warrior, with Isaac trapped in his dragon form by a curse so I didn't know he had survived the attack on my home, I worked in plenty of places with unfamiliar tongues. Each time I had to pick up a new language, I practiced it night after night, sleeping outside in the wilderness with my dragon for a pillow." She chuckled. "In fact, I told him about himself. I'd practice my new skills, by telling the creature I thought was just my steed all about my dead lover. Oy vey, was I silly! With him right there curled up around me listening the whole time."
"It made for nice bedtime stories," said Isaac modestly.
"Can I see your dragon form?" Micah asked excitedly. "I've never seen a dragon up close."
"I'll do better than that." Isaac bent down from his immense height and fixed Micah with a dramatic stare. "I'll take you up in the air if you want—you and Esther."
Esther and Micah looked at each other, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. "Oh, wow, that would be amazing!" he exclaimed.
"What a wonderful thing
to offer!" said Esther. "Yes, please." She grinned nervously.
"Let's get out of the market so I have room to transform." Isaac began walking. "And so we don't cause a riot."
While they walked, Shulamit slithered back around to where she could talk to Esther again, personally. "Esther, thank you for saying I set you free. But in some ways, you've done a lot of the hard work yourself, and I wanted to give you credit for that."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Esther looked thoughtful. "Micah calls that thing he swallowed a ripening crystal."
"That was Aviva's nickname for it, yes. I love the way she talks."
"He's ripened nicely... I guess, in a way, I've ripened too."
"It's sweet to be ripe," Aviva piped up from behind them.
They stopped on the edge of a wide grassland. "Watch this," Isaac said dramatically, and before their eyes, his black-green dragon form arose. Antelopes that had been grazing at the edge of the field scattered as he flapped his wings once, sending Esther's and Rivka's hair whirling.
"Amazing!" Micah shouted.
"He's all mine," said Rivka with a smirk, mostly to herself.
"Climb on board," said the dragon.
Rivka and Micah helped Esther climb onto his back, and when she was comfortable, Rivka lifted Micah up to sit in front of her. "Have you got me?" he asked Esther, craning his head around slightly.
"I've got you," she responded.
Off into the air they flew, with Rivka left behind on the ground to guard the two mothers and their baby. She put an arm around each of their shoulders. "See how happy they are, Malkeleh? You did that."
"Not really," Shulamit repeated. "They did a lot of that themselves."
She rested her head on Aviva's shoulder, kissed Naomi, and was content.
END
Acknowledgments
Thank you's and standing ovations to:
To Virginia Lamboley, who found true love when her viola was stolen, and knows how to tell a good story
To Kate Thomas O'Gara, who I've already thanked in the dedication, but deserves another one for working so hard on cleaning this up, and to Rania, for her own careful scrutiny
To the rest of my orchestra cohorts, including Margaret and especially Masatoshi, who helped with some of the editing since I was doing it between rehearsals and who lent me a kalimba and a steel drum so that I wasn't flying in the dark
To my spouse, "When someone loves a remarkable woman, her feats should captivate her, just as her eyes do."
To my mother, for putting a fiddle in my hand when I was four, and to my stepfather, for putting chords under my melodies.
To Mei-mei Luo, Dr. Janna Lower, Ralph Blizard, Marty Spencer, and everyone else who guided my bow in childhood and adolescence
To the brave women who helped me with details I am lucky enough not to have personal experience to know
To Caitlin, Nikki, Tof, Karen, Breianna, and Mycroft, for additional help, and to Kofi, for insisting that I put The Islands in my books somehow.
To Ducky, Jane, and Kat, my test audience
To Becca and all my other artists
To the Jumblr kids, your support means the world to me. I wish you all the best of luck in life.
To Chef Anthony, whose juice booth is not to be missed at my local farmer's market. So good I had to put it in a book!
To Jacques Offenbach, James Morris, Susan Quittmeyer Morris, Roberta Alexander, Hans-Peter König, Anna Netrebko, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and, well, René Pape (again!) for truly moving inspiration
To the folks at Prizm, especially Kristi, Jaymi, Amanda, and Jo, for helping to get this show on the road!
A Harvest of Ripe Figs Page 15
