Fruit of the Golden Vine

by Sophia French

  “There’s another thing too.” Adelina continued to mangle the blade of grass. “Why do I love women? Why don’t I give a damn about Rafael’s shoulders, and instead keep glancing at the shape of your chest beneath that tunic?”

  “Why do some enjoy olives and others spit them out?”

  “Don’t answer me with another, even stupider question. I hate that.”

  Silvana laughed. “Very well. I too have no interest in the breadth of a man’s shoulders, and I can’t put myself in the mind of those women who do. I expect that it is a matter of taste. And it just so happens that our taste is far more refined.”

  “In other words, we love women because we’re especially wise.”

  “Exactly so. It’s the most sublime form of love. We comprehend each other’s hearts, souls and bodies, and we share the same sufferings and injustices. Our union is closer, our entanglement more complete.”

  Adelina’s gaze crept lower. “I want to entangle with you right now.”

  “They can still see us from the windows.”

  “Not if we go behind the wall. One of the cellars may be unlocked. We could press together in the cool air and feel each other’s heat.”

  “For a maiden, you have a salacious way of thinking.”

  “I don’t just want kisses in the moonlight, Silvana.” The more Adelina spoke, the more her voice trembled. “I’m lustful. There’s an ache in my body, and I know that only your hands can relieve it. I want to court you, but I also want to lay with you. I want romance, but I also want reckless pleasure.”

  Silvana drew Adelina’s yielding lips to her own. They kissed, long and with passion, before parting with a shared sigh. “In time, you’ll have all the pleasures you desire,” Silvana said. “And greater pleasures that you don’t yet know of.”

  “Oh, God.” Adelina exhaled as she flopped back to the grass. “Just tear my dress off right here.”

  Silvana grinned. Stretched out as Adelina was, the contours of her body were clear beneath the fine material of the dress, and it took a great deal of willpower not to obey her playful command.

  A flicker of motion caught Silvana’s attention. Two distant figures were moving through the vineyard—Sebastian and Rafael, judging by their height and gait. “Up you get,” Silvana said. “We have company.”

  Adelina shot upright, and the women waited, seated with as much composure as they could muster, while Sebastian and Rafael strolled between the trellises and ascended the slope to stand before them.

  “A pair of robbers,” said Sebastian, twirling the tip of his beard. “See, Baron? There’s grape juice on their lips.”

  “Will you chop off our hands, then, Father?” said Adelina. “Or place our heads above the front door as a warning?”

  Sebastian’s mustache moved in a faint smile. “Do you never show any chagrin at all, daughter?”

  “I don’t believe I even know the word.”

  Sebastian’s gaze switched to Silvana, and his expression hardened. “And our Mistress Silvana! Leading my daughter astray, are you? Stealing the fruit of my vines?”

  Silvana tensed. “I apologize for eating the grapes, Master Sebastian.”

  “Oh, never mind the grapes. I was going to ask you and your brother to an early lunch, but we couldn’t find you, so we set off searching. Isn’t that right, Baron?”

  “Yes, indeed.” Rafael stared at Silvana, who looked away from his reproachful eyes. “There’ll be a ham. I requested it just for you.”

  Silvana grimaced as she stood. Rafael knew very well that she despised ham. “How courteous of you.”

  “Adelina, child.” Sebastian turned his scowl on Adelina. “I believe Irena is in the drawing room, no doubt languishing for feminine company. Go amuse her, will you?”

  Adelina’s eyes glittered, and Silvana held her breath, anticipating the inevitable temper. “I don’t see why I should—” Adelina shook her head and sighed. “Fine. I’ll go tease her about her needlework, and then we’ll go hold Felise down and put bugs in her nose. Will that be amusement enough, do you think?”

  “I’m assuming you’re joking.”

  “Of course I am. We’d never do that to our little sister. Worms, perhaps, but never bugs.” Adelina gave a theatrical curtsy to Silvana and Rafael. “Farewell, honored guests.” She flicked back her hair, huffed and strode into the vines.

  Sebastian took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. Silvana held her ground. “What, exactly, are you doing all the way over here?” he said.

  “She was showing me the vineyard.” Silvana raised her palms in supplication. “What did you expect me to do, refuse her? And then we rested and ate our stolen grapes. Nothing nearly so scandalous as you believe.”

  Sebastian glared at her while Rafael remained silent and sheepish. “You don’t appear disheveled,” said Sebastian. “So I can assume you’ve not been acting improperly. But for God’s sake, Silvana, the way she looks at you…it’s not proper.”

  “I can hardly be held to account for the way she looks at me.”

  “Don’t encourage her. That’s all I expect. Sitting out here in the shade of the vineyard, sharing grapes—what in hell were you thinking?”

  “A lapse of judgment. I apologize.”

  “Silvie’s not a rogue,” said Rafael, gentle persuasion snaking through his voice. “You have my word. She’s simply a magnetic character, and impressionable women have a habit of falling for her. It’s harmless. A little maiden infatuation. I think it does a girl good—better than becoming enamored with some man, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Sebastian pinched the flesh above his nose. “But your sister is desirous of women herself, that’s what troubles me.”

  “Women, Master Sebastian. Not girls.” Silvana spoke the treacherous words with shame. “Adelina acts too childishly for my taste. She inspires no cravings in my breast, believe me.”

  “Now I almost feel sorry for the poor thing. Love unrequited, the most poetic of torments.” Sebastian faced the vineyard and spread his arms. “Well, enough of this improper topic. Aren’t the vines a beautiful sight? Soon this will be alive with workers, and the presses will be in motion. If God had anything in his veins, I expect it would be wine.”

  “I doubt that’s an orthodox belief,” said Rafael.

  “So long as my wife’s not in earshot, I’m a perfect heretic. By the way, Ira has pleaded to be allowed to go riding with you on Orfeo’s land. I’m inclined to grant her wish. As it happens, Orfeo’s best dog has a new litter, so I could also grant my sulky little Lise her desire to see a pup. And I have some business to discuss with the man anyway.”

  “It sounds like a beautiful way to spend a day.”

  “Doesn’t it? And Ira insists that Ada and Silvana come as chaperones. Both of them, she told me, to ensure that our baron behaves himself in the wilds, so far from scrutiny.”

  “Is that so?” Rafael’s face drooped. “It seems she doesn’t yet trust me.”

  “You’re a big man, Lord Rafael, and she’s a prudent maiden. So I’m inclined to grant that wish as well. But you will observe a proper attitude between yourself and my daughter, won’t you, Mistress Silvana?”

  Silvana pressed her hand to her chest. “You have my word of honor.” It was a palatable lie. What was honor, after all, but a male invention that gave endless excuse to the mistreatment of women?

  “Very good.” Sebastian shaded his eyes as he returned to admiring his vines. “It’s a beautiful process, this making of wine. It begins in the soil of my land, and it ends at the lips of those who revel in the Golden Vine. I couldn’t imagine a finer trade. What do you two think? Is there a finer trade?”

  “Nothing is finer than planting a seed and watching it flourish,” said Silvana, and she closed her eyes against the sun. “Beautiful indeed are the many forms taken by nature.” Her mind turned to Adelina, the way she had reclined on the grass, her cheeks alluring in scarlet and her chest rising with the enamored rhythm of her bre
ath. “Some would call them divine.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Silvana, Rafael and Sebastian walked at an unhurried pace around the manor’s perimeter. As he led the way, Sebastian rambled about the building’s construction, the ornate embellishment of its awnings and the geometry of its design. Silvana nodded while Rafael gave voice to vague encouragements.

  As they passed the left wing of the house and turned the corner to the manor’s wide front lawn, Sebastian paused. “Look, a horseman is coming.”

  The horse clopped the final stretch toward the manor, and the rider lifted a hat and waved it. “Marconus,” said Sebastian. “I’ve business with the scallywag.”

  The horse came to a halt some meters from the front door. Marconus, the tax collector who’d been at dinner their first night at the manor, swung from his saddle. “Bastian!” He swaggered forward, arms outstretched, and clapped Sebastian on the back. “And the attractive Lord Rafael and Lady Silvana. Or is it Mistress Silvana? I don’t know how you pale foreigners handle your noble lineages.”

  “Pale, you say!” Rafael chuckled. “The sun’s granted us scarcely a shade’s difference between us and you olive-complected southerners. We once crossed the great eastern river, and let me tell you, the folk that way are skinned like ivory. And a peculiar lot at that.” He glanced at Silvana. “Anyway, she doesn’t formally require the title. Only my wife must be referred to as Lady. Still, it’s not inappropriate as a sign of respect.”

  “Then Lady it shall ever be.” Marconus tipped his hat to Silvana. “I’m not so traveled as you, Lord Rafael. I knock on doors and take taxes, and that’s the extent of my year’s journey. And, speaking of which…”

  “Yes, yes, damn you!” Sebastian bared his teeth. “Come to my office, you robber, and I’ll give you my life’s blood. My apologies, honored guests, but this mosquito demands my attention.” He strode through the front entrance, and Marconus slunk in pursuit.

  “Ah, avarice,” said Rafael, putting an arm around Silvana’s waist and jostling her. “A good thing we’re immune to it, eh?”

  Silvana took a weary breath. “Get on with your lecture. Your cheery preludes are too tiresomely familiar.”

  “Well, if you say so. Silvie, what—”

  “—was I thinking? Yes, brother, everything you might say I can predict in advance.” Silvana slid out from Rafael’s embrace. “You know perfectly well what I was thinking, and I’m thinking it still.”

  “But she’s just—”

  “—another maiden? Give up, Rafael. I’m going to go hunt for her now. We were in a conversation, and it was rudely interrupted. Go entertain yourself in your own way.”

  Silvana left her glum-faced brother and entered the cool lobby. She followed one of the narrow hallways, passed a tapestry so ugly that to hang it seemed an act of purest charity, and put her head through the drawing room door.

  “Oh, hello.” Irena sat on a divan, unaccompanied, while she drove a needle through a length of cloth. “Are you looking for Ada?” She blushed as she stopped her sewing. “Well, that’s a silly question. Of course you are.”

  “How odd she’s not here. Your father commanded her to keep you company.”

  “Ada can’t stand watching me embroider. She’s up in her room studying.”

  Adelina alone in her room—that held possibilities. “I see. And the others of the household?”

  “Um.” Irena’s needle hesitated again. “Lise is taking her bath. Mother is resting, and I don’t know about Father.”

  “I see. Well, happy sewing.”

  Irena gave a mumble of farewell, and Silvana returned to the lobby and climbed the staircase. The door of Adelina and Irena’s room was open. Silvana quieted her step as she approached. The floorboards proved complicit, and she reached the doorway without a sound.

  Adelina sat at a writing desk, a book open in front of her and another two stacked nearby. She rocked on her chair as she read, tilting on the furthest leg and swaying. A forbidden pleasure, no doubt.

  Silvana took several swift steps into the room and caught Adelina’s shoulder. Adelina turned her head and smiled. “You didn’t scare me. I knew you were there.”

  “My fun is spoiled. How did you know?”

  “I just knew.” Adelina took Silvana’s hand and kissed it. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m reading.” She returned her full focus to the pages.

  “You’d rather read than talk to me?” Silvana sat on the edge of Adelina’s mattress. It was hard not to imagine Adelina lying here of a night, clad in little more than a thin shift, and a familiar sensation stirred low in Silvana’s body. This was neither the time nor place for such thoughts, but who could control such things?

  “I’d rather finish my chapter, yes.” Adelina licked her fingertip before turning a page. “You’re fascinating, of course, but this is a history of religious orders. It’s exciting beyond words.”

  “Genuinely?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t think so by the subject. But it’s stupefying in its hilarity. All these poor people excommunicated, even burned, for quibbles of faith. Here, listen: this order was deemed heretical for believing that God cannot resemble human form, because human forms do not exist without spatiality, and a Creator would need to exist outside of spatiality in order not to be subject to it.” Adelina sniffed. “It sounds like a perfectly reasonable objection to me.”

  “Does your mother know you’re in here dissecting theology?”

  “She had this book bought for me!” Adelina chuckled as she flicked to the next page. “The more she tries to make me pious, the less I believe. Oh, look. This poor sect got the stake for believing in the divinity of women. Why is it always the clever ones who get the stake?”

  Silvana winced. “History’s a depressing topic. Only you’d amuse yourself in such a morbid fashion.”

  “But it’s illuminating. Just two chapters back, some unhappy clerics were persecuted for believing there should exist no difference in temporal authority between men and women. You’d have liked them.” Adelina frowned. “And there was an anchorite who got his head chopped off because he believed that time is running backward, and so each day we’re coming closer to Creation.”

  “They decapitated him for that?”

  “Pious of them, wasn’t it?” Adelina clapped the book shut. “I can’t ignore you any longer, my woodland sprite. You’re too delightful. What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m wondering if this is how you’ve grown so erudite. Reading books by your own initiative.”

  “I had tutors, but they tired me. I didn’t need them to tell me what was in my books—I wanted to explore the pages myself! That’s one thing Mother and I have in common. She’s very well-read too. Because she was ill for so long, her parents bought her books to abate her tedium, and many of the more instructive ones about the house are hers.” Adelina grinned. “And the enjoyable tales of adventure belong to my father.”

  “So you educate yourself with books, and then entertain yourself with books…”

  “Don’t think I’m a sluggard. I like nothing more than to romp about in a field or chase beetles out from beneath rocks. But I get increasingly little opportunity nowadays. I’m bound in this house and this awful dress.”

  Silvana brushed her teeth with the tip of her tongue. “Take the dress off then.”

  “You love to make me blush, don’t you?” Adelina giggled. “At least I’m not quite as silly now as I was when I first saw you. My insides were in trembling disorder!”

  “The first flush of desire. You ought to cherish it.”

  Adelina averted her eyes, and the color in her face faded. “I suppose you’re far too worldly to experience a similar sensation from me.”

  “Two days ago, I would have honestly answered yes.” Silvana stood and brushed a hand through Adelina’s mass of curls. “But you’ve made me blush in ways I’ve long forgotten. Even now…” Even now Silvana’s breath drew short and her heart played out of tune, but it was better,
perhaps, if Adelina didn’t realize quite how powerful her influence was. “Even now your presence affects me.”

  “I want to believe you so very badly.” Adelina’s eyes narrowed to pleased slits as Silvana continued to stroke her scalp. “Has my courting really been so effective? It was my first attempt, you know.”

  “I never expected to feel like this. Not here. Not now. Yet you carry yourself as if your soul was a conflagration, and the moment you first touched me, that flame caught my own. I want to partake of your heart’s rebellion.”

  Adelina nuzzled Silvana’s hand, her eyes still closed. “Take me away from here, Silvana. Carry me in your arms as far as you can, and when you tire, I’ll carry you…”

  Silvana rested her lips against the delicate curve of Adelina’s ear. “I love you.”

  Adelina trembled, and the flush returned to her skin. She reached for Silvana’s face, as if to bring her close for a kiss. In the same second, a footstep echoed in the hallway. The women jumped apart, Silvana straightening her tunic despite it not being disarrayed.

  The intruder proved to be that big-jawed footman, whose name had escaped Silvana entirely. He stood outside the doorframe, fidgeting and tugging on his collar, until Adelina rose, folded her arms and said, “Yes, Lothar?”

  “Mistress Delfina wishes to invite Mistress Silvana to take chocolate with her in the drawing room.” Lothar toyed with a golden button on his uniform. “My apologies if I disturbed any private matter, Mistress Adelina, but the door was open…”

  “Only Silvana? Nobody else?”

  “Just her, Mistress.”

  “An honor,” said Silvana. “Have a good afternoon, Mistress Adelina.”

  Forcing herself not to glance back, she followed Lothar from the room. He walked with a heavy, dour gait and was every bit as silent as the morning he’d escorted them from town.

  “You don’t talk much, do you, Lothar?” she said.

  Lothar shrugged. “I’m not paid to.”

  One flight of stairs and a winding hallway later, Silvana stepped into the drawing room and matched stares with the ever-intimidating Delfina. Lothar shut the door, and his footsteps receded down the corridor. With a somber gravity that befitted her pinched face, gaunt frame, and ominous black dress—a woman forever attending a funeral—Delfina pointed to an armchair opposite her. “Take a seat, if you will.”