“And to continue to deceive me. You didn’t bat an eyelid when I called you ‘Katarzyna’ on Grochowa Mountain. It served you better to be incognito. You preferred me not to know anything about you. You deceived me, you deceived Biberstein, you deceived everybody—”
“I did so because I had to,” she said, biting her lips and lowering her eyes. “Don’t you understand that? When, in the morning, I descended Grochowa Mountain to Frankenstein, I met a merchant, an Armenian. He promised to take me to Stolz. And right outside the town, not believing my eyes, I meet those two, Kasia Biberstein and Wolfram Pannewitz the Younger. They didn’t have to say anything, it was enough to look at them to know that not only I had tasted… Erm… That not only I had… Erm… Intriguing adventures. Kasia was terribly afraid of her father, and Wolfram even more of his own… So what was I to do? Talk of witchcraft? About a flight through the sky to a witches’ sabbath? No, better for both of us to play dumb and claim we’d escaped our kidnappers. I hoped that out of fear of Sir Jan’s revenge the Raubritters would run for their lives and that the truth would never out. That no one would even want to investigate it. For how was I to know that Kasia Biberstein was pregnant?”
“And that I’d be accused of raping her,” he finished bitterly. “You weren’t remotely worried by the fact that for me it meant a death sentence. And dishonour worse than death. A stain on my honour. You are a true Judith, Jutta. By staying silent regarding the rape, you condemned me like your biblical namesake did Holofernes. You gave them my head on a plate.”
“Have you been listening?” She tugged at her reins. “Clearing you of the charge of rape would have meant accusing you of witchcraft. Do you think that your head would have come out of it better? In any case, no one listened to me. What weight does the word of a maid, an irrational maid, carry against the word of a knight making a vow on the cross? I’d have been ridiculed, taken to be suffering from the vapours and palpitations of the womb. While you were safe in Bohemia, no one could get their hands on you there. Until the moment when, as I expected, Wolfram Pannewitz would overcome his fear and kneel at Biberstein’s feet to ask for Kasia’s hand.”
“He has still not done it.”
“Because he’s an oaf. The world appears to be teeming with them. Everyone is vying to bed some girl or other. And then what? They take fright. They turn tail, flee to foreign lands—”
“Are you referring to me?”
“How astute you are.”
“I wrote you letters.”
“Addressing them to Katarzyna Biberstein. But she didn’t receive any of them. The times don’t favour correspondence. Shame. I’d have gladly received tidings that you were alive. I’d have gladly read what you wrote… My Reinmar.”
“My Nicolette… Jutta… I love you, Jutta.”
“I love you, Reinmar,” she replied, turning her head away. “But it changes nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Did you only come to Silesia for me?” She raised her voice. “You’ll love me till death us do part? You wish to unite with me to the end of your life? If I consent, will you abandon everything and we’ll run away somewhere to the far side of the world? Will you drop everything, this moment? Two years ago, having given myself to you, I was prepared to do that. But you were afraid. Now, in turn, no doubt an important mission that you must carry out will interfere. Admit it! Do you have a mission to carry out?”
“I do,” he said, unwittingly blushing. “A truly important mission, a truly sacred duty. What I’m doing, I’m doing for you. For us. My mission will change the nature of the world, improve the world, make it better and more beautiful. When it dawns, we will live, you and I, live and love to the end of our days in such a world, a truly Divine Kingdom. That is what I desire, Jutta. I dream of it.”
“I’m almost twenty years old,” she said after a long pause. “My sister is fifteen and will be wed at Epiphany. She looks down on me and would consider me insane if I confessed that I don’t in the least envy her wedding, much less her betrothed—an old soak and boor almost three times her age. Or perhaps I really am abnormal? Perhaps my father was right, taking from me and burning the books of Hildegard of Bingen and Christine of Pizan? Why, my darling Reinmar, complete your mission, then, battle for your ideals, search for the Holy Grail, change and improve the world. You are a man, and those are manly things, to fight for dreams, search for the Grail and improve the world. As for me, I return to the convent.”
“Jutta!”
“Don’t look horrified. Yes, I’m presently living at the Poor Clare convent in White Church. Of my own free will. When the time comes to decide, I shall also make a decision of my own free will. For the moment, I’m just a conversa… And not quite that. I’m wondering what to do next—”
“Jutta—”
“I haven’t finished. I declared my love for you, Reinmar, because I love you, I love you indeed. Meanwhile, you go and change the world and I’ll be waiting. For want of an alternative, frankly speaking—”
He interrupted her, leaning over in the saddle and seizing her around the waist. Taking her in his arms, he pulled her from the saddle, slipping her feet from the stirrups, and they both fell into a deep snowdrift. They blinked, shaking the dry snow from their eyelids and lashes, and looked into one another’s eyes. At paradise lost and paradise regained.
With trembling hands, he stroked her jerkin, smoothed the delicate texture and fine weave of the fabric, became drunk on the provocatively sharp roughness of the flowery embroideries, followed with quivering fingers the mysterious pleats and thickness of the seams, brushed with his fingertips, seized, squeezed and caressed the excitingly hard buttons, wonderfully intricate clasps, embellishments and buckles. Sighing, he caressed the thick knotted wool of the shawl which pleasantly irritated the fingers, stroked her wimple, the divine delicacy of the expensive Turkish cloth. He plunged his face into the fur of the collar, breathing in the delicious scents of all Araby. Jutta sighed and moaned spasmodically, tensing up in his arms, digging her fingernails into the sleeves of his jacket, pressing her cheek against the quilted cloth.
He tore off her calpac, with trembling fingers unwound the shawl holding her neck captive and coiled like the Jörmungandr worm, impatiently pulled aside the edge of the silken wimple and arrived—like Marco Polo reaching Cathay—at her nakedness, the naked skin of her cheek and the marvellously lascivious nakedness of her ear, emerging from the fabric. He touched her ear with impatient lips. Nicolette groaned, tensed up, seized him by his padded collar, grabbing with a rapacious hand, squeezing and stroking the shiny, brassy hardness of his belt buckle.
Hugging each other tightly, their mouths met in a long and passionate kiss. A very long and passionate kiss.
Jutta moaned. “My bottom’s cold,” she gasped passionately into his ear. “The snow is wetting me.”
They stood up, all trembling. From the cold and excitement.
“The sun is setting.”
“Indeed.”
“I must return.”
“Nicolette… Couldn’t we—”