“No, no,” I laughed. That was all I needed, for Dina to be here now, coming to my aid like a knight defending a damsel in distress.
“So, why don’t you tell him, in simple words, what you want?” she insisted. Her wild hair was sticking up in every direction.
“Because I don’t know exactly what I want, Dina,” I said with comparable impatience. I knew what I did not want to be—the punishing wife who forbids her husband from acting on his desires. In my experience, prohibiting something usually just increased the hunger for it—certainly with Halimi.
I also did not exactly want to break up with him: Our lives were entwined, and I loved him terribly despite all of his shortcomings. We still made each other laugh, and even after years together, he was the person I enjoyed talking to most. We were attracted to each other—the sex, even when it was average, was good, and often it was spectacular. I knew that Halimi loved me and needed me and depended on me, and that in his elusive, narcissistic way, he was unable to imagine his life without me.
And Lily was no longer a baby. If we were to break up, that would be the end of our three-way ice cream benders (strawberry for Lily, pistachio for Halimi, and dark chocolate for me) and our cuddling in the mornings, when I would find myself mashed between Lily’s foot and Halimi’s elbow … the end of our watching all the Disney movies ever made, and our trips in nature, and lazy vacations in the sun.
Of course, I did not want him to keep up his affair with Nina. But I was willing to make my peace with it—at least that’s what I told myself—if he would just stop lying and hiding it from me.In a less precarious situation, I thought,I would be able to handle an affair with another woman—as long as I knew everything and had control over the frequency of their meetings.
When I was honest with myself, I knew that what I really longed for was for Halimi to break off the relationship with her without me having to say anything, out of an understanding that above all else, he had to restore my trust in him. But as the one who had pushed for an open relationship, until I saw that message from Nina with the hearts (he had deleted it since then, I checked), I was unable to acknowledge, even to my sister, that I just wanted him to end it. After my vigorous lobbying for free love, having to ask him to stop would be death by humiliation.
“Fine, oh priestess of polyamory,” I finally said to Dina, who was exaggeratedly chomping slices of carrot and kohlrabi. Maybe she got her period that morning. “Give me advice, oh wise guru.”
“I can’t give advice to someone who does not know what she wants,” Dina spat, a carrot cracking between her teeth, and some shards flying toward the screen.
“Ew, gross,” I laughed.
As soon as the sun had risen and I had gotten back into bed, I heard Lily wake up and put Halimi to work (“Dad, make me hot chocolate! In the pink cup! The pink cup! I don’t want the blue one!”). It was earlier than usual for her. By the time I got up, she and Halimi were already out of the house. It was 9:10 in the morning, and I figured that he was probably getting some groceries before coming home. I tried to remember the dream I’d had, like someone trying to chart a path through a sticky spider’s web.Something related to the fortress, the embroidered tapestries on the plastered stone walls, and Thibaut, Jean’s friend, was also there, but I couldn’t remember exactly.
The young squire placed a crowded tray on one of the little tables, casting not-entirely-pleasant glances at me.
“Why did you delay?” I heard Jean ask sternly.
“Sir, Éclair was skittish,” Hugh replied. “I brushed his coat to calm him, and I brought him an apple.” Jean nodded his approval, his face still stern, and then instructed the youth to wait on the other side of the door. Hugh nodded and left the room.
“Your young man appears to be rather suspicious of me,” I said uncomfortably.
“That may be so, but not for the reasons that might trouble you,” said Jean, turning back to the pile of fabrics he had brought. “He is the young cousin of my wife and entered my service only three months back. They are overly close, as he grew up in her father’s house, and he evidently suspects the veracity of my story of a distant cousin turning up suddenly out of nowhere. He was resentful and very surprised about my going to the spring without him in the last few weeks. He must be suspicious about the nature of our relationship.”
“Hmmm” was all I managed to utter.
“Do you feel a little better, my lady?” Jean asked after I had finished several wonderful apple and raisin pastries and washed down my dessert with a glass of wine mixed with water. I nodded, and he added, “You are reaping the benefits of the important meeting we held here. For the most part, the food produced by the Pilgrim Castle kitchens is ascetic and rationed in a most depressing way.”
I laughed and took another swig of the diluted wine. Now that it was not as potent, it was delicious.
“In that case, please change your clothes,” said Jean, a light urgency seeping into his words. “The fact that I brought you into the citadel without seeking Périgord’s permission is bad enough. If someone should come in here and see you in your strange clothes, with your hair showing and no escort, they would accuse both of us of adultery, apostasy, and God knows what else.”
“But …” I felt suffocated with panic. “Everyone already saw me when I came in.”
“Nonsense.” Jean waved his hand dismissively. “A few laundresses and junior knights do not mean a thing. But if the head of the order or some other senior official comes sniffing around, we might get into trouble. Well, come on.” He held out the pile to me and gestured with his head toward the curtain through which he had emerged previously. It was a heavy tapestry, a kind of wall carpet that was hard to move. I pushed it with my elbows, as my hands were full of clothes, and entered the bedroom of Jean d’Ibelin.
It was smaller than the sitting room, but more brightly lit. It was a corner room, with long windows in two directions, which looked out at the sea. Now I saw that it faced the southern bay, which was crowded with boats and small ships. There were two or three big ships anchored at some distance. The southern shore was bustling and appeared to be used by the village fishermen.
I sat down on Jean’s bed. For several seconds, I restrained myself before putting my head under the blanket and taking a deep breath. The scent of Jean’s body filled my nostrils. Brunette, who had come in with me, tilted her head toward me.
“What, do you never sniff someone in his absence?” I asked her in a whisper. Brunette blinked and lay down, her head on her front legs, stretched out ahead.
I took off my clothes and put on the thin slip, soft to the touch, as quickly as possible, and over it a yellow silk dress with wide sleeves.It was embellished with red embroidery at the neck and wrists. I tied the narrow fabric, also yellow and red, around my waist like Jean had. I gathered my hair into a braid. Very carefully I wrapped the white cloth band around my chin and head and fastened it with pins that had been stuck in it. I wrapped my head with the stiffer cotton fabric and placed the longer, thin strip such that its ends would dangle on both sides of my face.
“How do I look?” I asked Brunette. She blinked in approval.
“Wonderful,” said Jean when I came out, scanning me in wonder, until his eyes landed on my feet.
“Ah, the monsters,” he said in disgust, referring to my sneakers, and went to another corner of the room. He returned bearing soft leather shoes in light brown, pointy at the toes, very pretty in fact. I would not object to wearing them forever.
He handed me a pair of thick cotton socks, and after putting them on my feet, I looked helplessly at the way they rolled down my shins. He knelt down beside me and tightened each sock with a band of silk underneath each knee and then placed the shoes on my feet and laced them. I stopped breathing.
