weak and soft, and he was older than she was. Almost by reflex he tensed his muscles, feeling them bulge and move under his skin. "How can you call me weak?"
In reply she took hold of his right forearm between her hands. Her fingers overlapped considerably. "This arm has never raised a sword." She gripped his left upper arm. "Could this arm hold a shield for more than five minutes?"
"I've never needed to," said Ivan. "But I'm hardly a..." He struggled to think of a word that would mean weakling.
"Smridu," she said. Peasant.
"I'm not a smridu. I've never farmed in my life. I don't even know what farmers do."
"No, I can see that," she said. "You have the manners of a peasant, but those thighs would never get you through a plowing season. They'd break like twigs."
Her cold assessment of his naked body infuriated and shamed him. He had never tried to bulk up like a Schwarzenegger, he had tried for genuine all-around athleticism. Her scorn was so unfair, so culturally myopic - and yet he knew it would be pathetic to defend himself. "In my country I'm considered strong enough."
"Then your country will soon be conquered, when real men see their opportunity. What are you, a merchant?" She glanced down at his crotch, continuing her assessment of his body. And then, suddenly, her eyes grew wide.
"What?" he said, fighting the urge to cover himself or turn away.
"I heard about this. The Jews do this."
"Yes, that's right," he said. "I'm a Jew."
Her gaze grew stony and she muttered an epithet that he didn't understand.
Great, that was all he needed. Anti-Semitism, too.
"If you think you can sell the daughter of a king into slavery, think again," she said. "My father will ransom me, and then he'll come and hunt you down and kill you anyway."
"Slavery!" he cried. "What does my being a Jew have to do with slavery?"
Her fear eased. "If you're not a peasant and you're not a knight, then I thought you might be a trader, and then I thought of the Jews who traffic in slaves, carrying people west to sell them to the Franks."
Ivan remembered his history. In this era all the traders dealt in slaves.
"Traders don't steal slaves, they buy them. War captives. Debtors."
"But the bishop says that - "
Of course. No sooner are these people converted to Christianity than the Church starts in with the calumnies against Jews. "The only thing the bishop knows about Jews is the lies the Christians made up about us."
Her face flushed. "How dare you say that Christians are liars. I'm a Christian and I never lie."
"Well, I'm a Jew and I never captured a slave in my life. Or bought or sold one either. And I never met a Jew who did."
She glared at him. "What a lie," she said. "I have watched my father buy slaves from Jews himself!"
"Well, if you buy the slaves, what right do you have to criticize a Jew for selling them?"
"In my father's kingdom, Christian slaves earn their freedom by fifteen years of work."
"Oh, but Jewish slaves would stay slaves forever?"
"All our slaves convert to Christianity."
"Of course they do!" cried Ivan, exasperated. "If Christians are the only ones you set free!"
"But Jews sell Christians into slavery," she said.
"And who do you think they sell them to?" he demanded. "Christians like your father. I can't believe we're even having this conversation. Dealing in slaves is evil when Jews do it, but perfectly all right when Christians do it, is that the rule?"
"Why should I argue with a boy?" she said.
"You shouldn't argue. You should listen and learn the truth. I'm a Jew and I'm not a prince and I don't want to marry you, I want to go home and marry Ruth. According to you I also wore women's clothing. Nobody's going to want me to be king, so let's forget the whole thing. Let me go back across that bridge."
She was adamant. "The man who kissed me is the man I have to marry," she said, "or the Widow rules over the people of Taina."
"So you'd even marry a slave-stealing Jew?" he said.
"Now you admit it!" she cried triumphantly.
"No, I don't admit it!" he shouted back. "The only thing I admit is that I don't want to marry you!"
"You gave your word!"
"There was a bear!"
She squared on him like a trapped badger. "And there will be another bear, or worse. I will marry you for the sake of the people. Maybe you don't