Christmas Day with his friend Raschid Alharoun in Toledo. Raschid was a baptized Saracen who had made a fortune importing spices from the East, especially pepper. They met at midday mass in the great cathedral and then strolled back, in the warm winter sunshine, through the narrow streets and the fragrant bazaar to the wealthy quarter.
Raschid's house was made of dazzling white stone and built around a courtyard with a fountain. The shady arcades of the courtyard reminded Jack of the cloisters at Kingsbridge Priory. In England they gave protection from wind and rain, but here their purpose was to deflect the heat of the sun.
Raschid and his guests sat on floor cushions and dined off a low table. The men were waited on by the wives and daughters, and various servant girls whose place in the household was somewhat dubious: as a Christian, Raschid could have only one wife, but Jack suspected that he had quietly overlooked the Church's disapproval of concubines.
The women were the greatest attraction of Raschid's hospitable house. They were all beautiful. His wife was a statuesque, graceful woman with smooth dark-brown skin, lustrous black hair, and liquid brown eyes, and his daughters were slimmer versions of the same type. There were three of them. The eldest was engaged to be married to another dinner guest, the son of a silk merchant in the city. "My Raya is the perfect daughter," Raschid said as she went around the table with a bowl of scented water for the guests to dip their hands in. "She is attentive, obedient and beautiful. Josef is a lucky man." The fiance bowed his head in acknowledgment of his good fortune.
The second daughter was proud, even haughty. She appeared to resent the praise lavished on her sister. She looked down at Jack while she poured some kind of drink into his goblet from a copper jug. "What is it?" he said.
"Peppermint cordial," she said disdainfully. She disliked waiting on him, for she was the daughter of a great man, and he was a penniless vagabond.
It was the third daughter, Aysha, whom Jack liked most. In the three months he had been here he had got to know her quite well. She was fifteen or sixteen years old, small and lively, always grinning. Although she was three or four years younger than he, she did not seem juvenile. She had a lively, questioning intelligence. She asked him endless questions about England and the different way of life there. She often made fun of Toledo society manners-the snobbery of the Arabs, the fastidiousness of the Jews, and the bad taste of the newly rich Christians-and she sometimes had Jack in fits of laughter. Although she was the youngest, she seemed the least innocent of the three: something about the way she looked at Jack, as she leaned over him to place a dish of spicy prawns on the table, unmistakably revealed a licentious streak. She caught his eye and said "Peppermint cordial" in a perfect imitation of her sister's snooty manner, and Jack giggled. When he was with Aysha he could often forget Aliena for hours at a time.
But when he was away from this house, Aliena was on his mind as much as if he had left her only yesterday. His memories of her were painfully vivid, although he had not seen her for more than a year. He could recall any of her expressions at will: laughing, thoughtful, suspicious, anxious, pleased, astonished, and-clearest of all-passionate. He had forgotten nothing about her body, and he could still see the curve of her breast, feel the soft skin on the inside of her thigh, taste her kiss, and smell the scent of her arousal. He often longed for her.
To cure himself of his fruitless desire he sometimes imagined what Aliena must be doing. In his mind's eye he would see her pulling Alfred's boots off at the end of the day, sitting down to eat with him, kissing him, making love to him, and giving her breast to a baby boy who looked just like Alfred. These visions tortured him but did not stop him from longing for her.
Today, Christmas Day, Aliena would roast a swan and re-dress it with its feathers for the table, and there would be posset to drink, made of ale, eggs, milk, and nutmeg. The food in front of Jack could not have been more different. There were mouth-watering dishes of strangely spiced lamb, rice mixed with nuts, and