Read Online Blood Secret by Kathryn Lasky - Free Book Online Page A

he catches it. Or sometimes he puts the green cap on his head and something dangles from the edge. Then looking up he will comically cross his eyes. “What have we here? Aah! A sweet?” And he whisks a twist of brown paper from his hat and gives it to me. Rolled inside is a honey stick or maybe my very favorite, a violet crinkle all sparkly with sugar crystals. For Reyna there is a velvet ribbon or sometimes a braid pin or a small vial of perfume. And I dip another curtsy.
    But tonight there is a difference. I felt it from my first curtsy. First Don Solomon did not speak the words “Adecuado por la corte.” And I know I did the curtsy perfectly. His manner was exceedingly grave and he nearly forgot to give me the candy. Then through dinner they seem to talk of only the most boring things. I look down and concentrate on myplate. I press my spoon into the rice to make a little lake for the rich beef broth.
    After Annuncia clears the bowls, she brings in a plate of figs and grapes.
    “So how goes the piece for the archbishop?”
    “Oh, I am just doing the sleeve trim lace now. The sisters at the convent will do the hem.”
    “That’s because the sleeve lace must float, and everyone knows Mama’s lace is the most filmy,” Reyna interjected.
    “Don’t brag, Reyna. I wouldn’t have time to do the hem. The sisters do a very fine job.”
    “Ah, show it to me,” Don Solomon said. “You know how I love to see your work.”
    This is a game that Don Solomon and Mama play. Mama shows him a piece of lace, and he guesses what gave her the idea for the pattern. They rise to leave the table and go to the front room. By the largest window there is a chair with a stand and on the stand a dark pillow. Pinned to the pillow is a gossamer web of lace, and radiating from its edges are the fine silk threads tied to dozens of bobbins made from bone.
    “My good woman, how many bobbins are you working with on this one?”
    “Oh, forty pair,” Doña Grazia replied. “It’s a very complicated design.”
    Don Solomon holds a candle close to the pillow. “Let me see now if I can guess that design.” Don Solomon scratches his chin, then adjusts his velvet cap. His brow furrows.
    “You’ll never guess,” I say. “And I am the one who found it!”
    “Found what?” Don Solomon asks.
    “The thing that gave Mama the idea. But I can’t tell you until you guess.”
    “A spiderweb.”
    “No, Don Solomon. Every time you guess a spiderweb.”
    “But my dear Miriam, do you know how many different kinds of spiders there are and how many different kind of webs they weave? And do you know what the best spiderweb is for dressing a wound and stanching the bleeding?”
    “No,” Reyna and I both say at once.
    “An orb weaver’s web. The silk is the best. Only laudable pus follows, nothing fetid. It is the best way to dress a wound or ulcers. Such a creature should be celebrated in lace.”
    “But it is not a spider’s web, Don Solomon,” I say,pointing at the lace on the pillow. “Come on now, take another guess.”
    He thinks another moment, scratches his chin again. “Ah!” he says, lifting one finger. “The veins of a butterfly’s wings.”
    Mama laughs. “Miriam, run get your inspiration.”
    I go to the cupboard and take out a small box and open it. “See!” Don Solomon squints into the box. An insect with translucent wings lies dead on a piece of cotton. “A dragonfly.”
    “Yes.” Mama nods. “Miriam found this one dead, floating on the water of the cistern in the square.”
    “But look, Don Solomon,” I say. “Look at the little designs. They are like tiny tiles but clear as glass. Look at their pattern. Are they not the most beautiful? And you see the shapes are not all the same. They all differ just a tiny bit and nothing too perfect, too sharp or square.”
    Don Solomon stands back and looks at me with deep, penetrating eyes. “You should become a student of geometry.”
    “What is geometry?”
    “Why, it is