Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “I’d wash it off with lye soap.” He picked up the horse’s hoof and flexed its leg; the horse snorted in pain. “Jesus God, it’s sore all the way up to his shoulder.”

  “Why do you suffer these people?” She sat down in the street, looking across the valley into the blue distance. “Do they honor you? Do they help you? All I ever see them doing is feeding themselves in our hall and ordering our servants around.”

  “Roger is a good lure. You’ll see what I mean. Speaking of food, when are you going to find us a cook?”

  He started on again up the street. She followed, one arm across her white mare’s withers. Roger’s present cook even burned the bread. Yet Roger’s present friends kept on coming to supper and staying to watch the tumblers and the wrestlers and the men who sang and spoke poems.

  “You should go among these people more,” Richard said. “Talk to them. You might make friends of the women.”

  “Pah.”

  Throughout the spring, while Roger hunted and hawked and lay with the wives of his friends, and Richard went off talking to the town elders, Maria put Roger’s citadel in order. She found carpenters to make furniture for him, she brought in several women to keep the place up, and she got another cook. The hot, dry air of the hill town was invigorating. Roger’s servants came to her with their disputes over duties and their charges of theft and backbiting and laziness. It amused her to judge them, and she and Eleanor laughed over some of the cases, when they sat in her room at night sewing.

  On a market day, with Stephen and Robert, she went to the square to buy cloth. Most of the vendors brought their trade first to the citadel, and until now she had been too busy to go at her leisure. The market place stood before the town’s main gate, in the cathedral square. The merchants had set up their stalls beneath the city wall. A crowd of buyers flooded past their striped and painted awnings. Maria and Eleanor walked along in their midst, staring at the Saracen women in their heavy black veils and the Jewish men whose ringlets hung down over their ears. Maria carried Stephen on her hip. Robert ran on before them and pointed everything out as if he ruled it all.

  Maria stopped before a stall that displayed woolen cloth. She stroked her hand over the nearest bolt, admiring the smooth feel of the stuff, as fine as any she had ever woven herself, and the excellent red color. It was hard to make good red dye. The vendor hustled over behind his counter.

  “Lady, you give me such honor I cannot think how to repay you, save to sell you some of this splendid cloth, fit for such a fine lady.” Bending below the level of the counter, he lifted up three bolts of deep blue and purple wool.

  “Oh,” Maria said softly. She slid her hand under a fold of the blue cloth. “Eleanor, feel this.”

  Eleanor fingered the cloth. “I’ve seen better.”

  “What a surcoat this would make—see how smoothly it drapes.”

  “My sweet ladies,” the vendor said, “this stuff will make you rivals of those few angels you do not already surpass.”

  Maria laughed. On her hip, Stephen was reaching down for the cloth. The vendor asked his price. Maria haggled with him a few moments—she had never bought cloth before, either she had woven it herself or the men had stolen it. She had no idea of its worth in money. At last she had him accepting half of what he had originally demanded.

  “Eleanor,” she said. “Is that a good price?”

  “A very good price, lady,” the vendor said. “You beggar me. If it were not you, my lady, I would refuse the offer, but I would rather have my cloth keep you warm at that price than become rich dressing sluts.”

  “Watch your tongue,” Eleanor said sharply.

  Maria counted out money to him. “Don’t heed her, she is very proud. Will you bring this to my lord Roger’s tower?”

  The vendor bowed over his cloth. “For you, my lady, I would crawl to Jerusalem.” He seized her hand and put a fat kiss on her fingers.

  Stephen had gotten hold of a coin, and while Maria was taking it out of his mouth and drying it, Eleanor said, “Where is Robert?”

  Maria looked quickly around them. The crowd surged past, many-legged, full of donkeys and dogs. She thrust the coin into the vendor’s hand. “He must be close by.”

  They walked across the thrusting, jostling crowd toward the cathedral. The air was gritty with dust. A knight in a red cloak rode past them, a belled hawk on his fist. Children raced around them with their hoops, and other children played between stalls and on the fence around the cathedral yard, but none of them was Robert.

  Eleanor called a few times. A boy shouted back, mocking her, and she bit her lips. Maria could see how tired she was, how near tears. Someone touched her arm, and she wheeled, expecting her son.

  It was only the cloth vendor. “You gave me too much, lady,” he said, reproving, as if she had cheated him. “You gave me tuppence too much.” He put the chipped coin into her hand. Before he had stopped bowing he was racing off again into the crowd, back to his stall.

  Maria took Eleanor by the hand. “Come along. He must be somewhere. He can find his way back to the tower, if we miss him.” She bounced Stephen higher on her hip and led Eleanor with the flow of the crowd toward the other side of the market place.

  Abruptly, she saw Richard in the shade of the oak tree between the churchyard and the wall. On his left, a scribe scribbled in a tablet, and on his right, sitting on two long benches, was a little crowd of men. Most of them were old, many were Saracens. In front of them all, Robert squatted in the dust watching.

  Eleanor let out a hoarse cry and rushed forward. Maria held her back. “No.” She gave Stephen to Eleanor. “Wait here.”

  Eleanor withdrew into the lee of the wall. Robert, with his chin on his fists, was staring up at Richard, who pretended not to see him. Maria came up to Robert.

  “Take Eleanor home for me,” she said, “like a good knight.”

  He jerked his gaze up to her, ready to protest, and she nodded to him. He bounded up and raced off across the market place. Maria stood a moment where he had been. Richard sat sprawled in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him crossed at the ankles, ignoring her. Casually she circled around the oak tree and moved up through the shade to his shoulder.

  An old man was talking about murders. When she stopped beside her husband’s chair, he ran out of words, his mouth dropping open, and his eyes on her. Richard glanced around at her and back at the old man.

  “Go on.”

  The elder stammered: he had forgotten what he had been saying. The other people stirred and leaned their heads together to whisper. Richard turned to the scribe. “Read the last.”

  The scribe sat up straight. On the crown of his head his dark hair grew in a short thick brush: he was a ruined monk. He read, “But sometimes, if a man of the town killed a foreigner, he—”

  The old man cleared his throat. “He would be accused by two men of the town and if he was found guilty he paid a fine to the Emir. If two men of Iste couldn’t be found to accuse anyone, of course, the murderer would go free. But if the dead one was a Saracen, we had to give up the murderer to the Emir, and if the murderer himself was a Saracen, you see, and the dead one a Christian or a Jew, usually nothing was done.”

  Richard propped his chin on his hand. “Yes. I can see why that was so, when the Saracens ruled here, but now I rule here. I like the custom without any decoration. If a man is murdered here, my brother will summon such people to his court as he thinks might have knowledge of the crime, and if he finds anyone guilty, that one shall pay a fine to me.” He looked at the scribe. “Do you have that?”

  The scribe’s quill jigged furiously over the sheet of parchment on his desk. He dipped the pen into the inkwell and turned the page and wrote on. At last he bobbed his head and sat up straight.

  Maria stood with one hand on the back of Richard’s chair and listened to three more such exchanges. She had never heard of anyone doing anything like this before. Her father had paid no heed to the customs of any vi
llage, never learned them, and certainly never changed them. She did not wonder that Richard was having what he said written down. No one would bother to remember customs if they were changed at whim. He never even looked at her again; he went on listening to what the old men said and telling the scribe to leave most of it out—the customs of generations of the same people in the same place. Presently, thoughtful, she went away from the tree and walked home.

  Horses and hounds packed the yard inside the citadel. The lion was roaring fitfully in its pit. Three or four young men walked around before the door into the tower, dressed brightly as tumblers. She ducked under the neck of a tall chestnut horse to reach the door. A stocky young man in a red coat caught her by the arm.

  “Now, here’s the meat. Roger!” Over his shoulder, he called, “I have found fine game right here—” He slid his arm around Maria’s waist. She pulled away, and he bent over her. “Oh, she wants to fight.” He tried to kiss her.

  Maria slapped him. A man nearby gave a roar of laughter. “Pandolfo, use your spurs.”

  Pandolfo recoiled. On his cheek the mark of her hand showed red as paint, and to make him match, she slapped him as hard as she could on the other cheek.

  “Ho.” He snatched at her. She dodged toward the door. Another man seized her and thrust her stumbling toward Pandolfo, penning her between them. She put her back to the wall, looking wildly around for something to hit them with.

  Roger on a black horse loomed up behind the two men. “Stop. Holy Cross, that is Richard’s wife.”

  Pandolfo had hold of Maria’s arm. Twisting, he looked at Roger, and his face blanched. He let go of her as if she were burning hot. Maria went up to the shoulder of Roger’s horse.

  “Roger,” she said. Her lips were stiff. “Are these people your friends?”

  Roger made a pleasant face. He dismounted. At his nod the young men went quietly away. “Don’t be angry. They thought you were a serving girl, you go about with such a lack of ceremony. I never see you—they have never met you. Do I bore you? Come downstairs tonight, we’re going to dance.”

  “Oh,” Maria said. “I don’t think you’ll want me there—with all those pretty women.”

  His face brightened with amusement, his blue eyes snapping. “You know you are my only true love.” Arm in arm with her, he led her into the tower. “How do you like my town?”

  Maria made some uncondemning comment. They climbed the stairs to the hall, where the servants were arranging the tables for supper. Through the windows long sheets of sunlight came, lighting the Saracen carpets. She looked around the room to see that everything was done well.

  “Maria,” Roger said. He walked two steps into the hall and wheeled to face her. She felt bedraggled beside his easy grace; he might have lived all his life in palaces. “I’m bored to death here. There’s nothing to do. Go hunting, chase women, dance—I’m not like Richard, I can’t busy myself listening to old men search their years.” He threw his hands up over his head. “Richard is turning me into a monk.”

  Maria laughed at him. “That isn’t what I have heard.”

  “Well,” he said, “maybe not entirely. But if he doesn’t make a war for me soon, I will run out of women too, and then I just may start in on his.” He came back toward her.

  “Oh,” she said, “so I am your last choice.”

  Standing beside her, he touched her cheek with his forefinger. “Richard’s jealous of you and me, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said. Softly she pushed away his hand.

  “Does he have reason?”

  She crowed with laughter. “Roger. No wonder all these women love you.” She gave him a warm look over her shoulder and went out again onto the stairs. He followed close after her. On the landing, out of sight of the servants in the hall, she turned to face him.

  “Dandle me. I like it.”

  Roger said, “Give me a kiss for encouragement.”

  She tilted her face up to him. The door below them slammed. They sprang apart. Robert raced up the stairs and darted between them. Over the boy’s black hair she and Roger exchanged a look. Robert leaned on his uncle, and the red knight hoisted him up by the arms.

  “Holy Cross, Sir Robert, what does your mother feed you, stones?”

  Maria started up the stairs. Robert pulled on Roger, trying to take him off somewhere.

  “Maria,” Roger called in a light voice. “Promise me you won’t tell Richard about that dog that tried to nip you.”

  She looked down the stairs at him. The memory of Pandolfo unsettled her. “If you wish,” she said, grudging.

  He lifted his free hand to her and went with Robert into the hall. Maria climbed the stairs. She was relieved that Roger did not like this life. The brush with Pandolfo rankled, and she should not have offered to kiss Roger: that was a sin. Uneasily she set herself to doing something else.

  Sixteen

  William arrived from Birnia the next afternoon. In the crush of people that came out to greet him in the ward, Maria saw Pandolfo again, and he saw her as well. He turned swiftly away to hide in the crowd.

  She began thinking of some way to get her revenge on him. Of course telling Richard, the easiest way, meant breaking her promise to Roger. William walked through the crowd toward her, and she came up smiling to him and kissed his cheek. He was fat, his deep-jowled face belonged to an older man than he was. She took him into the hall to give him some refreshment.

  William settled himself in a low-backed chair before the three big windows. “Where is Richard? Ah. I hear my nephew.”

  Eleanor came in the door, Stephen howling in her arms. William took the little boy, laughing down at him, and Stephen brightened and stopped crying and pulled on William’s nose and ears. Eleanor went off on some errand. Maria sat down in the chair William had left.

  “Richard is in the town. You should have seen him in the market place. He’ll be home when they ring for Vespers—you know he won’t miss supper.”

  William tossed Stephen into the air. The child shrieked with pleasure. “No,” the big knight said. “We all have that in common, my family—big appetites.” He looked around the hall, paneled in wood, with its large airy windows. “I’d give him two Birnias for this.”

  Maria smiled at him. “You must do well enough, William, your belts keep getting longer.”

  “Big appetites.” He set Stephen down on the floor and brought a chair over beside her. He slapped his hands on his vast stomach. “This comes from fighting Theobald. It’s all jaw-work. The other little knave looks like you, but this one here is Richard’s.”

  “Robert,” she said, surprised.

  Robert himself ran in the door, Roger in tow behind him. William boosted himself back onto his feet. He and Roger embraced, William giving off loud wordless roars and clapping his brother on the back.

  “William,” Roger said. “Now I see why you have not come sooner. Who is the father?” He slapped William’s wide belly.

  William shouted, elbowed him, and shook his head. “The Saracens will run me thin again. Let me see you. I swore to your mother I would take care of you, let me see if I do my work well.” He groped down Roger’s lower leg as if he were a horse, looked in his ears, and hugged him again.

  “Come sit down,” Roger said. “How do you like my palace?”

  “Oh, a palace, is it? You are a prince now. Well enough. I like it well enough. It must be hard to keep it all though, the town and the valley too.”

  “Richard does that. And Maria masters my household, leaving me to more important things.”

  A serving man had come in with a ewer of wine. Maria took Robert to help her fill cups for the two men. Robert ran across the hall to give William his wine. He leaned on the big man’s shoulder, while the brothers talked of Theobald, their problems with horses, and the things happening in Santerois. Maria went to the window over the street and looked out.

  “How is Richard?” William said. “Maria, come back, let me see you.”

  Sh
e stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. Roger said, “Richard’s mad as ever. We should show him in a cage.”

  “What is it now?”

  “Oh, you know. If he turns left, and the whole of Christendom turns right, everyone’s wrong but Richard.”

  Maria and William laughed. The fat man laid his hand on hers, patting her like a favorite dog. Maria sank down beside him. The brothers talked about the Saracens. If she told William about Pandolfo, he would help her get her vengeance. She sat watching them talk together, her ears cocked toward the windows, waiting for the Vespers bell that would bring Richard home.

  ***

  She had no chance to talk to William alone for the rest of the day. The three brothers ate supper in her chamber, with Eleanor and Maria serving them, so that they could talk over Richard’s plans for attacking the Saracens in the mountains. Before they had half-finished they were deep in an argument, Roger and Richard nose to nose, and William sitting with his eyes moving from one to the other.

  “The easiest way to take Mana’a is to take the mountains first,” Richard said. He thrust his plate aside. “At the end, the city will fall into our hands. Now, look—”

  “That’s like chopping down the tree to get the apple,” Roger said. “No one will care if we take a mountain village—all the glory’s at Mana’a.”

  William pulled Richard’s half-eaten dinner toward him. “You think of nothing else.”

  Roger was staring across the table at Richard. Maria went around behind him to take his wine cup away. Roger said, “The Emir of Mana’a alone has thousands of soldiers. We have a few hundred knights. Who will not fight unless you give them plunder.”

  “You’re using my arguments.”

  “You can’t seriously hope that we can take the mountains and Mana’a and actually rule them?”

  “Why not?”

  Maria crossed the room to the table where the ewers stood and filled Roger’s cup with the sweet red wine of Iste. When she took it back to him, the three men had pushed their dishes to the end of the table so they could draw with their fingers on the tabletop. She piled the dishes up on a tray and brought a loaf and a cheese and set them down at Richard’s elbow. With Eleanor and the bolt of blue cloth, she went into the back of the room, behind the bed, and draped the wool around her in different ways.