Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “Your grandfather would have been proud of you, boy. I do not mean old Stephen d’Alene, either.”

  Maria’s nose hurt. She said, “Robert, you warned him.”

  “Maria,” Eleanor called from across the ward.

  “Mama, I didn’t do anything. I just did what you said.”

  “He guessed.” The old knight sagged down weakly to sit on the ground. “It was not the cleanest kill I have ever seen.”

  Maria got to her feet. “Can you walk? Let me help you.”

  “I can walk. Just let me sit here a while, and I will come up by myself.” He lowered his head.

  The steps to the Tower door were clogged with people staring at them. Eleanor called her again. Maria put her hand on Robert’s shoulder. The boy was staring at Haimo’s body. He twisted his blood-streaked face up toward her.

  “Are you all right, Mama? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  She touched her nose gently. “No. I am fine.” She had not meant Haimo to die. Now there was only Fulbert. Her knees quivered, and she laid her hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Go tell Eleanor what happened. I have something to do now, back in the town.”

  ***

  Fulbert was a large, handsome man. His face pebbled with sweat, he kept his eyes pinned to the floor. Twice he tried to speak, and she raised her voice and rode over him and forced him silent again—if he spoke, she knew, she would forget the speech she had made up on the way back to Birnia. Her hands trembled. She tucked them in her skirt and said, “I am not vengeful, but how am I to know you will not do it again?”

  He cleared his throat. Abruptly he tilted his head up to meet her eyes. “By what right do you rule over us here? You are nothing but robbers. A man can defend himself against robbers.”

  Maria said, “I will defend myself against you, if I have to. We killed Haimo.”

  His face yielded a little, the rusty color fading from his cheeks. In the stock pens outside, a sheep baaed. Fulbert’s hand jerked toward the hilltop. “Whoever sits in that Tower brings me only misery.”

  “You are a man of consequence in the town,” Maria said. “I am much loath to lose your service. Give me your promise you won’t work against me. I swear I will be just to you.”

  “Justice,” Fulbert said, contemptuous. Gracelessly he went down on one knee. “I swear.” Taking her hand he put a dry kiss on her knuckle.

  “God keep you,” Maria said. She pulled her hand out of his grip and left the shed. He followed her; she heard his footsteps behind her but did not wait for him. So late in the autumn most of the stockpens were empty. She walked between them to the gate, where her mare stood with her reins tied to a post. Three of the butcher’s boys squatted there against the wall and gawked at her while she mounted.

  “Good-bye, Master Fulbert.”

  The butcher mumbled some farewell. Maria rode off across the town toward the gate.

  On her way back to the Tower, a band of horsemen appeared, riding toward her from the east. Maria drew a deep breath to steady herself. She reined up to wait for them, wishing Eleanor were there with her long sight to tell her who they were. One of the riders raised his arm and called to her.

  It was William. She galloped off the road toward him.

  He and his horsemen cantered toward her across the slope. The frosts had killed the green of the hillside. The sky was a smoky autumn color, like wool in the fleece. Maria reined up. She was afraid to ask him about Richard. He trotted his tall stallion over to her and leaned out of his saddle to kiss her.

  “William,” she said. “What is it?”

  He took her by the hand. “I’ve come to do the Devil’s work,” he said, “but it can’t be helped.”

  Confused, she swung her mare around to trot along shoulder to shoulder with his horse. “What do you mean? Richard—is he alive? Are they holding him to ransom?”

  In the creased map of his face, William’s bright colorless eyes narrowed. “Ransom? Oh. You mean the Saracens.” He smiled. “Richard talked his way out of it. They have made a peace with us, those people. They are helping us now. No one told you?”

  Maria’s voice failed. William laughed at her. “He never sent you any word that he was set free?”

  “Mother of God.” She lifted her reins. The mare picked up speed and William’s big Roman-nosed roan stallion moved out into a canter to keep up. “I thought he was dead,” Maria said. “The wretch. He doesn’t care about me at all. I thought he was dead. Where is he? Why did you come, and not him?”

  “They are both fighting. Some of the Iste barons have rebelled against us—I have to deal with their hostages. How have you fared with Theobald?”

  “Pah. He has taken up residence in the fen.” She glanced at the score of knights galloping behind them. “He has lots of men, many more than we do, and one of the hostages was bearing tales to a man in the town who is in touch with Occel. We had to kill him.”

  William coughed. He banged himself in the chest. He sat heavy and loose in his saddle, the slate-red stallion lumbering along beside her. “Theobald’s still in the fen? I’ll take care of him.” He faced her, amused. “Richard never told you he was let free, and you thought he was dead.”

  “Do not laugh at me, William.”

  William laughed at her.

  ***

  Stopping only long enough to eat his supper, William took his men out after Theobald. For two days Robert haunted the Tower gate for words of the fighting. Theobald and William maneuvered up and down the fen; abruptly Theobald marched away north. William and Jean harried him over the border and fell back to the Tower. Robert pouted, robbed of his war.

  News came from Agato that the friends of the young Duke had managed to get one of their allies elected Archbishop. Hearing that, William grunted and settled his vast shoulders into the back of his chair.

  “That’s why Theobald retreated, you see,” he told Maria. “Now that the Archbishop is their man, Fitz-Michael and his friends can strike at Theobald whenever he leaves himself open.” He locked his fingers over his enormous belly. A mastiff came up to him and laid its wrinkled head on his knee, and he stroked it.

  “Maria,” he said, “you have changed my castle all around.”

  “Take Mana’a and you can have it back.” She was weaving a scene into the new tapestry: two hunting dogs standing up against their leashes.

  “When we take Mana’a,” William said, “Richard will think of something else he wants. He is cursed; he cannot be content.” He gave a page his cup to fill. “Tomorrow I shall kill the three guilty hostages. I am glad none of them is very young. I love children.”

  “Why don’t you marry?”

  “I don’t much like women.” He chuckled, his belly rolling under his shirt.

  “Neither does Richard.” She threaded the bobbin with red yarn to weave the hounds’ collars. “Don’t you have any sisters?”

  “Five of them. None would teach a man to like women. Richard has a twin sister. Or was that Drogo who had the twin? You were an only child, Maria, you cannot know what it’s like to have fifteen brothers and sisters around you constantly, and another one coming every year.”

  “What is her name? Richard’s twin.”

  William chewed his lip until she thought he had forgotten the question. She changed bobbins again, smiling, and cleared her throat.

  “I am thinking,” William said. “I think it was Judith. It must have been Judith.” He shook his head, wistful. “She was the Devil’s own shrew, Judith,” he said, and sighed.

  Maria watched her hands weave the hounds’ white throats. She tried to imagine having so many brothers and sisters. Always someone to play with, or talk to. That reminded her of the little Duke, in Santerois, who was also a lone child; she said, “So Fitz-Michael is master in Santerois now.”

  “No. Oh, no. No one masters Santerois, just parts of it. Now he has the power of the Cross, but all the other barons are doing what we are doing—grabbing as much as they can.”

  “
We aren’t vassals of the Duke of Santerois.”

  “For Birnia, we are.” William dug in his ear with his forefinger. “For your castle, we owe him some ancient service.”

  Maria stepped on the pedal of her loom and drew the bobbin through the warp. What Fulbert had said returned to her: they ruled in Birnia by robbery. The Duke ruled here by right. She broke off the yarn and let the end dangle.

  “Who is the priest in Birnia?”

  “Gibertetto,” she answered. “He is a horrible old gossip. Have you never talked to him?”

  William shook his head. “I avoid priests.” He propped his cheek on his fist. “When I tell him of this new Archbishop, Richard will ask me a lot of questions I don’t know the answers to. Does the Archbishop rule our priest?”

  “I suppose so. Who else is there?” The fire in the hearth shot up a shower of embers. It was the first bitter cold night of the late fall, when something always caught fire. She said, “Then you are leaving tomorrow?”

  “Richard told me to be back in Iste for the beginning of Advent.”

  Maria giggled. “That was yesterday.”

  “Yes. I don’t think he minds. He has learned about me, he always calls for me sooner than he really needs me. So you see, there is a way to manage Richard. One need only be patient with him.” He erupted into muffled laughter. It ended in a leisurely yawn. Setting his head comfortably on the back of his chair, he went to sleep.

  Maria glanced down at the end of the hall, where Jean and the other knights had gathered for the evening. Robert was among them, Stephen beside him, listening to stories. The warmth of the hall softened her; picking out another bobbin, she nearly yawned herself.

  ***

  William had the dead hostages buried in the town graveyard. For days afterward, when William had left, Robert followed her around asking about them, why they had been killed, who they were, and why their kinsmen had rebelled knowing the hostages would die.

  “If you should ever give a hostage to someone, you would give Stephen and not me, wouldn’t you?” Robert asked.

  Maria hung a string of garlic sausage from the storeroom ceiling. “We have never given anyone a hostage.” She reached down from the ladder, and Eleanor handed her another string.

  “But if you did—”

  “Be quiet,” Eleanor said. She put her hands on his shoulders. Stooping, she whispered in his ear, and he went reluctantly off, his face turned back over his shoulder.

  “Is Papa coming back for Christmas?” He stopped in the doorway.

  Maria tied sausages to the rafter over her head. Her arms ached from reaching up all day. “No. He is fighting the Saracens. As usual.” She climbed down the ladder. A serving woman brought in a basket of onions and took it over to be hung in nets. “I’d get more heed from him if I were a Saracen.”

  “When will he come back?”

  “Robert,” Eleanor said sharply.

  “Oh, shut up, you rotten old horse.” He ran out of the storeroom.

  “You spoil him,” Eleanor said bitterly. “How unruly he is grown.”

  Nineteen

  Jean was teaching Robert and the other boys to shoot a bow. Every morning, they went out into the snowy fields below the Tower and shot arrows, while Maria watched from the wall. Stephen had fallen into an evil humor. Left alone he made up games for himself and sang or dreamed, but when the winter storms shut all the people into the Tower, Stephen drove everyone wild with his crying.

  Messengers came from Richard, sometimes directly, sometimes through Ponce Rachet. The news of fighting meant nothing to her: she had no idea if they were losing or gaining. Lammas passed. Richard stayed in the mountains. She did not ask him to come. The messengers told her about him only in the barest way: that he was well, that he was the same, an expression the messengers used often. Sometimes in the mornings she woke up lusty as a mare in heat. Once she dreamed she was lying with Roger.

  Lent ended in a burst of heavy rain. The sun came out, the serfs planted their fields, and the rains fell again and rotted the seed in the ground. Maria rode through the fields near the Tower of Birnia, and the sight of the serfs weeping over their ruined crop unnerved her. She did what she could, she fetched new seed from other parts of the demesne and had it blessed, and her own people worked in the fields around the Tower.

  The crop was cursed, all the people said: when the second planting sprouted, blight struck it. At the same time, Stephen and several other children in the castle took fevers. The Tower was full of the wailing of sick children and the smell of angelica tea and myrrh. Every time Maria went up or down the stair she met some woman going in the opposite direction with a steaming poultice or a plate of mushed food. One child died of the fever, but Stephen bore it lightly. He was turning thin, with pale brown hair and eyes as clear and gray as Richard’s. The fever seemed to break his mood. When he got up from his bed he was quiet and sweet as a girl.

  All through Whitsun, everyone went about with a long look, saying that the failure of the wheat and the children’s fever was a sign of God’s wrath and something worse would happen. Midsummer’s Day passed. In the grueling heat after it, the crops of peas and beans throve. The ostler’s daughter told Maria that the local witch was claiming credit for turning aside the scourge.

  Theobald had spent the spring in a border dispute with another neighbor, but in the end of the summer, he raided Birnia again. Jean, following William’s example, harassed Theobald’s camps and outriders, but they could not stop him from marching deep into Birnia and looting everything in his path. Ponce Rachet’s knights hurried down to help them. Maria went into the town. The ostler’s daughter talked with her most of the morning about stitchery and mint sauce for lamb. In the warm, sunny kitchen Maria composed a new speech for Fulbert.

  The butcher was in his yard, dickering with a shepherd for a flock of ewes. When he saw her coming, he waved impatiently to the other man to move away. Maria went up to him. Fulbert’s handsome, fleshy face was set against her like a closed door. He said, “I have kept my promise,” in a voice edged with anger.

  “I know,” Maria said. “I thank you for it. But now Theobald has attacked us again—” She put out one hand, pleading with him; she had seen children do it. “I am at the end of my wits— If I give him money, will he go away?”

  Fulbert’s expression softened. He gestured the shepherd farther off across the yard. Pigs and sheep packed the stockpens. The smell of beasts made Maria want to sneeze.

  “A bribe, is it?” the butcher said. He came closer to her. “Yes, Theobald will take money. So will I. What will you give me to go between you?”

  She swallowed. It had not occurred to her that he would have to be bribed as well. “Whatever you want—I have this with me—” She took her purse from her belt. Fulbert held out his hand. The purse sank into his palm. “Help me,” she said, “and I will give you anything you want.”

  He tossed the leather purse in his hand, his face smooth. He actually smiled at her. “I will need something for my courier.”

  “Give him what you think fair, I will repay you.” It was as easy as buying cloth. She cast her eyes down. “I cannot tell you how this eases my mind—I know you will help me.”

  “I will do my best, my lady.”

  Maria went back to the Tower. Robert’s army of children was ranged around the gate. Flourishing his wooden sword, Robert himself blocked her way and made her dismount and ask him humbly for the leave to enter. Inside the gate, Stephen was screaming, and she left her mare and went quickly over to him. He had been tied to the little tree near the wall with several pieces of rope. Already he was wiggling free. His face was dark red with rage. Maria held back and let him untie himself.

  “Mama, I’m not a hostage!”

  Robert was running up and down before the open gate, yelling orders. Stephen untied his feet. He had lost one shoe, and tears streaked his dirty cheeks. Maria picked him up.

  “No, you’re not a hostage.”

  “H
e isn’t the King, either,” Stephen said. He pushed at her impatiently until she put him down. “Tell him he isn’t the King, Mama.”

  “He can play at being king, if he wishes.” She gathered up the rope from the foot of the tree. “Come upstairs with me. You need not play at being his knight, either.”

  Stephen climbed slowly up the steep steps after her. “Tell him he isn’t the King.”

  Maria opened the hall door. In the dim afternoon light, she saw a man standing before the hearth. Blinking, she saw that it was Ralf.

  “My lady.” The knight came toward her. Maria went into the hall and shut the door.

  “Ralf, I thought you would go to join the Crusade.”

  “My lady, I felt more required here.”

  That made her smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re here now. Have you got messages from Jean?”

  “Aye, my lady. Theobald has made a permanent camp in the valley west of the Roman bridge, he must mean to stay there a while. From there he can hold the west part of the March: the shrine, and the village of Saint-Mary.”

  She sent Stephen off to play and sat down before the hearth. “We must get him out of there.”

  “I don’t see how, my lady. Ponce Rachet’s men are leaving in four days for the East Tower.”

  “We may not need them. Sit down, I have something for Jean to do, it will be hard to explain.”

  “I will listen attentively, my lady.”

  Maria began to tell him about the ostler’s daughter and Fulbert. At first Ralf listened on his feet, but after a few moments he sat down on his heels on the hearth. When she mentioned offering the bribe to Theobald, he frowned, and when she repeated Fulbert’s own demand, he shook his head.

  “This is foul business,” he said. “I cannot see why the master and the man both require payment, or why you allow this fellow here at all. In any case, my lady, my advice is that you eschew this matter entirely. Jean and I can deal with Theobald. We have a plan to destroy the supplies in the area.”