Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  ***

  Everything in Mana’a was strange. After the snug, crowded towers of Castelmaria and Birnia, the palace rooms stretched on and on, empty of people. It amazed her that every day they were fed, they were cared for, by these strange attendants she could hardly speak to. In the middle of such a city, she could not find supplies for them—she did not know how to get grain, where to have it milled, or even who the cook was; yet every day she ate fresh bread.

  Richard told her they had all of Rahman’s slaves now, who would work for them as well as for Rahman. He did not tell her how to rule them. They had strange names she could not pronounce and did not come to her for their instructions; they went to Rahman. When she had to talk to them, Robert spoke for her, and Richard taught her a few words of Saracen—bread, meat, water, wine—but the sense of the language eluded her.

  Eleanor, sunk in prayer, crossed herself whenever she saw a Saracen. Maria walked from room to room, carrying Jilly, wondering if God would even listen to them here. It was all work of the Devil.

  From a window, she watched Stephen and Robert gallop around in the meadow below the palace, striking with sticks at something on the ground. Ismael rode up to them and they played together. Ismael baffled her. She thought he was a hostage; he fawned on Richard like a woman. But he spoke to her and the boys with no deference at all, and he hated Roger and Rahman and did not care who knew it. She stood in the sunlight, one hand on the window frame, and watched the three riders turning and turning in the meadow, like an enchantment. Nothing obeyed her sense of order. If she knew it was not true, perhaps it would all disappear, and she would be safe in Castelmaria again. In her arms, Jilly stirred, and she sat down with the baby in her lap.

  She was in the room where she had first met Rahman. When she leaned sideways, she could see out the window to the new wall that Richard was building around the palace. The workmen climbed on the unfinished end, dragging stones up into place. They were sealing her in. A yellow butterfly swooped in the window and fluttered around the room, trying to light on the colors of the walls. The baby turned her head to watch it.

  Richard and Roger came into the room. While a slave went for wine, Roger came up and spoke to Maria. Richard called him and he went back across the room. Maria shifted away from them. They stood at the other window, looking out at the new wall.

  “Cut the ward in half,” Roger said. “Run a wall from this tower to that, and we will have a good crossfire on anyone who breaks in any gate.”

  Jilly was asleep. Maria put her against her shoulder and stroked the baby’s back. Richard made no sign he knew she was there. They talked about fortifications and she lost their line of thought. The slave brought wine. While they drank, Richard said, “I have finished the charter, do you want to hear it?”

  “You are mad,” Roger said. “If you let them keep their faith, they will revolt. They hate us. Maria, tell him he’s mad.”

  Maria ignored him. Robert and Stephen and Ismael were racing their horses in among the pine trees. Ismael’s white robes flashed over the green grass.

  “You said something about patrolling the Ridge Highway,” Roger said. “I can help you more in Iste than here. Let me go back home.”

  “After I’ve published my charter,” Richard said. They talked of horses, roads, supplies, and bad weather. Rahman came into the room. Maria stared out the window. The three men spoke together. Rahman’s crisp, accented voice put her on edge. Richard said something, and Roger laughed. In an oiled voice Rahman paid her husband some small flattery.

  Maria stood up. Down in the trees below her window, Ismael and Robert on foot attacked Stephen. The smaller boy got his back to a tree, drove them off, and ran toward his palfrey where it grazed in the meadow. Robert’s shriek of derision came faintly to her. Ismael held him back. Maria took the baby away to the room of the star ceiling.

  In the narrow antechamber, her three Saracen maids were sitting idle, all giggles, their veils dangling ready to cover their faces if a man appeared; they even veiled themselves before Robert. Eleanor sat alone in the enormous room beyond. Her lips moved in a low buzz of prayers. Maria put the baby in the cradle. She walked around the room, longing for some work to do. All her life she had always worked and now, here, there was nothing someone else could not do better, or would not want done differently than her way.

  “Maria,” Eleanor said, “I must talk to you.”

  Maria came over beside the cradle. Eleanor took her hand. Her cheeks were pale and dry as parchment, but her eyes were red as if she had been crying. She held Maria’s hand against her cheek.

  “I want to go back to Castelmaria. I don’t want to stay here. I feel as if the ground here is breaking up under my feet. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please let me go home.”

  Maria jerked her hand free. “But what about me? Are you going to leave me here alone? “

  Eleanor put her face in her hands and sobbed. Maria licked her lips. Through the corner of her eye, she caught a motion at the door; the three Saracen women were looking in, avid.

  “Go,” she said to Eleanor. “Go to Castelmaria.”

  Eleanor put her arms around Maria. “I know you feel as I do. Come with me. You don’t have to stay here.”

  Maria thrust her away. “I said you could leave. Let me alone. Where is my looking glass? I know I put it on that chest.”

  Taking a piece of linen from her sleeve, Eleanor wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Slowly her eyes wandered over the room. She got to her feet. “It’s here, somewhere. I saw it this morning. I’ll help you look.”

  The door was empty, the Saracen women gone. Maria opened the cupboard and searched through the combs, belts, and shoes on the bottom shelf. They went twice over the room, feeling behind the furniture and in all the chests and cupboard—Maria found a pin she had lost.

  “It isn’t here,” Eleanor said. “Maria, do you think—?”

  “I must have left it in the little hall.”

  Eleanor’s eyes squinted. Her mouth looked pinched at the corners. “I think someone stole it.”

  “No. I left it in the hall.” Her hands were trembling. “If you are going, pack your clothes—I will talk to Richard tonight about sending you home.”

  “Maria, don’t be angry with me.”

  “I’m not angry with you. It’s just that I left my looking glass in the hall. Go pack, Eleanor. Leave me alone.”

  “What a temper you are in of late.” Eleanor bustled out of the room. Maria sat down on the wide bed. If they could steal her looking glass they could take everything she had. She searched through the room again, knowing it was gone, and lay down across the bed and cried.

  ***

  Once a day, on Richard’s orders, a priest came from the city to instruct Robert and Stephen and the three or four Saracens who wanted to know Christ. For the first few days of this—Eleanor had left, there was nothing to do—Maria sat in the back of the little hall and listened to the catechism. The priest walked up and down along the windows, past Rahman’s chessmen, and the boys and Saracens sat on mats before him.

  “Who made me?” the priest asked, pacing.

  “God made me,” the class answered, in a chorus.

  “Why did God make me?”

  “God made me to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him, now and forever, on earth and in Heaven.”

  Maria stitched a rising sun on the shirt she was embroidering for Jilly. The priest went on through the lesson for the day, ten new questions and answers, and told them stories from the Gospels. The priest at home had taught her in the same way before she received Christ for the first time. Then she had thought the questions silly and obvious, but now they were like a kind of mail, all the little questions linked together with answers, proof against sin. She could pick out Robert’s voice; he learned everything quickly.

  On the fourth day, after they had recited all the questions and answers they had learned, Stephen asked, “Who made the Saracens?”

  Maria lifted her head. T
he priest wheeled. His black gown swung against his ankles. He clasped his hands behind his back.

  “God made the Saracens,” he said firmly. “But the Saracens have harkened to the Devil Mahmud and turned their backs on God.”

  Stephen said, “That isn’t what the Saracens say.”

  Robert pounced on him, knocked him down, and struck him in the face. “Renegade!”

  Stephen covered his head with his arms. The Saracens jumped up, excited. “Robert,” Maria cried. She threw down her work and rushed over to them. On his back like a beetle, Stephen kicked and clawed at his brother, who hit him again in the head. Maria pulled Robert away by the arm.

  “Do you disobey me?” She shook him. “Shall I tell your father you disobey me?”

  “Mother!” Robert gawked at her. He backed a step away from her. Stephen sat up on the carpet. “You heard what he said—” He kicked Stephen in the leg.

  “Stop,” Maria said. She lifted her eyes to the priest. “I heard what he said, but he isn’t—you must not—”

  The priest said, “My lady, I advise prayer for this fellow. Let him come back tomorrow, when he has asked God’s forgiveness.”

  Stephen cried, “I won’t—” Maria hoisted him to his feet and shoved him on before her out the door to the next room.

  “Stephen,” she said. She took him by the shoulders. “What are you doing? Why are you saying these things?” She knelt before him and hugged him tight. “Do you want to go to Hell?”

  “Mama,” Stephen said, “I was just asking—” His voice dribbled away. “Mama?” He threw his arms around her neck. “I’m sorry, Mama, I didn’t mean to.”

  Maria held him against her. In the hall behind them, the class recited, Robert’s voice the strongest. She wondered where Ismael was.

  “Stephen,” she said, “come with me.”

  He followed her to the room of the star ceiling. Two of her Saracen women were working there, chattering in their own tongue while they put away clean clothes. Maria wondered which had taken her looking glass. The baby slept in her cradle. Maria went to her clothes chest and got out her mother’s crucifix.

  “Here, Stephen.” She knelt before him and put the crucifix into his hands. “Take this. Look at it when you think of such questions.”

  “Rahman said—”

  Maria clenched her teeth. “So it’s Rahman. I should have known it. What is he telling you? Why do you listen to him?”

  “He just said to ask the priest something.” Stephen folded his hands around the crucifix; his thumb rubbed nervously over the little painted Christ.

  “So he tells you questions to ask? How is that different from asking the questions the priest tells you to ask? See how Christ hangs on the Cross, Stephen? Remember, every sin”—she thought with guilt of her own sins—“every sin is like hanging God on the Cross again.” She crossed herself; the thought of Walter Bris lay like a stone in her mind.

  “Rahman says Jesus was just a prophet, like Ibrahim, and not God at all.”

  A door slammed. The Saracen women burst into giggles and put up their veils. Maria called out to them to go. They darted out the door, and Richard came in. Behind him followed two slaves, who helped him get out of his mail and took it off to be oiled. He hung his sword in its scabbard on the wall. Maria went to get a fresh shirt.

  She said, holding the shirt out for him, “Rahman has been teaching heresy to Stephen.”

  “What?”

  Stephen stood like a wooden man in the middle of the room. Richard put his arms through the sleeves and Maria tugged the shirt down to his waist. His sun-streaked hair hung in his face. He gave her a sharp look and turned his eyes toward Stephen.

  “Come here.”

  Stephen said, “Will you hit me?”

  “Yes,” Richard said. “Come here anyway.” He shook down his sleeves. “This shirt doesn’t fit me. Why suddenly does every shirt I put on bind me across the back?”

  “It’s one of the new ones,” Maria said. “The Saracens made it.”

  Stephen came slowly toward them. Richard pulled the shirt off over his head and stuffed it into Maria’s hands. He smelled strongly of sweat; the thick brown hair clung damply to his chest. Stephen crept up to stand before him. Richard put his hands on his hips.

  “What heresy?”

  Stephen mumbled unintelligibly. Richard shoved Maria with his elbow. “Bring me a decent shirt.”

  Maria went to the cupboard. Behind her, Richard said, “I’m not going to hit you. I would have if you hadn’t come. What happened?”

  “I was just asking—Rahman said to ask Father Peter who made the Saracens. Rahman is teaching me how to play chess. He told me a lot of things I didn’t know.”

  Richard coughed. “Oh. I see. What’s that?”

  Maria brought him an old shirt she had made herself. Stephen was showing him the crucifix. “Mama says that every time I sin it’s like hanging God on the Cross.”

  Richard held his arms out, and Maria put him into the shirt. “Ah. Better. Don’t let anybody else make my shirts.” He drew up the laces on the front of the shirt. “Stephen, keep the crucifix. You can listen to Rahman if you want, but he knows no more than the priest, which is nothing, so don’t believe him. Run get me a belt.” He turned his back to Maria. “Scratch my back.”

  Maria raked her nails methodically up and down his back. “That isn’t what I wanted you to tell him.”

  Richard laughed. He moved his shoulder, and she scratched his shoulder blades. “What did you want?”

  “Tell him not to talk like that—Robert beat him, the priest will tell everyone we are heretics—”

  “Stephen,” Richard called. She lowered her hands, and he kissed her absentmindedly. The boy dashed up, Richard’s belt coiled in his hand. His brown hair stuck up on the crown of his head; his short straight nose was scratched. Richard sank down on his heels, eye-level with him.

  “Mark me. Say what people want to hear, and do as you please. No one will ever notice the difference.”

  Stephen blinked at him. “What?”

  “Rahman is a liar.” Richard pushed him away. “God is a Christian, Muhammed served the Devil. Go away.”

  “Say your prayers,” Maria called. Stephen went out the door with a skip. Richard was putting on his belt. “What did you say?”

  “The prime lesson. He’s too young to understand, you taught it to me. Rahman is a liar. He spies on you, did you know that?”

  “No.” She hunched her shoulders. “Tell him to stop.”

  “I don’t think he will. Rahman spies on everybody, he takes bribes, he lies, he bears false witness—”

  “Kill him.”

  “Oh, Maria. Another God hung. I need him, I can’t do much here without him, at least for now.”

  “What has he said about me?”

  “What have you done wrong lately?” He tapped her on the jaw. “He tells me so many lies I never believe him.”

  The door opened, and Robert ran in, Ismael right behind him. “Papa,” he cried. His clear blue eyes flew to Maria. “Mother, did you tell him?”

  “Yes. She told me. Do you remember what I said about bearing tales?”

  Robert jittered before him, his fists clenched. “But, Papa, this is important!”

  “If it’s important I can find it out for myself.” Richard smacked him. “Go tell the cook I want to eat.”

  Maria went over to the cupboard and got out the ill-fitting shirt. All the old shirts were woolen, too hot for Mana’a; the new shirts were made of fine camlet, soft and cool. She got out her scissors and clipped the threads that held the sleeve into the armhole.

  Rahman stood in the doorway. She watched him covertly, morose. She wondered if he had stolen her looking glass. If Richard found out she had not caught the thief, he would probably beat her. He hardly noticed her anymore, except to lie with her or punish her. He called to Rahman, calling the Saracen into her own room, as if he were not preying on Stephen and spying on her. Rahman was
stealing her son from her—Stephen would never listen to Richard. She let her hands fall idle in her lap, exhausted.

  ***

  Two days later, in a crowded ceremony in the middle ward of the palace, Richard had his charter read permitting the Saracens and the Jews to practice their errors. Besides Maria and Roger, Rahman witnessed the charter and several other Saracens and four Jews of varying ages in long black coats. Maria used the little Saracen ring Richard had given her in Iste to seal the charter. Afterward, the Saracens and the Jews surrounded Richard. Left to themselves, she and Roger walked away together out of the crowd.

  “Now I can go back to Iste,” Roger said. They went out through the unfinished wall to the garden. He tossed his seal ring up into the air and caught it. “I’ll be glad to get out of here, believe me.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Hunt. Gamble. I’ve got some claims along the border I can fight over.” He drew her arm through his and laced their fingers together. “Poor Maria. You look so downcast lately.”

  “Yes,” she said. She stopped; they stood facing each other in the middle of the garden. “I am not pretty anymore.”

  “You are always pretty. You’re much too fine for Richard.” His fingertips brushed her cheek. Bending down, he kissed her. She shut her eyes. His mouth moved hard over hers, his chin raspy with beard stubble. She leaned against him. Her heart began to pound. His hand slipped down over her hip.

  “Roger.” She pushed herself out of his arms. Her mouth was dry. All over her body her skin tingled vibrantly. “I think you’d better go back to Iste.”

  He smiled at her. “Come with me.”

  “Roger.” She eluded his reaching hand. “No.”

  “Are you afraid of him? I’ll take care of you.”

  She looked up the slope, toward the wall at the top of the garden, and the towers rising beyond it. Quickly she went back along the path. At the gap in the wall she glanced back over her shoulder. Roger was still standing there, watching her. She ran the rest of the way.

  Twenty-five

  See?” Stephen said, and held up the board to show her. “That says—Stephen.” He chalked the last mark. “Stephen.”