Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “No,” Maria said, in a brittle voice. “What is it you wish to talk to me about? Have I done something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all, my dear girl. Not at all.” He looked out the window again. “We are told you built this chapel, my lady, with your own hands.”

  “It was penance,” she said. “Many people worked here.”

  “It was the act of a devout daughter of Holy Church. My lady, Mother Church needs your help again. We need you against one whom we cannot withstand. Only you can rescue us.”

  Maria said, “I will, if I can.”

  “Lady, it is Richard of Marna.”

  Maria looked away.

  “He defies the customs of Mother Church. He and his men are trying to drive the priest of Birnia out of his church—an honest man, a good and willing servant of God.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Richard is an honest man too. It’s silly and dangerous that our churches should be guided from Santerois.”

  “Lady.” His long surcoat, covered with discreet dark embroidery, rustled around his feet. “God’s will be done. Is that not the bedrock of our faith? Your husband is even now in Birnia, doing the work of the Devil.”

  “In Birnia?” She stared at him, surprised: Richard was only a day’s ride from the shrine and he had not sent word to her.

  “Lady, if he continues in this course against the priest, the Archbishop will excommunicate him.”

  Maria turned away from him. The door opened, and a gust, of noise heralded the new-arrived pilgrims, dirty from their travels, their voices thick with some accent. Brother Paul herded them past her down to the far end of the room.

  “My lady, as one of the faithful you would be conjoined to have nothing to do with him. If he dies under the ban, his soul will be doomed to Hell.”

  “No,” Maria said. She knew Richard wouldn’t care if he were excommunicated. She stared at the rough log wall before her. Reaching out, she peeled a long shred of bark from it.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Intercede for us. He will not even hear our envoys. Tell him what will happen to him if he does not obey God.”

  She picked at the bark with her fingernail. “If I do—If I talk to him, you will not curse him.”

  “He must agree—”

  “No. I won’t talk to him at all if you hold such a treaty over me. I’ll do what I can, but you must swear to me that you won’t curse Richard.”

  Mauger smiled at her. There was a medal of Saint Anthony in his cap. He said gently, “Lady, this love ought to be for your Redeemer.”

  “I love God,” she said, and crossed herself. “Do you agree to my bargain?”

  “Yes. God will help you. I agree.” He bent over her hand. “I will pray for you, lady.”

  Maria knelt, and he blessed her. He went away. Eleanor came in with Jilly and made the child ready for bed. The Vespers bell began to ring. Maria sat on her bed and tried to sort out what the deacon had told her. The pilgrims rushed away to the chapel for prayers.

  “Maria, aren’t you coming?”

  “What?”

  “Why—Vespers is beginning, can’t you hear the bell?”

  Maria went to the door. “I have to go to Birnia. Keep care of Jilly for me. I will come back in a few days.”

  “To Birnia! Maria, are you mad?”

  Maria crossed the guesthouse yard. In a double file, the people of the village, the monks, and pilgrims were climbing the hill path to the chapel. Their voices rose in a chanted prayer. The fading light of the sun lay on the chapel’s gray stone, light pink, like blood in water. The evening wind blew down the hillside and cooled her cheeks. She went back for her cloak and walked across the village to the commons to catch her horse.

  ***

  She went alone, keeping the white mare to a comfortable trot. The sun sank. She rode into the east, toward the evening. The road stretched on before her, empty of other travelers, a pale dirt strip through the meadowlands around her. She began to hope that bandits might attack her, so that she would not have to go to Birnia.

  The moon rose. The road led her over low hills and into a wood. The mare’s hoofs in their even beat sounded loud as a drum. The trees closed around her. A bat dived before her, squeaking. The mare shied. In the wood, brush crackled.

  Weariness dragged at her. In the fringes of her vision, shapes moved and startled her, and she jumped out of a half-sleep. She knew she could go no farther. She dismounted, tied the mare to a tree, and slept wrapped in her cloak, facing east.

  She woke up with a foul taste in her mouth, blinded by the early sun through the trees. The mare was eating the green buds off a sapling. Maria mounted and rode on. At a well in the forest, a family of serfs gave her a loaf of bread and a cheese.

  She did not know what she would say to Richard when she reached Birnia. If she could not sway him, the Archbishop and the deacon Mauger would think she had broken her promise; they would damn him and probably her too. The road left the wood and followed along the southern bank of the river.

  All through the day, travelers passed by. Many were pilgrims. They followed her with their eyes, a woman riding alone. In a newly built village, she begged some milk and smoked meat for her dinner, and ate it sitting beside the road above the river, which curled calmly brown-breasted through the golden hay on either side. The peace in Birnia was Richard’s doing. She wished Mauger appreciated that. A while later it occurred to her that once her father and Richard had terrorized this highway, worse even than the Saracens.

  She prayed to God to help her. In a short spurt of resentment, she prayed that Mauger would suffer a suitable plague for getting her into this. She was close to Birnia now, and she put off riding on. Around the curve of the river, three or four boats appeared, netting fish.

  She stood to watch. The skeins bellied out behind them, like sails filled with the river. The boatmen rowed a dozen strokes to keep the boats abreast. The current took them slowly on past her, their voices like tones of music in the distance.

  The longer she waited, she knew, the harder it would be. Getting on her horse, she rode on at a short lope. The sun lowered in the sky. God would know she had kept her oath. She prayed for help, she prayed to know who was right and who was wrong.

  Before her, down the plain, the town of Birnia came into sight, a haze of smoke hanging above it. Even from here, she could make out a banner flying from the peak of the Tower, on the hill above the town. The figure was Richard’s white dragon. She did not want to go there. If he had wished her to come, he would have called for her.

  Her temper rose. He was going behind her back, and he deserved whatever he got. But she did not want to go up to the Tower, and eventually she turned the mare and rode into the town itself.

  She left her mare at the inn stable and walked back along the street. The sun had set and everyone had gone home for supper. She put up the hood of her cloak, though the day’s heat still lingered in the town. She wanted no one to recognize her.

  In the deepening twilight she reached the church and went inside. There was no one there. Two candles burned on the altar. As part of her service to the church, she provided its candles; she would have to rebuke the priest for wasting wax, lighting his candles before it was even dark. She went to the altar rail to pray.

  When she had said a Credo and confessed her sins, the side door opened and a young priest came in. He crossed the nave, genuflected before the crucifix, and calmly looked Maria over from the far side of the altar. Taking up a taper, he lit more candles, filling the little church with flickering orange light.

  Maria pretended to pray. Between her fingers she inspected the priest. He was her age, perhaps younger. The knobbed bones of his face showed as if the softer flesh were worn away. She sat back and caught his eye.

  Instantly he was beside her. “May I help you?”

  “Deacon Mauger sent me,” she said. “I am Maria of the Castle.”

  “I’m sorry. Mauger is my kinsman, but I don�
��t know you.”

  She said, “Dragon is my husband.”

  His smile vanished. He said, “If you came here to argue with me—”

  “No. Mauger said I’m supposed to help you.”

  “I don’t see how you can help me.” He walked across the church, his hands clasped. “He says if I do not leave of my own will, he will burn my church. They have denied me food, clothes, even sleep some nights, shouting at my window.”

  “I can talk to him.”

  “No one can talk to him. He is flesh, and corrupt, given over to corruption, his ears are stopped to Christ.”

  Maria crossed herself. The young priest’s vehemence made her uneasy. When he spoke he leaned eagerly forward; he would welcome a fight to prove his righteousness.

  “He has brought Saracens here, into this very church,” the priest said. “Men who worship the false prophet Mohammet have defiled God’s most holy place.”

  Maria walked away from him into the side aisle of the church. On the walls were painted scenes from the Passion. She went along until she found Jesus being lashed, where she knelt to pray that the priest might turn milder. His profligate use of candles fretted her—candles were always scarce.

  Hungry, she went to the inn and knocked on the back door. The ostler’s daughter let her in. While she brought her a dish of bread and beans, the widow said nothing beyond greetings, but Maria could see how the woman itched to ask questions.

  “Richard is here,” Maria said, eating.

  “Oh, yes. Every morning he comes down and threatens the priest.”

  “Is the priest holy? Do you like him?”

  The ostler’s daughter put her hands under her chin. “I like an older man, more settled.”

  “Does he preach well?”

  “He makes much talk of corruption and filthiness. I suppose he is a good preacher, he is pious enough, everybody remarks on it, and very learned—he talks of places and people no one has even heard of.” She lowered her voice. “He is adamant against the Saracens.”

  “Richard has Saracens with him here?”

  “Several of them. But he masters them, at least, no one has been murdered yet, although I know of some who are asking to be first.”

  Maria took a crust to wipe up the last of the juice. “I wish I knew what I should do.”

  “I think you should come sleep. I take it you are not staying at the Tower? I will give you my bed.”

  “No—I’ll wait in the church.”

  The ostler’s daughter took hold of her hand. “Don’t get between them, my pet. They are stone against stone, those two.”

  “I wish I were back in Mana’a,” Maria said, glumly.

  “Stay with me—where will you sleep in the church?”

  “On the floor.”

  Maria went back to the church and walked around looking at the pictures on the walls. In them all, Christ wore the same expression of thoughtful joy—while the Romans were whipping him, while he carried the Cross. When the priest came in again, she marked the same look on his face.

  “I’m told my husband comes here in the morning,” she said.

  “Yes—he has said I may not preach another sermon, he comes every morning to bar folk from the church.”

  The priest drew himself up proudly. She said, “What do you do, then?”

  “I offer the Mass.”

  “Alone?”

  “With my sacristan.” His face soured. “The people here are un-Godly, anyway—few heeded my words when they could hear them daily.”

  “Well,” she said, “tomorrow I will hear you.” She went into the back of the church. The priest lingered awhile. She spread her cloak on the floor and lay down on it. Finally she heard him walk away, and shutting her eyes, she waited uneasily for sleep to come.

  Thirty-one

  In the half-light before dawn, shouts woke her up. She sat, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Outside in the street a crowd was talking in a dozen excited voices. She heard her name spoken.

  She put her clothes in order and pushed her hair back with her hands. The bell overhead in the church tower began to toll.

  Dawn was just breaking. The air was fresh and cold. She opened the church door and went out onto the porch. In the square, ranged along the fence around the churchyard, a dozen people stood. They peered at her curiously. The smith Galga was among them, who had been Fulbert’s courier, a hoe over his shoulder.

  The sacristan came out to the churchyard, from ringing the bell. Just behind him walked the priest. They opened out the church doors and went inside. But the people did not follow them.

  Now those in the back of the crowd were leaned out to see down the street. Maria’s heart stuck in her throat. Ismael and four of his brothers galloped up to the gate, scattering the folk in the square, and dismounted.

  “Maria,” Ismael said. He skidded to a stop. “Oh, wrong.”

  With four more of the Majlas, Richard rode up to the gate. He put his hand on his horse’s withers, started to dismount, saw her, and settled back into his saddle. The look on his face cooled her temper.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, and went up to the gate. She ran her eyes over the townspeople. “Go in. The Mass is beginning.”

  No one moved. She swung the gate open. In the church, the priest’s voice began the singsong of the Introit.

  A townsman stepped forward. His foot crunched on the gravel of the street. Three others followed him toward the church.

  “No,” Richard said. “Ismael, get her out of here.”

  “Dirty pagan,” someone called in the crowd.

  Ismael’s teeth appeared against his scraggly black beard. “Emir,” he called, and spoke in Saracen.

  Richard dismounted. He scanned the crowd once. When he faced Maria again, she could read nothing in his expression. He said, “Let me talk to you.”

  “No.”

  “Come on.” He took her by the elbow and moved her across the churchyard. The crowd suddenly quieted. Richard pushed her along up the steps and through the church door.

  Just within the doors, he pulled her to one side, out of the crowd’s sight. The sacristan and the priest, in the midst of the service, stammered to a silence. Richard swung her around to face him.

  “Maria, I could kill you for this,” he said, and hit her.

  ***

  When she woke, she opened her eyes on the soot-encrusted ceiling of the good bedchamber in the Tower of Birnia. By the length of the shadows she knew it was afternoon. There was no one else in the room, and she sat up. Her jaw ached on either hinge. He had hit her once, square on the chin. She had no clothes on, there was no garment within reach to cover her. She sat for a while, listening for sounds on the stairs. At last, convinced there was no sentry outside the door, she got naked out of bed and hunted for her clothes.

  The cupboard next to the window was full of William’s clothes, and before she could look elsewhere, footsteps sounded on the stairs. She got back into bed. William came into the room. When he saw her awake, his expression changed.

  “Good evening, William.”

  “Eh, Maria.” He fingered his ear. “It’s all up now.” He brought a stool over and sat down beside the bed. “Richard packed the priest off to Agato, and the Archbishop is going to excommunicate us.”

  “No,” Maria said.

  “I met a deacon of his on the road—I and the wagon with the priest. The deacon took the wagon and gave me his oath they will unchurch us next Sabbath.”

  “Mauger,” she said.

  “That was his name.” He stood up, patting her knee under the covers. “I’ll go tell him you are awake.”

  “William. No.” She sat up, alarmed, the covers pulled up to her neck. “Give me my clothes first. William, please.”

  He shook his head. He was already on his way to the door. “No, Maria.” He pulled the door shut, but it didn’t latch. A moment later she heard him calling for Richard.

  She lay down, pulled the covers over her, and f
eigned sleep. The door swung idly on its hinges. Far off, a cow mooed. The room stank of dogs. She would always think of Birnia whenever she smelled dogs. The door creaked again, and he came quietly into the room. She breathed evenly, shallowly, as if she were asleep.

  “If you want your clothes back, you can sit up and look at me.”

  She sat up and looked at him, the bedclothes gathered around her. He was standing at the foot of the bed, his hands on the railing.

  “You damned stupid little cunt,” he said. His voice was raw. She stared at the blanket over her knees, unable to look at him; she knew she had betrayed him.

  “Your clothes are in that cupboard. I’ll have your horse saddled and in the ward tomorrow morning. I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t want to hear your voice ever again. Just leave me alone.”

  He went out of the room. The door sighed closed and halfway open again. Maria laid her cheek down on her knees. Through the narrow window, the late afternoon streamed soft pink. She prayed that he would come back. Every sound she heard drew her eyes to the door. Once it really opened, but it was only William, bringing her a dish of meat for supper.

  He was edgy as a deer, gnawing the inside of his mouth. He said, “He’s calling the priest back, or I’m leaving. It’s that simple.” His voice was louder than necessary. “I’m not staying here under the ban.”

  He went away again. She could not eat. She put out most of the candles and lay down to sleep. A dozen times, she dreamed that Richard came in the door. Before dawn, she put on her clothes.While she waited for the light to break, she walked up and down across the room, twisting her Saracen ring. When the sky paled, she pulled the ring off and put it on the table beside the bed.

  Her mare was saddled and hitched by the reins in the ward. The cook’s knaves were just bringing the bread out of the ovens. The crusty aroma followed her out the gate. The morning was bright and crisp. She rode back to the shrine as hard as she had ridden in the other direction.

  Brother Nicholas, sitting on a ladder, was painting a set of scales into his angel’s hand. He listened to her without speaking, his body smell harsh and smothering, and his brush moving rhythmically to the pot of glistening gold paint and back to the wall. Maria told him everything from the deacon’s first appearance at the shrine to the moment she left the Tower of Birnia.