Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “God’s blood,” she said. “If Richard were here, he would hang these men, and you as well, if you argued with him.” She stared at Borso. The toothmarks on the woman’s breast returned to her mind. “Yes,” she said. “Hang them.”

  A wordless sound exploded from the young knight. She cast a hard stare at him. She did not look at the three young men-at-arms. Before her, Borso’s face slumped. His mouth tightened, lipless, and he did not meet her eyes.

  “Get a rope,” he said.

  The three young men gasped. Maria said, “See that they talk to a priest first.”

  She stood under the tree, while Borso and the young knight waited beside the three prisoners and the other men went for rope and a monk. Her legs hurt but she did not move or sit down. Almost at once the other men-at-arms began to collect in the village to watch. When the rope came, the place was packed. No one spoke. Borso tied the knot, the priest shrived the three men, and one by one Borso hanged them. Maria stood there through it all, but she did not watch, she kept her eyes on the ground, for fear of marking the baby.

  The men-at-arms filed away in a sudden babble of comment. One or two laughed, exulting in the sight of death. Borso came up before her and saluted her. “My lady, I will put sentries around, it will not happen again.”

  Maria lifted her head. “You are mad,” she said, and went off behind the tree and was sick.

  ***

  Richard did not come that night, or send a messenger. In the morning she felt as if she had not slept at all. The day was just breaking. The chill and the dense patches of fog that shrouded the plain drove her almost to weeping. When the oxen were hitched up and the march began, she stayed in the wagon with the other women, eating sweet bread.

  “Maria,” Louise said. “What happened in the village? We heard people shouting down there.”

  “Some of the men got after a woman.”

  A servant ran up beside the wagon, a platter in his hands, and laid it down at her feet in the wagon bed. “My lady. To break your fast.” He stopped to bow and flourish, and the wagon carried her away from him.

  Louise whipped aside the cover on the platter. A hot steam rose into Maria’s face. The roasted hare crouched on the plate before her turned her stomach.

  “Isn’t that good of him,” Louise said. She reached out for a bite of the crisp skin. “These people care a great deal for you, Maria.”

  She mumbled something. She turned her eyes away. The wagon jolted out of a rut and back in again. Catherine said, “Don’t you feel well?” She clutched Maria by the sleeve. “Look!”

  Maria started up, cold. Through the mist that covered the plain, a widespread rank of horsemen was riding. She stood up. Her knees wobbled. The drover called to his oxen and stopped the wagon.

  “It’s Richard,” she said. Her heart lightened. Robert came just behind him. The other knights veered away toward the back of the wagon train, where the spare horses were led.

  Richard reined in beside Maria’s wagon and swung down from his horse. His nose was red and peeling from the sun, and his hands were battered. He ignored the fluttering of the other women. Leaning over the side of the wagon, he grabbed the hare in both hands and tore off pieces and stuffed them into his mouth. High-spirited, Robert shouted to Maria.

  She sat down in the wagon again, one arm along the side. Chewing steadily, Richard gave her a greasy kiss. “You look like Mother Hell. What’s wrong?”

  A groom jogged up two fresh horses toward them. Robert yanked his saddle girths loose. Maria said, “Some of the foot-soldiers tried to rape a woman in the village where we camped last night.” She gestured toward it, just out of sight to the south. “I hanged them.”

  “You.” He spat out something unchewable. “Where was Borso?”

  “Borso was there. I nearly hanged him too.” She touched his shoulder. The heavy mail was wet with dew. Beyond, the groom was changing his saddle to a fresh horse. She felt suddenly much better.

  “Are you fighting?”

  He shot an evil look at her. “No. I’m going to church.”

  Maria laughed. He drank her cider and Louise’s and Catherine’s. His fingers were swollen and stained with blood. The other women watched him owlishly. His pike across his shoulder, Borso was coming toward them at a lope.

  “Papa,” Robert called. He vaulted up into his saddle and reined his horse around into a half-rear. His skin was red with excitement. Maria waved to him.

  “Have you seen Roger?” Richard asked.

  “No. Ismael crossed the road yesterday. Where are you fighting?”

  “Aw, Jesus. All the way from here down to the river and halfway to Birnia, and I’ve ridden every God-damned foot of it myself.”

  “Papa,” Robert shouted. “Come on.”

  Maria took hold of Richard’s beard and pulled his face down toward her. “Be careful.”

  “Papa!”

  “I’m coming.” Richard stepped back. “Roger should be somewhere around here—if you meet him send him up ahead.” He turned to his horse. The groom was fastening the breastplate to the saddle, and Richard gathered up the reins. The horse pinned back its ears. It scuttled away from him, and he kicked it in the belly and swore at it until it stood still for him to mount. Borso trotted up to him, taking off his hat.

  Richard waved in her direction. “Do as she says.” He turned his horse. The sun was burning off the mist. The plain rolled beneath it, brown and green. Robert, wheeling to follow his father, called good-bye to her, but Richard only galloped away across the road toward the east. His men streamed after him, single file.

  Catherine leaned on the wagon seat, her eyes dreaming after them. Louise picked up the wreckage of the hare. “That son of yours is a handsome one, Maria.”

  Maria stood up and beckoned to a groom. The women went on with their breakfast, talking about their fathers and husbands and brothers. Catherine wept quietly. The voices of the women fell to whispers. Maria tipped her ears to listen.

  “He’s a piece of a man.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being alone in a soft place with him, mark you.”

  “Just the same,” Louise whispered, “he has a foul temper, and I don’t know why she puts up with it.”

  Maria glanced at them, and quickly they made themselves busy with their food, so she knew they meant Richard. She sat down again, amused. Louise gave her another cup of the cider. The sun was butting through the clouds. After the miserable dawn the day was turning bright and warm. Her mare trotted toward her after the groom, and she climbed across the side of the wagon into her saddle.

  Thirty-five

  In the middle of the following day, the road led to a castle on a treeless bluff to the left of the road. Beyond, she saw the first distant glitter of the river. At the foot of the steep hill lay a town of some twenty or twenty-five buildings, ringed by a stone wall. Orchards of leafless trees covered the flat ground just beyond. On either side of the town were barren fields.

  Borso stopped the men-at-arms and loped back toward the wagons for his orders. Maria reined in the white mare. On the slopes of the hill, below the castle, there seemed to be a camp, and men crawled over the steep rocky ground below the castle’s curtain wall. Much of the hillside had been burned off.

  “Whose camp is that?” she said to Borso. “Wait.” Three horsemen were riding across the hillside toward her. Duke Henry led them. She settled down into her saddle again.

  The young man rode up to her, the hood of his black mail shirt thrown back, and his dark face vivid. “I’ll take these men,” he said. “You can shelter in the town. I need supplies, these people have destroyed everything. Where is Richard?”

  “I don’t know—yesterday morning he was going east. I—”

  “There is a messenger here from the Emperor.”

  “The Emperor!”

  “He will talk only to Richard.”

  The corners of her mouth twitched. Few people called Richard by his given name. She said, “Well, then, it won’
t hurt to let him wait. Where is he now?”

  “In the town. In the church. I made him leave the best house for you. He wouldn’t talk to me.” Reining his horse around, he drove the men-at-arms off ahead of him up the steep path toward the castle. Halfway to the siege line, the men-at-arms broke into a trot under his harrying voice. Maria sent the supply wagons after him and rode into the town.

  The wide, treeless square was crowded with palfreys, gorgeously harnessed, and grooms and baggage and the low courtly flutter of voices. Maria’s servants went on before her, to locate the best house and make it ready. She let her mare amble through the square toward the church. A group of men lounged there, dressed in coats sleeved in the German style, fitted from wrist to elbow. Coarse shredded gold detailed the cuffs of their surcoats. Their hats sprouted feathers. She stared at them, awed: to her, every Emperor was Charlemagne.

  They had seen her. They leaned toward one another, and a graying man in a short spade beard motioned to a page to bring her. Maria rode quickly off.

  The house the Duke had kept for her was two large pleasant rooms of whitewashed stone, on another side of the square from the church. Maria gave a groom her reins and he led her mare away. The wagon rolled up before the door of the house. Louise spoke with authority about what it meant to have three feathers in one’s hat in Germany.

  The little page ran up to them. “Madame,” he cried, in a piping foreign voice. “Madame.” His hair was white as an old man’s. Maria pushed at him with her hands.

  “Go tell your master if he will not talk to Duke Henry, I will not talk to him.” She turned her back on him and helped Catherine down out of the wagon.

  Her servants briskly unloaded the wagon of its goods. Maria went into the house to show them where to put everything. When she came out again, the little page was waiting for her. Behind him, in the square, was the man with the spade beard.

  “Madame—”

  A dozen Saracens trotted into the square. Their filthy white robes were splattered with blood. Maria shoved the page off. She went toward the Saracens, looking for Ismael. Ten feet from the German in his feathered hat, she stopped, and they exchanged a look. The man smiled smoothly at her, at his ease.

  Richard and the young Duke rode past the Saracens into the square. Maria met them. A groom jogged out to take the horses. Richard dismounted.

  “You look tired,” she said. “You’d better come inside.”

  “Tired.” He jammed his hands under his swordbelt. “I could sleep on a meat hook.”

  The young Duke drew up his horse behind him. “My lord Friedrich,” he called. “This man is the lord of Marna.”

  The German advanced. His skin was fine and pink, as if he never worked. He fixed his eyes on Richard. “Richard of Marna,” he said, “I bring you the greetings and requirements of your Emperor.”

  “If the Emperor wants to talk to me,” Richard said, “and require things of me, let him come tell me himself.”

  The German spread his mouth in a humorless smile. “The Emperor is your overlord, God’s minister on earth. I should not have to remind you, Richard d’Alene, that his will is the will of Christ, and as a Christian knight you owe him obedience, wherever he or you might be.”

  Maria took Richard’s helmet from him. For a moment he did not move, his eyes on the German smoky with fatigue and bad temper. Abruptly he flung his arm out toward his Saracens.

  “Do you see those men, Friedrich? To them, there is no Emperor.” He went off toward the house. Maria smiled at the astonished look on the face of the Emperor’s man. She raised her eyes to Duke Henry.

  “Come in, my lord, and dine with us.”

  Duke Henry grunted; he was watching Friedrich. The German stood a moment longer. Maria thought he would speak. But he swung around and marched stiffly toward the church. She went inside.

  While she helped lay out the dishes on the table, the Duke sat absorbed across from Richard, who was explaining something about castle gates. The two men plunged into the supper. For a space there was no sound but their steady chewing. Maria brought a stool over to Richard’s chair and sat down. He moved his cup over in front of her so that she could drink.

  “I’m beginning to think Roger is lost,” Richard said abruptly.

  “Nobody can get lost in Santerois,” the Duke said.

  “You don’t know my brother.”

  “He’s a great knight.”

  “He can take any three men in Italy. My son will be like that.”

  “Where is Robert?” Maria asked.

  “East of here.” He put the honey pot down in front of her. “I hope he’s finally decided to sleep. Did Borso’s men give you any more trouble?”

  Maria shook her head. She picked among the bits of meat on his plate for the choice morsels.

  “Those footsoldiers are good men,” the Duke said. “They listen sharp to their commander, too.”

  Richard grunted. “Maria’s been hanging the ones that don’t all along the road from here to Marna.”

  “Richard,” she said.

  The young Duke fingered his empty cup. A servant came up behind him to take it. The young man said, “Why did you—?” and whirling, leaped up, his arms flying up to shield himself and to strike.

  The servant cringed away. The Duke cried, “Don’t do that!” He sat down again. His face was suddenly pale and much younger.

  The servant crouched moveless behind his chair. Maria signed to him to take the cup away to be filled.

  “I’ll teach my household to be more clumsy, my lord,” she said.

  Richard leaned one elbow on the table, pushing his plate over in front of her. “Eat, Maria, why are you starving yourself?”

  Maria kicked him in the shin. She finished his meat and bread. The servant approached them cautiously, his footsteps loud on the plank floor, and set the cup down before the young Duke. He picked his teeth, his eyes on Richard’s face.

  Richard said, “I didn’t think Theobald knew how to tell the truth, but by God, he did.”

  “Theobald.” The Duke straightened. His dark face smoothed out, expressionless. “What truth did he tell you?”

  “Last summer, when he was peddling his conspiracy to me, he gave me to think the Emperor was in it. He offered to make me Duke of Marna.”

  Maria spread honey on the last piece of bread. The Duke lifted his hand like a veil across his face. “You knew about the plot against me.”

  “Well, most of it.”

  They stared at each other. Maria put the bread and honey in her mouth. The young man shook his head. His hand dropped to the table again.

  “You are a cold bastard, Richard. Why did you talk to the Emperor’s man that way? He is still the Emperor, even if he is against us.”

  Richard laughed. He rubbed his eyes. “Go on, finish eating and get out of here, I’m sleepy. Are you going to start sapping under the wall tomorrow?”

  The Duke was piling his hands full of bread and sweet cakes. “From that ditch. I’ll send for you when we start.”

  Maria followed him to the door. Both his hands were loaded with bread; he needed help with the latch. When she turned back into the room, Richard had cradled his head in his arms and gone to sleep. She stood beside his chair. Sleep softened his face; he looked almost handsome. The servants quietly removed the supper dishes and padded away into the back room. The door closed. “Richard.”

  He stirred. Waking, his face hardened and aged. “Richard. Come to bed.”

  ***

  In the night there was a knock on the door. Maria climbed out of the bed, put her cloak over her nightgown, and went to answer. It was Roger, his hair black in the moonlight.

  “Where is Richard?” He tried to push past her, and she blocked his way. “Maria.” He reached for her with both hands. She fended him off, and when he moved toward the door again pulled it closed.

  “Roger, don’t wake him up just because you aren’t sleepy. Where have you been? No one has seen you for days.”

/>   He lounged up against the wall of the house. “Oh, I had my own war for a while, down south. What’s this about the Emperor?” He took her by the wrist. “Such soft skin.” He started to kiss the inside of her wrist and she pulled her hand away.

  “Roger.”

  He laughed at her, reaching for her hand again. She gave a quick glance around the darkened town square. On the roof gables the sentries all looked asleep. He squeezed her hand.

  “Tell me about the Emperor.”

  “Oh. There is a man here from the Emperor, to tell us not to support Duke Henry, I suppose, but Richard won’t talk to him.”

  “Oh.” Roger smiled. “Does the German know what he’s missing?

  “I’m worried. It seems like not talking to God.”

  “I don’t think Richard does much of that either. Here. Don’t worry.” He kissed her hair. “None of the talk makes any difference. Robert’s with me. Go inside, you are cold.” Smiling, he touched her face and strode to his horse.

  ***

  “Maria!”

  Maria ignored her. Louise had been leading the servants in a general wail all morning, and no one was doing any work. Standing at the far end of the bed from Catherine, Maria straightened the bedcovers and tucked down the corners. From the other room came the delicious odors of the dinner cooking.

  “Maria!”

  She went up to the tight knot of people and made them give way, so that she could reach the threshold. Ismael had come during the night. His headcloth across his face, he squatted beside Richard’s chair, out in front of the house, while the man in the gray spade beard paced up and down the church porch. Louise clutched Maria’s sleeve with both hands.

  “He won’t even listen to them,” Louise said, her voice a strident whisper even Richard must have heard. “He can’t do that to the Emperor—”

  Maria freed herself from the maid’s grip. “Go find something quieter to do. All of you, go on, if you can’t busy yourselves, I’ll find work for you.”

  The women scattered across the house. Maria walked out into the sunlight. Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, but she did not bother to tug them down again. Coming up behind Richard, she laid her hands on his shoulders. Pulling down his head-cloth, Ismael smiled at her.