Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “Ismael,” she said. She stroked the hair back over the balding crown of Richard’s head. “Wouldn’t he make a nice monk?”

  Ismael’s smile evaporated. Richard tilted his head back to look at her, upside down. She said, “You remind me of Brother Nicholas.”

  “Then I will stop washing.”

  She stood with her hands on his shoulders, glancing at the Germans on the porch. He rolled his head back comfortably against her breast. The Germans were staring. She felt the touch of their eyes on her, as if she were naked.

  “Do you like that kind of sleeve?”

  “I haven’t marked their sleeves. You’d never get a hat on me like that one though, with the feathers.”

  A rider cantered in the gate and slowed his horse to a walk. Maria said, “Well, you’ll have to wear some kind of hat now, you don’t want your head to get sunburned.” Ismael backed away. She marked he was limping. On the porch of the church, the Emperor’s man in his splendid hat advanced into the sunlight. The rider reined his horse toward Richard.

  “My lord Santerois’s greeting, my lord, we are going to start digging now.”

  Richard stood up, his back carefully to the Emperor’s man. Ismael put the flap of his headcloth across his face again, and his eyes flickered toward the church porch.

  “Ismael,” Maria said. “Stay with me.”

  He reached her in one giant bound. Richard put his head back and laughed. A groom was leading up his horse. Maria hooked her arm through Ismael’s.

  “Will you come for supper?” she said to Richard.

  “If we’re done.” He mounted and rode out of the square. Maria led Ismael back toward the house.

  “What happened to your leg? Has the tabib seen it?”

  Ismael shrugged one shoulder. “It is harmless.” He glanced at her quickly to see if that were the right word. “Harmless. Al-Tabib—” He gestured indefinitely. They went into the house, full of bustling servants.

  “Well, sit down.” She led him toward the table. There was only one chair. Going back to the door, she watched the Germans on the church porch confer. She swung the door closed. Ismael sat in her chair. Self-consciously he took off his headcloth. Maria went up beside him and sat on her heels.

  “What happened? Did Shai fall?” Shai was his chestnut mare.

  “Oh, no. Shai never fall.” He straightened up, indignant. “In high close place Shai always foot-foot.” He shrugged. “I fall. I go very long—” He stretched one arm out, leaning into a lance stroke. “I go very bold,” he said proudly.

  She laughed, delighted with him. She put one hand on his arm. Behind them, Louise in a ringing whisper said, “Well, she doesn’t have to have him in under the same roof with Christians.”

  Maria went cold to her heels. Ismael twisted his face away. Ashamed and humiliated, she could not make herself speak. Her hand still lay on his arm and she pressed her fingers against him. Lifting her head, she glanced over her shoulder at Louise, as usual talking, and the woman’s voice cut off short.

  “Bring me some water,” Maria said. “And clean linen.”

  The servants withdrew to other areas of the house. A man brought her a pitcher of water and a basin, and a pile of linen. She poured the water over Ismael’s hands so that he could wash.

  “Did you say the tabib looked at your leg?”

  “No hurt.” He dried his face in the linen. “It is harmless. Just much wickedness.” With his hand he indicated his entire leg. Bending close to her, he murmured, “Emir righten.” Sitting up, he smiled triumphantly at her.

  “Maria!” Louise shrieked, near the door.

  Maria got up. She crossed the room and opened the door again. Brilliantly dressed, their little palfreys shining like ladies’ dogs, the Emperor’s man and his party were riding sedately out of the town.

  “Ismael,” Maria cried. “Come with me.”

  With Ismael on her heels she ran across the square to the gate. The Emperor’s man and his little parade were just turning through the crossroads below the castle. Neat as their mounts, they trotted away to the north. Above them, on the hillside, the lines of men digging into the clay-colored earth stopped to watch.

  Maria turned and started back toward their house. Ismael walked beside her. “Emperor now is made emeny?”

  “Enemy,” she said. “Yes, of course.”

  He threw his arm around her shoulders. “I save you, Maria.”

  “Oh, Ismael.”

  In the mid-afternoon, Richard, Roger, and the young Duke stamped into the house, shouting to be fed supper. Maria’s servants helped her bring out the table. Richard told a filthy joke, and Roger laughed. The young Duke lowered his eyes.

  “Look at sweet innocence,” Roger said. He sauntered around the room, his eyes on the Duke. “What’s the matter, knave, can’t you find a girl to take it from you?”

  The young man’s gaze was pinned to the floor. He said, “My lady Maria—”

  Maria herded the servants out again. Ismael gave the young Duke a look warm with sympathy and quietly left. “Don’t worry, Bunny,” Richard said. “I was a virgin when I married, and it worked as if I’d practiced for years.”

  The Duke raised his head. At his expression Roger whooped, derisive. Maria took him the ewer of wine to fill his cup.

  “You are all in a fine humor,” he said.

  “They gave up.” Roger drank. His face screwed up with distaste and he put the cup on the table. “The wine is off—you can’t jounce wine around in wagons and serve it the next day, Maria, for God’s love.”

  “Who gave up? What do you mean? The castle? Here?”

  “They surrendered.” He shrugged. “When the Emperor’s man rode away, the garrison opened the gate to us.”

  Maria went across the room for the jug of cider. Richard was sitting on the bed, listening to the young Duke. While the young man talked, he stabbed his knee with his forefinger. Maria took the cider back to Roger. She said, “It’s a sign. You see God is with us.”

  Roger poured out the strong-smelling cider. His eyes shifted to look over her shoulder. “I think Richard wants your attention, sweet.”

  “Give me a drink of your cider.”

  Roger’s eyes narrowed. He lifted the cup to her lips. She drank, and he turned the cup around and drank from the same place. Their eyes met. He winked at her.

  Maria could not keep from laughing. She crossed the room toward the bed. “Roger says the wine is spoiled, do you want cider instead?”

  “Yes, I would—” the Duke said, and Richard said, “No.” He grabbed for her wrist. “Stay here.”

  Duke Henry went away to get himself cider. Taking Richard by the beard, Maria turned his face up toward hers. “Oh, I think bald men much finer than redheads.” He still gripped her wrist. She pulled his scabbed fingers free. “You are hurting me.”

  Richard stood up. “Roger, are you sure you want to get married?” Ill-tempered, he swatted her on the backside. She slid out of his reach. Her flank stung painfully even through the thick layers of her skirts.

  “Who but a wife would love you?”

  The Duke was staring at her as if she had turned into a toad. Richard’s chair had been put up to the table. He dragged it out and reversed it and sat down. He looked her over.

  “Roger. What price do you think she would bring me at the auctions in Africa?”

  Roger leaned against the wall, his face lively. “Strip her down, Richard, I’ll give you a bid.”

  “Not if you saw her, you wouldn’t.”

  Maria started toward him. He got up and dodged behind his chair, brushing by the Duke. “She kicks, too,” he told the young man. “Someday I’m going to take an awl and sew a red ribbon on her tail.”

  She sat down in his chair. “My lord,” she said to Duke Henry, “you have witnessed him misusing me.”

  The young man frowned. His face was priestly with disapproval. “A galled horse bucks, doesn’t he?”

  Roger roared with laughter. Rich
ard shoved a cup of cider into Maria’s face, and she took it. “So does a galled mare,” she said. Richard stood over her, his feet wide apart. She got up face to face with him, pushing her swollen body out between them.

  “Do you want your stall back, my lord?”

  Richard lowered himself into the chair. Taking hold of her clothes he pulled her hand over hand into his lap. “Pax.” The servants had come to serve the food. Aromas of meat reached her. Maria put her arm around Richard’s shoulders.

  “What will the Emperor do to us?”

  Richard looked sharply at her. “The Emperor’s beyond the Alps.” He stroked her gown over her belly. “This will be sitting up before he even remembers us.” His arm went around her waist. She put her hand on his hair, unsure.

  Thirty-six

  A hot, fierce wind blew in gusts across the plain. The white mare capered from hoof to hoof. On the castle above the town, a new banner flew from the peak of the gate: Duke Henry’s banner. The young Duke was receiving the sworn oaths of the garrison in the village square before her.

  Richard and Roger had already gone on. Borso’s men-at-arms were staying in the castle as the Duke’s garrison. The hot wind blasted in a sudden burst through the square, rattling shutters and carrying off people’s hats. The white mare bounded sideways, snorting. On the far side of the square, Robert looked around toward her.

  The homage taken, the Duke mounted his horse, and they rode out of the town to the high road, where the wagons were already lined up waiting for them. Maria went to the head of the wagons, to see her serving women. One musician was there, playing for them on his horn, and she stayed to listen to him. The Duke set his few dozen knights around them in a broken column. He and Robert rode along in front of the train.

  Maria cantered up to them. The road swerved to travel east along the lower bank of the river—the same river that ran through Birnia, a passage of dark slow water between banks like bluffs. Here, a kind of beach lay below the southern bank, littered with rocks and dead branches graying in the sun. She swung her horse up beside Robert’s.

  “This is fat land.” She waved to the broad fields and the river.

  The Duke favored her with a cold stare. “Lady.” Spurring his horse, he rode back along the column.

  Maria turned to look after him. Her throat and ears burned. “Brat,” she said, under her breath.

  “Have you been fighting with Papa?” Robert asked.

  “Is that what he thinks? Tell him that’s how we make love.”

  Robert smiled at her, merry as a deer. “I told him when Papa roars, he’s happy. Did you hear how I rescued that knight?”

  “Yes. I understand you had to be rescued yourself immediately thereafter.”

  “Mama.”

  The knights behind them were singing. Robert joined in the chorus. Maria resisted the leaden mood pressing on the edge of her mind. Before them the plain swelled full as a breast along the river. She unclasped her cloak and laid it down in front of her on her saddle. The turned earth of the fields smelled moist and rich.

  “Robert,” she said. Several riders had come into sight on the road ahead of her. “Call Bunny.”

  Robert wheeled forward in his saddle. The four knights directly in front of them were closing ranks. One shouted an order. Maria reined in, and the whole column stopped. The Duke galloped up through the heavy plowed ground toward the head of the column.

  On the curved road in the distance, the dozen strangers stopped in a clump. Half a league separated them from her. She could make out only that they were mailed knights. The high wind took away their shout. The white mare edged toward Robert’s horse, laying her ears back. Far ahead of them, two of the horsemen broke away from the others and cantered along the road toward the Duke, waiting alone in front of his power. Overhead the strangers bore a white banner.

  “Come on.” Maria clicked her tongue. The mare trotted up through the ranks of knights. Robert trailed her. They reached the Duke’s side. She glanced at him, and he turned the back of his shorn head to her.

  Robert came up between them. “Who are they?”

  The young Duke said names. “Theobald’s friends. Their castle is much south of here. Richard must have taken it.” Maria watched him through the corner of her eye. He scratched nervously at his chin, watching the strangers before him.

  Under their white flag, the two rebels reined their horses down and within a few lengths of the Duke stopped together. The younger called, “My lord, I pray you, give us an ear. We wish you only peace.”

  Maria said, under her breath, “Make them come on foot.”

  Beyond Robert, the Duke spurred his horse two steps ahead of her. “Keep out of this.” He raised his arm, and the knights behind them ranged up closer to them. In a ringing voice, he called, “What do you want?”

  The two started to ride forward. The young Duke said, “Get off your horses.”

  Robert threw Maria a quick smile. The two rebels dismounted and walked toward the Duke. The massed knights behind Maria gave up a quiet, contemptuous murmur.

  “My lord,” the rebel said, “we have come to save our honor in your cause. If you will give us leave to follow you, we shall prove that Saracens are no more valiant than your own barons.”

  Maria covered her smile with her hand. Ismael would have to hear of that. The Duke answered at once, offering terms harsh as winter. He took their oaths of loyalty, making them kneel down in the muddy road, and they mounted and joined the column when it moved on.

  The two rebels and their followers had collected in the ranks just behind Maria. She heard the younger one say, “Look. I told you he brought his harem.”

  “Sssh—what if she speaks French?”

  A harsher voice said, “Take your stable tongues off Dragon’s wife.”

  The two Santerois men blurted out some hot words. Maria turned, and the men stilled.

  Robert went off with the young Duke. Left alone, she thought against her will of the three soldiers she had hanged. She was glad that she had not watched. She was glad she did not remember their faces. Grimly she prayed for them the rest of the afternoon, until at sundown another of the rebels appeared on the road ahead of them and asked to be forgiven.

  While the Duke was listening to the man’s speeches, a white river of Saracens galloped up from the south. The knights around Maria, Richard’s men, did not even look to mark it, but the rebels gaped, and the man speaking to the Duke lost his voice. Richard brought his big black horse smoothly to a stop before Maria.

  “What is this?”

  “Rebels,” she said. “Changing sides. I don’t understand it.”

  The Saracens rushed up around them like surf. She called to Ismael, in their midst. The young Duke mounted his horse.

  “Marna!” He raised his fist in a greeting.

  “Bunny, where are you camping?” Richard shouted.

  The young Duke waved his arm down the road. He and Richard exchanged information at the tops of their lungs. On foot between them, the stout, graying man who had just surrendered looked aghast. The Duke galloped off and the Saracens, at Richard’s shout, raced after him.

  Maria turned to follow. Darkness was coming. The wind had died suddenly. In the west the sky was dark red. When Richard came up on her right, she said, “Why are all these men deserting Theobald?”

  He shrugged. “Either they don’t trust the Emperor, or they don’t trust Theobald. Probably both.” He reached out his hand to her. “Come on.”

  He wheeled his horse and urged it into a lope. Maria cantered after him. They crossed the road into a fallow field and rode down the dark meadows toward the river. Behind them a voice called helplessly to them to stop.

  The stars were pricking through the sky. Now the wind rose again. She felt it fresh against her cheek. The soft ground pitched away under them. They let their horses find their footing down the riverbank to the crisp sand along the water’s edge. The river ran muttering in the darkness, smelling like moss.
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br />   “Bunny thinks you are a shrew,” Richard said. He rubbed his face on his cloak. Their horses lowered their muzzles to sniff the stony sand. Richard dismounted. Maria slid down into his arms. She kissed him.

  Their arms around one another, they walked to the shelter of the riverbank. Maria said, “Well, it’s not Bunny I’m sitting on the cold ground with.” They sat down side by side. The sand was still warm from the sun. “I don’t think he likes that name.”

  “Yes, it’s too bad, isn’t it?”

  She laughed. Their horses dragged their trailing reins down to the river to drink. She slipped her fingers under the wide cuff of his hauberk and stroked the inside of his elbow through his sleeve. For a moment neither of them spoke.

  “What are you thinking about?” he said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “You have that slack-jawed look you get when you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not going to tell you if you insult me.”

  “You were praying.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  In the meadows beyond the river, an owl gave a low hunting call. Richard was watching her intently. “What do you think of when you pray?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think of God? What does God look like, do you think? Like a man?”

  Somewhere down toward the road, a voice was shouting for him. Maria moved her hand up his arm, inside the full heavy sleeve of his mail. “I used to think God probably looked like my father.”

  “Your father.” He moved toward her suddenly. The sand ground under him. “You are the only good your father ever did.”

  “Emir,” Ismael shouted, closer than before.

  “He told me something once—after you killed Odo. He said, I am a stupid old man out against a clever young one, who I have faith will be a stupid old man himself someday.”

  Richard snorted. “Not as stupid as he was.”

  Something huge sailed over her head and landed in front of them on the beach. She shrank down against the ground. It was Ismael, on his horse. Richard stood up. Before he could speak, Ismael, in a spray of sand, jumped his horse back up the bank again and was gone.