Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  Maria went past him to Anne and slapped her as hard as she could swing her arm. Anne reeled. Maria’s palm stung pleasantly.

  “Michael.”

  The three knights came down to her and led Anne away. Robert stood staring at the ground. His ears were red as the trumpet flowers. Maria said, “Have you already forgotten Ismael?”

  “She had nothing to do with Ismael. Mama—” He caught her hand. “It isn’t right, what Papa is doing—it isn’t fair, or Christian; no one even knows if Uncle Roger is still alive.”

  Maria freed her hand from his grip.

  “It isn’t right, Mother.”

  “Is that what she wanted—to know how Roger does? I don’t believe it.”

  “Have you seen him? Where is Papa keeping him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His thin face was bright as if some fever heated him. She touched his arm. “I won’t tell him about this. Robert, please, don’t let him know you’ve done this. Please.”

  “What are you going to do to Anne?”

  “Now, you see?” She went up toward the palace, away from him. “How can I tell you anything anymore?” She went between the banks of flowers to the door. Her Saracen maid was waiting on the step. Together they went into the palace.

  ***

  Maria had asked William to build a wooden stall into the sanctuary of the cathedral, opposite the pulpit, so that she and Richard could celebrate Mass without being stared at. She slid into the far side of the wooden seat, behind the carved screen. Jordan followed her with an armful of cushions. Leaning forward, she looked out across the cathedral slowly filling up with people.

  “Was this your idea?” Richard came in through the door from the vestibule. “Now I’ll have to think of some other excuse not to come to Mass.” He put his hand against her cheek.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Candles lit the altar as bright as afternoon.

  Angels and figures of saints covered the walls. The curve of the ceiling made them seem to bow toward the crucifix.

  Richard sat down beside her. “It’s a feast of fools.” He shifted his weight on the hard wooden seat, and Jordan brought him a cushion. Richard settled himself, fussy as a broody hen. A tall monk went about the altar lighting the rest of the candles. Jordan climbed up on the seat to peep through the screen at the congregation.

  “Bear it now,” Richard said. He poked her belly. “I’ll call him Jesus.”

  Maria pushed his hand away. “I know you don’t blaspheme the Saracens’ God.” She pushed his hand away again. “Richard!”

  “Why not? It’s as good as a bed in here—no one would see us. Jordan, go away.”

  Jordan jumped down to the floor. Maria grabbed the tail of his coat. “God’s love, Jordan. Stay here.” She made the child sit down beside her, between her and Richard. Her stomach hurt. She had fasted all day, to make ready for the Body of Christ; the urge to eat was worse than an itch.

  “I’m so hungry.”

  “Jordan.” Richard shoved the little boy. “I’ll give you a ricardus to leave us alone and stand watch outside.”

  The door from the vestibule opened into the stall. Robert came through it. His coat was black; Maria had embroidered blue flowers all over the sleeves. “Papa,” he said, “I have something to ask you.”

  “What?”

  “I want to see Uncle Roger.”

  Maria put her arm around Jordan’s shoulders. The little boy leaned against her. Richard frowned up at his son.

  “No.”

  “Papa, I fought for you. Doesn’t that—?”

  Richard said, “Do you think I’m a merchant—you pay me with one thing and get something else? What do you take me for?”

  Robert glanced at Maria. Her heart was beating fast. She nodded her head at the door. “Leave us alone,” she said.

  The young man went out the door, and she shut it. “Jordan, go sit over there.”

  The page moved across the stall to the other bench. He watched them curiously. Richard looked down at his hands. The altar bells rang. Maria leaned forward and opened the screen halfway. In the front of the church, on the right, her household stood behind a row of standards, Stephen and Jilly among them. Stephen smiled at her. From the rear of the cathedral came the chant of the monks. A procession of candles came up through the darkness and the masses of folk gathered to celebrate the first Christmas Mass.

  The monks sang their ancient prayers. The odor of incense peppered the air. The procession paced slowly toward her, the monks by twos, each with his tall white candle. The deliberate cadences soothed her. Her heart seemed to slow down to its quiet beat.

  “What was that about?” Richard said. “That just now, with Robert.”

  “Anne. I’ve sent her to the Black Tower—Welf will be proof against her. Look at William.”

  Led by a monk with his gonfalon, William marched in the middle of the procession, his hands clasped before him. Even in the new pallium and his tonsure, he looked more like a Norman knight than an Archbishop. The monks circled the nave once and lined up facing the altar, and the Mass began.

  William read from Saint Matthew’s Gospel. Maria beckoned to Jordan, and when he came to her put her arm around him. “Here comes the trope. Watch.” She glanced at Richard.

  The choir sang an Alleluia. Three monks with shepherds’ crooks paced across the apron of the altar, singing with their brothers. They had contrived it so that they turned their backs neither on Richard nor the congregation. Their faces shone with excitement. Striking the last note of the chant, the choir held it effortlessly, clear as a bell tone.

  Suddenly, above the far side of the altar, a monk with a candle appeared from behind a drapery. He seemed poised in mid-air against the black curtain. The candle shone around his head and shoulders like a globe of hazy light. The congregation gasped, delighted.

  “Aunt,” Jordan cried. “Look!”

  Maria sighed. She could just make out the scaffolding the angel stood on, draped in black velvet. The angel sang a question in Latin.

  “What is he saying?” Jordan whispered.

  “Whom are you searching for? he asks them.”

  The three shepherds chanted in answer, their strong voices jubilant. Maria lost track of the Latin. Jordan rose. His face was rapt.

  The angel sang that Christ was born. The choir burst into the Gloria. Quietly, the angel blew out his candle and backed out of sight again behind the drape. The shepherds laid down their staffs to one side of the pulpit. Many people among the congregation were singing as well. Maria crossed herself. It had gone perfectly. William was smiling in the pulpit. She glanced at Richard.

  His face was hagridden. He sat hunched over, his eyes on the floor. Maria put her hand on Jordan’s arm.

  “Go wait outside.”

  “But—Aunt—”

  “It’s over, you will miss nothing.”

  The child left. Richard turned his face away from her. He said, “You might as well pick up a knife and slash yourself as love somebody.”

  Maria said nothing. She touched his arm, and he took hold of her hand. He turned toward her, his eyes glistening bright.

  “What have I given you, ever? A ring, when we married, and another ring later—”

  “Two horses and a looking glass. You don’t shower me with presents.”

  He held her hand tight. “I’m giving you something. I am giving you Roger. You can do what you want with him.”

  Maria started. She pulled her hand out of his grip. Through the rest of the Mass, she sat silent, Richard unmoving beside her. William raised the Host to be adored. The choir rang buoyantly of the Christ. Kneeling on the steps before the altar, the monks one by one received Him.

  The congregation marched up toward the altar, many singing with the choir. Stephen and Robert stood first in the line, their palms together in an attitude of prayer. William signed to Maria to come forward to take the Sacrament. She shook her head at him.

  “I thought you were hungry,�
�� Richard said.

  Maria did not answer him. He pushed her. “Let’s go.”

  They went out to the vestibule. Jordan was waiting by the door and dashed off for Maria’s cloak and the basket with the boats. Stephen and Jilly raced in the far door.

  “Mama, did you bring the candles?”

  Jilly pulled on her dress. “Merry Christmas, Mama.” She turned up her bright face to be kissed.

  Stephen got the basket from Jordan and took out the boats. He had made them himself, broad-beamed to withstand the waves. Jilly was dancing around Richard, trying to lure him into a game. Robert came into the vestibule and Richard turned abruptly away.

  “There’s one for each of us,” Stephen said. “Even Bonaventura there.” He nodded at Maria’s belly.

  Maria got the candles from the basket. Jilly and Robert crowded around Stephen, who explained how to fasten the butts of the candles to the flat boats.

  “Only children do things like this,” Robert said, but Maria marked that he took a boat and a candle. She went with Richard through the garden to the gate. Jordan ran ahead of them into the street.

  Along the street beside the harbor, in the darkness, a thick skein of people moved. Some of them carried lit candles. The others swarmed around to light their own. The beads of fire spread from hand to hand, along the wharves, past the rows of anchored ships. Already many of the lights bobbed in the harbor, floating out across the dark water.

  A groom led up their horses. Richard took hold of her to put her on her mare. She said. “I want to see him.”

  “He’s in the treasure-house.”

  She mounted her horse and gathered her reins. The cathedral bells began to ring. She turned toward the harbor. Across the broad sweep of the bay, a thousand bobbing candles floated, sailing out into the black water, until like stars they were drowned in the night.

  Forty-nine

  She opened the padlock and stepped into the room. Roger stood in front of the window, his back to her, and his arms folded on the sill. An iron grate covered the window. The room was tiny, the only furniture a bed and a three-legged stool. Maria pushed the door shut. He ignored her.

  “Roger.”

  He wheeled around. “Maria. I thought you were the man with my dinner. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see how you are.”

  She looked around the room again. He stood smiling before her, his hand on his hip. Her hands trembled. She sat down on the little stool. He went to the bed, sat, and picked up a ewer from the floor to pour wine into a cup.

  “Here. You don’t look well. I’m sorry, I have only the one cup.”

  Maria sipped the strong red wine. “Thank you.” The bruises on his face had faded. He was freshly shaven, and his hair trimmed, although he still wore it slightly longer than the fashion. She could not settle herself. It amazed her to see him so calm while she trembled head to foot. She handed the cup back to him.

  “How are you?” he said. “Other than—” he nodded at her belly. “What is this, the fifth?”

  “The sixth.”

  He drank from the cup, filled it again, and passed it back to her. “I won’t ask about the well-being of my blood kin.” He sprawled across the bed, leaning on his elbow.

  “Roger,” she said. “Why did you do it?”

  “Oh.” His eyes slipped away from hers. His voice was thin. “I suppose there was nobody else worth fighting. You know me, sweet, I cannot bear to be next. Especially not to Richard.”

  He got up onto his feet. “Is that what he sent you here for? I would do it again. Tell him that. I would do it again this afternoon. But this time I’d take him, he couldn’t hide behind a baby.” He put his back to her and stared out the window. “You know what Richard is.”

  “Yes,” Maria said.

  “He was afraid to fight me man against man. He knew I would win.”

  “Yes.” She grew calm, her hands steadying, and her voice smooth in her throat.

  He stared out the window, his head turned to watch something in the park. She went up beside him to see what he was looking at. He made space for her. Half a mile away, almost in the trees, Jilly and Jordan rode bareback on a pony. The boy’s red head moved like a beacon across the lawn.

  “That’s my son, isn’t it?” Roger said.

  “Yes.” She put her back to the wall, her eyes on him. “He looks like you, very much.” In the shape of Jordan’s face, his nose, his expressive mouth. She said, “I used to think you were the handsomest thing in the world.”

  “Not anymore?”

  “No.” She laughed. “Now I think it’s Robert.”

  He put his hands on her. She backed away from him, down the wall, and faced him, angry. He swung back toward the window. The sunlight shone through the grate in squares on his face.

  “Go tell Richard to get it done.”

  She opened the door, reluctant to leave him alone in the tiny barren room. At last she went out. She locked the door and holding onto the hand rail climbed slowly down the narrow stone steps. The door at the foot of the stairs was locked, and she rapped on it.

  “Mama.” Stephen opened the door for her. “I was getting worried.” He glanced keenly up the stairway. “You should have let me go with you.”

  The knight on guard outside the door fastened the lock. Stephen took the lamp. Maria followed him across the storeroom and the antechamber, out of the treasure-house. They walked along the path back toward the palace.

  “Is he sorry, Mama?” Stephen strode up alongside her. “Papa isn’t going to forgive him, is he?”

  “Let me alone.”

  He wrapped his hand around her arm and jerked her to a stop. “Why are you angry with me?”

  Maria pulled away from him. “I have something to do. Please leave me alone.” She went to the wooden postern door in the wall and let herself into the palace.

  There was no one in the room of the star ceiling. From the big chest at the foot of the bed, she took Roger’s death warrant. While the wax melted, she found the R in Richard’s name and turned the charter right side up. Richard had already forgiven him. Richard would forgive him a dozen times, until finally Roger overturned Marna. She spread the charter on top of the chest and used her Saracen ring to seal it. The charter she folded and put in her sleeve, to give to Rahman. The ring she threw into the fire.

  ***

  Although the shops and stalls were closed, as if for a holy day, the cathedral market was packed with people. Mounted men kept the center of the square cleared. The wooden block stood on the paving stones. Under the draped scaffolding that covered the facade of the cathedral, Maria sat beside Richard, her children on the step below her. William was on her left. The new baby, not well, had stayed at home with its nurse. She still had not agreed with Richard about its name. The bright sun was making her head throb. Directly before her, Robert took Henry on his knee. Jilly and Stephen sat on either side of him. Maria fought down the impulse to touch Robert’s hair.

  Three brass horns sounded. Through the crowd a murmur of anticipation ran. They crushed forward to watch.

  On foot, in a black coat, Roger came into the square. The sun turned his hair bright as copper. Many women in the crowd called out softly. On the step at Richard’s feet, Jilly suddenly twisted to look up at him. Stephen reached behind Robert’s back for her hand.

  Roger stopped before the block. He faced Richard. The three knights ranged themselves behind him. Richard’s dark beard masked his face. His pale eyes did not blink. The two brothers stared at each other. Roger was utterly composed.

  The priest and the executioner came out of the crowd. Roger knelt down. The priest anointed his forehead and his heart with oil, blessed him, and gave him a crucifix to hold. When the priest stepped back, the executioner said something, and Roger nodded, indifferent, half-turned away, and wheeled back and spoke.

  “My lord,” the executioner called. “He asks that his hands not be tied.”

  Richard nodded. The crowd sig
hed with a sensuous pleasure. The long, honed sword rang out of its sheath. Roger knelt down before the block, his hands on it. The strong wind off the bay caught his hair and tumbled the black ribbons on the lances of the knights. He laid his head down on the block, his cheek to the smooth wood, and the executioner stepped forward, raised the sword in both hands, and struck his head off.

  The crowd shrieked. Richard was on his feet. Jilly wailed in terror. The executioner cried out, “God is just.” Maria pulled her eyes away from the dripping head in his hands.

  A wagon rolled up through the crowd to take the body. Jilly was screaming, her eyes white with horror, and Maria stopped to pick her up in her arms. Richard raked his hand across his face. Robert stood before her, his cheeks slimed with tears. He plunged down past Maria into the crowd and ran away. Henry still sat motionless on the step, his mouth open.

  “Here,” William said. He took Jilly from her. “Stephen—” He and Stephen collected the children and led them away. Richard was staring into the crowd before them. He had not moved except to stand. Maria went up beside him.

  The crowd was packed like a feeding animal around the wooden block, struggling to dip their handkerchiefs in Roger’s blood.

  ***

  Maria named the new baby Mabille. She lived only a few days. They buried her under the altar in the cathedral, next to Roger. Robert did not come to witness it. Maria felt it deep that he refused, although she said nothing to Richard about it. Later she heard them arguing. She went down the corridor in the direction of their voices.

  “You’re breaking your mother’s heart,” Richard shouted, beyond the closed door.

  “Papa, leave me alone!”

  She pushed open the door and went in. The room—Robert’s room—was bare and monkish. The two men swiveled, their strained faces toward her. They glanced at her just long enough to see who she was and snapped at each other again.

  “You could have come down there—”

  “Papa, what good is it? What use is it?”

  “If you don’t know that—” Richard charged out of the room. The door crashed shut and rebounded open. Maria swallowed. Her hands were trembling. Robert turned away from her. He mumbled something at the far wall.