Great Maria (15 page)

“A very good price, lady,” the vendor said. “You beggar me. If it were not you, my lady, I would refuse the offer, but I would rather have my cloth keep you warm at that price than become rich dressing sluts.”

“Watch your tongue,” Eleanor said sharply.

Maria counted out money to him. “Don’t heed her, she is very proud. Will you bring this to my lord Roger’s tower?”

The vendor bowed over his cloth. “For you, my lady, I would crawl to Jerusalem.” He seized her hand and put a fat kiss on her fingers.

Stephen had gotten hold of a coin, and while Maria was taking it out of his mouth and drying it, Eleanor said, “Where is Robert?”

Maria looked quickly around them. The crowd surged past, many-legged, full of donkeys and dogs. She thrust the coin into the vendor’s hand. “He must be close by.”

They walked across the thrusting, jostling crowd toward the cathedral. The air was gritty with dust. A knight in a red cloak rode past them, a belled hawk on his fist. Children raced around them with their hoops, and other children played between stalls and on the fence around the cathedral yard, but none of them was Robert.

Eleanor called a few times. A boy shouted back, mocking her, and she bit her lips. Maria could see how tired she was, how near tears. Someone touched her arm, and she wheeled, expecting her son.

It was only the cloth vendor. “You gave me too much, lady,” he said, reproving, as if she had cheated him. “You gave me tuppence too much.” He put the chipped coin into her hand. Before he had stopped bowing he was racing off again into the crowd, back to his stall.

Maria took Eleanor by the hand. “Come along. He must be somewhere. He can find his way back to the tower, if we miss him.” She bounced Stephen higher on her hip and led Eleanor with the flow of the crowd toward the other side of the market place.

Abruptly, she saw Richard in the shade of the oak tree between the churchyard and the wall. On his left, a scribe scribbled in a tablet, and on his right, sitting on two long benches, was a little crowd of men. Most of them were old, many were Saracens. In front of them all, Robert squatted in the dust watching.

Eleanor let out a hoarse cry and rushed forward. Maria held her back. “No.” She gave Stephen to Eleanor. “Wait here.”

Eleanor withdrew into the lee of the wall. Robert, with his chin on his fists, was staring up at Richard, who pretended not to see him. Maria came up to Robert.

“Take Eleanor home for me,” she said, “like a good knight.”

He jerked his gaze up to her, ready to protest, and she nodded to him. He bounded up and raced off across the market place. Maria stood a moment where he had been. Richard sat sprawled in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him crossed at the ankles, ignoring her. Casually she circled around the oak tree and moved up through the shade to his shoulder.

An old man was talking about murders. When she stopped beside her husband’s chair, he ran out of words, his mouth dropping open, and his eyes on her. Richard glanced around at her and back at the old man.

“Go on.”

The elder stammered: he had forgotten what he had been saying. The other people stirred and leaned their heads together to whisper. Richard turned to the scribe. “Read the last.”

The scribe sat up straight. On the crown of his head his dark hair grew in a short thick brush: he was a ruined monk. He read,
“But sometimes, if a man of the town killed a foreigner, he—”

The old man cleared his throat. “He would be accused by two men of the town and if he was found guilty he paid a fine to the Emir. If two men of Iste couldn’t be found to accuse anyone, of course, the murderer would go free. But if the dead one was a Saracen, we had to give up the murderer to the Emir, and if the murderer himself was a Saracen, you see, and the dead one a Christian or a Jew, usually nothing was done.”

Richard propped his chin on his hand. “Yes. I can see why that was so, when the Saracens ruled here, but now I rule here. I like the custom without any decoration. If a man is murdered here, my brother will summon such people to his court as he thinks might have knowledge of the crime, and if he finds anyone guilty, that one shall pay a fine to me.” He looked at the scribe. “Do you have that?”

The scribe’s quill jigged furiously over the sheet of parchment on his desk. He dipped the pen into the inkwell and turned the page and wrote on. At last he bobbed his head and sat up straight.

Maria stood with one hand on the back of Richard’s chair and listened to three more such exchanges. She had never heard of anyone doing anything like this before. Her father had paid no heed to the customs of any village, never learned them, and certainly never changed them. She did not wonder that Richard was having what he said written down. No one would bother to remember customs if they were changed at whim. He never even looked at her again; he went on listening to what the old men said and telling the scribe to leave most of it out—the customs of generations of the same people in the same place. Presently, thoughtful, she went away from the tree and walked home.

Horses and hounds packed the yard inside the citadel. The lion was roaring fitfully in its pit. Three or four young men walked around before the door into the tower, dressed brightly as tumblers. She ducked under the neck of a tall chestnut horse to reach the door. A stocky young man in a red coat caught her by the arm.

“Now, here’s the meat. Roger!” Over his shoulder, he called, “I have found fine game right here—” He slid his arm around Maria’s waist. She pulled away, and he bent over her. “Oh, she wants to fight.” He tried to kiss her.

Maria slapped him. A man nearby gave a roar of laughter. “Pandolfo, use your spurs.”

Pandolfo recoiled. On his cheek the mark of her hand showed red as paint, and to make him match, she slapped him as hard as she could on the other cheek.

“Ho.” He snatched at her. She dodged toward the door. Another man seized her and thrust her stumbling toward Pandolfo, penning her between them. She put her back to the wall, looking wildly around for something to hit them with.

Roger on a black horse loomed up behind the two men. “Stop. Holy Cross, that is Richard’s wife.”

Pandolfo had hold of Maria’s arm. Twisting, he looked at Roger, and his face blanched. He let go of her as if she were burning hot. Maria went up to the shoulder of Roger’s horse.

“Roger,” she said. Her lips were stiff. “Are these people your friends?”

Roger made a pleasant face. He dismounted. At his nod the young men went quietly away. “Don’t be angry. They thought you were a serving girl, you go about with such a lack of ceremony. I never see you—they have never met you. Do I bore you? Come downstairs tonight, we’re going to dance.”

“Oh,” Maria said. “I don’t think you’ll want me there—with all those pretty women.”

His face brightened with amusement, his blue eyes snapping. “You know you are my only true love.” Arm in arm with her, he led her into the tower. “How do you like my town?”

Maria made some uncondemning comment. They climbed the stairs to the hall, where the servants were arranging the tables for supper. Through the windows long sheets of sunlight came, lighting the Saracen carpets. She looked around the room to see that everything was done well.

“Maria,” Roger said. He walked two steps into the hall and wheeled to face her. She felt bedraggled beside his easy grace; he might have lived all his life in palaces. “I’m bored to death here. There’s nothing to do. Go hunting, chase women, dance—I’m not like Richard, I can’t busy myself listening to old men search their years.” He threw his hands up over his head. “Richard is turning me into a monk.”

Maria laughed at him. “That isn’t what I have heard.”

“Well,” he said, “maybe not entirely. But if he doesn’t make a war for me soon, I will run out of women too, and then I just may start in on his.” He came back toward her.

“Oh,” she said, “so I am your last choice.”

Standing beside her, he touched her cheek with his forefinger. “Richard’s jealous of you and me, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said. Softly she pushed away his hand.

“Does he have reason?”

She crowed with laughter. “Roger. No wonder all these women love you.” She gave him a warm look over her shoulder and went out again onto the stairs. He followed close after her. On the landing, out of sight of the servants in the hall, she turned to face him.

“Dandle me. I like it.”

Roger said, “Give me a kiss for encouragement.”

She tilted her face up to him. The door below them slammed. They sprang apart. Robert raced up the stairs and darted between them. Over the boy’s black hair she and Roger exchanged a look. Robert leaned on his uncle, and the red knight hoisted him up by the arms.

“Holy Cross, Sir Robert, what does your mother feed you, stones?”

Maria started up the stairs. Robert pulled on Roger, trying to take him off somewhere.

“Maria,” Roger called in a light voice. “Promise me you won’t tell Richard about that dog that tried to nip you.”

She looked down the stairs at him. The memory of Pandolfo unsettled her. “If you wish,” she said, grudging.

He lifted his free hand to her and went with Robert into the hall. Maria climbed the stairs. She was relieved that Roger did not like this life. The brush with Pandolfo rankled, and she should not have offered to kiss Roger: that was a sin. Uneasily she set herself to doing something else.

Sixteen

William arrived from Birnia the next afternoon. In the crush of people that came out to greet him in the ward, Maria saw Pandolfo again, and he saw her as well. He turned swiftly away to hide in the crowd.

She began thinking of some way to get her revenge on him. Of course telling Richard, the easiest way, meant breaking her promise to Roger. William walked through the crowd toward her, and she came up smiling to him and kissed his cheek. He was fat, his deep-jowled face belonged to an older man than he was. She took him into the hall to give him some refreshment.

William settled himself in a low-backed chair before the three big windows. “Where is Richard? Ah. I hear my nephew.”

Eleanor came in the door, Stephen howling in her arms. William took the little boy, laughing down at him, and Stephen brightened and stopped crying and pulled on William’s nose and ears. Eleanor went off on some errand. Maria sat down in the chair William had left.

“Richard is in the town. You should have seen him in the market place. He’ll be home when they ring for Vespers—you know he won’t miss supper.”

William tossed Stephen into the air. The child shrieked with pleasure. “No,” the big knight said. “We all have that in common, my family—big appetites.” He looked around the hall, paneled in wood, with its large airy windows. “I’d give him two Birnias for this.”

Maria smiled at him. “You must do well enough, William, your belts keep getting longer.”

“Big appetites.” He set Stephen down on the floor and brought a chair over beside her. He slapped his hands on his vast stomach. “This comes from fighting Theobald. It’s all jaw-work. The other little knave looks like you, but this one here is Richard’s.”

“Robert,” she said, surprised.

Robert himself ran in the door, Roger in tow behind him. William boosted himself back onto his feet. He and Roger embraced, William giving off loud wordless roars and clapping his brother on the back.

“William,” Roger said. “Now I see why you have not come sooner. Who is the father?” He slapped William’s wide belly.

William shouted, elbowed him, and shook his head. “The Saracens will run me thin again. Let me see you. I swore to your mother I would take care of you, let me see if I do my work well.” He groped down Roger’s lower leg as if he were a horse, looked in his ears, and hugged him again.

“Come sit down,” Roger said. “How do you like my palace?”

“Oh, a palace, is it? You are a prince now. Well enough. I like it well enough. It must be hard to keep it all though, the town and the valley too.”

“Richard does that. And Maria masters my household, leaving me to more important things.”

A serving man had come in with a ewer of wine. Maria took Robert to help her fill cups for the two men. Robert ran across the hall to give William his wine. He leaned on the big man’s shoulder, while the brothers talked of Theobald, their problems with horses, and the things happening in Santerois. Maria went to the window over the street and looked out.

“How is Richard?” William said. “Maria, come back, let me see you.”

She stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. Roger said, “Richard’s mad as ever. We should show him in a cage.”

“What is it now?”

“Oh, you know. If he turns left, and the whole of Christendom turns right, everyone’s wrong but Richard.”

Maria and William laughed. The fat man laid his hand on hers, patting her like a favorite dog. Maria sank down beside him. The brothers talked about the Saracens. If she told William about Pandolfo, he would help her get her vengeance. She sat watching them talk together, her ears cocked toward the windows, waiting for the Vespers bell that would bring Richard home.

***

She had no chance to talk to William alone for the rest of the day. The three brothers ate supper in her chamber, with Eleanor and Maria serving them, so that they could talk over Richard’s plans for attacking the Saracens in the mountains. Before they had half-finished they were deep in an argument, Roger and Richard nose to nose, and William sitting with his eyes moving from one to the other.

“The easiest way to take Mana’a is to take the mountains first,” Richard said. He thrust his plate aside. “At the end, the city will fall into our hands. Now, look—”

“That’s like chopping down the tree to get the apple,” Roger said. “No one will care if we take a mountain village—all the glory’s at Mana’a.”

William pulled Richard’s half-eaten dinner toward him. “You think of nothing else.”

Roger was staring across the table at Richard. Maria went around behind him to take his wine cup away. Roger said, “The Emir of Mana’a alone has thousands of soldiers. We have a few hundred knights. Who will not fight unless you give them plunder.”

“You’re using my arguments.”

“You can’t seriously hope that we can take the mountains and Mana’a and actually rule them?”

“Why not?”

Maria crossed the room to the table where the ewers stood and filled Roger’s cup with the sweet red wine of Iste. When she took it back to him, the three men had pushed their dishes to the end of the table so they could draw with their fingers on the tabletop. She piled the dishes up on a tray and brought a loaf and a cheese and set them down at Richard’s elbow. With Eleanor and the bolt of blue cloth, she went into the back of the room, behind the bed, and draped the wool around her in different ways.

“Robert’s got a headstrong way about him since we’ve been in Iste,” Eleanor said, and sighed. “He never does what I say anymore. You spoil him.”

William said, “You’re talking about taking every fighting man who’ll follow us up into those mountains. As soon as we do, these people here will sink their teeth in our backs.”

Maria held the cloth against her side. She liked the soft folds of the wool. “Cut it off here, Eleanor.” Richard said something about taking hostages. She raised her head, wondering whom he meant, and a remark of Roger’s told her they were talking of his friends here, the Lombard barons.

That meant Pandolfo. Eleanor said, “I wish you would—” and Maria jabbed her with her elbow to quiet her.

“What will we do with a dozen hostages?” William said. “Richard, you are asking for trouble.”

“Take them back to Birnia with you and teach them to wait on us,” Roger said. “They’ve all got perfect manners, it won’t take much.”

Richard said, “He’s not going back to Birnia. I like this cheese.”

Roger got up. “We can’t very well leave Birnia open to Theobald. Who’s commanding there? Ponce?”

“No,” Richard said. “I just told you, I want him at the East Tower to keep our supplies moving. Maria is going to hold Birnia.”

Maria stiffened. The cloth slid to a soft heap at her feet. Stooping, she helped Eleanor fold it up again. Eleanor whispered, “What was that?”

Maria said, “This is the first that I have heard of it.” She loaded the heavy cloth onto Eleanor’s arms and went back into the room, to stand beside William, across the table from Richard.

“Who else is there?” Richard said. “I need both of you.”

William folded his arms on the table, glanced up at Maria, and reached over to pat her heavily on the arm. Roger was standing across the room, near the window, filling his cup again. He said, over his shoulder, “That is not a woman’s duty.” He strode back toward the table.

Richard stuck his knife in the cheese. “She will do it better than you could. Anyway, Fitz-Michael and the young Duke are raising an army. Theobald will have to deal with them, he’ll leave us alone. I’ll give her some men—the old ones will follow her as well as me, for her father’s sake.”

“What about Welf?” Roger asked. “Let him command Birnia.”

“No. I want him where I can watch him, he is ambitious. Let her do it.” He lifted his eyes to her. “She’s not as stupid as she looks.”

Roger came up beside her. “She is a woman. She should not have to take up arms.”

Richard grunted. “I told you, I don’t think she’ll have to do any fighting. She’s one of us, she won’t turn on us, she won’t sell us if Theobald offers her a bribe. Let it be. Ponce will get here tomorrow. Welf and the others will be in tomorrow or the next day. We will have the oath-taking on the Sabbath. Your priest knows what to say. I have a piece of holy bone, it should keep your friends from spitting out the oath.”

Roger gave him a long stare. He turned to Maria. “My sister,” he said, “if you ever need me, send for me.” Without a word to either of his brothers, he walked out of the room.

Maria started to clear off the table; Eleanor came to help her. William said good night to them and left. A scullion came in and took the tray away, and Eleanor followed him. The door closed.

“I hate Birnia,” she said.

“There is no one else who can do it.”

“But it’s so far away. I thought we could stay in Iste—that way when you come back here we could see you.”

“I’ll come down there when I can.” He was still sitting in his chair. He tilted it back on its hind legs to reach her and drew her over beside him. “You won’t have any trouble with Theobald. He’s all jaw.”

“You could have asked me.” She stroked her fingers through his hair. If she could get Pandolfo somehow to Birnia, she could make his life miserable. Richard’s hair was soft as Stephen’s. She curled her fingers through it, plotting against Pandolfo.

Richard said, “What are you thinking about, witch?”

She stepped back, rattled, and made her face innocent. “Nothing.”

That was a mistake. He dropped his chair down on all fours, took hold of her wrist, and made her kneel beside him, her arm doubled by his grip. “Tell me,” he said, in a pleasant voice.

“I can’t,” she said. “I promised not to.”

His fingers tightened painfully around her wrist. “Whom did you promise?”

“Richard, let me go.”

He twisted her arm, hard, and she whined. She said, “Roger.”

His head bobbed up. Everything he thought showed in his face. She said, “No, it is not that.” He fastened his eyes on her, his jaw rigid.

“You and Roger.”

“It is not that.”

“What is it?”

“I promised Roger not to tell you.”

Fast in his grip, her forearm had gone numb to the elbow. Her shoulder ached with a steady throb. He said, “Swear to me that it is not—that you have not—” He cocked up his free hand to strike her. She could not move against his hold. She looked him in the eyes, her heart galloping.

He lowered his hand, and opened his fingers, letting go of her wrist. He said, “Swear to me that you have kept faith with me.”

“I swear,” she said, and crossed herself. Her other arm was numbed its whole length. She could not move her fingers. Slowly the flesh prickled alive again. His face eased. She saw that he believed her. She said, “If you don’t trust me, why give me Birnia? Theobald might turn me fickle.”

“I haven’t trusted you since the day you murdered Walter Bris.”

Maria started violently. His face was brimming with malice. She stood up, turning away from him. She had long forgotten Walter Bris.

He grabbed hold of her skirt. “Wait. Come here, I’m sorry I said that.” He made her stand before him. “I haven’t forgotten what we were talking about either. What did you promise Roger?”

“I said I wouldn’t tell you about something that happened to me.”

“Between you and Roger?”

“No. Roger had nothing to do with it.”

“Good.” He stood up, her face between his hands, and kissed her. “Then don’t think about it anymore. I’ll beat you the next time I see you with Roger.”

Maria put both hands on his chest and pushed him away, angry. “You told me that I should make friends of Roger’s friends—now you won’t let me go down to watch the dancing.” She went into the middle of the room, her back to him. She hated Birnia.

“Oh,” he said. “You’ll do with Theobald.”

***

On the next Sunday, with all the people of Roger’s court, and all the chief men of Richard’s demesne, they went to Mass. After they had received God, everyone gathered on the porch of the cathedral. There, one at a time, Roger and William, Ponce Rachet and Welf Blackjacket and the others of Richard’s men knelt in front of him and swore themselves into his service. In return for their homage, Richard swore to protect them and to listen to their advice.

Afterward, Roger’s friends did homage as well, some of them smiling, others less pleased. In the sack of Iste, Richard had found a crystal with a bit of bone in it, which he claimed was a finger bone of Saint John, and he made them take the oath on that. He had not required the oath on the relic of his own barons, and many of Roger’s friends swore it in angry voices.

Finally Richard had them accept Robert as his heir. Standing beside Maria in his new blue coat, the little boy shone like a star.

They followed the oath-taking with a feast that began at dinner. When the sun went down they were still eating. The cook was producing a new dish every few moments. Ponce had brought a wagonload of wine from the low valleys, and everyone was getting visibly drunk, even Richard. Maria sat beside him, passing tidbits from her plate to Eleanor, behind her holding Stephen on her lap. The uproar of the people at the feast drowned the two lutes and the little trumpet playing in the alcove to her left.