Great Maria (22 page)

“When you were in Iste, did you see the inside of the Jewish temple?”

Maria crossed herself. “Holy Mother. What would I do there?”

“They have pictures on the walls of the meeting room. This is good, Maria, for you, but the people on the walls of the Jews’ place might be alive.”

A flood of hot shame took her. She threw the bobbins down from her lap and stamped out into the middle of the hall. Eleanor came in, and their eyes met; without a word spoken, their feelings passed between them. Maria turned so that Eleanor could put the cloak around her shoulders. She went out the door and down the steps into the ward.

Their horses were already being brought up. Her black mare, a hand shorter than the dark gray stallion, waited in the shade of the wall. The children were building a snow fort in the corner. Robert scrambled over the wall of packed snow and raced toward her.

“Mama—Mama—can I go, too? Let me go, Mama.”

Maria caught his hands and swung him around. “Get your horse.”

He dashed across the ward toward the stable. The other children still scrambled and tumbled over the snow fort. Stephen had a board in his hands and was hacking furiously at the wall. His scarf hung down to his knees, and his coat was ripped.

Richard came up to Maria’s elbow. “What’s the matter with you? I said I liked your work, but if you saw the pictures at Iste you would do better.”

“I don’t want to do better.” She went away from him, toward her horse. “I want to do what I am doing.”

“You certainly do that.”

Maria whirled toward him; he dodged between the two horses, laughing at her. She snatched her reins up and mounted without help, throwing her heavy skirts across the cantle of the saddle. Richard led the gray stallion away from her. He vaulted up onto its back, kicked his feet into the stirrups, and calling for a groom sent him up into the Tower for his sword.

Maria rode to the gate, simmering. She knew she should not be in such a humor simply because he had spoken carelessly of her tapestry—he had even admitted it was good. He had attacked her for the sake of Jews. Her mare danced sideways, mouthing the bit. The groom brought Richard his sword, Robert rode out of the stable, and they trotted out the gate.

For late autumn, the day was warm. The wind from the river blew into their faces. In the distance, the thatched roofs of the town of Birnia rose above its log wall. Lined with oak trees, the road curved across the easiest slope, but Richard led them straight down the hillside and across the fields, his horse at a driving gallop. The hard pace chased away Maria’s anger at him. Chirping to her mare, she raced up beside him, the wind rushing in her face.

When they came again to the road, they drew rein to wait for Robert, whose palfrey could not keep up with his parents’ horses. Maria ran her eyes over the dark gray stallion. It scarcely seemed to breathe hard after the stiff gallop; she was struck again by its kind disposition and its look of intelligence.

“That’s the finest horse I’ve ever seen.”

Richard leaned down and patted the horse’s dappled neck. Robert reached them, breathless from kicking on his gelding, and they started along the road, the boy between them. The gate was open. It was the market day: the street was dusty with the passage of many people. They cut down the main street of the town, going toward the inn. Around them, people turned and stared at Richard. A rustle of excited talk started up. A woman called a greeting to Maria; she waved. They came to the inn gate.

Before she saw Fulbert, she was almost on top of him, and he was grabbing for her bridle. His face was set with fury. She realized he had been boiling since she laughed at him in front of everybody. He seized her mare by the rein and Maria by the skirt and said, “Woman, you owe me money,” and looked past her and saw Richard.

Fulbert’s handsome face turned gray. Richard said, “Butcher, you take your hands off my wife,” and he sprang away from her. Maria laughed. She watched Fulbert race off through the small crowd gathering to gawk at Richard. With her heel she urged the mare into the inn yard.

Richard came hot after her. “What was that about?”

Maria dismounted. The broad inn yard was empty. The ostler’s daughter had come out on the porch. The ostler himself was hurrying out to take their horses. Richard jumped down from his saddle.

“What did he mean, you owe him money?”

“It’s a very long story, Richard, I’ll tell you when we get home.”

She met his gray eyes; his stare was intense with curiosity. The ostler reached them. She turned to him.

“Ermio, my lord husband wants to talk to you.”

The ostler took her reins. “My lord, I am your servant.”

Richard was still staring at her. Abruptly he looked at the ostler, thrust his reins into the man’s hand, and said, “I’ll be inside, when you put them up.” He started across the yard toward the porch. Robert leaped around him, laughing. Maria glanced at the gate. It was packed with townsfolk straining to look over the heads of the people in front of them, to see Richard. She went on toward the inn after him. Thinking of Fulbert, she laughed.

***

Every day, as he had done in Iste, Richard went into Birnia and talked with the ostler and the several elders of the town, having the customs written out and changing them when it pleased him. That made the townspeople angry. Many came and told Maria so at length whenever she went into Birnia. Every few days messengers came from the army laying siege to Mana’a, from Iste, from the East Tower and the Black Tower and her own castle, which now they had taken to calling Castelmaria. He listened to trials of justice and sent men here and there to do his business; Maria had never seen a knight work so hard.

She sat with the ostler’s daughter one day in the kitchen. Richard had said that the ostler was of more use to him than any other man in Birnia. She told his daughter so.

“Oh, well,” the woman said. She ate a morsel of bread and conserves. “You know what men will do—they cannot tend themselves, but they must tend to everybody else’s doings. Spread the sweet thick, dear, we are very short of bread these days.”

Maria dipped the knife into the jar of conserves. The ostler’s daughter was kneading bread. Her arms were white as the dough. “My father talks much of your husband. In fact, no one talks anything else, he has vexed nearly everybody in the town now, and is starting on his second round.” She shrugged. “I like his look well myself. I like a sober look in a man.”

Halfway down, the bread and conserves stuck in Maria’s throat and choked her when she laughed. She gulped it down. “Richard? Sober?”

“I was married to one of the other sort—the saints witness me, no wife was ever more tried than I, and thankful he went young to Hell.”

Maria crossed herself. The ostler’s daughter slugged at the lump of dough with both hands. Maria said, “God save his soul.”

“God save his soul. I prayed to Saint Anne to make me a widow. The day I stood at his graveside was the happiest of my life.”

“God send you a saint for your second husband.”

“A saint! God send me a young husband, and a lively, that’s what I want.” The corners of her mouth tucked under her plump cheeks. “But sober in his looks.”

After the blight and the plundering of Count Theobald’s men, the harvest had been sparse all over Birnia. Advent began. Maria put the cook to mixing bean flour half and half with the wheat flour, which was already half rye. Everyone was starving, and winter hardly upon them. People even went to Richard and complained, and to her surprise he summoned Father Gibertetto and got the old priest to give away all the grain and peas the parish had taken in revenues.

He did not ask her again about Fulbert. She thought he had forgotten, until one day just before Christmas, while they were sitting at the table after dinner, he said, “Give me one reason why I should not kill that damned butcher.”

She looked off down the hall. It was snowing and the children were all out playing in it. Save for a few servants, the hall was empty. She wondered how much he had found out, whom he had asked. She faced him again.

“Are you going back to Mana’a?”

He nodded.

“Then I will keep Fulbert. I may need him.”

He smiled at her. His face was unreadable. “Fulbert doesn’t like you now, Maria. He thinks you cheated him.”

Maria grunted. “He asked to be cheated. When are you going?”

“After Christmas.”

She put her hand to her face. Christmas was only days away. She had gotten used to having him there. Beside her, he drew an open loop with his finger on the tabletop. Slowly he traced a line across its mouth. He said, “I’m taking Robert with me.”

She stared at him. She said, tautly, “Richard.”

He shook his head at her. “Don’t argue with me.”

Maria turned her face away.

Twenty-two

Three days after Christmas, Richard and Robert rode off. Maria was certain now she was with child, so she felt easier about giving up her elder son, but the days after they left seemed empty and endlessly long. Eleanor wept quietly in the hall; Maria did not work at all on the tapestry.

Several wagonloads of grain came from Iste, heavily guarded. The grain belonged to five merchants of Iste, who came up to the Tower to meet her and present to her an ornate charter, sealed in red wax, which Maria could not read. The merchants’ leader, a large smooth man named Manofredo, read it to her. It was a charter permitting the merchants to hold a market place in Birnia to sell their grain.

Maria took the charter into her hands and looked at it. She fingered the seal, which made the piece of vellum look important, and wondered what they had given Richard in payment for it. They filled her storeroom up with grain—grandly they waved away her offer of money for it, so clearly that was part of the price. She did not think it was all. The rest of their store they took to Birnia.

Maria went down to watch the market place. The noise of the crowd hurt her ears, and the crush in the streets and the square made her uneasy. While she was there, the merchants of Iste sold the grain at reasonable cost, but when she left, her spies told her, they began to demand as much as 50 pence a measure. Many people, especially the strangers from the forest and the fen country, were breaking into houses and robbing and building fires in dangerous places. Maria sent Jean with ten knights to keep order in the town, and the next morning, Eleanor and Stephen following in the cart, she went down herself.

All around the town, outside the wall, serfs from outlying places had made their camps. They had no beasts and most of them wore only shirts and crouched over their fires to keep warm. The day was bitter cold. Clouds gray as iron filled the sky. Even in her fur-lined cloak Maria was shivering. The colorless faces of the serfs frightened her: even the children looked as if they might kill for a bite of bread.

She passed through the gate and came into the street, the cart rumbling along after her. Talking, packed together to keep warm, the people lined each side of the street; some had clubs in their hands, and some had scythes and hoes. No one let out a cheer when they saw her, most of them watched her in a cold silence.

Just before the market place, she met Jean in the street, riding his old black horse and carrying a lance. He had spread his knights all around the town. Even a mob of townspeople would hardly attack a mounted knight. He rode his horse up shoulder to shoulder with hers.

“Manofredo has locked up the grain,” he said. “He’s saying he’ll take it back to Iste unless he can sell it in safety.”

Maria rubbed her nose with her forefinger. “Maybe we should let them go. How many men do they have?”

“Well, I count eighteen men-at-arms, and four knights, but that’s not saying there’s no more.”

Maria frowned. There was no way to steal the grain, either here or on its way back to Iste. “Go bid them meet me in the market place—the merchants. Manofredo. Father Gibertetto!”

She rode forward, waving to the priest. He came half-running up the street, his elbows at an awkward angle and his black gown fluttering. The street lay in silence, but as the priest reached her stirrup, a man somewhere behind her shouted, “Take her! Hold her hostage!”

Maria glanced around. Jean was gone. She bent down over her knee to hear the old priest. He clutched her saddle for support; his breath blew in a plume before his lips. “The butcher—Fulbert—” He gasped for breath, swallowed, and went on. “He has told them Dragon means to bleed them white. They are even accusing him of spoiling the harvest. They want to call Theobald in—they say he is our rightful lord.”

“Seize Maria,” the voice behind her yelled. “They’ll give us bread if we take her hostage.”

There was a rumble from the crowd, and glancing over her shoulder she saw, here and there, a man with a weapon step forward toward her. In the cart Eleanor let out a low wail. Stephen stood and put his arm around the woman’s shoulders. Maria spun her mare.

“Wait,” she shouted. “Listen to me before you do anything. I am your lady—I am here to help you. If you lay hands on me, you’ll get nothing at all.” She rode her horse at a fast walk around the cart, past Eleanor’s white face and Stephen’s eyes. All around them were the mobbed faces of the crowd and the scythes sharp as sawgrass. “I’m starving too, I and my children. Besides, if you touch me, Dragon will never sleep until he spikes your heads on the walls of your own town. Trust me—I’ll take care of you, I have before.”

Their bulled shoulders loosened, and the crowd stirred, here and there a man nodding. “Save us, Maria,” a woman cried, and a feeble cheer went up.

In the back of the crowd, a woman climbed up on a barrel and shouted, “Don’t listen to her—she’s Dragon’s wife, she lies, the witch!”

Maria kept her mare walking swiftly around before the crowd. Among the brown faces of strangers she saw people she knew. In a voice pitched to reach them, she said, “You people from Birnia town—you know me. Why are you letting these people come here from all the wild places and stir up trouble for me? You know who will suffer for it in the end.”

“Maria,” a man called, and the cheer came back, stronger now. The woman who had shouted against her climbed down off the barrel and disappeared in the crowd.

“I’m going to talk to the merchants,” Maria called. “Go home—stay here—do what you will, but let me talk to them. I promise you will eat as soon and as well as I do.” She turned her mare, and with the carthorse loping on before her she followed Stephen and Eleanor at a fast trot down the street to the market place.

Jean rode up to join her. In the wide treeless square, people roamed about by threes and fours. The merchants and their soldiers were gathered in a clump before the church. Maria’s knights rode in a single file out of another street and came to follow her. Before the north gate, across the square from the church, another mob was swarming restlessly along the foot of the wall. With Jean half a length behind her, Maria rode up to the merchants, who were all on foot.

Manofredo in a splendid marten’s fur cloak held up both hands toward her. “My lady, I absolve you of all blame for the way we have been—”

“Who are you to come in here and make trouble with my people?” she said, and when he started, his eyes round as balls, she bound her face into a terrific frown. “You’ve made a fine mess here for me—what will you do to help me clean it up?”

“My lady! I assure you, we had nothing to do—there is treason here! What these people are saying about our most excellent prince—”

Maria said, “They are starving. And if there is treason here, it’s against me, and I will deal with it, not you. I’ll buy all your grain at a penny a measure.”

Manofredo’s voice failed in his throat. He gobbled at her, horrified. Maria looked around her. The other merchants were staring at her, their mouths slack. “How much grain do you have?”

“My lady!”

Maria crooked her finger at the knights. “Surround these men. This one must have the keys to the storeroom, get them and give them to me.”

“My lady!”

The knights wheeled their horses up around the merchants. Most of them carried their lances on their saddles. The merchants’ men-at-arms stood fast by the townsmen, but their four knights, all Normans, obeyed Maria.

“How much grain do you have?”

“My lady, at a penny a measure we will lose money. We could sell at that price in Iste.”

“Then go back to Iste,” she said. “I will keep the grain and send you whatever my counting comes to.”

The merchants’ frightened, angry faces tilted up toward her.

She looked steadily at each of them; she made her expression like a wall to cow them. One by one, they turned to Manofredo.

“We have no choice, then,” the merchant said. “But you may be sure we will take this to my lord Roger’s court in Iste.”

Maria shrugged. “Do as you please.” Relaxing, she stretched her neck to look around the market place. “Jean,” she called, “get these people out of the streets. Tell them if they are not indoors or outside the gates by noon, you will chase them out.”

Jean shouted orders, and the knights reined their horses around and galloped off. Manofredo folded his arms over his elegant fur-covered stomach.

“We have Christian justice now in Iste,” he said. “You will see that we are people of consequence.”

Maria wheeled her mare away. Jean came up to her; the wind lifted his long gray hair. “My lord Dragon isn’t going to like this.”

“That’s not your concern.” She looked around the market place for Father Gibertetto. Stephen was trying to climb out of the cart, and she went over and took him up before her on the mare.

“Maria,” Eleanor said. “Maria, what’s going to happen to us?”

The ostler was coming, followed by his servants, all in arms. Maria called him over. While he crossed the market place toward her, she thought of Fulbert.

“Jean,” she called.

The knight pressed his horse sideways toward her. “My lady.”

“The butcher. He’s behind this, most of it. Will you do something about him?”

Jean smiled at her. “My lady.” Drawing his sword, he rode off toward Fulbert’s shambles. The ostler was at her stirrup. Maria dismounted to arrange with him the distribution of grain to the crowd.

***

In spite of that, most people went hungry that winter. Maria had to give away much of her own store. Being with child, she suffered the famine badly, lost two teeth from the back of her lower jaw, and spent many days in bed.

They heard in the middle of Lent that Richard had forged a great chain in Iste and borne it by eighteen wagons over the mountains to Mana’a. This chain he stretched across the mouth of the bay to seal it off against ships. The serfs of Birnia got in their winter crop, and the famine eased. Many had died, especially old people. Clouds blanketed the sky at Easter, an evil omen.

Fattening on the spring honey and the blancmange she always craved when she was pregnant, Maria grew stronger and happier. In the summer, together with a large company from the town of Birnia, she made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Virgin, walking most of the way, although she was great-bellied with child. On the way back, she met a messenger galloping along the road from Birnia.

Before he even reined up his horse, he was shouting his news. Mana’a had surrendered. The Emir of the city had done homage to Richard. The news was to be announced in every church in the demesne, and everyone was to celebrate the rescue of the city from the hands of the Saracens, the victory of the Crusade, the triumph of Christ. As soon after the baby was born as she could safely travel, Maria was to come to Mana’a.

She sent the messenger on to the shrine and went herself to the church of Birnia, prayed, and helped Father Gibertetto with the proclamation and the sermon. The people of the town were still simmering over the incident of the grain merchants of Iste, and to put them in a good humor for celebrating, Maria gave the ostler enough wine to get the whole county drunk. That night, while bonfires glowed all over the countryside and the people of the castle drank and danced and fornicated in the ward, she bore a baby girl.

That she took for a sign, that God should have finally given her another daughter. She made several presents to the Shrine of the Virgin and named the baby Judith. But everybody instantly called her Jilly.

Eleanor carried the baby all over the castle, showing her off and letting the other women make much of her. Maria had forgotten how tiny babies were. With Stephen beside her she sat in her bed watching the creature twitch her wrinkled hands and struggle her head up off the coverlet.

“Ugh,” Stephen said at last.

“Yes. I know.” She gathered the baby up. “But she will be beautiful, someday.” She kissed Stephen’s forehead. “You looked just as bad, and now see how handsome you are.”

Stephen squirmed over to lean against her shoulder. “Did Robert look like that?”

“Yes. And Ceci, too.”

Eleanor came in with a stack of clean swaddlings. She sailed around the room straightening up the mess. “Stephen, you are a big boy now, you must not sit on Mama’s bed.”

“Stay,” Maria said.

“You are babying him,” Eleanor said, in a nerve-jangling singsong. “His father will not like that. Come, Stephen. Leave Mama alone with the new baby.”

Stephen stuck out his tongue at her. Eleanor grunted and carried a pail of dirty napkins down the stairs.

“Who was that?” Stephen said. “Who you said before. Ceci.”

Maria gave the baby her breast. Inexpert, the little girl fumbled away the nipple and let out a squall. “Ceci was your first sister, whom God took to Heaven before you were born.” She held her breast in the baby’s mouth. Soft as air, the baby’s lips sucked, and deep in her body something tightened pleasantly.

“Why?” Stephen asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Were you sad?” He lay down with his back across her legs, his arms stretched out, and played with Jilly’s foot.

“Yes. I’m still sad, in fact.”

“God won’t take me, will he?”

The baby was sucking hard now. Maria smoothed down the tendrils of waxy hair clinging to her skull. Patches of fur grew almost invisibly on the baby’s back and shoulders. She said, “I hope he doesn’t, because I would miss you so much, but if God should take you, it would be to Heaven, where God rules, which is better than any place in the world.”