Great Maria (28 page)

He stood looking down at her, his hands on his hips. “I don’t believe you.” He walked away up the slope. Maria sat with her eyes turned toward the pine wood. The wind rose, its voice cooing through the branches. He was right: if Roger wanted her it was just because he did not have her. She wished she had never let him touch her. She put her chin on her fist and stared into the pine wood, eaten with remorse.

Twenty-six

You said you’d give me a riding horse.”

“What do you need a horse for?” Richard asked. “Where are you thinking to go?”

“You promised me a horse,” Maria said. She went down the hillside ahead of him, skirting the edge of the rose garden. While she walked she pushed her hair back and tied the ribbon around it again. Richard steered her by the arm through the gap in the hedge. They came out on the green grass in front of the stable.

Three Saracen grooms were arguing together in the doorway. Seeing Richard, they fell silent and backed quickly off the threshold. Maria went past them into the stable. The smells of straw and horse made her wrinkle up her nose. A horse nickered.

Her eyes grew used to the half-light. The long low building stretched out before her. On her right, the horses moved around in their boxes, their heads reaching over the doors into the aisle. The first head belonged to Richard’s gray stallion. She patted its face.

Richard walked on past her. He called out in Saracen, and the grooms leaped away down the stable aisle. Richard sat down on a wooden saddle rack against the wall opposite the stalls.

“Where are you going that you need a horse?”

She scratched under the gray stallion’s jaw. “Is there any place I can’t go?”

He grunted. “Where do I start?”

A groom led a tall mare up between them. Maria turned toward the horse. It was a deep blood bay, its mane and tail shining black. Richard slid down from the saddle rack. He bent to feel the mare’s legs. He and the Saracen groom talked in the other tongue. Maria went off along the row of stalls, looking at each horse. She took her surcoat off and hung it on her arm. The stable smelled and sounded the same as any Christian stable. If anything it was cleaner. In the middle of the barn she came on a small white mare.

She leaned on the outside of the stall. The mare snorted suspiciously at her.

“Maria.” The groom was brushing off the bay mare. Richard came up toward her. “Ride this horse, so that I can see if you can handle her.”

“I don’t want that horse,” Maria said. She looked back at the white mare, which took one step cautiously toward her. “I want this horse.” She held out her hand to the mare.

Richard stood beside her, looking into the stall. “Where have you seen this horse before?”

“Nowhere. I just like her.”

The mare licked Maria’s palm. Richard said, “On sight. Without even riding her.”

“She’s pretty.”

The mare stuck her nose into Maria’s face and sniffed, and she laughed. Richard tramped off down the stable, calling to the groom. He sounded angry. He had been angry for three days. They put the bay mare away and saddled the white mare, and they all went out to the park.

Here the ground fell off in a long gentle slope toward the wall, green in the bright sunlight, although it was still winter. The mare came out of the stable snorting with every step. She shied at the wind and danced on her toes around a bare spot in the grass. The groom talked to her in Saracen baby talk. Maria put her coat on the ground.

“Maybe you’d better let me ride her first,” Richard said. “She hasn’t been out of the barn in a while.”

Maria took the reins from the groom. “She’s a good girl.” She waved the groom out of the way. Richard lifted her up into the saddle.

The horse snorted but did not move. She was so excited at being out in the open meadow that she was already breaking into a dark sweat, but she waited until Maria signaled her before she started off at a quick walk. Maria jogged her and cantered her in circles around the meadow. The white mare was soft-gaited as a cat. Maria backed her and spun her around. She galloped up beside Richard.

Right in front of him the mare neatly bucked her off. She landed on her back in the soft grass. The mare galloped away down the green meadow toward the gate, her tail like a flag. The groom ran after her. Maria sat up.

Richard held out his hand to her. “See—you’re not as good a rider as you think you are.” He pulled her up onto her feet.

Maria looked down after the mare. “Isn’t she beautiful? Can I have her?”

“You think you can handle her?” He started back up toward the stable. Maria followed him. He glanced at her, and in spite of himself he smiled.

“I wonder what her name is.”

She stopped to watch the white mare, trotting along beside the groom up the meadow. Richard went into the stable. His voice sounded hollow in the roof. She followed him into the dark horse-smelling barn. He let himself into the stall with a lanky black colt. Maria went up to the door.

“Thank you,” she said.

He turned his back to her. The groom led in the white mare, her flanks steaming. Maria leaned against the stall door and watched Richard groom the black colt, talking to it in French and Saracen.

“I hope you’re not waiting for me to go up to the tower with you,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got a lot to do down here.”

“I’ll help you.” She reached over the stall door and patted the colt’s neck.

Richard’s head swiveled toward her, his eyebrows drawn together over his nose. He stared at her a moment. “Go get me a sponge.”

She brought him a wet sponge. He wiped the colt’s eyes and mouth and nostrils. The groom left. Maria opened the door, backing up. When Richard came out of the stall she put her arms around him.

“Is this what you did with Roger?” he said.

“No.” She kissed him.

His arm went around her waist. She pushed the door shut. The groom came back into the barn, saw them, and left at speed. She pressed herself against Richard, stroking her body against him.

His arm tightened around her. With his free hand he fumbled the latch on the stall closed. Maria rubbed her face against his shoulder.

“What did you have in mind?” he said. “The floor?” His kiss was softer than Roger’s. She opened her mouth and he slid his tongue over her lip.

“Come on.”

The last stall was empty. Clean sand covered the floor, deep and soft. They didn’t even take their clothes off. The strange place and the chance of being seen stirred her up. She rocked him, gasping, until he stabbed her into an intense sweet pleasure.

He lay still on her, his face against her hair. “That mouth doesn’t lie.”

“Richard, you talk too much.” She locked her arms around him. It was the first time she had enjoyed lying with him since she had come to Mana’a. Her skirts were rucked up around her waist. She moved her leg against his thigh. His face was running with sweat. His arms tightened around her.

“Papa?”

“Shit.” Richard lifted his head.

Footsteps ran toward them through the stable. They pulled quickly away from each other. Maria yanked her skirts down.

“Papa, where are you?”

Richard stood up. “I’m here.” Maria handed him his belt. Her hair was loose and she pushed it away from her face. Robert hung over the door.

“Mama! What are you doing in there?”

She looked up at Richard; she burst out laughing.

Robert and Ismael had found a huge old feather parasol somewhere in the palace. When she went out to the city with them, a servant carried it over her head to keep the sun off. In the streets outside the palace, streams of people surged noisily through the markets, haggling over chickens and goats, and swarmed thick around the water vendors on the corners. Maria rode the white mare along between Ismael and Robert. Ahmed, the black servant, came after them with the parasol.

They followed the wide street out across the city, riding from one market to another, each with its own crowd and sound and smell. She had never seen a place so thick with people. The boys shouted to her, each one trying to pull her attention in the opposite direction. She peered down the side streets, running off between the white walls of buildings. On her right the ground fell away steeply. Beyond the rooftops and the plumed trees, in the distance the bay was a dark blue ribbon.

The mare shied halfway across the street. Maria reined her around. An enormous shell was lying in the dirt, like the armor of a monstrous beetle. Ismael said it was a dead leaf from one of the Saracen trees. Maria tried to make her horse go up to it, but the mare flattened her ears back and refused. They rode on.

“There, Mother, see?” Robert pulled patiently on her arm. “See?”

She stood in her stirrups. Where he was pointing, there was a big stall offering fruit for sale. In the back of the stall there was a naked hairy man, three feet high: a monkey.

The crowd shoved her on. On the corner of the street, a man stood on the back of a cart, talking passionately in Saracen, with many eloquent gestures. Nobody listened to him at all. They passed a stall selling ribbons, thousands of ribbons fluttering in the breeze. Maria turned to look back. Ahmed, the parasol staff braced in his stirrup, was reading a book, his horse plodding along after hers.

“Mother,” Robert cried. “I’ll buy you a songbird.”

Maria turned forward again. They had stopped in front of a stall alive with birds, sitting by the dozens on long perches, and hanging in little wooden cages from the uprights. Ismael was already reaching into his purse.

The bird-woman smiled. Her front teeth were missing. With a bow and several gestures, she invited Maria to choose one of the birds. The boys scrambled out of their saddles and shouldered each other out of the way, fighting for the right to pay for it. Maria pointed to a sparrow on the left upright of the stall. The woman gave her the cage and grandly refused the boys’ money. Maria thanked her, the woman bowed and smiled, and they rode on.

They came to a wide square. Suddenly three Saracens approached her, all on horseback, their eyes fixed on her. Her spine prickled up. Robert and Ismael closed around her.

“Stop,” Robert shouted. “What do you want?”

The Saracens drew rein. The leader spoke in his language. His eyes never left Maria’s. He bowed several times. His clothes were rich and in his sash he carried a sword in a jeweled scabbard. Ismael and Robert talked.

“Mama,” Robert said. His voice was high-pitched. “I think he wants to bribe you.”

Maria went hot all over with embarrassment. The Saracen watched her expectantly. She turned the mare and rode away, back up the street. Wheeling to follow her, Ahmed nearly dropped his book. The boys rushed up on either side of her.

“Mother, we should find out who they are and tell Papa.”

Maria shook her head. “I don’t want to talk to people like that. I have to go home anyway, Jilly will be hungry.”

“Oh, Mama—but there’s so much—”

“You go on by yourselves.” She was still carrying the sparrow cage in her hand. Reining down, she hooked it to her saddle pommel.

“Mama, how will you find your way without us?”

“The palace is right over there.” She pointed up the hill. “And Ahmed will go with me.” The black man, deep in his book, sat with the parasol tipped uselessly against his shoulder. She waved to the boys. “Good-bye. Be home before dark.”

“Good-bye, Mother.”

The boys rode off, waving to her. Ahmed’s gelding turned to follow. Maria swung the mare around in front of him and plucked the book out of the servant’s hands. She gave him a weighted look. Hastily he gathered his reins and his parasol and rode after her.

On the way back to the palace, she passed a leather worker’s shop and saw on display a tasseled bridle like Ismael’s. The leather worker understood a little French. While he was measuring the white mare’s head and showing Maria a choice of snaffle bits, a commotion started in the street.

Richard on his gray stallion, a dozen knights behind him, was plowing toward her through the crowd. Maria went around in front of the white mare. Richard saw her. He reined in. The knights trotted up around him. The people in the street crowded together to stare at him. Maria climbed into her saddle. She waved to the leather worker.

“Red—make the tassels red.” She called Ahmed and went out into the street.

“I’m getting a bridle like Ismael’s,” she said to Richard.

He looked around them. “Did you come out here by yourself?”

“Ahmed is with me. Where have you been?”

They rode together up the street. All the people around them were looking at them. He gestured vaguely out toward the city. The wall of the palace appeared ahead of them, and they turned toward the gate.

“Out letting people give me a lot of gratuitous advice,” he said. “King Jesus Christ, all these people here think I’m a halfwit.” He pressed his stallion over toward her and bent down to tap the cage. “What’s that?”

“Oh.” She unfastened the cage from her saddle. His horse shouldered hers around the turn into the gate. He raised his hand and pointed. The knights rode off along the foot of the wall. Maria held the cage up to see the bird inside. It crouched against the bars, its feathers fluffed, its eyes brimming with terror.

“A woman in the market gave it to me—I didn’t really want it, but she was so kind, how could I refuse it? I’ll let it go.” She opened up the door of the cage. The bird clutched the bars in its claws. It would not come out, even when she turned the cage over and shook it.