Great Maria (44 page)

Thirty-nine

First they went to the East Tower, where after the arrogance of Agato, Ponce Rachet and his wife were easy as old clothes. Richard summoned his court and heard pleas from all over the area. Like an oven, the summer heat closed down on them. Maria sat in the shade of a briar hedge and nursed her baby, while Ponce Rachet’s wife talked of children and colic, and how her younger child sneezed whenever he had to do with dogs.

“He must be bewitched,” Maria said. The boy tumbled in the grass of the meadow. He was robust for his age, fat as his mother. She tickled Henry’s feet and the baby jerked his knees up to his chest. At the far end of the meadow, at the foot of the castle hill, a group of men stood beneath the big tree where Richard was trying his cases of law.

“I have taken him to the Shrine of Our Lady,” Ponce Rachet’s wife said. “Perhaps if I brought him to Marna, to the cathedral—are there relics there?”

“Yes, we have some relics,” Maria said, “but what you must do is find a witch who can lift the enchantment. You need not come all the way over the mountains.” She imagined the fat chatelaine, in her peaked white coif and wooden shoes, hunting through Mana’a for relics.

“God have mercy.” Ponce Rachet’s wife crossed herself. She bent toward the baby. “Lambkin. Little lambkin.” Under her breath, as if the whole world listened, she murmured, “There is an old woman in the fen who is witchwise, they say. Naturally I stay away from such people.” She crossed herself again. “They say she has philtres, and—”

“Love philtres,” Maria said. She glanced again toward the tall green tree. “In the fen, you said?”

Ponce Rachet’s wife blinked at her. “Yes, but—It’s leagues from here. I have only heard—”

“Can we go there and back in a day? We’ll take Ismael and some of the Brotherhood, they will be proof against witches.” Maria lifted the baby up to her shoulder.

Ponce Rachet’s wife’s mouth opened like a flower. A sudden rush of color darkened her cheeks. “We must not tell the men,” she said. She clapped her hands together. “We could go this very afternoon. But we cannot tell the men.”

“We don’t have to,” Maria said. “Just let me think of something of Richard’s I can take to her.”

***

The woman in the fen was not old. She kept a cottage in a patch of trees on the high ground. Ponce Rachet’s wife explained the enchantment on the child and let the woman look into the little boy’s eyes and breathe once into his mouth. Maria held herself back, wary. Her hair had come down while they rode. She took off the linen coif and tied it around her waist.

The fenwoman’s face was white as starch. She traced her beautiful oval eyes with black, so that her face had the arranged look of a picture.

“You must come back in the late summer,” she told Ponce Rachet’s wife. “I have not got the herbs now, they must be gathered under the Dog Star. He should have been to me when you first marked this though, now you will have to be patient.”

While she talked, Maria wandered along the little picket fence around the hut. The garden grew in a wild unordered profusion of rampion and fennel, blossoming vines, spears of onion and garlic, and patches of mint. A brown mastiff lay in the shade of the hut. When she touched the fence he growled, and she backed away.

From the top of the hill she could see across the broad fen all the way up to the road: leagues of featureless sun-browned marsh grass. Her Saracens waited at the foot of the hill, with the baby. Ismael would come no nearer for fear of the Evil Eye. Ponce Rachet’s wife was agreeing to give the fenwoman a white hen and a black cock, a featherbed, and some silver money. The fenwoman lifted her eyes to Maria. “You are curious enough, my girl, what are you looking for?”

Maria dipped a little bow to her. “Lady, by your leave, I hoped you might make me a charm.”

“A love charm.” The fenwoman smiled. “For your husband or your lover?”

“My lover,” Maria said.

The fenwoman stared her in the eyes, and Maria dropped her. gaze. The woman laughed. “I will need something of his. Clothing, perhaps. Some of his hair.”

Maria went down the hillside, through the close-growing fir trees. The Saracens were grouped in an uneasy knot, their head-cloths drawn over their faces like women’s veils. She groped in the basket on her saddle. The baby in his arms, Ismael rode over to her.

“Maria. No must she
see
us. No, no.”

“Be quiet and stay here.” She took the shirt from the basket. “What could she do to you? She is a Christian witch.” Henry was asleep. She tucked his large wrinkled feet under the blanket and ran up the hill.

The fenwoman had gone to the far side of her house. When Maria reached her again, she was in her garden picking herbs for Ponce Rachet’s wife, who stood at the fence, saying, “And sometimes, around Lenten season, my husband is very hot of temper, days on end—”

The fenwoman gave her a handful of herbs. “Steep these in water, turn around three times, saying what I just told you, and drink it down. Do that three days at sunrise, but do not go to Mass between them. If you confess it to a priest the charm will fail.” She came toward Maria and took the shirt. Before Maria could avoid her, the woman reached out with her scissors and snipped off a lock of Maria’s long black hair.

“Wait.” The hair and the shirt and the fenwoman vanished into her cottage.

Ponce Rachet’s wife rolled the herbs carefully into her shawl. Her little boy threw rocks at the mastiff. Maria fingered the stumped tress of her hair. It frightened her to have some piece of her body in the hands of a woman like that. The door flew open, the fenwoman came out, carrying the shirt.

“Here. Burn this utterly, and keep the ash.” She unfolded the shirt. Within it, tied with red thread, the long hank of hair was coiled into a lover’s knot. “As long as you keep the ash you will hold his heart.” From her apron she took a square leather packet. “Put a pinch of this in his drink, before you lie with him.”

“Ah.”

Maria put the packet into her sleeve. She tucked the folded shirt under her arm and reached into her wallet. The fenwoman shook her head. “No. I take nothing in barter for love charms.” Her wide smile split her face, and her fine huge eyes tilted up at the corners. “So Dragon is your lover. Beware his wife, it was told to me that she is witchwise.”

***

They rode back across the fen toward the East Tower. Once they stopped in a meadow while Maria nursed the baby. Ponce Rachet’s wife gathered an armful of larkspur and primrose. The Saracens let their pretty mares graze. At first the men roamed aimlessly, but one by one they sat down at the far end of the sweep of soft grass, all facing southeast, and Maria knew they prayed.

Ponce Rachet’s wife was winding her flowers by their stems into garlands, one for her and one for Maria. She jiggled a flower in front of the baby’s nose. He fixed his gaze on it. His arms and legs moved witlessly.

“Bunny,” Maria said. She bent and nuzzled his face. “My bunny baby.” When he smiled at her she had to laugh.

“I cannot say he favors either you or my lord.”

“No. He looks like no one. He just looks like himself.”

They went on along the road. The sun was setting, but the East Tower was visible before them, a square gray peak among the rounded summer-dry hilltops. Serf children herded cattle toward them, and the two women and the Saracens moved off into the ditch to let them pass. Giggling, the children hid from the Saracens behind their cows.

Ismael cried, “Robert comes!” His horse catapulted forward down the road.

Maria lifted her head to see. Robert was galloping along down the road toward them. A thrill of panic ran down her spine. Something had happened. But when he drew rein before her, he was laughing.

“Mama! Papa has been looking all over for you. There is a messenger here from Rome.”

“Rome!” Ponce Rachet’s wife said.

Robert called to Ismael. His horse reared up, its hoofs almost over her head. Maria cried, “Wait—where are you going?”

“Papa has sent the Majlas back to the mountains. Don’t worry—I’ll meet you at Castelmaria.” He waved and rode away. The Saracens galloped after him.

Maria jigged her mare on, cradling Henry in her arm. The little band of horsemen shrank away to a flutter of white robes under the trees. They broke the horizon and vanished into the darkening sky. Ponce Rachet’s wife plucked at Maria’s sleeve.

“A messenger from Rome—where will he sleep? I cannot take you out of the top room. I’ll have to give him our bed.”

“You can sleep with us.” The love potion could wait until Castelmaria.

“No—no. We will sleep in the hall, with the servants. What am I going to have for the meat at tomorrow’s dinner? Thank God he did not come for dinner today!” Her eyes widened at the mere thought.

They cantered up the hill to the curtain wall and rode into the ward of the castle. The sun was setting. The servants were gathered at the door down into the kitchen, waiting to take the supper up to the hall. Maria gave Henry to Ponce Rachet’s wife. She jumped down from her saddle and turned to take him back.

Ponce strode up to them. “Where have you been?” He glowered at his wife.

She puffed up angrily. Maria said, “The fault was mine. If there is a fault. Where is Richard?”

“In the hall, girl.”

His wife put out her arms. “You’d better give me that baby.”

Maria went through the door into the stairwell. Her hair, full of wilting primroses, was hanging loose down her back, and her skirt was grass-stained. She would have to change her clothes before she met this messenger. She raced up the stairs. When she was halfway to the hall landing, the door opened and two pages led a strange man out onto the stair above her.

He was dressed so beautifully she needed a moment to realize he was a priest. She froze. Over the heads of the pages, he saw her, and he smiled.

“My lord,” she said. Wreathed in dead wildflowers, a devilish potion in her sleeve, she went up the steps to him and knelt to kiss his ring.

He made the sign of the Cross over her. “God bless you, child.” He lifted her up by the hand, like someone in a song. His fine-boned handsome face was as planned as the fenwoman’s paint. “Were I her master, such a pretty lady would not wander alone after dark.”

Richard had come into the doorway behind him. “Oh, she’s very tidy tonight—sometimes she comes in looking as if she’s been fighting with dogs.” He took her by the arm. “Father Yvet, will you come down again to eat supper with us?”

“I will, my lord.” The priest’s eyes danced with good humor.

Richard pulled her toward the hall. Maria shook him off. “My lord, I must go upstairs and dress.” She bolted up the stairs ahead of the monk.

None of her women was in her room. She splashed water on her face and put on a fresh gown, and she was sitting before the little corner hearth brushing her hair when the door opened and Richard came in.

“Where did you go? How do you talk Ismael into running off anywhere with you?” He sank down behind her stool and lifted her hair in his hands. “You looked like a hayfield tumble, and he loved it. I fear he is a worldly priest, Father Yvet, and I wish I knew why he is here.”

“What does he say?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Maria twisted to look at him. “What do you say?”

“How can I talk to a priest? I know nothing of philosophy. I said we were leaving for Castelmaria—”

The door opened and Ponce Rachet’s wife came in with the baby, crying at the screech. Maria got up to take him in her arms. She poked her little finger into his mouth, and he sucked hard, his eyes in a purposeful frown.

“My lord,” Ponce Rachet’s wife said, “I will not listen to any of this—we are not going to sleep here with you, we will sleep in the hall. That’s what I told my man.”

“Good,” Richard said. “Tell him I agree with you.”

“That’s what I said to him.” Ponce Rachet’s wife left.

“I told her they could stay here,” Maria said. The room was not large, but the wooden bed was certainly big enough for four people.

Richard walked across the room. A page came in with a ewer and filled the jug of wine she kept in the cupboard. She had put the love potion in her chest. Her imagination began to hurry through its possible effects.

“I told Father Yvet that he could come to Castelmaria with us,” Richard said. He strolled up to the fire, his hands on his hips. Maria laid the baby down in the cradle.

“It must be about the Emperor,” she said. “They have come to make us bow to him.”

“No—why do you say that?”

“Isn’t he from the Pope? And the Pope is the Emperor’s man.”

“Not this Pope.” He came over toward her again. “Where did you go? Whom have you been betraying me with now? You looked like a May Day wench, your hair down like that.”

“Father Yvet didn’t mind.” She put her hair up loosely on her head and dug into her sleeve for the combs and clips to keep it there.

He started away. “You’ve always been hot for churchmen. I’m hungry. Come down when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.” She raked the combs backwards into her hair and went after him down the stairs.