Great Maria (53 page)

“Errands. Stephen the Serf King of Marna. I thought all he did was read books.” Carrying his mail coat and his sword, he started to the door.

Maria rumpled Stephen’s hair. She and Robert climbed the stairs to the top floor, where Stephen slept. “Will you kill each other if you stay here?” The girls had not yet cleaned this room, and it was awash with Stephen’s clothes, books, and saddle gear.

“Mama.” Robert touched her. “Can’t we do something? Arrange for Papa and Uncle Roger to meet?”

Maria shook her head. For a moment they stared at each other. At last he looked away. She said, “Don’t suggest it to your father, Robert.” She went downstairs again.

Stephen was sprawled in his chair in the hall, eating off his fingernails and staring at the wall. The sun was going down. She took a long taper and lit it at the candle at the end of the hall so that she could light the lamps. A knight came in and spoke to Stephen, who answered him in a handful of words and sent him off.

“I suppose everything is well at Mana’a,” she said, “or your brother would have told us.”

Stephen did not answer. She came up to light the lamp in the bracket over his head. “I am accustomed to being listened to.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Mama.”

She looked down at him. His hair was a darker brown than Richard’s. “What did you do with that sword I gave you?”

“I’ve worked with it.” Abruptly he sat up straight. “Did you put Robert in my room?”

“Yes. I—”

“My books.” He bolted out the door, and she heard him racing up the stairs, calling to Robert.

***

The dawn whitened the sky. Maria dismounted in front of the church and gave her reins to a knight. Richard’s men packed the road through the village and overflowed into the meadows along the river. The voices of the captains cracked in the still, cold air. Richard reined his horse in. The banner stirred heavily against its staff, and the big stallion shied from it.

Stephen came out of the church. Maria, waiting on the porch, stopped him and kissed him, and he went to his horse. He had no mail; he wore a leather tunic studded with iron. He mounted, stirrup to stirrup with his father. In his mail Richard looked twice heavier than Stephen. The boy spoke to him and he responded with a gesture.

Robert came out the door of the church, in his hand his sword wrapped in its belt.

“Mother.” He hugged her hard. “Pray for me.”

“I will. Serve God, Robert.” She kissed him.

Turning back toward the open door, he genuflected and crossed himself. A horn blew. Robert went to his horse. The columns of armored men started off through the village. Richard backed his horse up. He raised his hand to her. His horse carried him into the middle of the army, and he reined it clear and galloped up toward the head of the road. The boys followed him. Maria stood on the porch watching them go. Robert turned twice to wave to her, but Stephen never looked back at all.

Forty-six

Jilly screamed, “Mama, everything is covered with blood!”

Maria lifted her eyes across the walls of the cathedral. Her daughter’s piercing voice rang in the dome over her head. On all the walls, there were red-smeared crosses, like grotesque stick figures. She followed the monk up the center aisle. Pools of red lay drying on the tile floor. The altar and the sanctuary were splashed with the stuff, and trails of red footprints ran all over the cathedral. She crossed herself. The damage turned her stomach, like spoiled food.

“Mama.” Jilly ran after her, Henry and Jordan and their nurse galloping behind, noisy as a herd. “It’s blood, Mama—isn’t it? Mama, I’m afraid!” She caught hold of Maria’s arm.

“It’s paint,” Maria said. “Stop screaming or go wait in the cart.” She turned to the monk at her elbow. “Is there any other—is it just the paint?”

“They tried to break down the door into the vestibule.” The monk led her on across the cathedral. Behind her the children shrieked again. Maria fisted her hands, her nerves milled ragged.

The monk showed her the splintered wooden door. A splash of red paint covered the chewed wood and the lock.

Maria started to touch it, but let her hand fall to her side. It was disgusting. It was frightening. “I will send to my brother William, it’s his cathedral.” The children clattered up to her. Their racket made her angry, and she chased them away from her. “Have the watch post a man here at night,” she told the monk.

“My lady, if you will permit it, we should lock the place—”

“No. It’s a church, you can’t lock people out of a church. Whoever did this”—she took her eyes from the red ruined door—“a guard will scare them off.”

“They are all swine,” the monk said, in some heat.

Jilly took Maria’s hand. “Mama. It’s awful.” She rubbed herself like a cat along Maria’s side.

“Yes.” She signed to the monk to open the broken door. They went into the vestibule. The raped cathedral pressed on her mind. “Who are all swine?”

“The Saracens, my lady.” The monk looked surprised. “Who else did it? You’ll pardon my boldness, but if we had not treated them like decent Christians—”

“Do you have any witnesses?”

“Someone saw them in the market place, afterward—”

The children raced out into the garden, and she followed them, grateful for the warmth of the sun. The monk padded along at her elbow.

“Talk to the three-armed beggar,” Maria said. “He’s always somewhere around, he must have seen something. Find out who did this and bring them to me.”

In the garden, Jordan howled. Jilly screamed, “Give me that,” and snatched for something in his hand. Maria separated them and spanked Jilly. “Jordan, go tell the groom I am coming.”

The redheaded child ran off toward the garden gate. She lifted Henry in her arms. Turning to the monk, she said, “It should be easy to find out where the paint came from, too.”

“My lady,” the monk said, “you could choose any dozen of them off the street. They are all guilty, they all have done it in their minds.”

Maria stared at him a moment. She knew he was right. She went down the brick path toward the gateway. “Find me the ones who did it with their hands.”

Jordan strode importantly along the fence. The groom led up the cart, and the children scrambled over the wheel into it. They dragged the nurse groaning and complaining up after them. Maria mounted her horse.

There were still people in the market place, although it was early afternoon and the merchants had closed their stalls and gone home to eat dinner. When she rode around the corner into their view, the crowd cheered and hurried over and escorted her up the street, screaming to her in the Mana’an tongue she could not understand. It was easy to guess what they were saying; the Saracens who heard them were all running the other way. Silent, her eyes straight ahead of her, Maria rode up from the harbor toward the palace.

Jordan ran to get Rahman. Maria went to the little hall. A knight stood in the sunlight coming through the window, looking out at the garden. When she came in and he turned, she saw it was one of Richard’s messengers.

“Michael,” she said, “God’s greeting. How is my husband?”

“He is well, my lady.” He knelt down gracefully in front of her and kissed her hand. “He charged me to tell you that he is laying siege now to Iste itself.”

“Are my sons still with him?”

“They are all at Iste, my lady—my lord Robert and Stephen Clerk and Ismael-Malik. They told me to bring you their greetings. The fighting has been heavy—” His face lit with enthusiasm. “It’s been a great work, thus far, full of glory and mighty deeds on both sides.”

She scratched her nose, thinking of the cathedral. This knight Michael was a handsome boy, tawny-haired, with a wide, elegant mouth. “What else did he say?” A page came in with a tray of drinks and food for the knight. “Eat.”

The knight took the nearest cup. “He wants rope and mules, iron, cloth, carpenters—” He sipped the sherbet; a lemon moustache appeared on his upper lip. “Twenty thousand ricardi—”

Maria grunted. “This great work is dear.” Rahman came in from the corridor, his perfume announcing him. Jordan trotted along beside him. “Michael, I will send for you later.” She turned on Rahman. “Your people have defiled my cathedral.”

The Saracen’s thick eyebrows rose. He clasped his hands before him. “I can assure you, none of my tribe would soil himself by touching a place of Christian ritual.”

“My lady,” the young knight said, his voice taut, “what new wickedness is this?”

“Leave me, Michael.” She frowned at him, and he went out of the room. She glared at Rahman. “It was a vile, stupid act.”

His eyes closed, and he nodded. “Yes. Not all vile, stupid men are Christian.”

“This is how you repay us for keeping faith with you,” she said. She paced around him, her eyes on his face. “When we need you most, you stab us in the back.”

Rahman’s lips tightened. After a moment he looked away from her. “My lord’s treacherous brother is a Christian. People think—”

“I am a Christian too.”

The Saracen moved away from her. The page brought him the tray of sweetmeats and cakes. “Yes, that has caused me no end of harm.”

“Richard is a Christian.”

Rahman swung back toward her. His eyes glistened with triumph. “It is widely known even among Christians that Richard of Marna in his heart accepts the truth of Islam.” His lips curved into a nasty smile. “Do you deny it?”

“You know him little, Rahman. Richard believes in nothing.”

Rahman’s smile slipped a notch. “No soul is that pure.” Taking a sweet he poked the page on the shoulder. “Serve this woman.”

The page crossed the little space between them. Jordan lingered nearby, standing on one leg, his eyes unfocused in a daydream. Maria took a cup of the sherbet. “Leave us, both of you. Jordan, stay by the door.” The two boys went out.

“The fighting goes well, one surmises?” Rahman asked.

“I suppose so. I don’t understand those things.”

“It’s a grace in you. You should cultivate it.”

“Tchah.” She moved over into the sunlight. “If I weren’t here, what chaos would you cause? We should double the watch in the city at night. Put guards in the Christian places.”

Rahman bowed his head. “As you wish.”

“I suppose we must watch the mosques too,” she said reluctantly.

“We cannot allow Christians in our sanctuaries.”

“Then guard them with Saracens.”

Rahman smiled at her. The sunlight from the window caught green on one of his rings. “I shall.”

“But if you catch anyone, Christian or Saracen, I shall judge him.” She walked up and down across the room. Jordan poked his head in the door and she sent for a messenger. The fair young knight Michael attracted her and she decided to keep him in her service. Rahman stood over his chessboard, a little onyx archer in his manicured hand.

“You’ve heard from Stephen.” She knew they were playing chess by letter.

“That’s my concern.”

Maria sat down in the chair behind the white side of the game “This knight says Richard wants twenty thousand ricardi.” The archers’ long diagonal swoops across the board fascinated her, but she liked the little horses best, with their fiery leaps.

“Twenty thousand ricardi,” Rahman said. “We’ll have to guard it strongly through the mountains.”

“He said something about sailing up the coast to a port in Santerois.”

Rahman took the black archer off the board and put the white Vizier in its place. “It seems circuitous.”

She said, “The Venetians owe us much. Talk to them about doing it.”

Rahman bowed. “As you wish.”

Henry rushed in the door, gave a glad cry, and hurried up to Rahman. The Saracen recoiled. “No, no. Not here.” He shook his hands at the little boy; Maria laughed. She took the child in her arms. Jordan and a dark-haired knight came in.

“Rahman, you have errands?”

The Saracen sniffed at her and paced out of the room, his white robes folded like wings around him. Maria turned to the young knight. “Go to the cathedral, see what has been done there, and tell my lord William in Birnia.” Henry squirmed impatiently in her arms. Putting him down, she went off to arrange Richard’s supplies.

***

The watch found the half dozen Saracen boys who had attacked the cathedral. They were exposed in the market place for three days. Before the watch cut them down, at noon on the third day, the mob half-killed them; only one could walk away.

Maria picked up her reins. The watch captain was standing beside her horse. She said, “Get a cart to take them back to their homes.” The six boys lay exhausted on the steps of the cathedral. Two women wept and hugged them: their mothers. In the market place the shifting Christian crowd called names and threw things at them.

William strode out of the cathedral and walked down to the foot of the steps. He had arrived only that morning. His enormous escort filled the side street beside the cathedral, by the garden gate. He came up to her and swung himself heavily into his saddle.

“They are ugly people, these Mana’ans.”

“Can you fix the walls? What are you going to do?”

“What I have always meant to do: paint the inside. This makes no difference to me, only to God.”

Maria rode forward. William’s roan horse walked along beside her. Already many of the merchants were closing up their stalls. Over near the harbor a man stood on an empty booth and screamed and waved his arms. Many people were cheering him on. The boys in their cart rumbled away. William’s knights poured out of the side street. An important voice shouted, and the knights ranged themselves around her and William.

The big knight was smiling at her. “Maria, where are you taking me?”

She looked innocently into his face. Ahead, the street climbed steeply toward the ’Aliqbet Mosque, like a round white stone above the groves of cypress on the hill. She led the train of knights up the right side of the street. Saracens before their houses stopped talking to watch them pass. The knights’ commander rode up for orders.

“My lord, where are we going?”

“There.” Maria pointed to the mosque.

William held one hand up to stop his men. “My sister, tell me what you are doing.”

“Last night someone tried to break in there. Christians.”

He pulled on his chin. “And the Saracens caught them and will not give them up?”

“Yes.”

He nodded to the captain, and the other knight rode off toward the head of the column. They climbed the hillside, their horses at a walk. The cypress blocked the wind. Maria looked behind her; the full curve of the bay spread out below them, and half the city, veined in the green of its gardens and orchards.

They were coming to the mosque. Before they reached it, several men came out the front doors onto the court. Rahman was among them. Maria drew rein, and all the knights stopped. They gawked at the mosque and the sweeping view of Mana’a around them. Maria chewed her lip. Eight of the most important Saracens in the city were staring at her from before the mosque. Most of them were friends of Richard’s.

“Maybe I should do this,” William said.

“I wish you would.” These men hated her.

William put up one hand to hold his knights where they were. He and Maria rode forward. The wind cooled her face and tugged at her coif. The eight Saracens stood before the mosque in a little group, their faces grim. Maria dismounted and walked forward into the lee of the mosque, out of the wind.

“Rahman,” William said. “She says you have some prisoners of ours.” He folded his hands on the pommel of his saddle.

Rahman clearly wished he were elsewhere. The old black man beside him was the chief Imam. He gave Maria a single poisonous look and turned his gaze away. Rahman said, “We have no prisoners, William. She is only trying to make trouble for me.”

“He lies.” Maria glanced up at the big knight on his horse beside her. “If nothing has happened, why is he here?”

William’s colorless eyes flickered. The old Imam spoke to Rahman, who answered him, adding an oily bow.