“I don’t want your advice,” Maria said.
“But—giving him money—”
“Do you think I mean to pay him any money? I have no money.” Exasperated, she flung her hands up. “All I wish is that Jean keep watch for the courier—I think it may be the smith from the town, a man named Galga. Stop him and make him tell what he knows. Bribe him, threaten him, beat him—anything, just force him to convince Theobald that if he bargains with me he’ll get everything without having to fight.”
Ralf stared into the fire. A page came into the hall with an ewer of wine. Maria tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. One of the dogs came up to her and tried to lure her into patting it. At last, the young knight said, “I will do as you say, lady.”
“Thank you,” Maria said, angry.
***
Theobald sent to her through Fulbert that he would leave Birnia for 30,000 silver pence; this Maria said was too much. Theobald seized the village at the Shrine of the Virgin, but Maria went to Fulbert and wept and begged him to help her and said she would give no one any money until Theobald had let the village go. Theobald held on a little longer. He was calling himself lord of Birnia and made the churches under his control publish charters naming Richard and his brothers outlaws, but in the late summer they won a tremendous battle in the mountains, and Theobald at last gave up the village and demanded 20,000 pence. Now another army marched down the road from Santerois. Maria held up her answer to Theobald. The newcomers sent two heralds to her, dressed in fancy tabards, to announce that this new power followed the Count Fitz-Michael and Duke Henry, who had heard of Maria’s distress and were coming to her aid, since she was their vassal.
With Robert and Jean, who had returned to the Tower for orders, she went out to meet the oncoming army. The day was overcast. The land east of the Tower was rolling and open. They rode up through a stand of oak trees at the crest of a hill and looked out over Fitz-Michael’s men, drawn up in three long columns under the lowering sky.
“They are greater than Theobald,” Jean said. “If we can catch him in that valley where he is now, we can pay him back for all the trouble he has given us.”
Maria grimaced. Richard would not like this talk that they were the Duke’s vassals. She had gotten no useful word from Richard since Theobald invaded Birnia. Even the great news of the battle had come from Ponce Rachet. Robert, on his fat gelding between her and Jean, cried, “Here someone comes!”
Half a dozen men were galloping up the long treeless slope toward them. Maria let her reins slide through her fingers. “Jean, we will be safe here. Will you go back and warn Eleanor and the cook that we shall have several guests? Tell Eleanor to make the top room ready for them.”
Jean leaned toward her. “Lady, don’t let them stop—have them strike hard, before Theobald can escape.”
Maria made a noncommittal sound in her throat. Jean galloped away through the oak trees. Robert was standing in his stirrups, his mouth open, his eyes fastened on the knights before them in their long, wavering lines. The six men approaching them reined their horses to a walk. Maria began to smile. She nudged her mare forward.
“Well met, my lord,” she said; she did not have to ask which was Fitz-Michael, and she turned her smile on him, an older man, tall and slender. “You are a welcome traveler here.”
Fitz-Michael rode up beside her. His dark hair was half gone to gray, and his hand when it took hers was cold as age. His sober clothes were magnificent. “So you are Strongarm’s daughter,” he said. He did not let go of her hand when he had kissed it. “You are as pretty as your welcome, mistress.”
Four other horses shouldered up around them. Fitz-Michael gestured toward them. “My sons, Peter, Philip, and John, and my nephew, Henry, the Duke of Santerois, my ward.”
Maria raised her eyes to the young Duke, curious. The boy sat on his horse just behind his uncle. In his dark eyes no recognition showed. He said nothing to her. He was big for his age, swarthy as a serf. Another horse was coming.
“And my lord the Archbishop of Agato, Robert of Sio.”
She said proper greetings to them, and the Archbishop blessed her. Maria detached herself from Fitz-Michael’s clammy grip on her hand. “This is Robert, my son. My lord, I cannot tell you how your coming pleases me. Will you ride with me to my castle? I will make you welcome better there than here.”
The tall man warped his mouth into a smile. “I must accept such a pretty company.” He waved to his sons, who rode back toward the disorderly columns of knights on the slope below them. The young Duke turned his horse to follow.
“Your place is here, Henry,” Fitz-Michael said.
The boy silently came up on Maria’s left. She started off, her eyes on Fitz-Michael, beside her. Even his fingernails were clean and shapely.
“We shall treat you better than Theobald has done,” he said. “Or Richard d’Alene, for that matter. I am told you have only a handful of a garrison, and Theobald is riding at will over the country.”
“I have God’s help, my lord.”
Beyond him, the Archbishop—an old man, white-haired—said something in Latin too rapid for her to understand. She glanced back at Fitz-Michael, who was smiling at her. “And now ours, lady, if you will accept it.”
“I am your servant, my lord, in all things.”
“Well said.” He nodded to her. “We shall get on well together.”
They went up the hill toward the castle. The people of Birnia ran from their town and cheered them all the way to the gate. Fitz-Michael’s sons were settling their armies in the fields. Robert hung back, watching, and Maria called to him. The young Duke did not take his eyes from the road.
When they went through the gate into the ward, the castle women swarmed out, dressed in their best clothes, to welcome them, and Jean appeared on the staircase, still wearing his mail and his sword. Someone gave a cheer. Fitz-Michael waved and bowed and with many flourishes came to hold Maria’s horse. The young Duke’s mount carried him up beside her. He was looking sharply around the ward. Facing her, he said, “It was not here that I was housed when Dragon rescued me from Count Theobald.”
“No,” Maria said, surprised. “That was my own castle, south of here.”
His gaze swept out across the walls. Beyond him, Robert leaned forward and called, “When was that, Mama?”
“When I was a weanling,” the Duke answered him. “This Tower you hold by my grace; is your other castle in my rights too?”
Maria smiled at him. “I do not know the custom. Long ago, I think, before the castle was built, the Duke claimed rights of justice there. But it was long ago.”
“The older the better,” the Duke said. He looked at Robert. “You will show me this place.”
Fitz-Michael was getting impatient to help her dismount. She took his hands and slid down to the ground. Robert was still sorting out an answer. She gestured to him to get down and hold the Duke’s bridle.
“Is he my master?” Robert said, when he had jumped down out of his saddle.
“Be courteous to him whether he is or not.”
Fitz-Michael said her name. She turned to him and let him take her arm. Together they walked across the ward toward the Tower.
His attendants arrived with a cartload of goods. A steady stream of servants marched up and down the stairs, installing Fitz-Michael and his horde in the top room. Maria moved her quarters down to the room directly below that one. When she had settled herself there, she went to the hall.
Fitz-Michael had brought a ballad singer with him. She sat on the side of the hearth and talked him into singing a long piece from the Song of Saint George. The singer was young; he played well, although his voice was shaky. When he had done with Saint George, he sang her a ballad called “The Great Deeds of Roger the Norman,” a long, tortuous song full of thievings from other stories. Delighted, she made him sing it again.
Fitz-Michael came into the hall, even more elegantly dressed than before. He came up beside her. The
singer was just finishing the refrain of the song about Roger. Fitz-Michael signed to him to stop.
“Don’t sing her that fish-gut piece.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Surely you don’t find such things enjoyable?”
Maria stood up beside him, smiling. “Roger is my brother, my lord.”
The Archbishop approached them. A page brought them all chairs. Fitz-Michael got himself arranged so that he would not crease his fancy coat. He looked up at her, his eyes sharp.
“Yes—your brother, as you say, is becoming a man of some remark although, of course, the songs exaggerate. But no one’s singing songs about your husband, my dear. They say other things about Richard Dragon, that he is treacherous and cruel and makes sworn bonds with Saracens—”
Maria straightened up. “My lord, my husband is an honest Christian knight, in whose castle you are sitting.” Her voice quavered, but she stared him in the eyes.
The Archbishop muttered, “Well spoken,” and Fitz-Michael twisted to glare at him. But when he looked at Maria the Count’s face was pleasant; he even laughed. “You are loyal, I like that.” He took hold of her hand. “Don’t be in a temper, although you’re pretty when you’re angry.”
“My lord, I did not mean to be sharp with you.” She took her hand out of his grip. “I will bring you some wine if you wish.” Jean was coming in the door. She went across the room to get them cups.
Twenty
Fitz-Michael’s knights rode to trap Theobald in his narrow valley, but through Fulbert Maria warned him of their coming, and he escaped into the fens. Fitz-Michael complained of ill luck. He and the Archbishop were loath to give up quickly the comforts and pleasures Maria made sure they had in Birnia. She drew all her own knights back to the Tower, since Fitz-Michael’s men were there to do their work and set them to keeping these people busy.
The Archbishop visited the Shrine of the Virgin and blessed the last of the summer’s pilgrims. Fitz-Michael hunted William’s packs of hounds and mastiffs and William’s hawks. Mouse-shy, Theobald marched around in the fens killing woodcutters and an occasional traveler. Now and again, Fitz-Michael stalked him along the road, but they never caught Theobald.
One afternoon, on the stairs, she overheard the Archbishop and Fitz-Michael talking, in the top-story room, where the strangers all slept. She took off her shoes and sneaked up behind the door. Through the crack between the hinges she could see into the room. Fitz-Michael’s servant was shaving him. The Archbishop sat down with a grunt in the big chair by the hearth.
“It just seems strange to me that whenever we move, Theobald moves ahead of us,” the Archbishop said. “After all, these people here don’t want to give us any more reason to claim rights over them. If we saved her from Theobald—”
“We are saving her from Theobald,” Fitz-Michael said. “You saw how she greeted us. She’s a pretty little wench, and very properly grateful.”
“I don’t think she’s guileless, my lord. Nor do I think the way to impress her is to tell her that her husband’s treacherous and cruel. You know my opinion of Dragon, but she hasn’t seen him in two years.”
The young Duke was running up the steps. Maria hid behind the door, and without seeing her he darted past her into the room. On his heels a wolfhound snuffled briefly at the foot of the door and went on.
“You are an old fool,” Fitz-Michael was saying. He stroked his cheeks. She wondered if all men did that after they had been shaved. “She knows her betters when she sees us. And I mean to rescue her, depend on it—I want a short rein and a good bit on Dragon, and this is one means to it. When we beat Theobald, Birnia will be as much ours as his.”
The Archbishop grunted. “You may find the mare’s more bridlewise than the stallion.”
Someone else was coming up the stairs. Maria slid out from behind the door and went away, and she heard nothing else.
They chased Theobald across the fens. The Archbishop and a small escort went back to Agato. Maria knelt in the ward before the old churchman to get his blessing, relieved that he would be out of her way. The young Duke and Robert were fighting with stick swords in a corner of the ward. In their shouting she missed the words of the blessing. The Archbishop made the Cross over her and kissed the crown of her head.
“Mark me, girl,” he said, lifting her up onto her feet. “You cannot toy with Fitz-Michael too long, he is less foolish than you think.”
“I, my lord?” She gave him a blank look. “No one knows better than I how wise my lord Fitz-Michael is.”
The Archbishop snorted with laughter. He mounted his white horse. His escort was waiting for him in the road. The two boys, their game stopped, were watching him, and he waved. Robert waved back but the young Duke pointedly turned away.
The Archbishop shook his head. He picked up his reins in his ringed hands.
“We shall all suffer someday for that young man’s bad breeding,” he said. “God keep you, girl.” At a trot, he rode out the gate and went on down the hill.
Maria had to ask her own castle, in the south, for some of their grain to keep her storeroom stocked. Although the harvest was coining, many of the fields around the town of Birnia lay untended and deep in weeds. Theobald still haunted the fen. One day while she was in the town, Fulbert sought her out to demand money of her, and she laughed at him. He slunk away, and many people turned to look at him.
Fitz-Michael and his sons hawked for gamebirds and hare. They held a feast in the ward of the Tower and gave presents to everyone. Most of the townspeople came up the road to eat and have a piece of silver from Fitz-Michael’s own hand.
On the day after the feast, Maria sat in one end of the hall fitting a new coat on Stephen. The young Duke came in, with Robert on his heels, and they stood in front of the fire shouting a rhyming game. Maria looked over Stephen’s head at them.
“Go outside if you must be so loud.”
Her son rushed over to her. The Duke followed him, his hands behind his back. Robert leaned on her knee. “We can’t. It’s raining. We went to the kitchen but Cook threw us out, and we went to the stables but Jean says we get in the way.”
His face was quick and merry; she stroked back his thick wavy hair to see his eyes. He rubbed his head affectionately against her hand. The young Duke stood rigidly to one side, his face turned away.
“My lord,” she said, “come here,” and when he stood before her she straightened his shirt and his hair, but he did not soften under her touch. Baffled, she sent them down the room to build the fire.
Stephen watched the older boys, his face solemn. She took the basted coat carefully off over his head. He walked down the hall, drawing his hand absently over the stone wall, until he reached a place near Robert and the young Duke. Maria threaded a needle and began to sew the sleeve of the coat. Outside, the rain drove down rattling into the ward.
With a crash, the door swung open, and Fitz-Michael with his three sons strode in. They fanned out toward the fire, bringing a stench of wet clothes into the room. Half a dozen of William’s dogs padded after them. A tall brindle wolfhound bitch trotted across the hall to the young Duke and the boy turned and patted her.
One of the sons took his father’s cloak; Fitz-Michael warmed his hands a moment at the fire. He came smiling to Maria and sank down on one knee.
“Lady, we shall keep your table groaning with game as long as you have us here.”
Maria put the needle in her pincushion. “You had good hunting again. Did the rain catch you far away?”
Fitz-Michael took her hand between his palms. “The other side of your hall is too far from you, my dear,” he said, and mouthed her fingers. Over his shoulder he called for a stool. Maria tried to free her hand, and he tightened his grip on it and gave her a little quizzical smile.
“My lord,” she said. She felt herself blushing, and she got to her feet.
“No,” he said. “Stay. Keep me company a while.”
“Please, my lord,” she said. She stood still, uncertain, and b
efore she could move or speak, the young Duke was there before them, the wolfhound at his heels.
“Uncle,” he said to Fitz-Michael, “let me speak to you.”
Fitz-Michael pulled Maria by the hand until she sat down again on the stool. “Speak,” he said to the Duke.
“My lord,” Maria said, “if it pleases you,” and pulled her hand out of his grip and went away before he could hold her. Eleanor had come in, and the servants were arranging the table for supper. She went among them to help.
“I warned you to close the shutters,” Eleanor said. “It’s rained in through the window upstairs, Robert’s bed is soaked.”
Maria put her hand on Eleanor’s arm and looked over her shoulder at Fitz-Michael. The people between them hid him from her sight. “The old dog has a bone yet,” she said, and laughed, her voice quaking.
“What?”
“Fitz-Michael wants to lie with me.”
Eleanor gasped. “Holy Mother.” She clutched Maria’s arm. “What did you say?”
Maria put her free hand over her mouth, giggling. “I don’t know. What should I say?”
“Maria!” Eleanor shook her. “And your husband gone to fight the wars of God.”
Maria turned her back on the other woman. “You must be made of snow.” She crossed the hall to the door to send down for their supper.
That led her past the corner where her spinning wheel stood, and the look on the young Duke’s face stopped her between steps. Fitz-Michael was bending over him, poking his forefinger into the boy’s chest. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “I’ll feed you whip again, God save me.” He struck the boy on the side of the head with his open hand.
The boy looked impassively up at him and said, “I will remember how you repay loyal men by stealing their wives, Uncle.”
Fitz-Michael raised his fist, and the wolfhound bitch slid between them, her narrow head raised. Maria went up to Fitz-Michael; she took hold of the dog by the collar. “My lord,” she said, “your coat is wet, and supper will come soon.”
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