Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “Tuppence all his horses have thrush, he’s too highborn to pick their feet out.”

  Maria turned back to the gray stallion. “Will you get me a horse like this?”

  “After I take Mana’a.”

  “When will that be?”

  He shook his head. He leaned his back against the wall, his eyes on the door where Fitz-Michael had gone in. “Maybe never.”

  From the kitchen, Eleanor shrieked, “Maria!”

  “I thought when I had the mountains I could cut off Mana’a and starve them out,” he said. “But they are bringing their supplies in through the harbor, and I can’t stop them; I have no ships.”

  Maria scratched the stallion’s forehead. She knew nothing about ships. She tried to imagine Mana’a’s famous bay. “Blue as the bay of Marna,” a song had said once. She thought of her own seacoast, the green water dancing with whitecaps, the breakers striped with foam; it seemed distant as another life, gone forever. Her mood darkened. Heavily she went down to the kitchen to help Eleanor.

  ***

  Fitz-Michael’s escort waited on the road outside the gate. Pages led two saddled horses to the foot of the steps. Maria picked up Stephen to get him out of the way. Robert and the other children were upstairs, saying good-bye to the Duke. At the foot of the stair, Fitz-Michael and Richard stood side by side, ignoring each other.

  Maria went up between them. “It’s a fair day, my lord,” she said to Fitz-Michael. “God willing, you’ll have an easy journey.”

  “Away from you, my dear, is no easy journey.” He smiled at her, standing over close to her. Across her shoulder he and Richard exchanged needled looks. Maria murmured something. She enjoyed the friction between them; while she smiled at Fitz-Michael she leaned against Richard. Her husband growled in his throat and stepped away from her.

  Fitz-Michael turned to his crop-eared bay horse. “If you will summon my nephew—”

  Maria put Stephen on the steps and sent him up to fetch the young Duke. Richard walked around Fitz-Michael’s horse, one hand on its black mane. “Remember what I told you touching the Archbishop.”

  Fitz-Michael’s long upper lip drew back from his teeth. “I am not your emissary. Treat with him through your own means.” Lifting his reins, he backed the horse rapidly away from Richard, who spat precisely between its forehoofs and stalked off. Maria followed him. While she crossed Fitz-Michael’s path, she caught his eye, and he smiled at her.

  The young Duke ran down the steps, half a dozen other boys yelling at his heels. Richard boosted him up into his saddle. The wolfhound bitch had followed the boy up to his horse. She whined, and the Duke slapped his thigh and leaned down. Standing on her hind legs, she laid her forepaws and her head against his knee. He scratched behind her ears.

  “Good-bye, Lupa,” he said softly. “Good-bye.”

  Richard spoke to the dog, which sat down beside him. He moved the Duke’s leg forward in the stirrup and yanked his girths tight.

  “Take her with you,” he said. He slapped the Duke’s gelding on the rump and walked off. His eyes went to Fitz-Michael. “You need all the friends you can make.”

  Fitz-Michael’s face darkened, but he said nothing. The young Duke twisted in his saddle to watch Richard go off across the courtyard. Fitz-Michael shouted at him, and he lifted his reins. The wolfhound lay down next to Maria. Her ears drooped. The Duke whistled to her. Fitz-Michael rode out the gate, and the boy followed, but in the gateway he stopped and called, “Lupa! Come!”

  The wolfhound bolted after him. Richard had disappeared. Maria went to the gate and stood watching the train of Fitz-Michael’s servants and horses go on down the road, the wolfhound loping after them. She called to the porter to shut the gate and went up into the Tower.

  Eleanor was sitting before the loom, threading bobbins. Maria moved her stool closer. Picking up the basket onto her lap, she sorted through it for the color she needed. “Thank God they are finally gone,” Eleanor said. “That dreadful man and that sullen little boy. The cook told me he does not know how we will live through Christmas, we have so little store.”

  Maria leaned forward to do the next row of Charlemagne’s crown. They had used up most of the wheat she had begged from her home castle. They had no meat left but salted pork. “We shall fast. I’ve always wanted to make a good fast.” She changed the thread to weave a jewel.

  “There is nothing to be had in the town. No one in the whole of Birnia has any grain. I foresee a hard winter for us all.” Eleanor crossed herself.

  “Telling the future is a sin, Eleanor. Shame. Have you decided yet about the trees?”

  Eleanor had spoken of making the leaves of the trees silver and gold. She canted her head to squint at the tapestry. “I don’t know. We have such a scarcity of gold thread.”

  Richard came into the hall. Maria watched him cross the room. She remembered lying with him and quickly turned her eyes back to the tapestry. “I doubt if it would add enough to justify using it.”

  Richard came up behind them. “I want to meet this friend of yours,” he said. “This ostler.”

  Maria stood up. “Now? Do you want to go to the town? Eleanor, bring me my cloak.”

  Eleanor climbed around the loom, the spinning wheel, and the baskets of mending. Planting his foot on her stool, Richard stared at the tapestry.

  “You are getting better at it—which is your work?”

  “I do the people, and Eleanor does the animals and the trees. See Roland?” She had made Roland full-face, in the space below Charlemagne, his milk-white cheeks framed in symmetrical golden curls. “And there is Oliver.”

  “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.”