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. “Wha
t’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.
Richard was staring at her. Their horses carried them up the meadow toward the stable. Ahmed was holding the parasol over them both. She looked into the cage. The bird flattened itself against the bars. Its eye slowly shut. She held the cage out to Richard.
“You do it.”
He took the cage and broke the door off with his fingers. Leaning down from his saddle, he dropped it into the grass. Maria twisted around and tossed Ahmed his book. She nodded to him to go. Richard straightened up again; Ahmed left them and they rode on across the meadow.
Maria turned to look behind them in the grass for the bird. “Are you sure it can get out?”
Richard laughed. “If it recovers from being shaken half to pieces.” He put his hand on his hip, still staring at her. “You shouldn’t go around alone in the city, you know.”
“I had the boys with me. Are you telling me not to go there again?”
“Do what you want. You will anyway.”
***
For the next few days, she and the Saracen women went about the palace, changing all the furniture around. Maria got several of the magnificent carpets out of the treasure-house and had them hung on the walls. She took the lattice screens down from the windows to let the sunlight in. The wide, airy rooms were bright as the garden, so she had fresh flowers put around the whole palace every day. For the first time, she felt as if she belonged in Mana’a.
She played with Jilly in the garden. She brought the little girl up the stairs to the room of the star ceiling and found Richard there, lying on his side across the bed, talking to Rahman.
Maria carried the baby over and dumped her on the bed. She scrambled on all fours into her father’s arms. Rahman was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Maria stood beside the bed, her eyes on the Saracen, who feigned interest in the far wall.
“Richard,” she said, “this is my bedroom. I don’t want him in my bedroom.”
Rahman gave a gratifying start. Richard said, “King Jesus Christ. Stop, will you?” He held Jilly at arm’s length above him; she kicked her fat legs and screeched.
“I don’t want him in my bedroom.” Maria stared at Rahman. Grim, the Emir turned his head to meet her gaze.
Richard muttered something under his breath. Rahman got carefully up onto his feet. He shook out his immaculate robes.
“I should not have lowered myself to entering a woman’s quarters, lord, save you wished it of me. I will go to my castle.” Richard had given one of the three towers over to the Saracens.
Richard said, “Stay here.”
Maria clenched her fist against her skirt. “If he can come here, then I won’t.”
“Lord.” Rahman bowed his head. “I wish you a good day.” He looked at Maria down his Mohammedan nose and went out of the room. The door shut with a thud behind him.
“Your mother’s a shrew,” Richard told Jilly.
Maria sat down on the bed. Although it was still morning, the heat was already uncomfortable. The Saracen women had told her of the blazing summers in Mana’a, when everyone with somewhere else to go went. She took her hair down and brushed it.
“Aren’t you supposed to forgive your enemies?” Richard said.
“Not Rahman.”
“You’re such a good Christian.”
Jilly climbed on him, pulling on his beard and chewing his fingers. Her voice rose in a babble of excited talk. Richard tossed her up in the air, caught her, and rolling suddenly to his feet set her on the floor.
“I have some work in Iste.” He walked off around the room. Jilly on her hands and knees pursued him at top speed. He turned to face Maria again. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Maria shook her hair back. She brushed it down thick and black, so long now she could sit on it. “What should I say? I want to go with you.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said. He came up beside her and took a tress of her hair between his fingers. “I’m sure Roger does, too.”
“You get a lot of righteous indignation out of one kiss, Richard.”
He sat down behind her on the bed. In the middle of the floor, Jilly got carefully up onto her feet. The sunlight gilded the ends of her light brown hair. Maria laid the brush down. Richard buried his hands in her hair. He put his arms around her. She closed her eyes.
Twenty-seven
There may be beggars and thieves living here,” Robert said. Maria jumped down from the top of the wall and landed next to him in the deep drift of leaves. “So we have to stay together. Ismael!”
Ismael appeared on the top of the wall. He bounded to the ground a few feet away. Maria followed the two boys across the paved ward. Grass and weeds sprouted up through the cracks in the stones. The dark building before her was an empty hulk, its roof gone, sunshine streaming out through its top windows, and the main door hanging on one hinge. Maria stopped to look around.
“This is the citadel you stormed.”
Ismael caught her arm. “I come here—me many many brothers—” His free hand swooped through the air. “The Emir like a—like a”—he raised his hands—“great wind! We crash in, we”—his arms described their charge; in his search for words he panted—“bury everything. Floods and oceans. We—”
Robert dragged her on toward the citadel. “Mother, come on, we can’t stay very long or we’ll get into trouble with the watch. Don’t listen to him, he was in the rearguard with me.”
They went through the broken door into a hall. Their footsteps resounded hollow from the walls. Leaves had blown through the door and collected in long trails across the tiled floor. Maria blinked in the gloomy light. The hall smelled of dust.
Ismael ran across the hall before them. “We rush on. Many many brothers after the Emir.”
“Rahman?” Maria asked uncertainly.
“Papa,” Robert said.
She went to a side door. Beyond it was a little room whose walls were covered with pictures. There was no furniture. Even the walls were cracked, as if someone had tried to loot them too, but she could still make out scenes of hunting, gardens, and fountains, all peopled with little Saracens no taller than her thumb.
“What is this?”
Robert came up beside her. “What? Come upstairs—wait until you see up there.”
Maria drew one finger across the figured wall, striping the dust. She stood back to see the painting higher on the wall. Ismael said coldly, “Bad work here. Pah.”
She looked around, intrigued, and the boys pulled her toward the stairs. Ismael hurried on ahead of her. Maria said, “Why is it bad work? The pictures are beautiful.”
They climbed a long staircase. The bare metal struts of the railing hung from the wall. Most of the stone steps were broken and two were gone entirely. Ismael said, “Bad Mana’an work.” When they reached the head of the stairs, he turned earnestly to her. His hands threshed the air.
“These people Mana’an folk. I is Majlas al-Kerak. I is brother, Emir is brother, Robert brother.” He took hold of her hand. “Maria brother as well. We no—” He veiled the lower half of her face with his hand. “No wine, no sell brother to slave.” He nodded profoundly. “All such Mana’an by course.”
Maria stared at him. His beautiful eyes searched her face anxiously. Abruptly he smiled. “Maria brother?”
“Yes,” she said. “If you wish. Not if I must give up drinking wine. What about the pictures?”
“Pictures.” He ta
sted the word. “Pictures. We no pictures.” He shook his head. His long forefinger pointed to the sky. “God make—” His hands shaped the space before him. “Men only thank God. No make. Man no God.”
Robert said, “Mother, come on, we can’t stay very long.”
Maria went after him, Ismael beside her. That was why the walls of the palace were decorated with prayers instead of pictures; the Saracens thought pictures were sinful. She shrugged. Little they did made sense to her. She went after Robert up the stairs.
The upper stories of the citadel were full of debris and broken furniture and trash. Thieves and beggars had built fires there to warm themselves. Mice lived in the dust and owls in the rafters. The boys hunted busily for treasure. From their talk, she gathered that Robert had found a knife buried in the rubble the last time they came here.
She sat in a window and looked out. The hill dropped away sheer below her. She could see out over the cathedral’s busy market place and its awnings, across the bay to the headlands in the distance, where the sea dashed white over the rocks. The red-tiled roofs of Mana’a swept in an ample curve off down the beach. The palace was behind her. Richard had gone out early that morning to another of his incessant councils and would be away all day.
What Ismael had said clung to her thoughts. It had never occurred to her that Saracens had heretics, too. She wondered which were orthodox: Ismael’s mountain folk or the Mana’ans. But of course it made no difference, if they were not Christian. Ismael’s people sounded strict; she wondered how they could accept Richard, a Norman.
“Mama.” Robert slid his arm around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. “Aren’t you glad we came?”
She stroked his hair with her fingers. He was turning handsome. She smiled at him, trying to imagine him a young man. “Robert,” she said, “will you stay true to me?”
“I will.” He hugged her. “You are my lady. I want to wear your favor, you must give me something fine.”
Maria laughed at him. “Ah, you will break every woman’s heart in Marna.”
“Oh, Mama.”
She kissed his forehead. “We have to go back home—see how low the sun has fallen.”
Great Maria (v5) Page 28
