Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  “Mamamamama.”

  Ismael had to be punished. All her tapestries were pictures. She clapped hands with Jilly, fighting down her will to spite Rahman. A servant came in to clean away the broken chessmen, and she told him to leave them there.

  “Mama,” she said to the little girl. “Say Mama.”

  ***

  Maria said good-bye to Ismael and Robert at the Emir’s Gate and rode back alone through the city. It was a bright, hot day. In the streets the people of Mana’a conducted their affairs and arguments at the top of their lungs. She rode toward the harbor, between the low hills like ruined mountains where the rich Saracens had their palaces. A chant of voices trailed her: “Mah-eee-ya!”

  She stopped on a street corner to watch a sword swallower delight a crowd of children. Already she missed Robert and Ismael. Richard had sent them up to the mountains as a punishment, but they took it for a treat: they could not wait to go.

  She moved off down the street again. She took her feet from the stirrups and let them dangle. On either side, the stalls of the astrologers and magic-makers were packed with people. The white mare stepped out into her cushioned jogtrot. A stream of merchants’ knaves raced up across her path, shrieking their seductions at her. When they did not draw her, they ran off to the next rich passer-by.

  The huge square before the cathedral was jammed. The people haggled across the counters of the merchants’ stalls and fought to get up through the crowd. Towering over the Mana’an folk, the mailed knights of William’s escort waded up to the stalls that sold marchpane and sherbet. A groom sitting on the cathedral steps took the white mare. The one-armed beggar scurried toward her, but she waved him off and went past him into the porch. Richard would have given him something.

  The iron-bound doors were open. Through them she could hear William’s voice complaining. She walked down the center aisle. Workmen were pulling down the Saracenic columns and the false walls. The air was foggy with dust.

  Jilly on his shoulders, William appeared before her, saying, “Richard, I am too stupid to be a churchman.”

  “Mama,” Jilly said, and stretched out her arms.

  William lifted her down. “Maria, my sister.” Giving the child to her, he stooped and planted a wet kiss on her forehead. Maria put Jilly down on the floor. “I cannot understand it,” William said. “Roger gave me to think you were wasting away here.”

  Richard grunted, behind her. “Roger indulges himself. Maria, she is eating the dirt.”

  Maria took the stone from Jilly before she could stick it in her mouth and gave her a big ring of keys to play with. Richard said, “You’ll do very well, William. I’ll tell you what to do.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” William clasped his hands over his vast belly and heaved it up above his belt. “I know you too well, Richard, I don’t want to be your cat’s paw.”

  Maria looked over her shoulder at her husband. He was sitting on a chunk of the stone altar rail, his hands on his knees. He said, “I am trying to remember once when I’ve used you as a cat’s paw.”

  “You would if I let you.”

  Maria measured the altar with her eyes, trying to imagine furnishings for it. Richard said. “Maria, have I ever used him for a cat’s paw?”

  “Don’t pull me into it.” Jilly stood up, holding onto her skirt, and started uncertainly off across the cathedral.

  William said, “You practically tell Roger which hand to wipe his bottom with. Now you are trying to take Birnia away from me—”

  “You can rule Birnia. I told you that. William, that old man will die soon. Do you want someone who does not love us—”

  “You could find some clerk loyal to us. Besides, the Archbishop of Mana’a would have no might—every church save this one is in the diocese of Agato. Are you going to name their Archbishop too?”

  “—somebody who does not love us come in here and lose Mana’a again to the Saracens?”

  William’s mouth drooped, pensively. He scraped one foot over the dusty floor.

  “We are here,” Richard said, “because they suffer us here—the Saracens and the Jews. It’s a balancing act to make an Egyptian tumbler weep. Let some man rule who does not understand that we will not keep power here.”

  Over near the sanctuary, Jilly fell down hard and let out a wail. Maria went to pick her up. In the depths of the cathedral, workmen were hammering and something crunched and collapsed in a shower of noise. When she carried Jilly back over by the men, the sour look on William’s face told her he was about to give in.

  “I can keep Birnia, you said. I like it there, it’s my home now.”

  Richard was twisting the ring on his forefinger. “I have told you twice now you have done well in Birnia.”

  “One more condition. You might not tell me what to do. I’ll do what I think is right.”

  “You can do anything you want. You can turn every Christian in Mana’a into a monophysite. Just keep counsel with me.”

  Jilly on her hip, Maria turned to William. “I will keep you company. You won’t be lonely. Where is Stephen?”

  William sighed. “I like Birnia—he’ll want me here for the best of the spring hunting too.” He patted her cheek. Wide-legged, he started toward the vestibule door.

  Richard took Jilly in his arms. When they went out into the cathedral garden, the heat struck them like a wave. Stephen was climbing in the mulberry trees at the far end, along the wall. Calling to him, they went to the gate to get their horses and go home.

  Twenty-eight

  Promise me you will not talk of it to Roger.”

  Richard gave her a suspicious look. The road ahead of them dropped abruptly five feet to a gravel wash, and he spurred his horse ahead of her down the steep slide. Maria’s mare scrambled down the embankment, snorting, and trotted up beside him again.

  “You mean that I know he kissed you? Why? Would it make it better if I didn’t know?”

  “Infinitely,” Maria said.

  They stopped to wait for the wagons to find some way across the washed-out road. The Ridge Highway wound across the shoulders of the mountains. The slopes on either side of them were buried in the thorny gray-green brush of the high zone. In all directions, she could see into the limitless distance, as if she looked across the whole world. The sun was already lowered past nightfall in the valley beneath them, although the rock peaks still blazed in daylight. Richard turned toward her again.

  “Why? Tell me the truth, for once, and I’ll promise.”

  “I just don’t want to bring it up again.”

  “That’s unconvincing.”

  “That is the truth.”

  They rode on down the slope into the mountain night. After moonrise, they came to the gate of Iste. The torches clustered on it shone like jewels in the darkness. A crowd of people waited to greet them. Roger was among them. Maria turned to Richard again.

  “Swear you will not speak of it.”

  For a moment he was silent. Maria stared at him. Behind her, Robert was talking to Ismael. Stephen had gone back to the wagons. At last, Richard said, “I promise.”

  “Thank you.” She faced forward again. “Mary Mother,” she said. “Eleanor is here.” She lifted her reins. They hurried their pace along the uneven road.

  Eleanor ran forward to greet her, stretching out her arms. The two women wept and hugged each other. Maria found herself laughing for no reason. “Where is Jilly?” Eleanor asked, and sniffed. She patted her eyes. “You cannot think how I have chafed this day, waiting to see you again. Where is Jilly?”

  Maria pointed behind her to the wagons. The boys had vanished. Eleanor clapped her hands together. She strained toward the carts slowly rolling up the road toward them. Maria climbed into her saddle again. On either side of the road, a dark mass of people waited, calling out in excitement. Eleanor was edging forward, cocking her head from side to side, trying to make out the people in the oncoming train. Maria rode toward the city.

  Richard and Roge
r were talking directly under the gate, their horses blocking the way, as if they were angels. Maria rode her mare up through the orange torchlight. Roger turned toward her. Before he could speak to her, Richard jammed his horse in between them, wedging them apart. He struck Roger’s hand down.

  “Don’t touch her. If you ever kiss her again, Roger, I’ll kill her.”

  He pressed his horse sideways through the gate toward her. In the covered archway the hoofbeats rang out sharp as hammer strokes. Maria’s mare scurried into the dark city ahead of him. The rattle of their hoofs boomed across the empty market place. She reined the mare to a halt. Richard came up beside her.

  “You promised me—”

  “You swore me an oath when you married me,” he said.

  They crossed the market place. The torches and people spilled through the gate after them, and Roger trotted up alongside Richard. In the dark Maria could not see his face. Three abreast, they went up the street, silent. Behind them, Eleanor called her name. Maria waved.

  “If you have a pretty wife, you should take care of her,” Roger said. They were coming into a steep, narrow street; he wheeled his horse across the way to make Richard hold up. The torchlight from down the hill shone on his face. He thrust his hand out. “Richard, she refused me,” he said. “And it wasn’t the first time. Why get angry about it now?” Irresistibly, he smiled.

  Richard muttered in his throat. Their servants were approaching them. The torchlight glowed higher on the brick walls on either side. Gracelessly Richard shook his brother’s hand. Roger turned his horse. With Richard between him and Maria, they rode up the steep street toward the citadel.

  Maria held her horse back and let them go on. The parade of torchbearers marched along the street around her. Richard and Roger went on toward the blunt shape of the tower above them; they were talking. He had forgiven Roger immediately. Jealous, she watched among the noisy band of people in the street for Eleanor.

  ***

  “We do not worship idols,” the Jew said. He stepped back so that she and Eleanor could precede him through the door. “But when we acquired this building for our temple, the pictures were here, and we love beauty. Here, my lady.” He came up beside her and showed her the way across the darkened room, striped with low benches. Going off to one side, he lit his tinderbox. Eleanor leaned against Maria’s side. “This place smells bad.”

  “Sssh.” Maria had thought of asking the priests if coming here was a sin, but she had not wanted to hear them say yes. All around this room, in the dim light of the lamp, people appeared on the walls. The Jew lit another wall lamp, and its yellow glow spread across two faces and part of a horse.

  Maria turned to study the pictures. The caretaker walked with his taper from lamp to lamp, and the rich light spread like a dawn, revealing dozens of figures on the walls, dogs and horses, fantastic curled petals of flowers and trees.

  “They are very beautiful,” Eleanor said stiffly.

  Maria put her hand lightly on the wall. The pictures were made of chips of colored tile. After Richard had made so much of them, she tried to find them ugly, but their gestures drew her eyes, their faces made her like them. The Jew came up beside her.

  “We think that these are Roman work, perhaps even of the time before Augustus. Our scholars have come from as far as Rome to see them.”

  “My husband told me of them.”

  The Jew bowed his head. “God be kind to the Dragon of Marna.”

  Maria stared into the face of a young man on the wall. A lock of his hair hung over his eyes, and she thought of Robert. The caretaker directed her gaze elsewhere. “Here, you see,” he said, “this was once plastered over. We were fortunate in having the help of a man from Antioch, who removed the plaster without damaging the work.” He went on about how that was done, including the many prayers the congregation had devoted to it, but Maria did not listen. She stared at him a moment, to see how his face was shaped, and looked carefully back at the faces on the wall; she saw how the artisans had exaggerated here and there to give them their expressions. The large black eyes of a middle-aged woman met hers, candid as a friend, and she laughed.

  “Of course,” the Jew said, “we cover them during divine worship.”

  Maria walked away from him, intent on the pictures. Eleanor cleared her throat in a guttural bark. “My lady, you told the lord Robert that you would dine with him.”

  “The lord Robert can feed himself.” But she turned, remembering what she had yet to do before supper. Richard had complained of the fleas in the bed—she had never minded fleas, but they attacked Richard like beasts of prey. And Roger’s servants had some problems to be sorted out. She smiled at the caretaker.

  “Thank you.” She knew what Eleanor and the priests would say if she gave him a present of money. “I shall speak of you and your pictures to my husband.”

  The Jew inclined his head slightly. “The favor of the prince is life.”

  Maria digested that. Eleanor leading the way, they went into the outer room of the temple. The maid brought Maria her cloak. Walking to the gate, they spoke idly of the building of Iste. The Jew urged her to visit the Greek monastery in the old quarter of the city.

  “Well,” she said. “Perhaps.” They went out to the street. The sun was bright but the wind had an edge to it. “Thank you. We will come again, perhaps.” In her faltering Saracen, she asked the groom to lead their horses after them. Her stomach was queasy, and riding made it worse. They walked up the steep hill toward the citadel, visible above the roofs and trees that covered the slope.

  “That man thinks very much of himself,” Eleanor said. “They are arrogant, the Jews. God despises them.”

  They went along a side street and through a narrow bazaar. The women of the Jewish quarter hurried up and down past them. Maria began to wonder how they lived—they could not hold land or keep beasts, their homes all belonged to the Lombards, who took a money-rent from them. Their looks at her were more curious than arrogant. Eleanor babbled emptily on beside her. She crossed a tree-shaded square, where a dozen boys sat listening to an old man recite, and went up another long street to Roger’s gate.

  When they came into the ward, Roger’s lion was roaring so that the sound echoed off the castle wall. Maria’s mare snorted and flung up its head. She gave the horse a quick pat and walked toward the lion pit.

  Robert and Ismael were kneeling beside it, jabbing with a stick down at the lion. The iron grille that was supposed to cover the pit stood propped against the wall behind them. Two pages, one carrying an armload of candles, lingered to watch. When they saw Maria coming they raced away. The lion snarled and bounded into sight up the wall of the pit. Ismael struck it in the face, and the beast recoiled from him. Maria came up behind Robert.

  “Both of you ought to be spanked,” she said. “Put the grille back.”

  Ismael squatted on his haunches. Cheerfully he smiled up at her. “Maria fear not. I fight lion much often.” Robert stood up, but he made no move toward the grille.

  “Maria fear for lion,” she said. “Robert, that is your uncle’s beast, and not yours to poke at and tease. The poor thing—isn’t it sorry enough that it must live in a hole in the ground?”

  Robert nudged Ismael with his toe. He said something in Saracen, and they bubbled with muffled laughter. Ismael threw the stick casually aside. Straining, they slid the heavy grille across the paving stones and dropped it clanging into place. Maria went closer. The lion prowled around the pit, looking quizzically up at them. Its straw-colored hide was lined down the back with red-brown. Roger had gotten it as a cub; now, full grown, it looked half as long as the pit. Robert came up to her.

  “Where did you go? You promised to be here for dinner.” He was almost as tall as Ismael now. His blue eyes were just below hers. “Am I still your good knight?”

  “Yes. When you aren’t in trouble.” She hugged him. Swaggering, Ismael came up on her free side, holding the long stick like a lance under his arm.


  “I much well fighting at lions often.”

  “There are no lions in Mana’a,” Maria said. “Roger says this one came all the way from Africa.”

  Ismael leveled a contemptuous stare at her. “Is many lions here. Roger iggorant.” He made a gesture with his hand.

  “Don’t believe him, Mother,” Robert murmured.

  “I don’t. Ismael, put down that stick.” She started toward the door into the tower. Ismael flung the stick end over end into the air. It fell beyond the wall; someone in the street bellowed in rage. The boys sprang off toward the stable, crowing.

  Maria went up to the hall. The musicians were practicing in one corner. Sunlight streamed in through the open tops of the windows. She unpinned her cloak and gave it to a servant. Two maids came into the hall, one carrying a baby in her arms. Maria paused, interested. She had marked the baby the day before, when they first came to Iste; his hair was bright, clear red. She pretended to look for something on the table beside the two maids.

  “What is your baby’s name?”

  The girls bobbed their bows to her. “Jordan, my lady,” said the girl who held the baby. “But he isn’t mine. His mother’s married and gone away.”

  “Ay,” Maria said. “I thought something of the sort. Take good care of him.”

  “Oh, yes, my lady.”

  Eleanor reappeared, her face set with purpose. “Maria. The cook is very eager to see you. Can you not hurry?”

  “I am,” Maria said, and followed her.

  ***

  The kitchen was in an uproar; when she had spoken to the cook and cleared up the confusion about supper, she and Eleanor went back up to the top room of the tower, stripped the beds, and hung the linen out in the sun to chase away the fleas. Maria returned to the hall. As she came in, the musicians began a quick, light song. Roger was there, with Louise, an older woman of his household, practicing a dance.