Great Maria (v5)

by Cecelia Holland

  Forty-one

  Do you still like your weaver?” Richard shot a sideways look down the hall toward Father Yvet. “Christ witness. Every man with an ox tries to fatten it on me.”

  Father Yvet stood before the hearth, the center of a small worshipful crowd. Robert and Stephen were among them. The churchman’s voice was answered by a general laugh. Robert leaned forward, his face vivid with some idea. The priest inclined his head gravely to listen. He had been listening all day, especially to Eleanor. Maria had seen them together three times.

  “Do you think he meant all that?” she said to Richard. “It sounded to me as if he wanted to find out how much you would believe.”

  He took hazelnuts from the bowl beside his chair and cracked the shells between his thumb and forefinger. “Did Robert find Ismael?”

  “He’s down by Crane Beach.”

  Eleanor came in, carrying Henry. Jilly, like a servant, hung on her skirts. Maria’s eyes followed them. Richard put another nut-meat to her lips, and obediently she opened her mouth to receive it.

  “Now you’re going to suffer for killing that priest.”

  “Don’t let me yield to temptation and kill this one.”

  Maria went over to sit down with Eleanor, in the far end of the room. They talked of babies. Jilly lingered nearby them, her fingers turning in her hair, and her eyes listless. When Maria put out her hand to her, the child shrank away. On the back of her hand was a long scratch. Eleanor’s babble unheeded in her ears, Maria sat watching her daughter steadily. That afternoon, when she had spied Jilly racing down the hill outside the castle, she would have sworn an oath the child was naked. The baby whimpered. She took him from Eleanor and went upstairs.

  At dinner, she sat between Richard and Father Yvet. Richard was not talking; he stabbed his knife into the meat and drank hard. Blossoming into a profusion of stories, witticisms, and recollections from Scripture, the churchman dominated the rest of them. He was so sunny Maria could scarcely believe he meant them harm. High-spirited, Robert argued with him about faith. Eleanor leaned forward eagerly, her lips parted to speak as soon as they gave her enough quiet.

  “Mother,” Robert said. “Has Father Yvet made the trip to the shrine?” He turned his gaze on the churchman. “You should see my mother’s holy place, Father, while you are visiting us.”

  “Yes. I should like to. Will you take me there?”

  Robert leaped up, buoyant. Stephen cried, “Why can’t I take him? I was born there. Mama—”

  “You are too young,” Robert said.

  “I am not!”

  Eleanor turned toward the churchman and spoke to him, but his eyes stayed on the boys, and he did not heed her. Robert was still on his feet. He said, “Papa, can we go? Tomorrow?”

  “Maria,” Eleanor said, “we could go too. Jilly, eat your fish.”

  Jilly reached out slowly and took a piece of the fish in her fingers. Eleanor turned toward Richard. “Please, my lord. We could all go. You make the pilgrimage so seldom.” While her back was turned, Jilly dropped the fish under the table.

  Amazed, Maria throttled down her laugh. Richard was agreeing to the journey and refusing to go himself. Eleanor clapped her hands together. Under the woman’s eyes, Jilly carefully picked up another bite of fish and made as if to eat it.

  “Well, I’m not going, if Papa doesn’t,” Stephen said sullenly.

  Eleanor turned to cajole him, and Jilly tossed away the bit of food. Robert said, “Then, don’t. In fact, I forbid you to come.”

  Richard said, drawling, “If you two want to fight, why don’t you go upstairs, where you will not present an example to these other Christian children?”

  “Papa, it was his fault—”

  “God damn you,” Richard shouted, “go upstairs!”

  Stephen was already climbing over the bench, away from the table. He waited stiffly in his place, his eyes on Eleanor. When she nodded, he ran off across the hall to the door. Robert held his ground.

  “Tomorrow, sir,” he said to Father Yvet. “If you wish.”

  “I am very pleased to have your company,” Father Yvet said, smiling. Robert left them. Richard was drinking again. The priest turned to Maria.

  “Your sons are gentle-mannered young men.” Richard set his cup down hard. The wine sloshed onto the table. He walked off down the hall. Eleanor stared after him. “His temper is worse than ever, I see. All our prayers have availed nothing.”

  Maria turned her back to her. To Father Yvet, she said, “Robert likes you. Talk to him, ask him not to fight with Stephen.”

  “I will speak to him. But the younger boy is the culprit.” He bent toward her, as if they spoke alone together, in a little room. “You will come with us tomorrow, won’t you? It’s an easy journey, I’m told. A pleasant outing for you.”

  Maria smiled at him, pleased at his attentions to her. Face to face with him, she could not dislike him. “Thank you. I can’t go, I have so much to do here.” The shrine would be packed with the late-summer pilgrims.

  Eleanor rose. “Jilly. Look at your dress. And you’re commonly so tidy.” She hoisted the little girl by one arm to her feet and swept the crumbs from her skirt. “Off to bed, now. Bow to your lady mother.” Jilly performed her mechanical curtsey and was led away.

  “But it’s your shrine,” Father Yvet was saying. “Who could show me better?”

  She shook her head. “Richard won’t let me go.”

  “You are wasted here,” Father Yvet said. “On this bully.”

  “Father,” she said, “I love my husband, and he is no bully.”

  “I’m sorry. I was overbold. Come, look at me.” Like a lover, he tipped her face up by the chin.

  “Are you my friend, Maria?” he said gently. Maria glanced around them. Eleanor had left the room. The servants were taking away the supper. Eleanor’s huge fat husband, William the German, was making himself comfortable before the fire. The dogs swarmed around his knees and he fed them cheese. Richard was nowhere. She turned and gave Father Yvet her best smile.

  “I am your friend if you are mine,” she said.

  “Then perhaps you will help me to understand your lord.”

  She searched the room again for Richard, and the churchman said, “He’s gone. Don’t be afraid of him. Ultimately, if you trust me, you are serving him better than he serves himself.”

  Maria looked down at her hands. “I trust you, Father.”

  “Do you know if your lord has had any communication with the Emperor since the incident in Santerois?”

  “None,” she said. “I am sure of it, I have been with him constantly since then.”

  He nodded, pleased. “I thought that.”

  Maria wet her lips, her eyes on his face. “Father, tell me the truth. Will the Emperor punish us? What will happen to us?”

  He touched her hand; his fingers were cold and dry. “Don’t look so worried, child. The Emperor is only a man.”

  “But he is Christ’s man,” Maria said.

  Father Yvet shook his head. “The Holy Father is Christ’s man—Christ’s chief instrument on earth. The Emperor has stolen his rights, over the years, but the Holy Father is above the Emperor, as the soul is superior to the body. So the Emperor will learn, if you help me make your lord the sword in the hand of the Holy Father.”

  “My lord, I don’t understand you.”

  “It’s very simple, child. For many years the Emperor has used the disguise of reform to rob the Chair of Peter of its rightful prerogatives. Now the moment has come to restore the preeminence of Christ.”

  Maria crossed herself. The round, rolling words reminded her a little of the Mass. She said, “My lord, I will help you if I can.”

  He touched her hand. She faced out into the room, her heart pounding. Eleanor had come in. She sat down next to her husband and began to talk to him. Maria saw that Eleanor talked rather more than William the German. She wondered what lying with so gross a man was like. Two pages were heating a poker i
n the fire, to mull cider, and she beckoned to them.

  “I have heard much of this edict,” Father Yvet said, “this Saracen charter allowing them to practice their idolatrous faith. I know you are a true Christian.”

  “I am, my lord, by Saint Mary.”

  “Yet I am told you witnessed the charter.”

  “I could not do otherwise,” she said.

  “He forced you?”

  The eagerness in his voice embarrassed her. She looked away from him. “I am only a woman, my lord.” Brother Nicholas would be at the shrine. She almost decided to go with them, to see how he liked Father Yvet. The page brought her a cup of the hot cider.

  “Will you have some?” She put the cup down in front of the priest.

  “Thank you, child, no.” He smiled at her like a boy. Maria took the cup and sipped from it. The sweet apple liquor warmed her tongue.

  “My brother William did not witness the charter,” she said.

  “No. So I am told.”

  “Richard does not rule William.”

  “And he is a Godly man? A friend of Holy Church?”

  “William loves piety.” She crossed herself to take the curse off the lie. Robert had come in again. Eleanor swiveled in her chair to speak to him, and he answered her and came around the end of the table to Maria’s side.

  “Mother,” he said. “Come with us tomorrow. It would be like Mana’a. You could lower a rope out the window.” He sank down on his heels next to her chair, smiling across her at the churchman. “I think we drive my father mad—he knows we deceive him constantly but he can never catch us at it.” He elbowed Maria. “We’ll leave before dawn—steal away, before Papa is up.” He looked again at Father Yvet. “My father is a late sleeper, being a drinking man.”

  “Robert, don’t poke me.” She got quickly to her feet. “I cannot go, there is too much to do here—you’ve seen how Eleanor keeps the place. Father Yvet, I pray you, pay no heed to him.”

  “What will he say?” Father Yvet’s lean face sleekened with amusement. “Here, Master Robert, tell me all your mother’s secrets.”

  Robert stood up. “It’s nothing, Father—our joke.” He caught Maria’s hand. “Come with us. Come on—you never do anything with me anymore.”

  “You flirt, Robert.” She escaped off across the room.

  When she reached the doorway, she turned, her back to the stairs. Robert was sitting in the chair she had left. Father Yvet was talking to him. She stood on the threshold, where she could watch them.

  After a moment, to her relief, Richard came out of the wall passage behind her.

  “Did I do it well?” she said.

  “You are a master. But you shut up Robert just when I was learning something.”

  They went up the stairs. She said, “Eleanor’s husband is a very silent man. Jilly is only afraid of you because you shout. Play with her a little.”

  “Play with her? I’d sooner play with Eleanor. She is a brat now. Why didn’t William witness my charter?”

  Maria shut the door behind them. “It was the hunting season.”

  ***

  Eleanor wrinkled up her nose. “I can assure you, such foul stuff will never pass my teeth.” She broke a little simnel cake and spread it with honey and butter.

  “But they’re good. Here, Jilly.” Maria tried to give the child half her Saracen bun. Jilly shrank away from it, her face knotted up in distaste.

  “Oooh.”

  “You see.” Eleanor patted Jilly’s shoulder. “Father Yvet is a Godly man. He will have no taste for vile pagan food.”

  Maria gave up. She sat back in the chair, yawning. The candle light pooled on the table, shining on the hands and faces of the people around its edge. In the darkened hall behind them, many of the servants still slept. The door opened and Robert came in, trailing Stephen, and a moment after they had sat down, Father Yvet appeared. Maria went over to the north window.

  “It will be a good day for your pilgrimage,” she said. She folded her arms on the window sill. In the clear blue light before dawn, the smoke of the village chimneys rose straight as pine trees.

  “Mother, is our dinner packed?” Robert jabbed at Stephen with his knife. “You can come if you can talk her into it.” To Father Yvet, he said, “Stephen is my mother’s lamb.” He glanced at Stephen. “Baabaa.”

  Stephen started up. Father Yvet pushed him back down on the bench. “Eat, Master Robert, so that we can leave. A good day’s travel begins with a good breakfast.”

  Maria went down the stairs and across the frost-covered ward to the kitchen. The cook was packing two large baskets full of food. “They’ll just have to take what they get,” he said. “Coming in here and telling me they want a full meal to eat on the way.”

  He stuffed an enormous pudding into a basket already bursting with roast meat. Maria went into the pantry for a cheese. The kitchen door banged open; she heard Jilly’s voice. She went out to the warmth of the kitchen again. Jilly was squirming into the narrow space behind the rear table. The cook went on with his packing.

  The child saw Maria and froze. Maria smiled at her. She took the cheese over and put it into the second basket. Jilly disappeared into her hiding place.

  “Did you like the chorek?” she asked.

  The cook shrugged. “It was fair-tasting bread. That sweet spice and all. Fair.” His bare skull shone. He gave her an oblique look. “Get it in Mana’a, do you?”

  “In the harbor. I’ll send you some.”

  His head bobbed. Robert opened the door and came the three steps down into the light. “Mother? We are ready.”

  Maria fastened down the tops of the baskets. “Now, don’t eat everything. Let other people get enough. Are you taking a page? Then take one. Josse, he has never been.”

  “Maria,” Eleanor called, from the doorway. “Have you seen Jilly?”

  “No, Eleanor, I thought she was with you.”

  Robert lifted the baskets, and Maria followed him up into the ward ahead of her. The sky was full of high blue clouds. In the ward, the horses stamped and snorted in the chilly air. Father Yvet marshaled his little party out into the open. William the German had backed out of the trip the night before, but Flora had suddenly decided to go in his place.

  “This will teach Jilly not to go off by herself.” Eleanor lapped the front of her cloak and fastened the brooch. “Still, I’m sorry she must miss it.” She got into the cart with the baskets and the page and Flora. Robert mounted.

  “Come join us, Master Stephen,” Father Yvet said. The boy was standing just behind him. “Let me make a friend of you.”

  Stephen locked his hands behind his back. “I am my father’s friend.” He walked away toward the New Tower.

  “Father,” Maria called, and went up to the churchman. He stood staring after her son, his face pinched with anger. “Give my greeting to the abbot, Brother Nicholas.”

  “I will.” Pleasant again, he kissed her forehead. He led the little train out the gate.

  Maria went into the New Tower and up to the hall. In spite of the early hour, Richard was awake, standing beside the table eating breakfast, while William the German opposite him explained some business. Stephen waited nearby. Maria went upstairs to tend to the baby.

  She nursed Henry and was sitting on the bed changing his clothes when Richard and William the German came into the room. They tramped across the carpets. Richard took his sword down from the wall and pulled the belt over his shoulder.

  “We’re going to the village. Something to do with this fair. And I may go to the mill afterward. When Stephen comes back, if I am not here, tell him to meet me at the mill.”

  “What are you going to do about Ismael?” She glanced at William the German’s broad, shrewd face. He smiled at her. “He’s probably freezing. You know how cold it gets down there at night.”

  “I sent Stephen down there with my fur cloak.”

  Richard went out. Maria followed him down the stairs, the baby on her hip. The wa
rd was busy with the people of the castle at their work. Richard stopped in the middle of it, looking around him.

  “Hugh! Bring me my horse!” He turned back to her. “Who taught that old onionhead in the kitchen to make chorek?”

  “I did.” She put the baby down on the ground at her feet. The geese were scattered across the ward, and she kept watch for them. His bay stallion trotted up from the stable, throwing its head against the groom’s hold on the bridle. Richard mounted. She picked up the baby again and walked beside him toward the gate, one hand on his horse’s shoulder.

  “Poor Ismael. He’s probably—”

  “Don’t worry about Ismael. If a messenger comes from Roger, tell me.”

  They went out the gate onto the hillside. Maria shaded her eyes against the early sun. The air was brilliantly clear; the valley lay brown and placid before them. A haywain was rolling down the road from the village.

  “Now teach him to make Saracen eggs,” Richard said, “and I will canonize you.” He took his foot out of the stirrup and nudged her. She stood on her toes to reach him, and he kissed her. With William the German he galloped down the road toward the village.

  Carrying the baby, Maria went off across the hillside toward the curtain wall. The early frost had killed the grass; it crackled under her feet and left burrs and hooked seeds all over her skirts. Henry slept with his head on her shoulder. Fifteen feet from the curtain wall, she stopped still.

  Between her and the high wall, the hill dropped off steeply in a sandy bank. Naked except for her shoes, Jilly sat in the dirt, digging vigorously with a stick. Two cloth dolls lay beside her. There was no sign of her clothes.

  Maria crouched in the tall dead grass. Jilly snatched up one of the dolls, a shapeless thing with black yarn hair. “No, no, Eleanor!” She pounded the doll on the head with her stick. “Eleanor was bad again, Judith,” she told the other doll. “What shall we do?”

  Maria backed away up the hillside. Henry sagged against her.

  She moved slowly to keep from rustling the dry brush. The doll Eleanor, apparently on counsel of the doll Judith, received a thorough beating. Maria went back toward the castle again. Halfway up the hill, she began to laugh.