Maid Marian (2 page)

“Ah. Well,” Apple Man said with an odd glance at Nurse, “we shall have to remedy that. Lady Marian, your parents cannot see you because they are not very well. Can you understand that?”

Of course I could. As Nurse had explained to me several times, every person had to keep watch of themselves in wintertime—not sit upon stones or let their feet grow damp—or they might become too ill to see visitors. It had happened to me once and kept me from going out into the best snowfall of the year.

“Yes. Will they get better?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

So this was how my parentage was explained. I had parents, apparently, but they could neither be seen nor found, since I had no knowledge of the place in which they lived. I asked Nurse afterward if she knew where this Denby was, and she said she had been there once, to bring me away to this castle. Had she seen my parents there? I wanted to know. Nay, she told me, she had not. It had been Apple Man who’d hired her, who’d given me to her and left her instructions to make our residence in Warwick.

She knew Denby to be my native land, she said, land that would probably belong to me one day if no brothers and sisters stepped forward. This brought my questions out thick and fast, for I was desperate for a brother or sister, but the laws of inheritance and lineage were too much for Nurse, and she begged me not to ask anything more. Nurse was in her element discussing games, animals of all kinds, or the relative merits of barley beer to milk with fruit. She had reached the limit of her understanding, and I could not learn what she did not know.

But my confusion remained—truly it intensified—for now I knew that I had parents and therefore had something to fixate upon. I conjured up visions of them, phantom-like, to see how I liked them, but they often resembled some person I knew and that left me more dissatisfied. Many of the girls of my acquaintance spent particular time with their mothers, so I too kept my eyes alert for the woman who might turn out to be mine. And, true to my tendency to think myself unduly important, I chose for my matriarch the woman of greatest prominence in the land, Queen Eleanor.

I saw Queen Eleanor rarely, for, though I did not know it at the time, she had been locked away in Salisbury Tower by her husband, King Henry. Eleanor, it seemed, had once roused their sons to band together against the king, and for this he had her sealed away. As I say, I knew very little of this, for I saw them together at every court Henry held on English shores. He let her out for public events, knowing how the people like to view their queen, then caged her up again to await the next holy day.

To my young mind it seemed quite different, for when I went to Westminster the queen was nearly always there, and when I left her at the end I assumed she stayed on, perhaps continuing the merriment and feasting until I was called back again. She seemed to be a lady like any other, although she was raised quite far above that position by the adoration of Nurse, who thought her the greatest lady she had ever seen. Long before I first saw the queen, I knew of her, knew that she loved songs and poems and was also ruler of Aquitane, a vast stretch of land in France.

I thought she was perfection itself and, as such, was worthy of being my absent mother. So during one court in Westminster, I waited in the host of other ladies as she moved through us, nodding and greeting. When she reached me I put out my hand and cried, in the soft voice a kitten uses, “Mother.”

She stopped abruptly and looked at me, reaching her fingers under my chin to tip my face into the light. I remember little other than two blue eyes, bright as enamel and cool as the sea.

“Who is this girl?” No one answered. “Are you Marian Fitzwater of Denby?”

I nodded. Her voice was stern and unforgiving, the way I thought a dragon might speak.

“And Lady Marian, did you just address me as mother?”

I began to feel the earth falling away beneath me, and I believe a tear quivered in my eye.

“Yes.”

“Dear child, I have children, by the dozens, it seems, but I am quite certain you are not among them. Do you not know that your mother is buried at Lincoln?”

Buried. I knew that word, and I knew it to mean that my mother was dead. I heard a rushing sound in my ears, but I turned, half blind, to face this woman who had given me my first answers.

“My father?”

“I do not know where he is buried, but wherever it is he has been there these many years. For goodness sake, don’t cry, child. It’s not as if you ever knew them, is it?”

She strode on and left me there, a numb mass of flesh and bones. Here was the truth I had so longed for. I had no parents, would never see them, could never live in the same home with them. The glowing phantoms I’d so carefully built by piling my hopes and dreams together disappeared in a breath of wind, turned to dust, and vanished completely.

It was then that I learned to mistrust my elders, to look for the meaning behind their words, to feel suspect of their smiles and caresses. For if one man might lie to me, as Apple Man so soundly had, why shouldn’t the others? If he could placate me with falsehoods, how could I trust the words of his fellows?

And so, though I was little aware of it at the time, the first chills of disillusionment stole across my heart that day, leaving a child mixed with one part shrewdness and three parts youthful ignorance.

Chapter Two

W
HEN
I
WAS A CHILD,
all the world seemed at my fingertips. The sky was vast, and I felt myself equally vast beneath it, taking into my heart every tree, stone, and stream within my eyesight. But as I grew my vision dimmed, and with it the expanse of the world closed in upon me. The sky fell lower, the trees stood taller, and rivers carried their flood away to greater seas I would never know.

But even as the natural world closed in, the world that humans had constructed, of politics and nobility, stretched before me as an ever expanding field upon which I might learn to play. In my thirteenth year I began to see the myriad loops and twists that attach people to one another, and I was fascinated by them. My tutor could not tell me enough of kings and court and battles for land and fealty. This was my world, the world of my fathers, and I was just beginning to awaken to it.

That year I was called to a Christmas court in London town, and I was delighted to see that Hugh had come there also. I had not seen him for several years, since he had been living across the channel in Anjou, the king’s native land, learning the arts of war and conquest. He had grown a great deal in this time, and the boy who had been just my height before soared above me by a head. Now his curls were blond no longer, but the very shade of chestnut bark, precisely arranged by a careful hand.

He stood surrounded by a gang of young men and seemed absorbed in their jokes and jostling, so I took my place with the young ladies and did my best to enjoy their company. I had several longtime friends among them, girls who had told me things about life and love that Nurse seemed not to know. Red-haired Lady Cicely was my favorite, but I noticed that the other girls shunned her somewhat, so I also avoided her. I was a shy child in groups and gaggles and had no stomach to forge a friendship that might cause me to stand alone and be looked at. Much better to blend in quietly to the heart of the group and be an audience for the bolder ones.

Lady Clarice was a great talker and told us many stories of her sisters’ romances, for she was the youngest of five girls and knew more than we of courtship and marriage contracts. Lady Betony resided in London town and as such was self-appointed mistress of style. She pointed out the most fashionable of the grown-up ladies and explained the importance of the handkerchief and powder box. She liked to praise the brightest and fairest, but she also had a sour tongue and was ruthless to those dressed in the handed-down elegance of their mother’s gowns.

This kind of talk entertained us well until the sun broke one afternoon, and we dropped all talk for a romp in the snow fields. We stood on the edge of adulthood then, but we were still attracted to the pleasures of youth and were quick to forgo our attempts at sobriety. We slipped and skated and patted the snow and soon were joined by a group of boys.

These boys played rough, and in one frenzied moment a handful of snow went down my neck. I turned to see who my attacker was but only caught sight of fleeing dark hose and a green tunic. Filling my mittens with a great wad of snow, I dashed after him as fast as I could, chasing his tunic around bends and hills. I was faster than most of the girls, but I had a hard race to catch this rascal, for he seemed intent on getting away.

Finally he dropped over a snow-topped hill, and I dropped too, catching him clean on the neck with my snowball as I fell. I laughed aloud at my revenge, but when he stood I ceased all laughter. My attacker was Hugh, and when he rose, breathing hard, his face contorted to a shade and look I had never seen on a person before. His features seemed twisted with some great emotion, dark and hideous, almost as if he might cry, though I did not think he would.

In another second he bent over me and slapped my face with the back of his hand.

“Hugh!” I cried, clasping the stung cheek. “Why . . . ?”

“You should know better, wife.” He said the last word with vicious scorn and kicked a pile of snow on my skirt. “You are to obey me, don’t you know that? I am your husband, and I can do with you what I please.”

With that he dragged me to my feet and pulled me, slipping and sliding, around a second bend to where a group of tall boys were building a wall out of snow.

“Look what I found,” he cried, casting me down at their feet. I bit my lip and felt the rusty taste of blood.

“A girl! What do you want with her, Hugh?”

“Who is she, Hugh?”

“She’s my wife,” he said, proudly this time. “She’s got to obey me. Isn’t that right, Marian?” He kicked me hard, and I muffled a cry. “See? She’s been disobedient this afternoon, and I propose we show her what happens to girls who spite their masters. What do you say to that, lads?”

They all cheered at this, and I began to cry. I had no idea what boys of this age might want to do with me, but I was quite certain I would not like it. More than anything I wished for one of my comrades to come, to save me, but they would never venture this far from the castle. I thought perhaps my life was ending.

Hugh yanked me up by my hair and ordered me to hoist my skirts so his scruffy friends might see a lady’s legs for themselves. I wore thick hose and so was not afraid for the cold, but the very fact that they wanted to see made me frightened to show. Had we been but four years younger I might have taken off all my clothes, but suddenly this smaller act had a depth of meaning I did not care for. Perhaps it was the sneer on Hugh’s face or the way the boys looked at me, so silent and so desperate.

My hands shook as I reached for my skirt, for I saw I had little choice, but at that moment I was saved. Two of the castle servants came near us, dragging a toboggan loaded with wood, and their voices disrupted the group of boys. They fled, falling over one another in their rush to escape, leaving me alone, wet and senseless. I wiped off my tears and went after the servants to travel with them and perhaps get a ride on the back of their sled.

A
FTER THIS
I
TOOK PAINS
to keep a distance between Hugh and me. Nurse spied the bruises on my face and arms and questioned me, but when I explained they had come from Hugh, she could only hold me and shake her head. This, it seemed, was the way things could be between husband and wife, and I learned at that moment that it was a vast deal different from the gentle bonds of brother and sister.

Nurse did her best to comfort me, suggesting that he might grow to be more even-tempered. Perhaps, she thought, by the time we went to live together, he might know more of life and ladies and would have learned some respect for me. But I saw a dark look in her eye and knew that she did not believe it would happen.

That Christmas court was very strange, for after this incident I stayed in my room a day or two until the bruising on my face had gone. And when I stirred without again I found that every lady my age was brimming with news of Queen Eleanor. The queen, it seemed, wished to interview each young lady who was not yet wed, for it was her responsibility to make marriage recommendations to the king.

As Lady Clarice explained it to me, if a landed vassal of the king bore no sons, the king could take his eldest daughter to give in marriage to whomever he chose. As she spoke I understood at last how it was that I lived where I did. My parents had died, as I now knew, and I was left as their only child. Since my father’s lands by rights came to me, the king had the power to use me and my lands to make alliances with others of his nobles. This was how I came to wed Hugh and so young. The king desired to make Hugh’s parents pleased with him, so he gave them me and all of my lands to be part of their family from that day forward.

The queen flourished in these sorts of decisions, and it was for that reason she chose to come among the young ladies to see which of us added beauty or wit to the value of our hills and furlongs. I felt certain she would not visit me and so did not worry myself, for ever since our last encounter I was quite in dread of Queen Eleanor. But I was already wed to Hugh, I told myself, so did not warrant her attention.

N
URSE AND
I
WERE SITTING
alone the next afternoon when the door flew open to admit the queen. We both were flustered, but Nurse caught the whip end of the queen’s eye, for she scurried about in a noisy way that bothered Lady Eleanor. At last Nurse left, waving at me bravely as she went, then closed the door behind her.

“Well, Lady Marian. I trust you know me by now as the queen, not as your mother?”

I blushed deeply and clenched my fists, wishing with my whole being that she had not chosen to mention that.

“Yes, my lady.” I glanced at her face, saw the disdain in her brilliant blue eyes, and felt my heart curdle between my ribs. But then I looked to her pale brows, to the place on her temples where gray met gold, and thought I saw the shadow of long-faded beauty which gave me heart.

“Very well then. And do you know why I am come to see you today?”

“No, my lady.”

“I am conducting discussions with every young lady, surely you have heard that?”

Her tone of condescension was so great that I struggled to defend myself.

“Yes, my lady, but I understood that you were speaking only with marriageable young ladies. I am already married and so did not expect to . . . have the honor of speaking with you.”

She smiled here for the first time. “Well spoken, child. To tell the truth, I came to see what you’ve become. It is always worthwhile for me to know my ladies a little better.”

I thought of her years in Salisbury, closed off from the rest of the world, and wondered how I could rightly be called “her” lady. But I said nothing.

She carried on as she had before and began to quiz me about my studies, to ask what I read and if I enjoyed it, to see what I knew of the world. As she questioned me I began for the first time to see gaps in my education and was ashamed to feel as backward as I did. She had just asked me how I got on with the nobles in my home castle, and I was replying that I did not go among them much, when Nurse bobbed in, searching for her best stitching needle.

“My apologies, my lady,” she gasped, falling over herself in a curtsy, “but I’ve misplaced me needle.” As she spoke she seemed to realize the error she’d made in entering and looked at me with desperation. I leapt to my feet and snatched my own needle from out of my stitchery, pressing it gently into her hand. She bobbed again and rushed for the door, somehow managing to create more noise from five steps than a herd of twice as many sheep.

The queen made an exasperated noise and turned back to me.

“Has she been with you long?”

“All my life, my queen.”

“Well.” She peered at me a moment. “You are quite fair, Lady Marian. I suppose you know that?”

I did not, but was unsure what response to give. I wished to be truthful, but I had already had to admit such a lack of knowledge that I was beginning to feel deplorably ignorant. I believe I opened my mouth but never managed to make a sound.

“Now, child, there is no shame in a woman admitting her own beauty. When you have been told of it more often, you will not feel so shy. Does Hugh of Sencaster not compliment you?”