Great Maria (10 page)

Suddenly Roger bolted out of the room. Maria started. She said, “Besides, something has to happen in that corner of the work. Robert is asleep, will you take him up to bed?”

Eleanor snatched the baby from her and raced away. The door sighed shut behind her. Maria began to tie the ends of the warp threads down to the bottom roller of the loom, careful to spread them evenly. When she had knotted down half the warp, Richard came over to her, Ceci clinging to his hand.

“What are they fighting about?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He stooped a little to see the design on the wall. “Sweet kiss of Jesus. What are these people here doing?”

“Dancing.”

“That isn’t what it looks like to me.”

Ceci leaned over the basket of mending, trying to reach something, and fell in headfirst. He lifted her out by the ankles. She came up startled, her hands groping in the air. Richard lowered her to the floor.

“Is Eleanor pregnant?”

Maria scratched her nose. Naturally she had considered that. She shook her head. “No. She would have told me. I would know.”

Ceci pulled herself to her feet, her arms around his knee. He winced away from her. “Ah, sweeting, not that leg.”

Maria drew the child away from him. Richard eased all his weight onto his good leg. His eyes fell to the sketch on the wall. “Those people are not dancing. When does anybody ever dance around here?” Limping, he walked quickly down to the hearth again.

***

Richard went out raiding and left Roger to command the castle. Eleanor had taken to sleeping in a truckle bed in Maria’s room, to help, she said, if Robert woke in the night. After months of broken sleep, Maria was glad of the chance to stay in bed when the baby fretted. But sometimes in the dark, Eleanor groaned and sobbed loud enough to waken her.

Three nights after Richard left, snow began to fall, at first only a thin shower of flakes drifting through the torchlight in the ward, but mounting to a hammering storm. In the middle of the night, Maria woke up stifling in the heat. Eleanor had built the fire as full as the hearth allowed and it was blazing bright enough to turn the whole room twilit. Maria slid out of the bed.

She thought she could hear hunting horns, somewhere far off, and cattle lowing. Eleanor was not in her bed. The covers were thrown back over the foot and her fur-lined slippers were still on the floor. The draft from the window was fanning the fire in the hearth. Ceci called out, “Mama?” from the bed behind her, and was asleep again when Maria went back to her. Robert was fast asleep in the cradle, overlaid with the flickering saffron light.

When she leaned into the window, the snow blew stinging in her face: the wind had torn the shutter off. She put a cloak over her nightgown and went out onto the stair landing.

The stair below was dark as a well. Above her beside the door to Roger’s room, a torch still blazed. She went up the stairs two at a time and knocked. The stone floor chilled her feet.

Eleanor pulled the door open. Her face was slick with tears. “What is it? Why can’t you leave us alone?”

Maria said, “There is a fire in the village, I have heard the horns twice.”

The girl swallowed. On her cheekbones high color showed. She called, “Roger?”

“Come in,” Roger said. “I heard her.”

Maria thrust the door open and walked past Eleanor into the room. The blaze of candles filled it, and Roger was dressed, so they had not been in bed after all. He went to the window and reached across the deep sill to open the shutter. The edge of the wall hid his face.

“I can’t see anything. Are you sure, Maria? Ah, I hear them.” He stood back from the window. “Get me my fur cloak. We can’t put out the fire. I’ll bring them here if they need shelter.” His voice was unemotional, but when he turned toward them his pallor and the hollows of his eyes startled Maria; all his beauty was gone. He cared for Eleanor after all. He burst between the two women and ran down the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said to Maria. She rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I am sorry.”

“Come down and go to sleep, there is little we can do.” But it rankled that Eleanor should have thought she was spying.

Three houses burned in the village. Roger was out all night finding shelter for the homeless people. Through the next day, the snow fell steadily. With Eleanor carrying Robert after her and Ceci running before, searching for places where the snow had blown in, she swept and cleaned and put the whole of the New Tower in order.

At noon, missing Eleanor and the baby, she went up the stairs after them. Eleanor stood in the doorway to the hall, the baby clutched in her arms, her shining unhappy eyes aimed into the room at Roger. When she saw Maria, the girl wheeled and ran away.

Maria caught up with her on the landing to their room and took the baby. “See if you can make Ceci eat her porridge. She eats much better for you than for me.”

Eleanor’s face sagged like an old man’s. “I want to have my own babies.”

“Good,” Maria said. “Practice with mine.” She put Ceci’s hand into Eleanor’s and went down to the hall again.

The few knights who had not gone out with Richard were massed at one end of the hall, cheering on a wrestling bout. As she came in, one of the wrestlers hit the floor with a thud. Maria went up to her end of the hall and sat down. She turned away from the room and put the baby to her breast. While he nursed she looked at the design on the wall and tried to imagine it filled in with colors. The two dancing couples were to have red clothes, and she decided to put a red bird in the corner diagonally across from them. Abruptly Roger came between her and the sketch.

“Do you think we should send a messenger to Richard?” he said.

“What—to tell him it’s snowing?”

He sank down on his heels beside her. The day-old fuzz of beard on his cheeks was more blond than red; unshaven, he looked older. He scratched at his chin.

“I cannot bring myself to send Eleanor away,” he said.

“Don’t. She is my friend, and she will stay until I want her to go.”

“But there is nothing between us,” Roger cried, and jerked his voice down. “Not anymore. Why should she be here if she will not lie with me?—” His hands rose between them. “Why did Richard leave me here?”

“You should marry her.”

“No.” His eyes were brilliant blue. “No.”

“Do you love her?”

“Eleanor? I love fame, not Eleanor. I love valor and outdoing other men.” He lowered his gaze. His face had lost the marks of strain; he looked fresh again. “I suppose that’s arrogant, isn’t it?”

“No,” she said. She put her hand on his thick red hair. Catching her hand between his fingers and his cheek, he turned and kissed her palm.

“My little sister, I will always love you best.”

Maria laughed. When she tried to pull her hand free, he clung to her. Their eyes met. She wondered what it would be like to lie with him. She wrenched her hand free and lowered the baby into her lap. Hitching up her shoulder, she brought her bodice closed across her breast.

“If she stays,” he said bitterly, “I will have to see her every day.”

“You won’t care, after a while,” Maria said.

***

Richard came back, his horses loaded with plunder and Saracen captives. Eleanor and Roger fought and moped less and less. Once Maria came on them kissing on the stair, but they were not lovers again after that. Eleanor kept her arms full of Robert, even while she sat in the window with Maria and worked on the tapestry.

On Candlemas, all the mothers of the region went to Mass, even the women of the shepherds, and Maria went with them. Afterwards they took salt and bread into the new houses in the village, and the people gathered in the church and danced and argued and got drunk.

Leading their horses, Maria and Eleanor walked back up to the castle, Robert in Eleanor’s arms, and Ceci riding on Maria’s mare. Eleanor tossed Robert in her arms. The wintry air had brightened her face.

“Are you done with Roger?” Maria asked.

“No,” Eleanor said. She held herself straight, like a church image. “Although he is done with me. In God’s sight, I am his wife. Someday he may see that it is so.”

Maria eyed her skeptically. It sounded like a verse: a pledge to keep faith at great cost. She had meant to ask if Eleanor would not marry someone else. She knew Richard could have arranged it with no trouble at all.

“There,” Eleanor said. “Someone is coming.”

Maria shaded her eyes to see. The sky was a flat gray; the snow-covered valley stretched colorless beneath it. A rider was coming up the road from the north. She turned to her mare. There was no reason to offer Eleanor another marriage if she would not accept it. Stabbing her foot into the stirrup, she pulled herself up behind Ceci on the saddle.

Eleven

The rider came from William, down in the Tower of Birnia. Maria could make no sense of what little she overheard of his messages, but before the servants had led away his steaming horse, Richard and Roger had gotten all but five of their men into their saddles and off to the north.

In the black night before dawn, Maria woke and heard the dogs barking in the village. She leaned out her window. Richard and his men were galloping up the road. He shouted to the porter; his voice was harsh with excitement, and Maria went to the cupboard to get out her cloak.

“Mama?”

“Sssh—Eleanor is here.” She made sure that Eleanor was in her truckle bed and ran down the stairs.

The racket of the knights streaming into the ward had brought out their servants and some of the castle women, looking for their lovers. Maria, the unfastened throat-latch of her cloak clutched in one hand, stood in the doorway. Roger made his horse rear and prance in the middle of the ward to charm the women. Maria went out into the open.

Suddenly Richard loomed up before her on his bay horse. “Here,” he said, throwing back his cloak. “Take this.”

Maria reached her arms up, and Richard, with a father’s practiced grip, lowered a little boy into her arms. Maria braced herself against his weight. Rigidly the child resisted her embrace and turned his head away.

“Who is he?” she called.

“Take him upstairs.” Richard rode off. The child was sliding down out of her arms. Maria hitched him up again and carried him back up to her room.

On the stairs she could hear Robert’s screams of rage and pain. Eleanor, her face smudged with sleep, was walking him up and down the room. Maria shut the door with her heel. The false dawn was blooming. The room was gloomy with its treacherous light. She took the strange child over to the bed.

Ceci sat up, her thumb in her mouth. “Mama.”

Maria kissed her. “Eleanor, so long as we are all up, will you send down for our breakfast? And bring me some of the cider.”

Robert was howling. His belly was fat with colic. Eleanor took him away with her to get the breakfast. Maria poured water into a basin, found a cloth, and washed off the strange child’s face.

“What’s your name?” Maria said.

The boy said nothing. He was stocky and robust, dark as a winter apple; his face was old with suspicion. Beyond him, on the pillow, Ceci looked frail by contrast. Heralded by Robert’s shrieks, Eleanor came in the door with a steaming wooden cup.

“It’s hot,” Eleanor said.

Maria took the cider and blew on it to cool it. The strange boy was watching her, scowling, with a face like an enemy. She said, “God’s eyes, don’t look at me as if I’m going to eat you.” She drank off some of the cider and filled the cup again with water from the pitcher. “Drink this, like a good boy.”

He took the cup in both hands and gulped down the cider. Maria tried to take it way from him, saying, “Slower, you’ll be sick,” and was surprised when he fought. She tore the cup out of his grasp and set it down, and went across the room to find him something to wear: the clothes he had on were filthy. When she went back to the bed, he had gotten hold of the cup again and was draining the cider.

“Bad,” Maria said sharply, and slapped his hands. That had no effect at all. His face stony, the boy stared past her. She took off his clothes.

“Tell me your name,” she said firmly.

“Bunny,” the boy said.

The door opened. Flora came in with a tray, Eleanor behind her, Robert at last asleep again in her arms. They had brought a bowl of porridge for the strange boy. Maria dipped up a spoonful of it, her mouth open to coax his appetite, but he was already leaning toward her, his mouth open and his hand reaching for the spoon. Maria brushed his hand aside and dumped porridge into his mouth.

Bunny was a common name, a mother’s pet name for her baby. Richard sometimes called Robert that, when he was wrapped in his fur bunting. This Bunny reached for the spoon every time she raised it. She dodged his hand patiently and fed him herself. He was not a soft or pretty child, and the unfitting name amused her. She scraped the bowl for him, and when he still seemed hungry, got him a piece of fruitcake from the cupboard.

“Mo’ drink,” Bunny said.

Maria got him another cup of the cider. The dawn light was bursting through the window. Robert slept in the cradle, sucking the air. She put Ceci’s largest shirt on Bunny and tied the laces across his chest.

“Are you tired?”

Bunny put the cup on the bed; it fell over. Maria caught it. He said, “Piss.”

“Come along.” She lifted him down from the bed, led him across the room, and got out the chamberpot. “Do you know your real name?” she said. “Or who your father is?”

He rubbed his fists into his eyes. She gave up trying to talk to him. When he was finished, she put him into the bed beside Ceci.

“Mama,” Ceci said, holding out her hands. “Good-night me.”

Maria caught each hand and kissed it and kissed Ceci on the nose. “Go back to sleep. When you wake up again you can come downstairs.” She kissed Bunny’s cheek. “Good night, Bunny.”

She went down the stairs. Most of the knights were warming themselves at the fire in the hall. Eleanor and Flora and the other women were bringing up a breakfast for them. Richard and Roger stood in one corner, talking. Maria went out onto the landing and behind the stairs into the wall passage.

It was cold inside the wall. She went as quietly as she could, so that Richard would not hear her, and knelt down to peek through the hole.

The two brothers were standing between the wall and her spinning wheel. Roger had his back to her. He gestured persuasively with his hands.

“Think what we may gain. To control the duchy for a dozen years, perhaps, keep the justice and issue the taxes—who wouldn’t give his hand for the chance!”

“Don’t be stupid.” Richard sat down on her stool. When he faced Roger again he seemed to meet her gaze. The shag of his new beard gaunted his face; he looked sleepy.

“How am I stupid?” Roger whirled hot toward him. “Are you afraid, Richard?”

Richard gave a quick glance down the room. “Because we would need the help of men who will never deal with us. Fitz-Michael, for instance, and the other counts. The Archbishop.”

Maria pressed her lips together and smiled. The little boy was Duke Henry.

“You are such a slug sometimes—” Roger said. The cords of his neck stood out, and his hand cupped the air. “See what we might gain by a little risk.”

In his most insulting voice, Richard said, “I see you are all mouth as usual. I’ll tell you what I decide to do.” He started away down the hall.

Roger lunged after him. “Wait—is there no argument I can use? For our Crusade—for your son’s sake?”

Richard laughed. He went on toward the door. Maria sprinted down the wall passage, squeezed through the narrow corner, and dashed out onto the stair landing. Richard stood in the middle of the hall listening to Roger argue. She galloped up the stairs.

Eleanor was gone; Robert and the strange child slept; Ceci in her nightgown stood before the window pushing everything she could carry across the sloping three-foot sill and down into the ditch below. Maria lifted one of Richard’s shoes out of her daughter’s hands and tossed it under the bed. The shoe’s mate, two shirts, the metal basin, and Maria’s pillow were scattered over the snow in the ditch four stories below the window. She slapped Ceci on the hand.

“No. Bad girl. Now someone will have to go pick all those things up again.”

Ceci thrust out her lower lip and threatened to cry. Maria knelt to undo the little girl’s nightdress. “You must go with Flora and help pick up.” She looked into Ceci’s face and her moon-gray eyes.

Richard came in, shedding his quilted armor padding, which he dropped on the floor. Ceci gave a glad cry. Naked in the morning light, she ran toward him, her skin blue-white, every curved bone showing. Richard caught her up.

“She just threw half your clothes out the window into the ditch,” Maria said. She pulled the curtains shut on the bed, so that the little boy could sleep. Seldom used, the thick folds of wool gave off an odor of must and an old mouse nest.

Richard stood Ceci on the chest at the foot of the bed, so that they were at eye level. While he peeled off his clothes, she talked earnestly to him, whole long sentences, full of rhetoric, here and there even a word in French. Maria brought over her clothes and dressed her.

Richard opened the curtain and looked in at the sleeping child. “Is he all right?”

“He seems perfectly well. Hungry.”

He put on his nightshirt. “What do you think I should do with him?”

She faced him, bland. “Who is he?”

“I saw you go into the passageway. Don’t try to lie to me, you know who he is.”

She took a step back from him, wary. But he wasn’t angry. He went around the bed to the cupboard for some wine, and she followed him.

“How did you come by him?”

“Theobald had him. He thieved him from Fitz-Michael a couple of days ago in Agato and had to cross the border between here and Birnia to escape. Fitz-Michael’s all over the hills looking for him.” He brushed past her out into the middle of the room again. “Fetch me something to eat. Since Robert was born you never think of me anymore—”

She went over to the stairs. She remembered telling Eleanor to get them breakfast, but if it had come, there was certainly nothing left of it. Richard stood in front of the hearth warming his hands.

A servant was coming out of the hall, one flight down the stairs. She sent him to the kitchen for a dish of meat. She shut the door and bolted it. Gathering up his discarded clothes on the way she went back to Richard. Ceci was gone, probably with Flora.

“Roger wants you to keep him and use him. The Duke.”

He gave her the look he saved for her mentions of his brother. “I’ve heard the Gospel according to Roger.” He put the wine cup on the mantel and turned his back to the fire. She went up in front of him and laid her hands on his chest.

“Did you stay up for me?” he asked.

“I slept a little.” The shirt was embroidered with love charms. Adela had made it.

“I can’t do what Roger wants. As soon as Fitz-Michael finds out I have him—” He rubbed his hand over his face. “I can see but two choices. I can give the child back to Fitz-Michael, and get some nithing reward, or I can give him to Theobald and Prince Arthur, and get some nithing reward.” His voice rasped close to a whine. “It wasn’t such a deed to steal him, no matter what Roger says.”

“Will Theobald fight us?”

Richard thrust out his lower lip. “Theobald is of no consequence. He has more men and more castles than I do but he’s soft.”

She glanced at the bed. Richard moved away from her. He kicked the stool around onto the hearth and sat down on it, his legs stretched out before him, slab-boned, stippled with dark hair. She sank down on her hams beside him.

“If you give him to Theobald, they’ll set him aside and make Prince Arthur the Duke.”

Richard snorted. “Prince Arthur will kill him.”

Maria twitched. There was a knock on the door. She went to it, expecting to find a servant with Richard’s breakfast, but Ceci and Flora came in, carrying all the things Ceci had pushed out the window.

“Oh, Flora,” Maria said. “Thank you. Ceci must help you put them away.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head and went back to Richard.

“Do you think you could manage to feed me sometime during the next week?” Richard said.

As if he were Robert, Maria crooned to him and brought him another cup of wine. She knelt on the hearth and poked vigorously at the fire. A kitchen boy came in with his breakfast. Maria brought over another stool and set the plates out for him: bread, cheese, some baked fish. While he ate she helped Flora and Ceci put away their goods. They went out. She drew the bed-curtain aside to look at the sleeping child. He sucked his fingers in his sleep, his black hair and dark skin dwarfish or Saracen. His parents were dead, the country was fallen into wars and disorder; perhaps he should die and let some capable man—Arthur—rule. They might not kill him, they might only put him in a monastery. She pulled the cover up over his arm and let the curtain close.

Richard was still eating, lounging in the heat of the fire, and she sat down on the hearth beside his stool. His bare feet were thrust toward the warmth. She put her hand on his ankle.

“What do you want to do?”

“Me? I want to give him to Fitz-Michael. Do you think I enjoy killing children? But I’m not losing an advantage for the sake of mere pity.”

“If you can’t have pity,” she said, “how can God ever have pity on you?”

He snorted. His jaws moved steadily. “I don’t want pity. I want justice, and I’ve never seen God dispensing much of that.”

“I think you should give him to Fitz-Michael.”

“Why?”

“Because—” She took her lower lip between her teeth, hunting a man’s reason. “I would liefer have Fitz-Michael in my debt than Prince Arthur. Fitz-Michael is an honorable man, but Prince Arthur is probably more like Theobald.” She knew he disliked Theobald.