Great Maria (11 page)

Richard threw the fish bones into the fire, so the dogs would not get them. “You make about as much sense as Roger.” He moved his leg slightly, so that her hand stroked his ankle.

“I’m just a woman,” she said.

***

Richard went to bed and slept until noon, with the little Duke curled up beside him. When they woke Maria gave them all dinner in the hall. It was a fair, fierce day. In the window an arched patch of blue sky streamed with clouds, and the wind banged the shutters on the wall. Maria let Bunny feed himself, putting a few bites of meat on the plate at a time. Ceci chattered nonsense between her spoonfuls of soup.

While he ate, Richard stared continually at the little boy. Maria saw that he was still trying to decide what to do. All the rest of the day, wherever she went, she took Bunny and Ceci with her. If they decided to kill him, she knew she could not stop them. The day trickled through, achingly slow. Even the cook knew who the child was and joked of stealing him away from her.

In the late afternoon, she brought all three children to the hall and sat in the space before the window, weaving. One of the knights had made Ceci a little wooden doll. She squatted in the middle of the floor and carefully pulled out all its hair. Bunny climbed on the chairs and the table. The serving people and the knights wandered in and out of the room, each on some errand, their talk idle and plausible.

Roger appeared, his face high-colored, wearing a shirt much decorated with thread. Maria suspected it was lover’s work and wondered who she was. Robert lay in the basket beside the spinning wheel. Roger bent over him and chucked him under the chin. Maria grew wary. Usually he paid no heed to children. She made two mistakes together and stopped weaving to keep from betraying herself. With the scissors on her key ring, she clipped the loose threads of the weft.

Sweeping up the scraps on the floor, she moved around Roger. Although he feigned to play with the baby, he watched the little Duke steadily. Bunny ran along the top of the table to its end and jumped down. Ceci was walking her doll around on the floor.

Roger’s gaze was sharp as a bird’s, full of thievery. Bent over the basket, his eyes intent on the little boy across the room, he had forgotten even to play with the baby, who let out a yell. Maria called to Ceci and Bunny and stooped to pick up Robert. She grabbed Bunny by the hand and towed him after her to the door.

That night, she and Eleanor and the children ate in her bedroom; she kept the door locked. When she went to bed, she held the little boy in her arms, so that no one could take him without her knowledge. The children slept. Eleanor snuffed the candles and went out again, leaving the door unlocked for Richard. The boy Bunny asleep against her breast, Maria lay in the dark and watched the dying fire. The logs fell into the shape of a lean head, like a wolf’s or a snake’s. It was hard to think someone might kill a little boy, but it could be done, and to some people would be worth the guilt, perhaps even to good people: hadn’t she killed Walter Bris? And she felt no guilt for that at all, only satisfaction. The fire sank lower, the beast drowning in a soft bed of coals; she dozed. A sound woke her. Richard stood beside the bed, shedding his clothes. He climbed into the bed and his hands reached under the blankets for her and touched Bunny instead.

“Get him out of here. How can you be such a sheep? He isn’t even ours.”

Wakening, Ceci called to him. Maria bundled the other child awkwardly across the bed, out of Richard’s way, and murmured him to sleep again. She stroked Ceci’s cheek and kissed her until she closed her eyes. Impatiently Richard dragged her back toward him.

“I’m afraid—I’m afraid—”

He smacked her. “Be quiet.” Her head jangled. For a moment, her disarranged vision saw a monster’s face above her in the darkness where his face was. With the children in the same bed, she could not enjoy him. She turned her head to one side and pretended nothing was happening.

***

Richard swung up into his saddle. Maria followed him out into the ward. The bay stallion’s hoofs clattered on the frozen ground. Twenty knights were already waiting at the gate. She lifted Bunny up to him.

“If I don’t come back,” he said, “Roger’s to follow me.” He settled the little Duke in the saddle before him. Bundled up in makeshift clothes against the cold, the child took hold of the high square pommel with both hands. Abruptly he let go to wave good-bye to Maria. Richard wheeled his horse and rode toward the gate.

Maria walked across the ward after him. Standing in the gateway, she watched him and his knights trot down the hill through the curtain wall and out onto the road to the north. It would take them three days at least to find Fitz-Michael—more if they had to dodge Theobald.

Richard had worried a day over what reward to demand for returning the child to Fitz-Michael. Finally he had decided to take nothing at all. When Theobald heard of it, he would be dumbstruck. She hoped every man in Christendom heard of it. Turning, she went across the ward toward the kitchen, her arms wrapped around her body against the cold.

Twelve

In the late spring, while Richard with most of his men was off fighting the Saracens below Iste, Maria fell sick and miscarried. She could not grieve for the lost baby, because Ceci also sickened. For three days Maria scarcely slept, although she knew from the beginning there was nothing she could do. The child lay on her back in the bed, hardly opening her eyes. Her hand in Maria’s was icy cold. At last, on the morning of the third day, she died.

Eleanor let out a moan. Drained of her strength, Maria sat motionless beside the bed. Finally she raised her hand and gently closed the child’s slack mouth. Eleanor flung her arms around Maria. At the sound of her weeping, Robert began to cry too. Maria let the other girl urge her onto her feet and help her to the truckle bed.

All day, she slept in snatches. Roger came in and spoke to her and kissed her. She heard them talking, later, about bearing off Ceci’s body, and she propped herself up on one elbow and called to them not to wait until she slept, to take the child off while she was watching. They misunderstood; they thought to make it easier for her. After that, Father Simon arrived from the village and said many things to her, none of them important.

While she slept, she dreamed of the burial—she dreamed of telling Richard his daughter was dead and woke up with her teeth chattering. Looking toward the bed she saw that the child was gone, and she fell into a fit of weeping.

Eleanor brought her a cup of hot broth. “Here. You do yourself a disservice with this kind of grief.” One arm around Maria’s shoulder, the girl fed her mouthfuls of soup.

Robert played on the floor, his black hair stuck together with conserves, putting everything he found into his mouth. Maria was stupid with misery. She pushed the bowl of soup away and ran her hand over her face.

“You must eat,” Eleanor said, sensibly. “This is unseemly in you. Wait. Here.” She picked Robert off the floor. “Here.” She thrust him into Maria’s arms.

Heavy and warm, he sank comfortably into her lap. He lifted his wide blue eyes to her. Maria kissed him. Holding him in her arms she lay down. She thought of the baby she had lost. She had scarcely realized she was with child before it was gone. Beside her, Eleanor picked up her mending and spoke of the ordinary things of the day. Maria shut her eyes. Robert slept curled in her arms. She would have more babies, more than could possibly die, each one a triumph over death. When she dozed again, she did not dream.

In the evening, Roger woke her up. He took her hands in his. “I would not trouble you if there were some other way—”

“What’s wrong?” Maria sat up. “Is it Richard?” If anything happened to Richard there would be no more babies.

“No—the crossroads in Birnia. William needs help, he wants me to meet him there with all our men. That’s all I know. But there are only fifteen knights here now.”

Maria grunted. Swinging her legs over the side of the truckle bed, she stood up. Her nightgown was soaked with blood. In the hollow her body had left in the bed, Robert yawned. She sat down again and dragged him into her lap.

“Where is Richard?”

“I don’t know, somewhere below Iste—I sent a rider to him, when the—when—before.”

Eleanor came in the door and hurried up to Maria’s side. “Can you not let her sleep?” She hugged Maria tight as a mother.

“Sssh.” Maria put her hand on Eleanor’s arm. “Roger, you must take every knight to Birnia, in case it is Theobald attacking us.” She gave Robert to Eleanor.

“That leaves you with no one to protect you,” he said.

“Richard will come back.” Rising, she got her cloak from the bedpost and shrugged it around her.

Roger sprang to his feet. “God’s blood, you are valiant. I love you for it.” He turned toward the door. Going out, he wheeled toward her. “I swear to you, Theobald won’t slip past us, however great his army.” He rushed off down the stairs.

Eleanor came up to her. “He could have decided that himself, he did not have to wake you.”

“Oh, well. Now that I am up—” She went to the cupboard for fresh clothes. She did not look at the empty bed.

Before moonrise, Roger led all the men north. Maria went to the gate to make sure it was closed and barred. The night air was stagnant, full of unpleasant smells. Clouds obscured great patches of the sky. The people she saw peered at her, curious, and, when she looked at them, jerked their faces into false masks of sympathy. She looked away, unreasonably angry. She got the six knights’ boys out of their tower and set them on watch and went back to the hall.

She caught herself listening for the dead child’s voice. Her eyes burned. She fled upstairs to her room, and, crumpled on the bed, she wept painfully until her eyes were dry. Eleanor was feeding Robert before the hearth. He burst into tears, refusing to drink. Eleanor threw down the little wooden cup. She set Robert on the floor and paced around the room.

“Where is she?” Maria called. “Where did they take her?”

Eleanor came over and sat down on the bed. She stroked Maria’s hair away from heir face. “In the village. They will see to everything.”

“When Richard comes back, we will bury her.”

“Don’t think of it. Put your mind elsewhere.”

“Where?” Maria masked her face in her arms.

***

In the morning, another messenger came from William: Theobald was attacking Birnia with a great force of men. William had garrisoned the Tower, but needed more help at once. Maria fed the messenger and sent him to the Knights’ Tower to sleep. With Eleanor and Robert she leaned out the window, looking anxiously south. She had gotten no word from Richard since before she fell sick. If the Tower of Birnia fell, nothing would lie between Theobald and Maria’s castle but fields and open roads.

“Richard will be here at noon,” she said. “Meanwhile we must get ready for a siege.”

She left Eleanor to take charge of the castle, the cook to help her, and brought the villagers up behind the curtain wall and set them to gathering stones. With Robert, she sat on the slope and kept watch; she cast about for some shrewd lie to use when noon arrived and Richard did not. To her surprise, however, he appeared in the mid-morning, leading a double column of his knights up the road, a train of eight mules in their midst.

Maria left Robert on the ground. She walked quickly across the steep slope toward the road. Richard reined his horse around to meet her and dismounted. Maria stretched her arms out blindly toward him. He pulled her against him, pressing her so tight against him that she could scarcely breathe. The doubled rings of his hauberk bit into her arms.

“Are you all right?” he said. He pushed her away from him, holding her away from him at arm’s length. “What’s all this here?”

Maria told him about Theobald. “Until you came there wasn’t a single knight here—The only weapons we have are the stones on the hillside.”

Richard pushed back the hood of his mail. He used three or four of his favorite obscenities against Theobald. Abruptly he cursed God, with a vehemence that made her flinch. His voice shook. She turned away from him, cold.

“Go get me a fresh horse,” he said. “And my fur cloak, I damned nearly froze to death at Iste.” He bellowed to his knights, still waiting in their columns along the road.

Maria led his horse on up toward the castle. In the gateway, she stopped to look behind her. Down on the hillside, Richard was sitting with Robert in his lap, searching through her basket. While she watched, he found the cheese and meat she had brought for her dinner. She took the horse into the ward.

Eleanor helped her find his fur cloak. They packed a roast hen and a leather bottle of wine for him and brought the bundle out into the ward. The knights wandered in and out, feeding themselves, getting new gear and horses, and carrying the full baskets of stones onto the top of the wall. Richard stayed outside on the hill.

Maria took the fresh horse down to him. He sat staring north, his jaws working steadily through the last mouthful of cheese. He was sun-darkened like a plowman, his eyes were pale as quartz. Robert crawled around him tearing up clumps of grass to eat. Dirt covered the little boy’s face. He beamed up at Maria when she approached him. Richard did not move.

Maria sat down beside him. He said nothing and hardly glanced at her. His knights were already spilling down the road, their voices quiet. They would know, by now, everybody would know that Ceci was dead.

Richard turned to Robert and kissed him, a loud smack on the side of the head. With the little boy in his arms, he rose and, when Maria stood, thrust the child toward her.

“Richard,” she said. She did not know how to ask him for comfort.

He took a step away from her. “Don’t speak of it,” he said. “Please, Maria. Please.” His hands out, pleading, he backed away from her, went to his horse, and mounted. Without waving, without calling to her, he rode away down the valley with his knights. She let Robert slide out of her arms. Until the columns of riders had vanished in the trees and hills of the distance, she stood watching him go, amazed that he had left her alone.

***

She had wanted Richard there when Ceci was buried, but obviously he meant not to be, and they could wait no longer. In the evening, after they had made the castle as strong as they could, everyone except one sentry went down to the village to hear the funeral Mass. The people of the village joined them. Many people wept openly. The rumor went among them that it was a bad omen the little girl should die, that evil was about to fall on them. Carrying torches to make their way, they climbed back up the hill to the castle burying ground. The porter and a servant had dug a hole that afternoon, and the village carpenter had made a cross. All the mourners knelt around the flower-filled grave, and Father Simon began the prayers for the newly dead.

Maria closed her ears to the words. Wrapped in linen, the child’s body lay on the ground beside the grave. The flowers tucked in her shroud were already wilting. Maria fell to crying, and Eleanor slid her arm around her waist. Father Simon spoke of the redeeming love of God. Maria knew she was not weeping for her daughter, who was safe in Heaven, but for herself, who had lost the dearest thing in her life.

They lowered the body into the earth and closed up the grave like a mouth. Maria throttled herself silent. If there was a virtue in it anywhere it was to endure it well. She let Eleanor lead her through the bleak torchlight back to the castle.

***

Richard came back with Count Theobald’s son as a hostage and Theobald’s sworn oath not to cross their common boundary for six months. Maria had no idea what to do with the hostage and to her relief Richard gave him into Roger’s keeping. Roger led the boy off. Richard took the stool over to the hearth in their bedroom and sat down before the fire.

Maria could not tell if the firelight alone made his face so gaunt. Sitting down beside him, she pulled out her braids so that she could brush her hair. It was late: everyone else was asleep.

“How did you do? Did you fight him? Was Prince Arthur with him?”

“Yes—no.” He hunched his shoulders. “We fought and we talked. Theobald is very good at talking. Of course Arthur was with him, he is Theobald’s thing. I may have given them too much.” He milled the air with his hand. “I can’t do everything at once.”

“What is he like?”

“Who, Theobald? Very good at talking.” Getting up, he took off his shirt. His left side was mottled with yellowing bruises.

“You didn’t give him a hostage, did you?”

“No. But I think we could have gotten more from them—I didn’t know how weak he was. He’d been separated from some of his men. We could have gotten more. I didn’t use the advantage.”

They looked at each other a moment. Wordless, she saw how he cast desperately around for something else to speak of—she realized he would not talk of Ceci. She buried her hands in her lap. “Oh, well,” she said, and knew of nothing to tell him. The silence wore on. Heavily she turned away from him and stared into the fire.