Great Maria (19 page)

News came from Agato that the friends of the young Duke had managed to get one of their allies elected Archbishop. Hearing that, William grunted and settled his vast shoulders into the back of his chair.

“That’s why Theobald retreated, you see,” he told Maria. “Now that the Archbishop is their man, Fitz-Michael and his friends can strike at Theobald whenever he leaves himself open.” He locked his fingers over his enormous belly. A mastiff came up to him and laid its wrinkled head on his knee, and he stroked it.

“Maria,” he said, “you have changed my castle all around.”

“Take Mana’a and you can have it back.” She was weaving a scene into the new tapestry: two hunting dogs standing up against their leashes.

“When we take Mana’a,” William said, “Richard will think of something else he wants. He is cursed; he cannot be content.” He gave a page his cup to fill. “Tomorrow I shall kill the three guilty hostages. I am glad none of them is very young. I love children.”

“Why don’t you marry?”

“I don’t much like women.” He chuckled, his belly rolling under his shirt.

“Neither does Richard.” She threaded the bobbin with red yarn to weave the hounds’ collars. “Don’t you have any sisters?”

“Five of them. None would teach a man to like women. Richard has a twin sister. Or was that Drogo who had the twin? You were an only child, Maria, you cannot know what it’s like to have fifteen brothers and sisters around you constantly, and another one coming every year.”

“What is her name? Richard’s twin.”

William chewed his lip until she thought he had forgotten the question. She changed bobbins again, smiling, and cleared her throat.

“I am thinking,” William said. “I think it was Judith. It must have been Judith.” He shook his head, wistful. “She was the Devil’s own shrew, Judith,” he said, and sighed.

Maria watched her hands weave the hounds’ white throats. She tried to imagine having so many brothers and sisters. Always someone to play with, or talk to. That reminded her of the little Duke, in Santerois, who was also a lone child; she said, “So Fitz-Michael is master in Santerois now.”

“No. Oh, no. No one masters Santerois, just parts of it. Now he has the power of the Cross, but all the other barons are doing what we are doing—grabbing as much as they can.”

“We aren’t vassals of the Duke of Santerois.”

“For Birnia, we are.” William dug in his ear with his forefinger. “For your castle, we owe him some ancient service.”

Maria stepped on the pedal of her loom and drew the bobbin through the warp. What Fulbert had said returned to her: they ruled in Birnia by robbery. The Duke ruled here by right. She broke off the yarn and let the end dangle.

“Who is the priest in Birnia?”

“Gibertetto,” she answered. “He is a horrible old gossip. Have you never talked to him?”

William shook his head. “I avoid priests.” He propped his cheek on his fist. “When I tell him of this new Archbishop, Richard will ask me a lot of questions I don’t know the answers to. Does the Archbishop rule our priest?”

“I suppose so. Who else is there?” The fire in the hearth shot up a shower of embers. It was the first bitter cold night of the late fall, when something always caught fire. She said, “Then you are leaving tomorrow?”

“Richard told me to be back in Iste for the beginning of Advent.”

Maria giggled. “That was yesterday.”

“Yes. I don’t think he minds. He has learned about me, he always calls for me sooner than he really needs me. So you see, there is a way to manage Richard. One need only be patient with him.” He erupted into muffled laughter. It ended in a leisurely yawn. Setting his head comfortably on the back of his chair, he went to sleep.

Maria glanced down at the end of the hall, where Jean and the other knights had gathered for the evening. Robert was among them, Stephen beside him, listening to stories. The warmth of the hall softened her; picking out another bobbin, she nearly yawned herself.

***

William had the dead hostages buried in the town graveyard. For days afterward, when William had left, Robert followed her around asking about them, why they had been killed, who they were, and why their kinsmen had rebelled knowing the hostages would die.

“If you should ever give a hostage to someone, you would give Stephen and not me, wouldn’t you?” Robert asked.

Maria hung a string of garlic sausage from the storeroom ceiling. “We have never given anyone a hostage.” She reached down from the ladder, and Eleanor handed her another string.

“But if you did—”

“Be quiet,” Eleanor said. She put her hands on his shoulders. Stooping, she whispered in his ear, and he went reluctantly off, his face turned back over his shoulder.

“Is Papa coming back for Christmas?” He stopped in the doorway.

Maria tied sausages to the rafter over her head. Her arms ached from reaching up all day. “No. He is fighting the Saracens. As usual.” She climbed down the ladder. A serving woman brought in a basket of onions and took it over to be hung in nets. “I’d get more heed from him if I were a Saracen.”

“When will he come back?”

“Robert,” Eleanor said sharply.

“Oh, shut up, you rotten old horse.” He ran out of the storeroom.

“You spoil him,” Eleanor said bitterly. “How unruly he is grown.”

Nineteen

Jean was teaching Robert and the other boys to shoot a bow. Every morning, they went out into the snowy fields below the Tower and shot arrows, while Maria watched from the wall. Stephen had fallen into an evil humor. Left alone he made up games for himself and sang or dreamed, but when the winter storms shut all the people into the Tower, Stephen drove everyone wild with his crying.

Messengers came from Richard, sometimes directly, sometimes through Ponce Rachet. The news of fighting meant nothing to her: she had no idea if they were losing or gaining. Lammas passed. Richard stayed in the mountains. She did not ask him to come. The messengers told her about him only in the barest way: that he was well, that he was the same, an expression the messengers used often. Sometimes in the mornings she woke up lusty as a mare in heat. Once she dreamed she was lying with Roger.

Lent ended in a burst of heavy rain. The sun came out, the serfs planted their fields, and the rains fell again and rotted the seed in the ground. Maria rode through the fields near the Tower of Birnia, and the sight of the serfs weeping over their ruined crop unnerved her. She did what she could, she fetched new seed from other parts of the demesne and had it blessed, and her own people worked in the fields around the Tower.

The crop was cursed, all the people said: when the second planting sprouted, blight struck it. At the same time, Stephen and several other children in the castle took fevers. The Tower was full of the wailing of sick children and the smell of angelica tea and myrrh. Every time Maria went up or down the stair she met some woman going in the opposite direction with a steaming poultice or a plate of mushed food. One child died of the fever, but Stephen bore it lightly. He was turning thin, with pale brown hair and eyes as clear and gray as Richard’s. The fever seemed to break his mood. When he got up from his bed he was quiet and sweet as a girl.

All through Whitsun, everyone went about with a long look, saying that the failure of the wheat and the children’s fever was a sign of God’s wrath and something worse would happen. Midsummer’s Day passed. In the grueling heat after it, the crops of peas and beans throve. The ostler’s daughter told Maria that the local witch was claiming credit for turning aside the scourge.

Theobald had spent the spring in a border dispute with another neighbor, but in the end of the summer, he raided Birnia again. Jean, following William’s example, harassed Theobald’s camps and outriders, but they could not stop him from marching deep into Birnia and looting everything in his path. Ponce Rachet’s knights hurried down to help them. Maria went into the town. The ostler’s daughter talked with her most of the morning about stitchery and mint sauce for lamb. In the warm, sunny kitchen Maria composed a new speech for Fulbert.

The butcher was in his yard, dickering with a shepherd for a flock of ewes. When he saw her coming, he waved impatiently to the other man to move away. Maria went up to him. Fulbert’s handsome, fleshy face was set against her like a closed door. He said, “I have kept my promise,” in a voice edged with anger.

“I know,” Maria said. “I thank you for it. But now Theobald has attacked us again—” She put out one hand, pleading with him; she had seen children do it. “I am at the end of my wits— If I give him money, will he go away?”

Fulbert’s expression softened. He gestured the shepherd farther off across the yard. Pigs and sheep packed the stockpens. The smell of beasts made Maria want to sneeze.

“A bribe, is it?” the butcher said. He came closer to her. “Yes, Theobald will take money. So will I. What will you give me to go between you?”

She swallowed. It had not occurred to her that he would have to be bribed as well. “Whatever you want—I have this with me—” She took her purse from her belt. Fulbert held out his hand. The purse sank into his palm. “Help me,” she said, “and I will give you anything you want.”

He tossed the leather purse in his hand, his face smooth. He actually smiled at her. “I will need something for my courier.”

“Give him what you think fair, I will repay you.” It was as easy as buying cloth. She cast her eyes down. “I cannot tell you how this eases my mind—I know you will help me.”

“I will do my best, my lady.”

Maria went back to the Tower. Robert’s army of children was ranged around the gate. Flourishing his wooden sword, Robert himself blocked her way and made her dismount and ask him humbly for the leave to enter. Inside the gate, Stephen was screaming, and she left her mare and went quickly over to him. He had been tied to the little tree near the wall with several pieces of rope. Already he was wiggling free. His face was dark red with rage. Maria held back and let him untie himself.

“Mama, I’m not a hostage!”

Robert was running up and down before the open gate, yelling orders. Stephen untied his feet. He had lost one shoe, and tears streaked his dirty cheeks. Maria picked him up.

“No, you’re not a hostage.”

“He isn’t the King, either,” Stephen said. He pushed at her impatiently until she put him down. “Tell him he isn’t the King, Mama.”

“He can play at being king, if he wishes.” She gathered up the rope from the foot of the tree. “Come upstairs with me. You need not play at being his knight, either.”

Stephen climbed slowly up the steep steps after her. “Tell him he isn’t the King.”

Maria opened the hall door. In the dim afternoon light, she saw a man standing before the hearth. Blinking, she saw that it was Ralf.

“My lady.” The knight came toward her. Maria went into the hall and shut the door.

“Ralf, I thought you would go to join the Crusade.”

“My lady, I felt more required here.”

That made her smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re here now. Have you got messages from Jean?”

“Aye, my lady. Theobald has made a permanent camp in the valley west of the Roman bridge, he must mean to stay there a while. From there he can hold the west part of the March: the shrine, and the village of Saint-Mary.”

She sent Stephen off to play and sat down before the hearth. “We must get him out of there.”

“I don’t see how, my lady. Ponce Rachet’s men are leaving in four days for the East Tower.”

“We may not need them. Sit down, I have something for Jean to do, it will be hard to explain.”

“I will listen attentively, my lady.”

Maria began to tell him about the ostler’s daughter and Fulbert. At first Ralf listened on his feet, but after a few moments he sat down on his heels on the hearth. When she mentioned offering the bribe to Theobald, he frowned, and when she repeated Fulbert’s own demand, he shook his head.

“This is foul business,” he said. “I cannot see why the master and the man both require payment, or why you allow this fellow here at all. In any case, my lady, my advice is that you eschew this matter entirely. Jean and I can deal with Theobald. We have a plan to destroy the supplies in the area.”

“I don’t want your advice,” Maria said.

“But—giving him money—”

“Do you think I mean to pay him any money? I have no money.” Exasperated, she flung her hands up. “All I wish is that Jean keep watch for the courier—I think it may be the smith from the town, a man named Galga. Stop him and make him tell what he knows. Bribe him, threaten him, beat him—anything, just force him to convince Theobald that if he bargains with me he’ll get everything without having to fight.”

Ralf stared into the fire. A page came into the hall with an ewer of wine. Maria tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. One of the dogs came up to her and tried to lure her into patting it. At last, the young knight said, “I will do as you say, lady.”

“Thank you,” Maria said, angry.

***

Theobald sent to her through Fulbert that he would leave Birnia for 30,000 silver pence; this Maria said was too much. Theobald seized the village at the Shrine of the Virgin, but Maria went to Fulbert and wept and begged him to help her and said she would give no one any money until Theobald had let the village go. Theobald held on a little longer. He was calling himself lord of Birnia and made the churches under his control publish charters naming Richard and his brothers outlaws, but in the late summer they won a tremendous battle in the mountains, and Theobald at last gave up the village and demanded 20,000 pence. Now another army marched down the road from Santerois. Maria held up her answer to Theobald. The newcomers sent two heralds to her, dressed in fancy tabards, to announce that this new power followed the Count Fitz-Michael and Duke Henry, who had heard of Maria’s distress and were coming to her aid, since she was their vassal.

With Robert and Jean, who had returned to the Tower for orders, she went out to meet the oncoming army. The day was overcast. The land east of the Tower was rolling and open. They rode up through a stand of oak trees at the crest of a hill and looked out over Fitz-Michael’s men, drawn up in three long columns under the lowering sky.

“They are greater than Theobald,” Jean said. “If we can catch him in that valley where he is now, we can pay him back for all the trouble he has given us.”

Maria grimaced. Richard would not like this talk that they were the Duke’s vassals. She had gotten no useful word from Richard since Theobald invaded Birnia. Even the great news of the battle had come from Ponce Rachet. Robert, on his fat gelding between her and Jean, cried, “Here someone comes!”

Half a dozen men were galloping up the long treeless slope toward them. Maria let her reins slide through her fingers. “Jean, we will be safe here. Will you go back and warn Eleanor and the cook that we shall have several guests? Tell Eleanor to make the top room ready for them.”

Jean leaned toward her. “Lady, don’t let them stop—have them strike hard, before Theobald can escape.”

Maria made a noncommittal sound in her throat. Jean galloped away through the oak trees. Robert was standing in his stirrups, his mouth open, his eyes fastened on the knights before them in their long, wavering lines. The six men approaching them reined their horses to a walk. Maria began to smile. She nudged her mare forward.

“Well met, my lord,” she said; she did not have to ask which was Fitz-Michael, and she turned her smile on him, an older man, tall and slender. “You are a welcome traveler here.”

Fitz-Michael rode up beside her. His dark hair was half gone to gray, and his hand when it took hers was cold as age. His sober clothes were magnificent. “So you are Strongarm’s daughter,” he said. He did not let go of her hand when he had kissed it. “You are as pretty as your welcome, mistress.”

Four other horses shouldered up around them. Fitz-Michael gestured toward them. “My sons, Peter, Philip, and John, and my nephew, Henry, the Duke of Santerois, my ward.”

Maria raised her eyes to the young Duke, curious. The boy sat on his horse just behind his uncle. In his dark eyes no recognition showed. He said nothing to her. He was big for his age, swarthy as a serf. Another horse was coming.

“And my lord the Archbishop of Agato, Robert of Sio.”

She said proper greetings to them, and the Archbishop blessed her. Maria detached herself from Fitz-Michael’s clammy grip on her hand. “This is Robert, my son. My lord, I cannot tell you how your coming pleases me. Will you ride with me to my castle? I will make you welcome better there than here.”

The tall man warped his mouth into a smile. “I must accept such a pretty company.” He waved to his sons, who rode back toward the disorderly columns of knights on the slope below them. The young Duke turned his horse to follow.

“Your place is here, Henry,” Fitz-Michael said.

The boy silently came up on Maria’s left. She started off, her eyes on Fitz-Michael, beside her. Even his fingernails were clean and shapely.

“We shall treat you better than Theobald has done,” he said. “Or Richard d’Alene, for that matter. I am told you have only a handful of a garrison, and Theobald is riding at will over the country.”

“I have God’s help, my lord.”

Beyond him, the Archbishop—an old man, white-haired—said something in Latin too rapid for her to understand. She glanced back at Fitz-Michael, who was smiling at her. “And now ours, lady, if you will accept it.”

“I am your servant, my lord, in all things.”

“Well said.” He nodded to her. “We shall get on well together.”

They went up the hill toward the castle. The people of Birnia ran from their town and cheered them all the way to the gate. Fitz-Michael’s sons were settling their armies in the fields. Robert hung back, watching, and Maria called to him. The young Duke did not take his eyes from the road.

When they went through the gate into the ward, the castle women swarmed out, dressed in their best clothes, to welcome them, and Jean appeared on the staircase, still wearing his mail and his sword. Someone gave a cheer. Fitz-Michael waved and bowed and with many flourishes came to hold Maria’s horse. The young Duke’s mount carried him up beside her. He was looking sharply around the ward. Facing her, he said, “It was not here that I was housed when Dragon rescued me from Count Theobald.”

“No,” Maria said, surprised. “That was my own castle, south of here.”

His gaze swept out across the walls. Beyond him, Robert leaned forward and called, “When was that, Mama?”

“When I was a weanling,” the Duke answered him. “This Tower you hold by my grace; is your other castle in my rights too?”