Great Maria (43 page)

“God’s blood,” she said. “I will go mad if I don’t do something.”

She went past him into the middle of the room. For the early summer, the day was dank, and the candles were all lit. Anne’s pleasant brother came toward her, his hands out. She was mildly relieved to know he was not Philip. He took one of her hands in his.

“Lady,” he said, “we are a fellowship of mourning.”

“After his words to us, I would not be here otherwise,” the other brother said, and Anne caught his arm to quiet him.

Roger came toward them from the door. “When he comes to Hellgate, Richard will have a few choice words for the Devil.” He stopped beside Maria. Low-voiced, he said, “Is he any better? Is he awake?”

“He is the same,” she said.

“Everyone else who took an arrow has died,” the unpleasant brother said.

Maria turned toward him. “My lord, I have never harmed you, please don’t torment me.”

Anne came up to her. Her mouth was framed in deep lines. “This is his humor when he grieves. Come with me into the sunlight. Let us leave the men to their deliberations.”

Maria said, “I had in mind to listen to them. Roger—”

Roger pulled a chair up to the hearth. “Stay, both of you.” He called to a page to bring the other chairs. “Anne, come sit with me.”

Maria sank down on a little wooden stool. Richard had wakened only enough to drink. He was too weak to lift his head up. She had no idea what he wanted in the marriage contract. She had never heard of a written marriage contract before. They sat down around her. The young Duke came in, his face fretted, and they began to talk.

The brothers wanted to settle certain rights of the dead man on their sister for a dowry. While they went over the lands and the services, Anne left, obviously embarrassed at the dickering. The Duke sat with his elbows on his knees, picking his teeth. They came to the homage that Roger should swear him, and he agreed with a nod of his head.

Maria made them add the phrase
Saving his duty to the lord of Marna,
which the brothers accepted in a bad grace. She was not minded to give up on it and finally they let it in.

That convinced her that the brothers were hot to get Anne and Roger married, and she paid more heed to them. They argued over the Morgengab with Roger like people in a market place. But even here, they were slowly surrendering. Obviously they thought Anne would be marrying someone more than the lord of Iste.

Roger was looking at Maria. She raised her eyes to him, and he said, “What do you think of that? Is that fair?”

She had not heard his offer, but by the looks on the brothers’ faces, they were consenting to it. She laid her hands in her lap. “How can she have a Morgengab? She is a widow, not a maiden. How often can you eat a piece of cake?”

The unpleasant brother was surprised into laughter. The pleasant brother leaned earnestly toward her. “Here we are accustomed to some Morgengab with every marriage.”

Maria glanced at Roger. The young Duke was smiling, his eyes pinned on the floor. She said, “My Morgengab was a baby. You can give her that.”

Roger said sharply, “Richard himself mentioned the Morgengab.”

“Richard,” she said, “may not live to pay it.”

Already the two brothers were agreeing to leave out the Morgengab—Anne, it turned out, had holdings of her own, in the duchy. Maria sat back. She thought of the man in the bed above them. Her eyes burned. She felt sodden with fatigue. A page came over to take her cup and fill it again.

Anne and her brothers left, and the Duke immediately afterward. Maria took him down to the door to say good-bye to him. Ismael was sitting on the threshold, and she sent him off to bring the Duke’s horse.

The young man stood beside her in the tiny airless room at the foot of the stairs. She tugged on his rumpled coat to straighten it.

“Thank you,” she said. “For staying last night.”

Taking her by the wrists he held her away from him. He stammered something and went out the door so fast he nearly knocked a Saracen sentry off his feet. Maria watched him from the doorway. She had thought he liked her better now. It rubbed her that she could not touch him.

Clouds lowered the sky. A thin patter of rain traveled across the courtyard. She went up the stairs again. Every few steps she paused to rest. Roger was waiting on the landing outside the hall. Before she could speak, he gripped her by the elbow.

“I did not like that insult you dealt me, Maria. You slighted me in front of them.”

Maria gaped at him. Her throat filled painfully tight. Before she could reply, he pushed her on up the stairs. “Go on. I want to see my brother.”

He did not wait for her. While she was still dragging herself from step to step, he went in the door to the bedchamber. What he had said burned in her mind. He had never spoken harshly to her before. She followed him into the room.

Richard lay asleep, his face once more toward the wall. Roger went up beside the bed. The tabib stood on the far side of it. They spoke in Saracen.

“You said he was the same.” Roger wheeled toward her. “He seems worse, to me—” He drew her toward the doorway. “Has he wakened?”

“Once.” She put her hand on his arm. “Roger,” she said, suddenly almost in tears, “I did not mean to insult you.”

“Oh, Maria.” He held her hard against him, his arm around her neck. “Don’t harken to me, we are all raw. But you shouldn’t be jealous of Anne.” He squeezed her again, her enormous body in their way. “You know I will always love you best. Tell me if anything happens. I want to know the moment anything happens.” He went down the stairs again.

Maria went back to the bedside. Richard slept deeply, his breathing even. His skin was harsh with fever. She touched him, and he turned his head and opened his eyes.

“Maria.” Before she could answer, his eyes closed and he slept again.

The tabib came up to her. His eyes were hooded like a hawk’s. His smile was cherubic. He patted her arm, laid his folded hands against his cheek, and shut his eyes. She crept into the bed next to Richard and fell instantly asleep.

Thirty-eight

In velvet, in satin, flecked with jewels, they stood in Agato’s cathedral and heard the new Archbishop turn Roger d’Alene into a married man. Maria, nine months with child, was cooking inside her heavy clothes. She leaned once on Robert, and the boy glanced at her and took her arm.

A choir of children sang marriage hymns in the background. Candles marched up and down the high altar, shining on the vessels of gold, the gold paint on the statues, the triptych, the crucifix, the six-foot Paschal candlestick opposite the pulpit blazing with light. Richard stood behind Roger at the altar. Anne’s brothers were still sulk-faced from seeing him well, which delighted Maria.

They knelt to pray in a single thunderous voice. She thought of her wedding in the village church at Castelmaria. Whatever Roger believed, she was not jealous of Anne. She put her hand on Robert’s shoulder, and he helped her rise. Up by the altar, Richard got stiffly to his feet. The sleeve of his black and gold coat was slit to the elbow to accommodate the bandages on his forearm.

The cathedral bells tolled. Anne and Roger came down the aisle, their attendants like a host behind them. When they passed Maria, she felt guilty at her thoughts; Anne beamed, leaning like a child on her new husband. Maria followed them out of the church.

On the porch, Robert next to her, she paused in the central archway to get her eyes used to the bright sunlight. A flock of beggars lurked in the shadows. Probably there would be sweets and money thrown to them later. Richard came up to her elbow. Their Saracens waited in the alley beside the cathedral, discreetly out of sight.

Grooms led up two horses harnessed in red and white leather. Roger helped Anne to mount. Maria pulled away from Richard and crossed the porch to the steps.

“Lady,” she said, “God’s grace to you on your wedding day.” She stood by Anne’s stirrup, smiling up at her.

“Thank you. Thank you, good sister.” Anne leaned from her saddle to take Maria’s hand, and Maria kissed her fingers.

The couple rode off. A dozen children in elaborate costumes raced after them to throw flowers and distribute cakes. Her brothers brought their horses along in their train. The crowd followed them out of the square, and the Saracens rode up in a rank across the front of the cathedral.

“You’re so forgiving. Why did you kiss her, when she’s spat on us?”

“She’ll like us better, now that she is Roger’s wife.”

A groom was leading up their horses. Richard shifted his weight, resting his bad hip. Maria went up one step beside him, into the shade.

“Do you remember when we married?” he said suddenly.

“Yes,” she said. She smiled at him.

“You’re sentimental as a Jew.” He went down the steps toward their horses. Maria followed him. He lifted her up into the saddle. The effort drained him and he nearly dropped her.

“Don’t fall off.”

Maria gathered her reins and spun the mare in a circle on her hocks. When he had mounted, the Saracens surrounded them, and they rode toward the Duke’s castle, across the bridge garlanded with flowers, over the brown, slow-moving summery river.

***

Maria sat up in bed. It was still early in the afternoon. Save for her, the room was empty. She swung her legs over the edge of the mattress and slid down to the floor. A wooden cup stood on the bench beside the bed, half full of the tabib’s infusion. They had kept her in bed for three days with such drinks. In her nightgown, barefoot, she crossed the room to the new baby’s cradle.

“Holy Mary.”

The cradle was empty. Maria gave it an angry swing and went over to the cupboard for some clothes. Footsteps pounded on the stairs. The door burst open.

“Maria! Wake up!”

Drunk as an alewife, Richard lurched across the threshold. The new baby was tucked in the crook of his arm. Maria caught him by the sleeve and took the baby, unmindful of the young Duke wobbling along behind him. Richard hooked his arm around her neck. His breath stank of wine.

“Marita. My catkin. Give me a kiss.” He pressed a loud kiss to the side of her face. Suddenly he swung her up off her feet, the baby against her breast, and spun her in a circle.

“Richard—”

“What’s wrong?” He whirled her and the baby around again. Her head swam for a dizzy instant after he stopped. “Have I ever dropped you?”

“Put me down, or I’ll vomit all over you.”

He dropped her feet first to the floor and walked away. “My wife has a keen sense of weapons.”

Maria climbed up to sit on the bed, her legs under her. The baby was asleep. She laid him carefully down on the covers beside her. “Where did you take him? Why are you so drunk in the middle of the day? Bring me something to put on—that robe, in the cupboard.”

The young Duke was leaning unsteadily on the wall, his face set in a drunken frown. Richard sat down in the chair beside him. “Get it yourself. My leg hurts.”

The young man pushed himself upright and sauntered across to the cupboard. Taking the robe from the hook, he flung it across the foot of the bed. He tilted himself up against the wall again at Richard’s side.

“Bunny, don’t do that,” Richard said. “You will ruin my discipline.”

“Don’t call me Bunny.”

Maria pulled the robe on over her nightgown. Picking up the girdle, she knotted it around her waist and hitched the sleeves up above her elbows. “I’ll call the baby Bunny, if you name him Henry.”

The Duke began to speak. Richard slammed his elbow back into the young man’s side. “What do you want to name him?”

“I told you,” she said. She got clean napkins and changed the baby and swaddled him. “I want to call him Richard.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why. But I do.” They had gone all through this before.

“That’s no reason. Besides, you named the others, but for Stephen.”

Maria put the baby in the cradle and rocked it a few strokes.

The young Duke refused to meet her eyes. He sank down unsteadily on his heels, his back to the wall. Suspicious, she said, “Richard, what have you done?”

“Bring me some wine. Cross of Christ, Maria, you are lazy—sleeping all day—”

Maria bent over the baby in the cradle. Now on his forehead she saw the faint gleam of christening oil. She put her fingertips against the baby’s face. She did not want to call him Bunny.

“Richard, you are low.”

“It was my idea,” the Duke said.

Maria went past them across the room. “I don’t believe you.” When she opened the door, the page stationed out on the landing sprang to his feet, and she sent him for the wine. She slammed the door and turned back toward Richard.

“You had him christened behind my back.”

“You needed your rest.” He smiled at her. Reaching out, he caught hold of her wrist and pulled her over beside him. “The Brotherhood has given you a new name.”

“Oh,” she said. “What?”

He said a long Saracen word. “It means—
Mother of Many Sons.”

“Tell them I reject it.”

She sat down on the floor beside his chair. She rubbed her head against his arm, and he straightened and using both hands uncoiled and unbraided her hair. The page returned, lugging a ewer of wine, cups clustered under one arm. Richard combed her hair out through his fingers. Maria shut her eyes. She enjoyed his touch. She laid her head down on his thigh.

“I forgive you,” she said.

“There, Bunny,” Richard said softly. “I told you she was no shrew.”

The Duke laughed. “You didn’t see her cheat your brother out of Anne’s Morgengab.”

The baby let out a short, fierce wail. Maria crossed the room to the cradle. She lifted the baby in her arms. “Henry,” she murmured, trying to like the name. Louise and Catherine whisked in the door. “Catherine, bring up the musicians, will you?” Opening her clothes, she sat on the bed and thumbed her nipple erect.

The Duke turned his eyes away. The two men got to talking. Maria looked down at the baby sucking on her breast. At least now he was a Christian. Louise went around the room picking up after Richard.

“Are you going to Occel?” the young Duke said.

Maria lifted her head. The three musicians filed in the door, carrying their lutes and horns. Louise arranged them in one corner, near the window.

“I don’t know,” Richard said. “My brother there has a better way with those people than I do—my brother William.”

The musicians, their heads bowed together, tuned their instruments to the leader’s pipe. Maria laid the baby on her knees and shrugged back into her clothes. Fat as a slug, the baby emitted a faint hicket. Maria kissed him, laughing.

“The christening failed. We shall have to do it again.”

She carried the baby over to Richard. The door opened, and Robert came in, Ponce Rachet just behind him. Richard cradled the baby along his forearms. It hicketed solemnly into his face.

“It must be a Christian demon.” He stuck his thumb in the wine and rubbed a cross on the baby’s forehead. “In nomine patris—”

Maria snatched the baby away from him. “Don’t blaspheme over my son.” She held out the baby to Louise, who took him off to change him. Robert came up beside Maria and put his arm around her waist.

“Mama, you’re still fat.”

Maria hugged him. Richard tilted his chair back on its hind-legs. “Fat. Is she ever thin? I run her halfway down again, and she’s off swelling with another one of you.”

Ponce laughed. Maria stooped to get Richard’s empty cup. He and Ponce talked. Robert said, in horror, “Mama, he is drunk.”

She thrust the cup into his hand. Her legs were already tiring. She sat down on the warm brick hearth just behind Richard.

“Go get him more, then, before he gets a headache.”

Ponce Rachet hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I have some cases for you to try, at the East Tower. Nothing that can’t wait if you must go down to Occel.”

In the sunlit corner, the musicians burst into a song for dancing. Richard turned his head toward Maria. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to go to Occel. It’s too dangerous. Theobald’s cursed us.”

Robert brought Richard a cup of wine. “Papa, let me go. I can do it. Stay here until you are strong again. My lord Henry—”

Richard knocked him off his feet. Maria straightened up. She put one hand on Richard’s shoulder as he sat before her in the chair. Robert sprawled across the floor in a shining puddle of wine. The Duke’s cup clattered into a corner. Louise screamed. The musicians played merrily on.

Ponce Rachet’s long, homely face tightened toward a smile. “Gripe,” he said. “Give me an order.”

Richard heaved himself upright in his chair. He twitched Maria’s hand off his shoulder. Robert got to his feet.

“I’ll go to Occel,” Richard said. “Get ready to leave.”

Ponce made a salute to him and went out the door. Robert stood still, his teeth clenched, his hands clasped behind his back. His fancy blue coat was stained with wine. He and Richard stared at each other. At last Richard said, “Get out.”

Robert met Maria’s eyes and left the room. The Duke stood up. “I wish you had been my father,” he said to Richard, “but I’m glad you’re not. I’m leaving. My own levies are joining me, so I will need your help only three or four days more.”

“My lord,” Maria said, “come back and sup with us.”

“I will.” His black eyes stabbed toward Richard. “Look after my godson. Don’t take him to Occel.” He tramped away, shouldering a path through the men waiting in the doorway. “Robert?” he shouted, on the landing. “Wait for me!”

Richard reached for the cup on the floor beside him and knocked it over. He let out a burst of incoherent obscenity. Maria took the cup across the room. Two knights came toward him from the doorway.

“My lord Welf Blackjacket sent—”

“Go back there and wait.”

The knights withdrew from the room. Through the open door she could see the many people crowded onto the landing, waiting to talk to him. The musicians were reaching the end of their song. She wondered if they had heard anything else through it all. Richard leaned on the arm of his chair, terrifically drunk.

“How soon can you travel?” he said.

“Whenever you decide.” She gave him the wine. “The baby won’t care.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go to Occel.”

“I didn’t want my baby named Henry, either.”

“I have to go,” he said. “They are all watching me now. You must see it’s a test.”

“Yes,” she said. “Like having sons, and bearing wounds. But it is another kind of test for me.”

He stared at her a moment. Lifting the cup, he took a long sip of the wine. “Where would you rather go?”

“To Castelmaria,” she said. “Jilly is there. And Stephen could meet us there.”

“Then we will go to Castelmaria.”