Great Maria (9 page)

She set the baby down on dry ground. Ceci crawled to a sapling nearby, took hold of a little branch, and tried to draw herself to her feet, but the branch bent, and as hard as she pulled she could not get her backside off the ground. Maria, picking berries, burst out laughing. The baby let the branch go and stared suspiciously at the sapling.

Maria kept close by. Adela was hunting for mushrooms, crashing around in the underbrush, her voice continually raised. A woodpecker hammered on a tree above her head. Maria sat down to rest her legs and tied the berries into a square of cloth. Ceci squatted on her hams, picking with her forefinger at something on the ground. Her mouth was smeared with dirt and sap. She went down on all fours with a thump and crawled toward Maria. Her napkin, black with dirt, dragged around her knees, and Maria made her lie down and took her breeches off entirely.

In the late afternoon they started back toward the village. Adela chattered on about the girl and boy in the meadow and how she would tell Alys so they would be punished. The sun was turning red and fat, down by the horizon. When they stepped out of the woods a trickle of an evening breeze cooled their faces. Maria lifted her cheek to it.

“Maria!” Adela caught her arm. “Look!”

For a moment, when she saw the white-robed riders galloping up the valley, she could not even draw breath. A faint ululation of voices reached her, like the howling of dogs.

“Saracens,” Adela cried. “Saracens!” She ran toward the village, all her fat quaking, and her bags of dyes dropping from her apron into the grass. “Saracens! Help—Help—”

Fixed in her place, Maria clutched her daughter tight in her arms. The Saracens were galloping up between the village and the river. They had seen Adela. They veered toward her, toward Maria. Adela staggered toward the river. Her cap flew off and her lank hair hung down her back. She would not reach the village before the Saracens reached her. Already the white riders were splashing across the river. Maria dashed back into the wood.

The setting sun turned the Saracens’ robes pink, like bloody water. Shrill-voiced, they raced down through the fields toward Adela. From the thorn hedge around the village a screech went up. Maria stopped in the gloom of the wood and caught her breath.

From here she could not see the castle. She scrambled into a thorny thicket, burrowing into the shelter of the entangled branches. Ceci began to cry. Maria whispered to her, put her fingers in the baby’s mouth, bounced her frantically, and finally quieted her.

Adela had seen the Saracens coming, she had realized she would not reach the village, and she wheeled. Her skirts sailed around her. Stumbling in weariness she ran back toward the woods.

“Maria,” she cried. “Maria—”

Maria put her hand over the baby’s face. Adela was leading the Saracens straight toward her. They loomed behind her, their white teeth like jewels in their beards. Panting, the fat woman labored three more strides to the edge of the wood, and the leading Saracen dived from his horse and brought her down.

Their horses swept through the edge of the trees. Maria sat rigid while they crashed into the underbrush around her. Her face stung from thorn scratches. She prayed for rescue or for the horses to trample her and Ceci before they could be taken alive. Adela was screaming. The Saracens carried her out into the meadow and threw her down, star-shaped, a man at each of her wrists and ankles. Pulling back his robes, the leader dropped full length on her and began to rape her.

Maria bit her lips. Adela screeched and the baby started to cry. Frantic, Maria clamped her hand tight over the baby’s mouth. Ceci clawed at her fingers. The first Saracen stood up, and another climbed onto Adela, his hands working in her breasts. She had stopped screaming. One Saracen drew his dagger and jabbed her in the ribs to make her jump.

Against Maria’s hand, Ceci was howling. Maria crawled back into the deep brush. The thorns snagged her clothes and needled her arms and face. A tall Saracen turned and looked straight at her. He had heard her. He was wheeling toward her. Another man let out a yell.

The raiders scrambled into their saddles and spun their horses around. The leader straddled Adela, who lay slack on the ground, and cut her throat in a sheet of blood. Maria lunged back into the safety and darkness of the wood. When she looked around again, the Saracens were racing away, and a stream of knights was galloping up between the village and the river.

Ceci was shrieking. Maria carried her out of the wood into the last of the sunlight, to Adela. The knights charged past her, unheeding. Adela lay spreadeagled in the grass, blood pooled under her shoulders and her head. Maria began to cry.

The Saracens were already far down the valley. They were outrunning the knights; they would escape. From the thorn hedge, peasants raced toward her. Maria knelt and pulled Adela’s clothes over her bleeding breasts and poor bruised cleft. Sinking down beside the body, the child in her lap, she covered her face with her hands.

***

Carefully she set the smith’s punch at the top of the coin, struck it hard with the mallet, and worried the tool out of the hole. Richard was letting her make ornaments for his new clothes out of twenty Saracen coins. Another clap of thunder rattled the shutters of the window behind her. The rain had forced most of the knights indoors. Now that Roger had come back, the castle was packed with people. She put another coin before her on the table and picked up the punch.

His hair soaked from the rain, Richard came in, Roger a step behind him, and limped on his crutch up to her end of the hall. Roger thrust his head forward belligerently at his brother.

“Why is it my fault? I followed your plans, I did exactly what you would have done—”

Richard made an unpleasant noise. He lowered himself carefully down onto a stool and propped his crutch against the table. “What about her?” He nodded toward Maria, down the table from him. “Ceci was with her—what if they’d been caught?” But he did not seem particularly angry.

“I want to go after them,” Roger said. He sat down across the table from Richard. “I’ll ride them down if I must give up my life to it.”

“Don’t bother. We’ll come on them again, sometime, in the course of things.”

Maria bent over the coat, arranging the Saracen coins down the front. When she remembered the man rooting over Adela, sticking his knife in her to make her jump, she tasted gall in her throat. Richard hated Adela, and when the villagers asked if they could bury her in their own churchyard, he had let them take her body away without a word. Flora was upstairs crying. Maria lifted the mallet and struck a hole in another Saracen coin.

Ten

From everyone but Maria, Richard hid his delight that Roger’s raid had failed. He gave Roger careful orders and sent him out on forays to chase back the Saracens, who were riding all over the foothills looking for something to steal. Maria asked him to give no quarter, so that Adela would be avenged, but the Saracens would not stop and fight, and Roger had no skill at running them to a standstill. That also pleased Richard.

The rape gnawed in her memory. Richard, with his crutch, his friends, and his new high spirits, needed little help from her, and Ceci was intent on learning to walk. Maria sat in the window, spinning, and tried to think about what had happened.

Together with the rape, she remembered the two serfs humping in the grass, and the whole day began to find a single form. She remembered the girl running after the boy, calling to him, her overskirts still hauled up above her hips; she remembered how Adela had run from the Saracens, her skirts lying out like wings. Slowly it became as formal as a dance. Placated by a sense of order in it, she shook off the brooding humor and discovered that Richard had gotten her a new maid.

This was a girl named Eleanor, of Maria’s years, smooth and pretty in looks—his cousin, Richard said, but two days after she arrived, Maria came on her and Roger on the stairs, kissing.

Maria burst out laughing. They sprang apart and Roger yanked his hands out of Eleanor’s dress. He stammered something. Maria did not stay to listen. Still giggling, she went up the rest of the stair to her father’s old room, on the top floor of the tower—Roger slept there, now, obviously not alone. She remembered Adela’s preachery about lust and laughed.

“What is it?” Flora said crossly; she was gathering up Roger’s litter of clothes and arms and tack.

“Oh, I am thinking of a joke Richard told me, it’s nothing.”

Maria picked up the broom and swept vigorously. Flora said sharply, “Well, don’t tell it to me, if it’s sinful.”

Eleanor came quickly in the door. She glanced at Flora and marched across the room to Maria’s side. In a voice like a priest’s, she said, “It isn’t what you think.”

Maria straightened up. She was nearly nine months with child, and when she stood, a sharp pain daggered down the backs of her legs. “What do I think?” she said, and turned away, smiling.

Flora called, “What’s the matter? Why are you whispering?”

“I am telling the joke to Eleanor,” Maria said. She finished cleaning the room.

Later, in the kitchen, while she and Eleanor were wrapping up cheeses to ripen, Maria said, “You may do as you wish, but when he goes to someone else, don’t kill yourself and leave me without help.”

Eleanor lifted her chin. “I beg your pardon,” she said, and went off into another part of the kitchen. Later, she and Roger were talking together in the ward, and he had his arm around her shoulders, his cheek close to hers.

Maria waited a few days to see if Richard would tell her what was between them. He never seemed to notice Eleanor; for cousins they were distant. The moon waxed. The heat of the summer lingered on. The climb up the two flights of steps from the ward to her room exhausted her. With Eleanor’s and Flora’s help, she contrived to spend most of the day in the hall.

She sat in her bedchamber one night, after Ceci was asleep, while Eleanor brushed her hair. Through the window she could see the full moon rising. Eleanor’s face showed in the looking glass, intent on her hands and the brush. She shook out Maria’s hair, spreading it across her shoulders.

“When the baby is born,” Maria said, “I want Richard there.”

“Mary Mother. You will not say that when we put the knife under your bed.” Eleanor stroked her hands through Maria’s hair. “Men are not interested in childbearing. Ah, you’re full of mad whims.” She gave Maria a hug. “You’ll be happy, when your baby’s in your arms.”

“I am happy now. Or would be, if you promised to bring Richard to me when the baby is coming.”

Eleanor laughed indulgently. “Ah, well.” Maria scowled at her over her shoulder.

“Don’t I suffer what you do with Roger? Now you chuckle at me as if I were a baby.”

“You are full of envy for me because I have Roger.”

“You have not got Roger,” Maria said.

Eleanor’s pretty face sharpened to a blade. She threw down the brush with a crack, her shoulders squared, and stalked out of the room. In the bed, Ceci murmured in her sleep. The wooden back of the brush had split up the middle. Maria put it on the mantelpiece, to use the bristles over.

From the thunking and clatter and voices on the stairs, she knew Richard’s friends were helping him and his leg up to bed. Sitting on the pillow, she braided her hair for the night and coiled the thick black rope up on her head, like a crown. The looking glass was lying on the coverlet. She picked it up and turned to put the light of the candles on it.

Ponce and the dark knight Welf half-carried Richard into the room. They were drunk enough to sing, their faces high-colored, bending over Richard in imitation of the angels bearing up Christ. He steered them across the room, careful that they did not run his bad leg into the furniture, and made them leave him leaning against the bed, rather than in it. Ponce and the German knight sang their way out the door.

“Vanity,” Richard said. “I should never have given you that glass.” He took off his jacket.

“I love it.” Maria wound her hair around her neck. “I thought you said Eleanor is your cousin.”

“She is.”

“Then she’s Roger’s cousin, too.”

Richard threw his shirt aside. “Get me a nightshirt.”

Maria went around to the cupboard and got out a fresh nightshirt. Putting it on the bed beside him, she knelt to help him roll the hose off his good leg. “Is she your first cousin?”

“Stop, will you?”

“Oh, you know, I am curious sometimes.”

She watched him take his breeches off. When he noticed her eyes on him he cupped his hands quickly over his male parts. “Give me that nightshirt—I’m cold.”

“It’s right there next to you. Everybody is certainly modest around here. I suppose it’s the humor of the season.”

“Don’t you like Eleanor?” He pulled on the nightshirt.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then why do you care what she does? Get into bed.”

Maria crawled past him into the bed, and he swung his splinted leg up onto the mattress, like a gate shutting behind her. He thrashed around getting comfortable. She moved Ceci over out of his way. Richard blew out the candle.

“Will they marry?” she said.

“Why do you ask me all these questions? Ask them.’’ In the dark his hands came at her like claws. She thought vividly of the Saracens with Adela. She lay stiffly in his arms, wishing he would leave her alone. Her vast body and his splinted leg kept them apart.

“Roll over,” he said, his mouth against her ear.

“Please, Richard—”

She ducked her head away from him. The memory of the Saracens burned in her mind. He touched her, drawing his fingertips over her body through her nightgown. After a while, lulled, she lifted her head and kissed him.

“Roll over,” he said.

She turned on her other side, putting her back to him. His arms slid around her. “That’s better.” He ran his hands under her nightgown.

“Be quiet,” she said, “you will wake up Ceci.”

***

Three days later, in the waning moon in the morning, she lay down in childbed. At first, none of the women would even send for Richard, but Maria made some threats to Eleanor, and at last the girl went after him.

When he came she was deep in labor. The women screeched at him like magpies. On his crutch he hobbled over to the bed. Maria was lying on her side. She bit her lips to keep from groaning. He said, “What do you want?”

“Stay with me,” she said.

Flora rushed up between them. “Here,” she said, “you are uncomfortable, you will tire yourself.” She rearranged all the pillows and made Maria lie down on her back. Going, she gave Richard a glare.

He bent to talk to Maria. “I’ll just be downstairs. If anything happens, I can—”

“Stay,” she said. “Please stay.” Her body clenched tight like a knot. She gasped.

Richard said, “Somebody bring me a chair.” He backed away. Flora rushed up and moved all the pillows around again.

Maria sank into a pain-ridden daze. Richard sat beside her; once or twice she saw him on his crutch pacing up and down through the women. At first she fought against screaming, but when the baby butted out she screeched her throat raw. Richard came up beside her. His face shone with sweat. Near the fire the baby cried furiously.

“It’s a boy,” he said. “I want to call him Stephen.”

Maria moved her head on the pillow. Emptied and exhausted, she had no real interest in the baby. “Robert,” she said. “For my father.” She put her hand out to him. “I was not brave.” He caught hold of her hand. Bending, he kissed her mouth.

***

Maria stooped over the vat and stirred the fleece briskly in its bath of dye. The aroma of the hot steeped barks made her nose itch, as if she were about to sneeze. Over near the kitchen door, the baby let out a yell. The women had told her that the second baby was always an angel, but Robert made them all liars. Her wooden heels clacking on the floor, Eleanor scurried across the kitchen to pick him up.

“He only cries because he knows you will come to him,” Maria called. She pulled a clump of the fleece up out of the dye. The deep green’s depth and clarity kept her gaze; she knew it would dry to a disappointing off-color. With a twist of the stick she dunked the fleece back in again. Eleanor walked up and down across the kitchen, singing to Robert. On her shoulder a mat of black hair showed above the baby’s blanket.

Maria sank down on her heels and looked for Ceci, who was playing under the table. With the little girl sitting on her hip, she crossed the kitchen after Eleanor. The old ovens had been torn out and the place seemed enormous. In the pantry door, the cook stood talking to Eleanor, a brace of plucked chickens dangling from his hand.

“I think you are justified,” Eleanor was saying. “They shouldn’t treat you like that.”

The cook grunted something. He and Eleanor got along well together. “When the old man was alive—”

“Eleanor,” Maria called. “Let’s go.” She carried Ceci over to the door. Eleanor followed her out into the ward.

“That poor man suffers so. I don’t see why you dislike him.”

“I don’t,” Maria said, surprised. “What is he telling you?”

“It isn’t what he tells me,” Eleanor said. They walked across the ward. The first snow had fallen the night before. Swept into piles along the foot of the wall, it lay in a thin white crust on the tops of the walls and the towers. The wind shook the clothes of the two men keeping watch on the gate. The sky was gray beyond the dark-gray walls of the castle. Shivering, Maria hurried to the door into the New Tower.

“And you shouldn’t let everybody steal from the kitchen,” Eleanor said. “I’m amazed you don’t keep better order among your household, Maria.”

“So am I,” Maria said. She went fast up the stairs, to get away from Eleanor’s sermon, and went into the hall. Richard and Roger were sitting before the fire, their shoes off and their feet up on the hearth. Maria went to her end of the hall.

Robert let out a raucous yell. His dark head bobbed from side to side above Eleanor’s shoulder. Maria lowered Ceci to the floor behind her spinning wheel. The men seemed to take no notice of them. Eleanor gave Robert up to her and she sat down to nurse him.

The two women were weaving a tapestry. The fleece soaking in the kitchen was to make the border. Eleanor stood staring fixedly at the wall beside the loom, where they had drawn the design with charcoal. Maria glanced down the hall at Roger. He was ignoring Eleanor as intensely as Eleanor was ignoring him.

“It is so confused,” Eleanor said, in a strained voice. She moved her head this way and that, to see the design from other angles. “There is no purity in it.”

Maria thumbed up her nipple and poked it into the baby’s mouth. “I like lots of things happening in the picture. I get tired of simple work.”

“But look how crowded it is,” Eleanor said. She turned her back to the men and sat down heavily on the little stool beside Maria.

“Are you fighting with Roger?” Maria said, and Eleanor made a little open-handed gesture of despair. Robert strained in Maria’s arms, voracious. She looked around the hall for Ceci. The child was leaning against Richard’s knee, her head on his thigh, smiling up at him, her long brown hair across her breast. While Richard talked to Roger he stroked her cheeks.

“See,” Eleanor said; she was frowning at the design on the wall, and she covered the two dancing couples with her hands. “If we left this out, and let the rest of the celebration take up the room—nobody ever dances here anyway.”

“The villagers dance, on May Day,” Maria said. “At weddings and Christmas.” She laid Robert against her shoulder to make him burp. Fiercely he held his wobbling head up on his shoulders. “I like them there. They are the only happy people in the whole design.”

Eleanor’s eyes flicked toward Richard and Roger. “Everyone is happy.” Her face was pinched and long.