Great Maria Read Free

buried in pine. Far down there, the serpentine strips of the fields spread across the valley floor, slashed by the brown streak of the river. She went on around the foot of the wall, in and out of the shadows.
    She said prayers for Elena and her mother, buried higher on the hill, and sat down in the sun with the castle wall at her back. The graveyard was thickly planted in herbs; certain things grew most potent there. Down in the valley, a boy rode a limping workhorse into the river to soak its legs. She wrapped her arms around her knees. Here nearly every day she and Elena had told each other stories of kings and wizards, enchanted weapons and horses and treasure, maidens despoiled and magic castles lost and won. Elena had despoiled the maidens. Maria had preferred the weapons and horses.
    Abruptly she looked up above her. The redheaded boy was leaning against the top of the wall. Their eyes met. All over her body, her skin grew prickly and alive. He did not look away. After a moment she tore her gaze from his and pointed it elsewhere.
    She could sit there no longer, not with him above her, and she raced along the foot of the wall toward the gate. He had looked at her so long and with no reason to be doing it; she remembered his stare and held her breath. She dashed into the ward and ran across to the New Tower.
    Just as she reached it, he reached it, jerking open the door for her. Now they were so close she could see his clear blue eyes. She went through the doorway, into the cool dark of the foot of the stair. He slid past her through the door and went up the stairs toward the hall. In passing, his arm brushed over her breast. She raced up the staircase two flights to her room.
    That night, she could hardly sleep, and in the morning she lay late in bed, daydreaming. The other women clucked over her and tried to get her up but she ignored them. She could think of nothing but Roger.
    When her father had the New Tower built, years before, he had ordered that a passage be made in the wall around the hall, on either side of the hearth, so that he could spy on his men. This passage opened under the stair. Now that Robert was aging he seldom went in there. Maria had found its entrance; now, loving the redheaded boy, she hid in the wall passage and listened for his voice among the arguments and stories and lies of the men.
    During the days, whenever she saw him, he caught her eye in a searching look. They said nothing to one another. Maria could not imagine speaking to him—everything she felt for him would come out, and what if he refused her?
    Adela and Flora, the women who helped her work, twitted her constantly and tried to convince her she was sick. At last, to quiet them, she made them swear an oath to keep the secret and told them about Roger. Flora agreed with her that Roger was wonderful but Adela only laughed, and later Maria heard them giggling in a corner and was embarrassed.
    One morning in the early summer half the knights rode off on a raid. Old Robert stayed home, to help a mastiff bitch whelp her first litter, and when the puppies were dry and nursing, he went to the hall and sat down in front of the fire. Maria brought him a cup of wine. The hall was stifling hot, even with the fire banked. Maria and the other women hurried around the room, throwing all the knights’ bits of gear out into the ward and spreading clean rushes on the floor.
    “It’s so hot,” she said to her father. She came up beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “How can you bear it? Come outside.”
    Old Robert grunted and heaved his bulk up straighter in his chair. In the bristled laps and folds of his face his eyes were bright as a young man’s. He looked her over, set his cup down, and thumped his knee.
    “Here, puss. Sit down.”
    Maria sat down on his knee. He muttered in his throat. “You are heavier than you were.” He sighed and shook his head, fingering his chin, and looked her over once again.
    “Now, see here,” he