Great Maria Read Free Page B

him.
    “Roger,” he said. His eyes were the color of ice. He pulled a stool over next to her father’s chair. “Sit down. No, girl. In the chair.” With his hand on her arm he steered her from the stool to the chair.
    Maria wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “You are a sorry lover.”
    “I know.” He started to sit on the stool at her feet, but instead he propped his foot on it. “Roger’s better at that than I. He dandles all the local maids.”
    Maria blinked at him. This new reflection of Roger unsettled her, but she could think of only one thing at a time. She said, “I will always love your brother.”
    “No. He just wants to play with you—I want to marry you.”
    His hands rose between them, palms up, begging her. She said, “Why?”
    “Because…” His hands fell. “You wouldn’t follow it.”
    “I will.”
    He straightened. She wondered how old he was—not so much older than Roger, after all: in the way he moved there was something of a boy’s awkwardness. He sat down on the stool in front of her.
    “Your father is a robber, he’ll never be anything else. Roger just wants to be the King of the Robbers. But there’s something else to be done here. This castle’s at the throat of the whole region. The Saracens in the mountains have had no leader since Tib al-Malik was murdered. The King doesn’t interfere here, the Duke of Santerois hasn’t come south of the Roman Road in eight years. Someone is going to make himself great here, why should it not be me?”
    His voice was quick and vehement. She took her eyes from his face. What he had said caught her imagination.
    “Shall I court you?” Richard said. “What does Roger do, besides smile and be pretty?”
    She lifted her head. “I’ll marry you.”
    She saw that surprised him. She could not keep from smiling. She put her hand out to him. He took it; his fingers were rough with callus.
    “Maybe I am a sorry lover,” he said, “but I’ll be a good husband, I swear it.” He kissed her hand. She wondered if she ought to kiss him; she had never kissed a man other than her father. But the knight only got up and went out of the hall.
    She turned to the window overlooking the ward. A dozen knights were gathered around the door. Among them, almost under her window, was Roger’s red head. Richard walked out of the tower. The knights swarmed around him, their voices excited. He nodded, and they let out a yell. Below her Roger lifted his head. He met her eyes a moment and went to join the crowd around his brother.

Two
    At first, Maria’s father took charge of everything and wanted the wedding on Assumption Day, but on the night before that, a caravan came down the road from the Saracen port of Mana’a, and Richard and Roger went off to attack it. They came back with three important prisoners. Arranging the ransoms kept the men’s attention almost until the equinox. After that, it rained awhile, until Maria almost gave up thinking about the whole subject of marriage.
    On the first sunny day, they all rode down to the village church, the serfs ran in from the fields, and Father Simon married them. The inside of the church was painted with round faces and sheep and the same hills she saw from her window. She stood trembling before the priest, her shoulders and breast drenched from the dew on the blue and white flowers the women had given her. She knew she could escape from this, if only she took heart. The gray-eyed knight appeared beside her. His hand was cold and clammy as a stone. Father Simon spoke of obedience and chastity and kindness.
    She and Richard knelt and received Communion. The wafer clung to the roof of her mouth. She worked frantically with her tongue to pry it loose and then could hardly swallow it. The knight put a gold ring on her finger. He missed the first try, and she raised her eyes and saw him worried and uncertain. Her heart lightened. It would not be so bad after all. She put her hand on his arm and they left the