Great Maria by Cecelia Holland Read Free Book Online

bent neatly to her hand, backed up, reared, and went into a lope around Richard. He was in a foul mood; she rode to her father’s side.
    Loose-limbed on his old bay stallion, he leaned over her. “Do you like it, my dear one?”
    “Oh, yes.” She put her hand on the carved leather swell of the saddle. Long-faced, Flora and Adela stood on the step watching her, and Adela scowled at her. They thought she should stay in her room, even in her bed, and let no one see her with child. She had needed most of a month to convince Richard to take her with them. Her father shouted, the gate opened, and they rode double file onto the hillside.
    Adela and Flora were wrong, Richard was wrong, and there was nothing to be unhappy about. Ever since her father had learned she was pregnant, he had treated Richard pleasantly, and now here they all were, going out together to hunt. She could not understand why Richard was so sullen.
    They rode across the valley to the west. His brothers carried the hawks, hooded in leather. The dogs scattered around them sniffing at everything. In the deep, furrowed ground of the valley floor, the serfs were bent over planting seed. Even the littlest children went about to pick up stones. The hunting party crossed into fields plowed but not yet planted and from there into the oak wood.
    Maria went up beside Richard. He was a good horseman; she was proud of the way he rode. For a while he pretended not to notice her next to him. Eventually he looked down at her from the back of his gray horse.
    “You should not ride.”
    “I won’t. Not after this.” But she loved the spring hawking after cranes. Their horses swung into a canter, shoulder to shoulder. Two swine ran squealing into the wood away from them. The trees closed over their heads. Birds shrilled at them. In the distance the sunlight poured in through a gap in the roof of the wood.
    The slope flattened into the sunlight of an open meadow. Maria’s father led them out onto a point of dry ground that ran above the marsh to the beach. The horses dropped to a jog trot. Richard reined in to let her go in front of him.
    “There are boats out there.” He pointed toward the glittering water in the distance.
    Maria shaded her eyes. The low surf rolled in along the beach. Beyond, the water danced green to the horizon. Near the sky, two white dots moved over the sea. One dot lengthened into a line and showed its curved sail.
    Roger said, indifferent, “The villagers must fish there.”
    “The villagers have no boats,” Richard said. “They are Saracens from Mana’a.”
    Maria drew her mare to a halt. The sudden bright sun was hurting her head. Instantly Richard brought his horse up beside her.
    “I warned you,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
    “Maria?” her father called from down the beach, and she rode away from Richard, nudging her mare into a canter across the pale firm sand.
    They hunted the rest of the morning along the edge of the marsh. Maria shook off her headache. Dragonflies swooped around her, hung whirring in the light, and zigged away. The broad golden marsh smelled of rot. Once, while she stopped to rest, a little deer came up through a stand of evergreens across the cattails from her. When she moved, the deer wheeled and lumbered out of sight, its barrel round with fawn.
    Exhilarated, she rode on after the men. They had reined up along the bank of a stream. Out over the marsh, a crane unfolded its great wings and gathered itself into the air. The red falcon stooped above it. The crane’s curved flight broke. Like a white feather it hung long in the pitch of the sky.
    “Beautiful killing,” Roger murmured, and her father muttered in agreement, his eyes fixed on the hawk.
    Richard lured it back, and William raced off after the dogs to retrieve the crane. Maria’s mare splashed across the stream. No longer hunting, the riders spread out over the beach. Richard turned his horse down to the slow breakers and sat watching the