A Tapestry of Dreams (50 page)

“I must wash you and salve you,” the leech said severely. Seeing that he was being paid about five times his usual fee, he felt obliged to give as good service as he could. “It is true that no single cut could do you harm, but all together—”

Hugh frowned, quivering with impatience to be gone but restrained by common sense. “Very well,” he growled. “Do what you must, but be quick.” His breath hissed in as the leech began to pour wine over him, but he turned his head toward his servant. “Morel, tell the captain to get the troops and the supply wagons started northeast toward Gilling. We can pick up Dere Street near there without fording the Swale. I will follow and overtake him long before he comes to Gilling anyway. Are any of my own men hurt?”

“Only one too bad to ride,” Morel replied.

“Let him stay with Sir Walter’s wounded men. See that he has some money and tell him he will be welcome in Ruthsson—if it still stands—whenever he is strong enough to come.”

Morel shook his head. “He will not come,” he said.

“You are sure?” Hugh asked sharply.

“The wound be sucking with each breath,” Morel replied.

“Then save the coin,” Hugh said practically, “but be sure to see him and tell him his place in my service will be kept for him—it may cheer his heart. And when you return, you may set the men to packing.” Hugh smiled suddenly. “They have been sitting while you run hither and yon on my orders. I am aware, Morel, and you will not lose by it.”

Morel was not about to tell Hugh the whole secret of his devotion, but he grinned and said, “I profit already in a good master, a stomach that never be empty, and more of interest in my life than what manure be best.”

Hugh looked after him as he went out, a little puzzled by Morel’s care of him, which was more like that of a servant bound from early youth than a man hired in his own middle years. By natural association, Morel’s hiring brought Audris to mind again, and Hugh urged the leech to hurry, shifting impatiently when he said he must anoint each cut and then wind on bandages so the salve would not be rubbed away. At that, Hugh growled, saying he had no more time to waste on little nicenesses, ordered the man to smear on his salve, and told one of the assistants to find a clean shirt in the leather bags on the floor.

“The salve will be on the shirt. The shirt will be on my body. What comes off one place will be rubbed on another.”

The leech protested, but Hugh silenced him. He knew he was being foolish, that a few minutes more or even an hour more would not matter. He and his men could overtake the foot soldiers and the wagons easily, and it was their pace that would determine how long it would take to reach Jernaeve. Still, he could sit still no longer. He had to be up and doing—even though when he did stand up his knees felt uncertain and the muscles of his thighs quivered as if he were supporting too much weight.

He felt better, though, after Morel came back and insisted he drink some wine and eat something while the men took down and packed the tent. The food stayed down, although the stench from the battlefield was growing, and once mounted on Rufus, who had been fed and watered under his eye, he was steady enough in the saddle. But he was aware that he had lost more blood than was good for him, and when they overtook the marching troop he was willing to keep to their slow pace. They were moving; that soothed him. Nor did he protest when the captain came and asked if the men could rest and eat. They had reached the track that ran near the river, and he comforted himself with the idea that they would move more quickly even though the road was rough. He ate again, sitting with his good shoulder propped against a tree, and realized he had dozed, only becoming aware that time had passed when a low-voiced discussion between Morel and the captain roused him. Then he went on with the troop, although Morel pleaded with him to go back to sleep.

By nightfall when they made camp, they had come to Dere Street and traveled along it, making good time on the hard surface. Hugh knew the men on foot could go no farther and said no more than that a watch must be set around the camp, and particularly on the supplies, to guard against any group of Scots stragglers; they had come upon a few single men, most badly wounded, and Hugh had regretfully ordered that they be killed. He had no way to transport them, no men to spare to guard them; to leave them behind meant, likely, only a slower and more agonizing death—or, if by chance any recovered, the certainty that they would steal from or murder innocent people in order to stay alive themselves.

Personally, Hugh was sorry to stop. He did not feel well—he was already hot and thirsty with fever—but he suspected he would feel far worse the next morning. And he was right. He had eaten what he could, but that was little, and, although he dropped asleep as soon as he had quenched his thirst, he did not sleep well. He woke in misery each time he moved, and whatever position he took hurt him.

By morning his head was pounding, and although he did not look, he was sure his wounds were inflamed. Nonetheless, he choked down a little bread and drank—that very willingly—three or four cups of watered wine. When Morel brought his armor, now cleaned and gleaming with oil, though Morel had no way to mend the broken rings on back and shoulder, Hugh groaned aloud with anticipation of the pain it would cost him to don it. It was too dangerous, however, to ride without it. By now the defeated Scots might have gathered into groups large enough to present a serious challenge.

Once mounted and moving about an hour after sunup, Hugh felt better, but as the heat increased so did his misery, for he felt as if he were burning, and the sweat that poured out of him stung his wounds. He almost prayed for rain, until he remembered that rain would make mud. Even Dere Street had patches where the stones had been uprooted or washed away, and those patches could become bogs.

They stopped to rest men and horses about an hour before noon. Hugh remembered that clearly, remembered drinking and drinking and feeling that he could never quench his thirst, but after that his memories became hazy. Perhaps they stopped once, perhaps twice more; he was not sure of anything until suddenly he was conscious of a tearing agony and realized that Morel was pulling off his armor. Then he found himself shivering so hard his teeth rattled, and knifings of pain pierced his back and shoulder as the tremors tore at the stitches in the wounds.

It was dark, and he was propped up against his saddle in his tent with Morel trying to force some hot wine between his teeth. As soon as he could unclench them, he drank what was offered and let Morel ease him down. He must have slept on and off afterward; he remembered throwing off the blankets, then crying out with pain as he groped for them later when he began to shake with cold again.

In the morning Hugh found himself almost clearheaded. There was a singing in his ears, and his back and shoulder were very painful, but he was rational enough to ask Morel how far they had come the previous day and to rejoice when he heard they were, in Morel’s judgment, not much more than seven leagues from Jernaeve. He was also rational enough to be surprised that Morel said nothing when he could not eat at all. Later, he remembered they must have passed an abbey along the way, and he wondered why Morel had not tried to drag him in for treatment. He puzzled at that from time to time as he rode—it was better than thinking about the pain each step Rufus took cost him—and he began to laugh and also to understand how muddled his mind was when he finally realized that Jernaeve was Morel’s home, too. Of course the man was eager to get there and learn whether anything was left of his farm and his family.

As the day passed, Hugh often wished he had not solved that little puzzle so easily. He remained conscious and aware, alternately burning and freezing, his body racked with pain and his mind with fear for Audris and Eric. The dull misery of the previous day began to seem like a restful haven, and he had to struggle constantly against two opposing and equally irrational desires—to insist that the men be driven faster so they could arrive sooner, and to stop altogether so he need not know the worst, if the worst had befallen. But at last, just when Hugh was beginning to worry about how much longer he could control the impulses to shout out crazy orders, they came to the bridge south of Corbridge and turned west toward Hexham without going near the town. Although they had not seen any organized group of the enemy, Corbridge might still be in the hands of the Scots.

“Go ahead,” Hugh said to Morel, “and see if the abbey is taken. If not, ask the monks what they know of Jernaeve.”

Hugh was afraid to go himself, afraid that between his fear of learning that Audris was lost to him and the pain that gnawed at him, he might yield to a brother that offered him the oblivion of drugged sleep. But the news that Morel brought back was no help at all. The only Scots in the abbey were wounded men who had staggered in begging for shelter and sanctuary. They were no threat and knew nothing.

The abbey itself had not suffered more than the minor damage of carelessness and filth, although it had lost all its stores and most of its cattle and sheep. The monks could tell Morel no more, for they had fled in terror, carrying what they could, when raiding parties came south from the siege of Jernaeve. Then on 20 August a lay brother who had hidden in the village told them that he had seen a large army of Scots marching south in great haste. Only then had the brothers dared to return to their church and buildings.

To save himself from going mad as they turned north to cover the last few miles to Jernaeve, Hugh mulled over the news Morel had brought. Had the army that went south been the same that had attacked Jernaeve, or was the keep still besieged? No, the siege must be lifted, one way or another, Hugh thought, or foragers would still be coming to the abbey. So the army that went south must have come from Jernaeve, but if so, had they abandoned the siege in response to an urgent summons from King David—or had they somehow found a way into the inner keep and left some men to hold it while the others went, as they thought, to complete the conquest of Durham and Yorkshire. Hugh shook with fear and fever. He could not believe Jernaeve could be taken, could not believe it, and yet would the Scots dare leave such a prize, such a strong point blocking one of the main roads between their realm and the territory they hoped to conquer?

The last ideas went round and round in his head until the words made no sense and Hugh was back to clinging to his saddle, his chin on his chest, his eyes fixed unseeingly on Rufus’s mane. Then Morel cried out, and Hugh looked up, knowing that the sounds he had been hearing were not in his head but were the river. The sun was low in the west, and Jernaeve’s cliff was a threatening black mystery, only the tops of the walls and the bulge of the south tower gilded by the light. Instinctively, Hugh’s eyes went to Audris’s window, but it was blank and black, the heavy shutter closed. An icy chill washed over him. With the siege lifted, the window should be open. And no challenge rang down; Hugh strained his eyes, but he could not see any movement on the wall. Frantic, he gestured for the troop to move on, shouted for them to run. They reached the ford—and a hail of quarrels arced out from the walls at them. Hugh sat watching, frozen in despair. The impossible had happened. Jernaeve had fallen.

In the last light of the summer evening, Hugh rode alone up the long winding road from the lower bailey toward the keep. The saner part of his mind expected a hail of crossbow bolts to finish him, but another part was full of grim rejoicing. The shock of learning that Jernaeve was in enemy hands some two hours earlier seemed to have steadied his mind and numbed his physical pain. Despite the shower of arrows, he and Sir Walter’s men had crossed the ford and entered the lower bailey, where Hugh stared around at the ruins.

He should have been horrified, for it was obvious that most of the wreckage had not been caused in the attack and was mere wanton destruction, but what struck Hugh most forcibly was a sense of familiarity. All during the discussion he had had with the captain about what was best to do, that familiarity nagged at him—for each time he had visited, Jernaeve’s lower bailey was in the most flourishing condition—until he remembered with an almost physical shock that he had seen the bailey in ruins in Audris’s tapestry.

From that moment a terrible kind of joy seized him. There was, of course, no indication in the tapestry of who had destroyed the bailey; the unicorn was standing among the ruins, and he and Audris had assumed it was the unicorn that had caused them—but that assumption might well have been wrong. All that was unmistakable was the unicorn’s rage and threatening attitude toward Jernaeve. But if Jernaeve were filled with enemies, that attitude was perfectly reasonable. The more he thought about it, the firmer grew Hugh’s conviction that he must get into the keep. Audris must be a prisoner there, and if she was not—Hugh shuddered and then stiffened to control himself. She must be there; in the last tapestry she was in the garden with the dead unicorn. Hugh sighed, remembering the peace in that last picture. Once in, he was sure he would somehow find a way to open Jernaeve to Sir Walter’s men before he died.

Burning though he was with fever, Hugh was not so much out of his head as to mention the tapestry or the wild conclusions he had drawn from his memory of it to the captain. What he had proposed was that he go alone and try to parley with whoever was holding Jernaeve. Possibly they had not yet heard of the defeat King David had suffered at Allerton. With that news, he might be able to arrange some terms on which they would yield the keep.

The captain was doubtful, but aside from warning Hugh that the Scots were barbaric enough to shoot him even while he called for a truce, he thought it worth a chance—since he also was convinced that the Scots were stupid wild men who could be easily cheated. Of course, the captain had no idea how sick Hugh was, and Morel, who did know, had not uttered a single word since the flight of crossbow bolts had come at them. He was paralyzed with disbelief, so shaken was his world at the idea that the Lady could not protect Jernaeve.

Thus, Hugh started up the road, fully armed but without his sword or any other weapon. When no bolts had flown at him at the halfway mark, he called out that he desired a truce to come higher and speak to whoever held Jernaeve keep. He stopped there and waited, and after what seemed like a long time but had to be only a few minutes because it grew no darker, a voice called back that he might come. Something stirred in Hugh’s mind, something to do with the fact that the voice spoke in fluent, cultured French, but he could not think about that. He started up on the road again, thinking only of reasons that would get him inside Jernaeve.

“Who are you?” the voice from the wall called down when he reached the last turning in the road.

“Hugh of Ruthsson,” he called back.

There was a brief silence, and Hugh wondered if it had been a mistake to tell the truth. Would he be shot out of hand? Hugh started to lift his shield, but the voice came again, high and shocked.

“Take off your helmet—and say again who you are.”

Take off his helmet? The better to kill him? Still, what choice did he have? Painfully, he lifted his hand and pushed off the helmet, not even trying to keep it from falling to the ground. With teeth gritted over the agony of pulling the stitches of the suppurating wound in his shoulder, he undid the fastening of his hood and pushed that back.

“Hugh of Ruthsson.”

He tried to shout so that he could be heard, but his voice was just a croak. The numbness to pain that hope and high excitement had granted him had ended, and it seemed that the agony had returned a hundredfold in revenge for the hours it had been held at bay. He was aware that it was growing dark too suddenly and felt himself swaying in the saddle. And then he thought he heard a woman scream his name—no, it was the screech of the portcullis rising. He made a last desperate effort and kicked feebly at Rufus to start him forward, clinging to his seat in the saddle with the last remnant of consciousness. And there were hands holding him, helping him down, and—and Audris’s voice. He blinked, and for one instant saw her face. It disappeared in the growing blackness, but he could still feel, and there were lips on his.

***

For a long time after that, days and nights were little more than black and white bars in which Hugh had horrible nightmares of tearing down Jernaeve or of being tortured in its dungeons. Later, the black and white bars stretched out into days and nights again. The horrors receded, leaving only a dim discomfort. Hugh became aware of pain, of being lifted or washed or of having food or drink or some horrible, bitter potion pushed past his lips, but mostly he floated in contentment, for each time he managed to open his eyes for a moment Audris was there, smiling down at him. And, at last, when he forced his lids open, they stayed open.

“Audris?” he whispered. “Are we prisoners?”

“No, beloved,” she said. “It was all a mistake, dearling, all a mistake. Jernaeve was never taken. We thought you were the Scots returning. Never mind that now, heart of my heart. Eric and I are safe, and you are safe. Rest.”

He was going to say that he had been doing nothing but rest for a long time, but somehow his eyes were closing again. He did sleep, but when he woke, this time to a room softly candlelit, he was ravenously hungry, and his first words were, “What is there to eat?” And Audris, who was sitting by the bed, laughed like a bird singing.

Almost as soon as the words were out, Fritha came running from the small hearth, carrying a bowl. Hugh intended to ask a great many questions, but he found it strangely exhausting to be lifted and propped against pillows and to swallow what was put into his mouth, although it was delicious. He knew there were important things to say, but somehow his mind would only fix on silly things like how strong Fritha was, to have been able to lift him, and his intense desire to see Eric.

Still, he barely managed to stay awake long enough to admire his son, who gurgled happily at him in spite of being suddenly wakened, and he fell asleep before he had quite finished saying, “You were right, Audris, he does have a sweet temper.”

The next day, he did manage to ask questions, and all the news was good—so good that he felt uneasy. But he was too tired, even after hearing only good news, to probe for what he felt might lie under it. After all, he knew he could do nothing, even if everything Audris had told him was a pack of lies designed to calm him. It was better to try to believe what she said, to eat hugely—he seemed to be constantly hungry whenever he was awake—and to spend whatever time he was not eating or sleeping that day idly playing with Eric, who wriggled and waved his hands and feet in delight at being free in the big bed beside his father, and watching Audris work at her loom, which Fritha turned so that he could watch the picture grow—a happy scene of a hunting party setting out.

The uneasiness stayed with him, however, and he must have slept restlessly and had bad dreams—although he did not remember them—for soon after he had broken his fast in the morning, Audris brought his uncle to see him.

“You were so very ill,” Audris said, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought…” Her voice failed, and she shook herself and laughed at past fear. “I thought you might die, so I sent for Uncle Ralph.”

“I told her there was no danger,” Ralph said, smiling, although his own eyes looked suspiciously wet. “I knew that anyone who survived a battle with Lionel Heugh was not going to succumb to pricks from Scottish lances. But I must say I am very glad that Audris no longer needs the support of my strong spirit.”

“Strong spirit,” Audris interrupted, wrinkling her nose. “He wept more than I.” But she put her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder lovingly. “Still, it was true I needed him.”

Ralph pretended to look down his nose at her in disdain, but he was hugging her tight, and then he laughed suddenly, kissed the top of her head, and let her go. “Well, whatever the reasons, I am glad you are all but well again. If I do not go back to Ruthsson immediately, nine-tenths of the lush crops you worked so hard to get into the ground will disappear into private hoards.”

“Then Ruthsson is safe?” Hugh asked, stretching a hand to his uncle and drawing him close to kiss.

“There are advantages to being buried in uttermost Thule,” Ralph said, first clinging to Hugh for a moment and then straightening and producing an indifferent shrug. “No one came near us.” And seeing Hugh still frowning, he added, “I swear it, on my own soul—and if you think I would not mind adding a sin to my already substantial burden, I will swear it on the soul of King Henry, on whom you know I would lay no sin.”

Hugh smiled at that and admitted, “I believe you.”

“Trewick has had some damage, although it was not burnt out like Belsay. One of the raiding parties breached its defenses, but there were enough men to drive them off before they put torches to the place. And Heugh is safe, too.” Ralph shook his head in wonder. “I never thought I would set foot willingly inside those walls, but Audris wrote that Lionel was dead and our Louis was holding the place and asked me to discover, if I could, whether it had been taken. That Louis is a good man. He took in the yeomen who managed to escape the Scots and gave them weapons. He told me the Scots that attacked while you were there never came back and no other group large enough to be dangerous challenged them. Only a few raiding parties tried to threaten him, but Heugh was more than strong enough to hold them off, so he did not yield it.”

“I am glad of it,” Hugh said. “It is a fine keep, and no matter to whom it belongs, I would not like to see it despoiled.”

Hugh started to ask another question, but Ralph shook his head. “That is enough, Hugh. You needed to be assured that all is well—and truly, all
is
well. For the rest, you know I care very little. So long as he does us no despite, King David is as welcome to me as King Stephen—perhaps a little more welcome. The Scots are gone from Northumbria and the people are picking up the pieces of their lives. There is nothing you can do now except rest, so that you will be ready to act when you must.”

He kissed Hugh again and left, and while Hugh was still protesting that he was not at all tired, he fell asleep. He woke only an hour later and sat bolt upright, this time remembering his dream. “Your uncle,” he said to Audris, who was at the loom and came running, anxiously asking what ailed him. “I must speak to Sir Oliver. I must thank him for his hospitality and assure him it was not my intention to come here as if—” But the words died in his throat as Audris stopped and he saw the expression on her face.

She lowered her eyes. “He is dead, Hugh.” Then she ran to him and threw herself into the arms he opened to receive her. “He is dead,” she sobbed. “I could not save him. I tried. I swear I tried with all my strength and all my skill.”

“I am so sorry, my love,” Hugh whispered, holding her tight. And then “hearing” what she said, he added fiercely, “Of course you tried with all your strength and skill! Who says you did not?”

“No one,” Audris sobbed. “In fact, my aunt says he was dead when they brought him in and laid him down, but I felt his body move with breath, I am sure of it, and I keep wondering if deep in my heart I envied him Jernaeve and did not do all I could or ought.”

Hugh shook his head. “Hush, love. You wanted to believe him alive, and so you did. I have seen the newly dead seem to sigh with breathing. I do not know what it is, perhaps the soul passing. But for all your skill with potions and salves, dearling, I think your aunt has seen more death than you. Is it not true that in ordinary times you only came to those for whom there was hope?”

“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “That is true, but…” She started to cry again, more softly, hopelessly. “But I hardly ever told him I loved him—only once or twice—and he was so good to me. And I was often disobedient and vexed him, and… and…”

Hugh kissed her silent, rocking her comfortingly. “So we all feel when those we love die. So will I say to you, no doubt, when Thurstan is taken.”

“Thurstan?” Audris echoed, her sobs stopping abruptly. “Hugh, no! Oh, what will I do? You are not strong enough to travel.”

“No, no,” Hugh soothed. “I am sorry I frightened you. I hope he will have some years among us yet, but he is very frail and will not spare himself.”

“When you are well,” Audris said, brightening, “we will go to York so that he can see Eric. And we will take Uncle Ralph—”

Hugh laughed aloud. “Now there you have a truly brilliant notion. Perhaps Thurstan can save Ralph—and it might be that Ralph can insinuate a little balance and reason into Thurstan.” He was quiet for a few moments, and Audris moved tentatively. Hugh tightened his grip. “Lie with me,” he murmured, and then, in response to her wordless protest, he laughed gently. “I did not mean that—although I soon will, I think—but my body has been nothing but a trial to me for so long. It is good to feel pleasure in it again.”

By the end of that week, Hugh had made good his promise, although Audris insisted on mounting him so that he would need to exert himself less. When they were done, he protested in a playfully die-away voice that he was sure it would have been less exhausting if he had plunged and been done instead of being played with until he was half crazy before being allowed to spill his seed. But the next night it was he who gasped that he was too weak to climb atop; Audris made no protest, but later she meanly pointed out that his request cast some doubt on the complaints he had voiced the previous night. Whereupon, to her genuine concern—and equally genuine pleasure—he reversed the process and agreed, when he had caught his breath, that he was
not
too weak.