A Tapestry of Dreams

by Roberta Gellis

  She knew what Eadyth thought because Father Anselm had showed her how to read people’s hearts from their gestures and expressions, from the way they moved their bodies and the way their breath came, but when she tried to explain what she saw to others, they would not believe her. Even Bruno had not believed her. It had been a game between her and Father Anselm, but after he had died, no one else seemed to understand. They were afraid when the pictures on the tapestries… And then Audris understood. Her uncle feared this new work would show Death. But there was no reason. Audris did not wait for Fritha, who was pulling the heavy loom farther from the wall, to fetch candles. She brought light herself and peered around the maid’s shoulder.

  “Sweet heaven,” Audris exclaimed, “it is all changed from what I began.” Then she laughed. “That is what comes of listening to men talk. Come see, aunt.”

  Relief had washed over Eadyth when Audris ignored her question. She never intended to ask Audris how she read thoughts and did not want any answer. For although Eadyth would not say the word aloud, knowing her husband would kill her for doing so, she did sometimes think that her niece was a witch, but a white witch, a good person. Father Anselm had said that Audris was good; he denied she was a witch of any kind. Perhaps that was true. Eadyth knew Audris cast no spells and practiced no evil sorceries; she went often to Mass—perhaps not so often as she should, but often enough—and to confession, and the raising of the host did not drive her from the church or chapel or turn her into a monster.

  For months, sometimes years, it was easy to dismiss her fears of what Audris was, to laugh at the castlefolk and villagers, who were in great awe of her and would fall silent when she appeared, until it was clear her business was one of ordinary life. It was easy to put her fears out of mind because Audris kept much to herself since Father Anselm’s death. She was usually in the garden and drying shed or out in the hills or in her chamber weaving. Often she did not even appear at meals, and when she did, she was so small, so frail-appearing, and withal so merry and easy of disposition that one did not, could not, think of witchcraft. Still, when she looked into a person’s heart…

  The thought was broken off by Audris’s words, and Eadyth’s breath caught at the surprise in her voice, but the light fell on her face and there was no fear in it, only wonder. Eadyth came forward and looked at the work displayed in the candlelight. It was not a large piece, perhaps a yard square, and at first glance it seemed a merry scene, the colors bright even in the uncertain light. A second look brought Eadyth’s heart into her throat when she realized the bright colors were penons, tents, and the shields of knights, and the scene was of a keep besieged.

  “And look,” Audris continued, “it is not finished. I thought it was the border that I worked because it was the same pattern over and over, but it is the beginning of a new piece. Those are the crenels of a wall. The border is there”—she pointed to a dark strip with sharp edges like dagger points reaching down into the finished piece and up into what would become a new panel.

  “I see,” Eadyth said. She saw also that Audris was staring at her work with a bemused expression, and she added hastily, “I must go down. Your uncle will wonder what has become of me.”

  Audris nodded, but the concept of the second panel had leapt whole into her mind, and she did not answer her aunt. “Let us push the loom back into place, Fritha,” she said. “It is not very late. I will work a little longer, for the sun is a laggard in January, and I can lie abed until it is well up if I wish.”

  She put down the candles she had been holding, only vaguely aware that her aunt had left the chamber, and helped her maid replace the loom. It moved more readily when Audris assisted because despite her diminutive size she was strong, her muscles hardened with much climbing of trees and cliffs. When it was precisely in place so that the spindles of yarn were exactly where they should be, she picked up the one with which she had been working before her aunt interrupted her, and began to weave. Her fair brows drew together in a worried frown, and she turned her head toward her servant, her pale eyes glittering like ice in the flickering light.

  “Fritha, do you think it would have made my aunt easier in her mind if I explained that Bruno and I had talked about what the Scots might do and it must have been that talk that was in my mind when I wove this picture?”

  The maid turned fully toward her mistress and the candlelight caught the ugly split in her upper lip, which was one outward sign of her muteness. The other was the too-broad nose with its flaring nostrils, which drew all attention, making most people miss the large and beautiful blue eyes above them. Audris looked only at her maid’s eyes and hands; she was accustomed to the deformity of her face and also to the fact that though others with harelips could grunt or gobble, sometimes even speak in a distorted way, Fritha could make no sounds at all. There were times when Audris noticed that Fritha looked much older than she, although they were only a few years apart—but tonight the lines of ill-usage on her maid’s face did not wake the spark of anger they usually roused.

  Fritha put down the spindle from which she had been unwinding a small amount of yarn, shook her head, and held up her fingers, clenched them into a fist, and then repeated the gesture several times.

  “You mean I have already tried to explain many times?”

  Fritha nodded, and Audris sighed.

  “Yes, I know,” Audris continued, “but this is different. I do not know that we will be besieged. I wove it because of what Bruno told me and what I heard him and my uncle say during the evening meal when he was here. I even know what the next picture will be. It will show the besiegers fleeing away at the top, beyond the great wall, and in the center the king and his knights entered into the lower bailey, having come to our rescue. But this is not a real thing that will come to pass, Fritha. I do not really suppose the king will come to Jernaeve. It is only a picture.”

  Fritha just shook her head again as she reached up to a particular peg set into the stone wall and took down a hank of yarn. She did not look at the color because it would have been impossible to match color in the dim yellow light of the candles. Nor was it necessary. Each spindle on the rack matched a peg on the wall—except for the special yarns of silk with gold and silver thread, which were kept in a chest—so there could be no mistake. And no matter what Audris said, Fritha would not have believed the weaving was only a picture. She was convinced that her mistress had supernatural powers, but she did not use the word “witch” either. To Fritha that word implied evil, and she knew Lady Audris was good. But Lady Audris could read the words in her mind even when she kept her hands still, and Fritha was sure that whatever appeared in the tapestry would come to pass.

  It was just as well that Audris had resisted the impulse to explain to her uncle and aunt how she had come to weave the two-picture panel. Actually, the events of the next month did not match the scenes, except in a very general way, but to those already convinced that Audris could foretell the future in her weaving, her denials would have smacked of dishonesty.

  ***

  A week after Eadyth had rushed down the stairs and related breathlessly that Audris had depicted a siege, Sir William de Summerville brought his army through a breach in the great wall some miles to the east. One halfhearted attempt at assault was thrown back without difficulty, for the defenders were able to rush from all parts of the inner walled area to the place under attack, and Summerville did not have enough men to mount several assaults simultaneously. After being beaten back, Summerville settled his men into camp beyond arrowshot from the eastern wall with a small force to guard the ford. It was not a siege in any real sense because the western wall was not blocked by enemies, so the people in Jernaeve could come and go.

  Although Sir Oliver made sure that adequate watch was kept, he was certain the assault had only been a test to determine whether he trusted his tenants to fight, which he did. Unlike the south, where most of the English had been reduced to
oppressed serfdom and bitterly hated their Norman overlords, most men in the north were freemen who could bear arms. After the harrying of the northern shires by William the Bastard, so few remained alive on the land that most of it was left waste. The present inhabitants were largely immigrants over the past fifty years, men seeking land of their own. And overlords like Sir Oliver’s father, who needed tenants to till the soil and herd their sheep and cattle, did not ask too many questions. If those who came were runaway serfs, they did not want to know and gladly accepted their oaths that they were free.

  So Sir Oliver, who had no more than fifty men-at-arms, still had defenders enough to hold his walls against twice the force Summerville brought. But the fact that Summerville had made camp after having discovered that there were enough defenders to hold him off easily meant that he expected a substantial addition to his forces. It was a matter of time, Sir Oliver thought, considering his alternatives. If Prudhoe held out, King David would not have men to spare to add to Summerville’s force; and if King Stephen were not engaged in putting down some other rebellion against his assumption of the crown and came north, Summerville would be called away.

  In either case, the “siege” was also a test of Sir Oliver’s temperament and judgment, or rather a temptation to him. Summerville was trying to reduce their numbers by drawing Oliver out into a battle to drive away the troop at the ford, who blocked their escape route and the route by which succor could be expected to come. To the proud or the hotheaded, that small group might have proved an irresistible target, since it would seem that it could be overwhelmed before help could come from the men in the main camp. Sir Oliver had pride, but not that kind; he was a wily old fox and doubted Summerville was such a fool as to leave the small troop unprotected. Besides, he had not the smallest desire to escape. If necessity demanded, he would die defending Jernaeve; he would never leave it.

  Assault might not even be attempted. Even if David took Prudhoe soon, the Scottish king knew Jernaeve and might be reluctant to assault old Iron Fist. David would prefer to starve them out—and Audris’s picture showed only a siege; that thought crept unbidden into Oliver’s mind. But if news came that Stephen was on his way or gathering men to come north, then David might assault Jernaeve, for it guarded the road to the central northern shires. Newcastle and Carlisle were far more important. Doubtless Stephen would make for one or the other first, but if David held Jernaeve, he would have an easy road east or west to attack Stephen’s army and a mighty fort from which it would be difficult to evict him. He might then think the price Jernaeve would cost in blood worthwhile… and Audris’s work was not finished, Oliver’s unruly mind reminded him.

  It must be finished now, he thought. Audris had been on the wall this afternoon and had joined them for the evening meal. But she had said nothing about her work and had not brought it down to show him so he could send out word to the buyers that a work was done. Well, that was not surprising. Audris was not an idiot and must know that sale of the tapestry must wait until they were free of the Scots. Or could there be a darker reason? Could the work show Death embracing the whole keep? Oliver felt cold, and then, remembering how full of laughter and teasing Audris had been, he put the fear aside. Still, a remnant of doubt clung to him, and though he told himself a dozen times that he was a fool, he still sent Eadyth up to look when Audris was in the mews with the falcons the next day.

  Thus, Oliver felt no great surprise when, ten days later, the fruitless siege was lifted and Summerville’s army marched away. He was not entirely pleased; he had learned to accept Audris’s infrequent predictions of impending natural disasters and her occasional verbal warnings that certain men were not to be trusted—she had always been right about the men, too—but he felt this depiction of the outcome of military action was more unnatural. Father Anselm had babbled some explanation for Audris’s abilities, but no watching of birds or beasts or the amount of snow that fell in the hills nor judging little twitches of face, limbs, and body could give signs as to when an army would march or retreat.

  Oddly, the same thoughts had occurred to Audris and were worrying her. She had never feared her tapestries—after the first one, which had given her a terrible shock—because she had accepted Father Anselm’s explanation that what she saw in the hills and fields worked slowly in her mind until a picture of it grew from her fingers. And it had seemed reasonable enough to her that the new tapestries she created should reflect all the talk she had heard about the Scots and Summerville’s threats and whether the new English king would come to support them. Still, the fact that she had predicted not only the siege but the coming of the king began to trouble her. She kept recalling how the picture of Stephen riding up the steep path to the keep while his knights waited in the lower bailey had formed in her mind. If Stephen did come, would that be true foretelling or only a chance coincidence?

  Being pent inside the keep increased Audris’s uneasiness by denying her her normal outlets of wandering in the hills. She restrung her loom and produced a handsome border of blue and silver, but found she did not want to weave and could not imagine a picture that would suit so rich and elaborate a surrounding. A further irritation was Fritha, who spent every free minute undoing a corner of the hide that sealed the southeast tower window and peeping out. The behavior was so unusual that Audris came to the uncomfortable realization that Fritha was watching for the king’s arrival.

  She scolded the girl for wasting time, but not even the slow passage of several weeks and the news that King Stephen had come north but was staying in Durham could discourage her. Audris’s tapestry had shown the king in Jernaeve; Fritha believed, and it was Fritha who saw the royal cortege first, running to draw Audris to the window just as the lookout on the tower top called down that a large party was coming along the south side of the river.

  Chapter 5

  With a quiver of mingled anxiety and excitement, Audris began to undo the entire hide that covered the window. It seemed undignified for her to peep through a corner like a maidservant, but the process was tedious. By the time she had unfastened the top, bottom, and one side and was able to swing the hide out of the way, the leading riders had reached the ford. She heard a bass roar, muted by distance, and then her uncle’s voice from the wall to the left of her tower shouting a welcome. The sounds came in the open window. Even on the third floor, the stone walls of the tower were eight feet thick, and only the sound of a battering ram or a mangonel-cast stone could penetrate them.

  Audris assumed that her uncle had offered to show the party the best path through the ford, because instead of crossing, they waited on the bank. Ten men, closest to the bank, formed a divided group, two to the fore and eight unevenly spaced behind. From the depth of his voice, his size, and the huge destrier he rode, Audris was certain one of the leaders was Walter Espec. The other must be the king, but Audris did not look at him. Her eyes had been attracted to a shock of brilliant red hair on the man just behind and to the left of Espec. The distance was too great to make out his features, but at that moment Espec said something to him, and he turned his horse to ride back to the bulk of the party, which was forming a second group a short distance behind.

  As the red-haired rider turned, Audris caught sight of the shield hung on his shoulder. She drew in her breath in surprise and delight, having suddenly perceived a subject that would suit the sumptuous border she had woven. For once her tapestry would be pure fantasy, incapable of any interpretation outside myth. Audris continued to look for a few moments more at the red-haired rider, who was now returning to Sir Walter, and she felt grateful to him for wearing a shield of blue with a silver unicorn, rampant. She noted how lithely his body moved to the destrier’s stride, and then admired the superb destrier. If not quite so massive an animal as Sir Walter’s, it was still remarkably strong and more beautiful, really, because more graceful. If it had a horn and were white, instead of a chestnut almost as bright as the rider’s hair, Audris thought, it would ma
ke a perfect unicorn.

  Smiling at the idea, Audris realized she was cold and stepped away from the window, telling Fritha to refasten the hide. It was only after she had picked up a spindle of grass-green yarn that she remembered she had not looked at the other man, who might be the king. But that hardly seemed to matter now. She was eager to begin work on her picture of a unicorn, rearing up on the bank of a river as if to display his beauty to a maiden who watched him from the window of a tower.

  Audris did not realize that she had been observed as well as observing. Although Walter Espec had mentioned the strength of Jernaeve to Stephen, the king was still startled at the sense of threat generated by the overhanging fist of stone. Stephen was a brave man; nonetheless, as they approached the ford, he felt uneasily vulnerable and found himself scanning the walls and towers. The movement in the window brought a low, startled exclamation from him and the beginning of a gesture of defense.

  Bruno, just behind the king, leaned forward and said, “There is no danger, Sire, I swear. That is Demoiselle Audris’s window, and she is probably curious.”

  A moment later, to vindicate Bruno’s assertion, Audris stood staring out at the men. Stephen’s raised head attracted Hugh’s attention, and he, too, glanced upward briefly before his master bade him warn the remainder of Stephen’s cortege that the ford was treacherous and they should follow the path Sir Oliver took as closely as they could. Hugh glanced up again as he returned to his position, just in time to see the small figure in the pale gown fade backward and the blank sheet of hide close the window. There was a haunting quality to that image, a fairy-tale feeling of untouchability about the girl as the blank hide replaced her.

  The odd impression dissipated as Sir Oliver came around the curve of the lower wall with four men and a substantial length of sturdy rope. This was stretched across the ford as a guide, while Oliver spoke a more formal welcome than could be shouted from the wall. The words were more smoothly said than Hugh had expected from what his master had told him of Sir Oliver’s general reluctance to commit himself to any purpose other than holding Jernaeve. Bruno, too, had mentioned Sir Oliver’s indifference to political matters that did not directly affect his own, or rather his niece’s, property. The thought caused Hugh to glance again at the closed window in the tower—the girl must have been Demoiselle Audris.