“Couple again!” Hugh exclaimed weakly. “I can barely lift a finger, let alone that part of me necessary for coupling.”
“I am afraid I am very ignorant,” Audris admitted, smiling. “I was never interested before, so I did not ask. And when you put your hand on my breast, I thought—”
“I was feeling for your heart,” Hugh interrupted. “I thought I had killed you—crushed you or smothered you. I heard you scream but—”
Audris laughed. “I am not nearly so fragile as you think, but you are not far wrong at that. I felt as if I were passing through purgatory and then reached heaven.”
“What?”
“Have I shocked you?” Audris asked. “I am sorry. I often have strange thoughts. I assure you I did not mean to be blasphemous, but once I asked Father Anselm about the pain of purgatory and why it was different from hell. He explained that pain in purgatory was mingled with great pleasure because it lifted one into blessedness. I know the joy of the body is only a pale echo of the joy of the spirit—but I am in the body now.”
“And the joy of the body is transient, and that of the spirit everlasting,” Hugh said, making an effort and propping himself up on his elbow. Audris was beginning to regret that she had brought up the religious analogy when suddenly he winked and added, “But transient joys may be renewed—as often as one pleases.”
Chapter 13
Audris climbed no trees or cliffs that day, and Oliver assumed from her silence on the subject of hawks that his plan had been successful; doubtless Sir Hugh had expressed his shock at the idea, and Audris, sweet-tempered as she was, had given up the notion rather than distress her guest. He said nothing to Audris—it was not his way to compliment a woman on her obedience, because he expected obedience—but when she had gone up to her chamber, he said he hoped Hugh would continue to ride out with her.
Fortunately it was very dim in the hall, for dusk was falling and the torches and candelabra had not been lit. It seemed a useless waste to Oliver to light candles or torches on spring or summer evenings, since it was time for those who rose at dawn to be abed as soon as it was too dark to see by daylight. He found sufficient illumination in the light of the fire, still necessary because the thick stone walls of the keep held winter within all year. Thus, he did not see the flush that came up in Hugh’s face, and he accepted without surprise the silent nod that answered him.
Oliver had never cared much for the company of women, and he would not have been enthusiastic either if he had been condemned by his host to a week of a woman’s chatter. Audris was more amusing than most girls, but all day for a whole week! Oliver clapped a sympathetic hand on Hugh’s shoulder and spoke somewhat apologetically about the tasks that kept him busy. He felt a little guilty, but what was important to him was that Audris be kept off the cliffs until the rocks loosened by winter’s freezing had fallen or resettled firmly. Hugh would have to endure his boredom as best he could. But in compensation, Oliver did try to provide some entertaining conversation, raising questions about hunting and fighting he thought would interest Hugh.
Eadyth felt even sorrier for Hugh, for she interpreted his silence as pain. It seemed cruel to force him into Audris’s company, but she had warned him and Audris and could do no more. And from what she had seen that morning and this evening, Audris had taken the warning to heart. The girl had shown none of her light playfulness, and her early retreat to her own chamber was an overt sign that she did not seek more of her guest’s company than politeness demanded.
Oddly, neither Hugh’s nor Audris’s behavior had been planned in advance. They had spent the whole day in Audris’s valley and in the wooded areas of the low hills that hedged it in. Fritha had been summoned from beyond the ridge and settled near the stream with the horses while Hugh and Audris wandered about afoot. Sometimes both had sat silent, watching some small animal go about its simple life; more often they talked—about great matters of state and about small ones of their own lives. At all times, both were utterly content. They had an urge to touch, but walking hand in hand or sitting close was sufficient to satisfy the desire; beneath it, both were aware, lay a wilder, stronger passion, and that gave richness to every other thing they said and did, but passion did not torment them—not yet.
The one subject they did not discuss was what they would say and do when they returned to Jernaeve. Although for different reasons, neither could bear to lie to Oliver, and both had privately decided on silence as the only possible defense. Thus, Hugh was not at all surprised when Audris retreated to her tower; he was very grateful to her. And though ordinarily Audris was sharply perceptive about people—and more perceptive about Hugh than others because of her feeling for him—this time she had not been consciously aware of how he felt. She had responded solely to the urge to weave. She knew she had to complete the second tapestry before Hugh left.
It was fortunate that the soft thud of the comb beating down the woof could not carry through the tower walls; Oliver and Eadyth would have been worried sick if they had heard, because Audris wove far into the night. Fritha watched and smiled, for peace and joy were in her lady’s face, her dear lady, who was now a woman. Fritha was right. The need to be Hugh’s woman came even before the need to weave, so each day was spent with Hugh.
On the next day Audris did climb the cliff, Hugh’s horror conquered by her laughter and assurances that if he would not help her, she would do it alone as soon as he was gone. At least she would be safe from serious harm if he was above holding a rope—but watching her go down was a strange experience. Hugh was ravished by the dichotomy between Audris’s delicacy of appearance and her real strength as, skirts bound up out of her way, her face no longer pale and translucent but vibrant and bright pink with exertion and excitement, she crept down the face of jagged broken rock.
The falcon, having left the nest when Audris started down, circled above, screaming and diving to drive away the invader. Audris ignored her, leaned perilously sideways to peer into the nest, straightened, and began to climb up again, Her hands and legs must be as strong as steel, Hugh thought, and a memory of those legs embracing him as they coupled made him hard and ready.
So they made love as soon as she climbed back up, and if Audris was surprised by the way Hugh seized on her, still she did not suffer for it. He was eager to begin, not eager to end, and took time to kiss her golden curls and nether lips as well as most of the rest of her body before, remembering how he feared he had crushed her, he made her mount him.
Both were curious and eager to please the other, so the act of love became easier and more precious each day as they learned each other’s body. But every evening Audris went eagerly to her weaving, and between Audris’s need to finish her tapestry and Oliver’s wish to make up to Hugh for a day of a woman’s talk about nonsense, no suspicion of the love affair troubled Audris’s guardians. All was perfect—except the march of time; the week came to an end.
That parting was hard and bitter. Hugh knew he would not be able to seem indifferent on the last evening, so he told Sir Oliver that he would leave in the morning to give him time to talk with Thurstan and discover if there had been changes in the plans and to buy supplies and attend to any other details. Rather than leave his host in doubt about when or whether he would return, Hugh said, he would sleep at the abbey. Oliver nodded without comment, thinking Hugh had had all he could take of female company. Oliver did not care; he had gained his purpose anyway. He had reports that the cliffs were as safe as they ever could be.
Neither Oliver nor Eadyth gave Hugh another thought beyond the brief surprise each felt on learning that he had departed at first light, as soon as there were servants awake to close the keep door behind him. They did not even notice that Audris had left Jernaeve; it was a gray day, threatening rain, and both thought she had kept to her chamber, as she often did, particularly as each caught a glimpse of Fritha carrying food to the tower. But this time Audris and Hugh had made a plan to have their
last few precious hours all to themselves.
When Hugh left, he took his baggage mule, which carried not only his clothing and armor but his small, weatherworn tent. This he had set up by the time Audris arrived in the little flat area above her valley, and he had brought Rufus and the mule down to the stream, unsaddled Rufus and unloaded the mule, and tethered them there. When Audris came, Hugh unsaddled her mare and tethered her with the others. Then he turned to Audris, and they clung together for a moment without words and then, hand in hand, climbed up the slope to the shelter Hugh had provided.
Altogether it was a silent day, given over to the physical expressions of love. Over the past week they had mostly made love like playing, according to place and mood but, except for that first time, with no great sense of urgency. There had been equal joy in finding so many interests in common and in speaking freely of the deepest feelings each had. This last day both feared to speak at all lest their pain be magnified by words.
Once Audris began to beg Hugh not to put himself at risk to win a heritage, and he had stopped her. Later he had started to explain that his plan was not inspired by greed but because he wanted and needed to be with her, as only a husband could be, all the time. He could not bear, he said, to steal a little love for a day or two once or twice a year.
She had stopped him then, stricken to the heart because all his struggle—even if he was successful—would be useless; she could never marry and drive her uncle out of Jernaeve. So they made love and then lay silent in one another’s arms, clinging together for comfort until the gentle kisses and caresses turned fiercer and they made love again.
It was Audris who needed comfort most. Not that Hugh suffered less at the idea of their parting, but he had hope. He was confident of his strength and his ability, and he was sure that some chance would arise for him to distinguish himself enough to earn an estate. He now knew, too, that Audris did not need or crave the luxury in which she lived. For all her diminutive size and fragile appearance, Hugh had come to realize she was strong and hardy. Nor was she bound to Jernaeve as a special place. Give her a loom, a garden, and a wild countryside, and she would be happy. Thus, he was sure he could win permission to marry Audris by offering Oliver the rule of Jernaeve until he died or desired to be relieved of the burden.
Because Audris had not let him speak of the hopes that she feared would cost him his life, she was denied the comfort of his plan to take her and leave Jernaeve to her uncle. Such a notion had never occurred to her. She had for so many years associated her marriage with the transfer of power over Jernaeve that it had become as fixed into her mind as the keep was to its hill. Thus, the future was bleak indeed to her, at best a choice of refusing her lover or destroying her uncle; at worst the knowledge that Hugh had died trying to win her and that she had lost him forever. The agony of those thoughts came in waves, and when one hit, Audris hardly let Hugh breathe for smothering him with kisses, and she clutched him so close that, as strong as he was, he grunted with surprise and discomfort.
No matter that the cloudy sky and intermittent rain hid the sun and that Audris insisted they keep the tent tightly closed to further obscure the waning of the day, the time still passed. Audris pleaded to stay the night, but Hugh would not permit it. He knew Audris claimed she had no cause to fear her uncle, but Hugh believed Oliver’s seeming gentleness was because Audris had never given him cause to use her harshly. And even if Oliver were more forbearing to Audris than Hugh judged to be usual for his nature, any forbearance would be strained by a confession of where she had been and what she had done. But Hugh was too wise to give that reason.
“No, beloved,” he said. “For this one night might cost us all other meetings. What will you say to your uncle when he asks where you were? You cannot lie, and to tell the truth would seal Jernaeve against me. Come, dress yourself, dearling—and do not weep, breath of my life. Let me not bear the pain of having tears be my last memory of you.”
That stopped her pleading, and she hastily wiped away the drops that had begun to course down her cheeks, childishly, with the heel of her hand.
Hugh smiled at her. “In any case, my silly angel, it is too soon for tears. Thurstan will return by this same road, I believe. It is true that he may not wish to rest at Hexham again, but we will surely spend one night in the abbey. Do you think I would fail to pay your uncle the courtesy of riding to Jernaeve and telling him of King David’s decision? So, you see, we will not be parted for long. Perhaps I will not hold you in my arms again that day, but great as that joy is to me, it is greater joy only to look on you and hear your voice and know within my heart that you are mine.”
“True, true,” Audris cried, smiling, although tears still stood in her eyes. “And I have just thought that we may speak together even though our bodies are parted.”
“Speak—how?”
Hugh was startled. Audris had told him about the seeming foreseeing of her tapestries and how Father Anselm had explained what she did. He had accepted the explanation more easily than others would because, being much interested in animals, he had himself noted some of the signs she described. But he had also noted how the common folk with whom they came in contact gazed at her with superstitious awe, and this sudden mention of speaking to each other while physically separated sent a chill through him.
“We can both read and write—” Audris began, and Hugh burst out laughing and caught her into his arms.
Only Audris would have described an exchange of letters as “speaking together when parted.” It must be more than half her trouble, he thought, that people did not understand her.
“Why do you laugh?” Audris asked. “You can write to me and I to you, and my uncle will not think it strange, for I will tell him I asked you to send us the news of what happened between King David and the archbishop and also how you judge the temper of the Scots and all such matters.” She hesitated, but Hugh’s face was buried in her hair as he kissed her neck and ear and lower jaw, and she asked anxiously, “Is that not a good notion?”
“It is the best notion I have heard since your uncle bade me ride with you,” Hugh assured her, still holding her and kissing her between words. “I was only laughing because you say simple things in strange ways, and you startled me.” He pulled away enough to look at her face for a long moment, then leaned forward and kissed her lips, long and gently. When he freed his mouth, he sighed and released her. “I will go down and saddle your mare, Audris, and bring her up to you. Dress now, dearling. You must be home before dusk.”
This time Audris nodded obediently and let him go so he could dress. A great weight of fear had been lifted from her. She would see Hugh again, even if only briefly, but far more important, she would not be left in ignorance for months and years at a time of what was happening to him. That fear had hung over her like a black pall, knowing that Hugh could die and she might not know of it for years or, worse, that he could be lying ill and she would be unaware of it. When Hugh came back with her mare, Audris was standing on the easy slope of the hill beyond the flat area, ready to leave, and though she was sad, the agony that made her cling to him with the strength of a madwoman was gone.
“This letter writing,” she said, “I have thought how it may be most easily done. You have no servant. I will provide one for you. He will go to Hexham with your men in the morning.”
“I cannot afford a servant,” Hugh said, frowning. “Do not trouble yourself. I can send one of Thurstan’s men with the letters.”
“The servant will cost nothing beyond food for him and fodder for his horse,” Audris replied softly. “Is that too much?” She put her hand on his arm. “I do not wish the letters to stop when you have brought Thurstan back to York. I must know what you discovered about your mother at Durham and how you fare in all things.” She saw he was about to protest and shook her head. “Remember what I said to you about your mother’s kin—that someone who cared for her, not knowing she was at re
st, might have feared and wept all these years, either thinking that a fate worse than death might have overtaken her or that she had forgotten the poor, grieving heart left behind.”
“You cannot think I would forget you,” Hugh said, pulling her close. “By God and His Holy Mother and by all His saints, you are wife to me and the only woman I will ever desire or touch from this time forward. But it is true that, reasonable or not, if you care for me you will worry about me, and a servant from Jernaeve will best know the way home. But what will you say to your uncle?”
“The man in my mind is not a household serf. Morel is a yeoman who has served several times as a man-at-arms in my uncle’s troop when he was called by the king to war. Now his sons are grown and married, there are too many in the house, and his wife died, leaving him restless. I know him through his wife. She did the finest spinning of any woman near Jernaeve and spun yarn for my weaving. When she sickened, I tried to help her, but I could only ease her pain. It was then I came to know Morel. He is a good man, Hugh. He was patient and gentle with his woman all the months that she was helpless and useless—which is not so common among those where a useless mouth to feed is a burden. But since she is gone and his sons do not need him, he longs for freedom.”
Hugh nodded. The man sounded ideal, for he had enough knowledge of arms that he could care for Hugh’s weapons and armor and would not need protection. Better still, he was not an adventuresome boy who would get into trouble nor, like most older men, did he have a wife and children to whom he was eager to return. He could not be too old, either; when Audris had time to think, she thought very keenly.
“Thank you,” Hugh said simply. “As to pay—”
“Morel believes he owes me a debt, and I am letting him pay by doing something he wishes to do. I will see that he has a good cloak and extra clothes, suitable to a knight’s servant. You will provide food and shelter, and pay what you can when you can. He will be content, I promise you.”
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