A Tapestry of Dreams

by Roberta Gellis

  In the weeks that followed, Audris did not fight the compulsion to weave, as she had in the past. She did not scant her other autumn duties—she saw to the gathering and storage of herbs for seasoning and for medication, to the proper mixing of dried flower petals for sweetening the air and laying between the light summer garments to keep pests and foul odors away, to the steeping of roots and leaves for elixirs, the compounding of lotions and salves. She watched the young falcons begin to hunt and marked the nests to which the best of them returned, and she set ready the devices she would use to take them, letting the birds grow accustomed and lose their fear. But when the weather was wet or she could not sleep, she wove.

  The picture that was forming was the last she would ever make that showed a unicorn. Sometimes, as her hands guided the threads, she thought how different a person she had been when she began the first panel—a fantasy, she had called it and had lightly thanked Hugh for giving her the idea. And that had been only a few weeks after she had told Bruno that what she desired was to be to a man what Rachel was to Jacob.

  How ignorant she had been; it had never occurred to her that there must be a price to pay for the joy of being the central core of another person’s life. She knew now that one could have either a dull, even plain of simple contentment or the great beauty of high mountains of pleasure and happiness mingled with the bitter, dark valleys of grief and pain. There could be no peaks of joy without valleys of fear.

  Audris thought, too, of her childish resentment of the pain Hugh had brought her, of her angry wish to be rid of him. That was gone, together with her ignorance. As she watched the hawks or worked in garden and stillroom or wove at her loom, images of the two sorts of life—the even plain of small fondnesses and the rough, hard terrain of human love—had flowed back and forth in her mind. Long before the tapestry was finished she had made her decision. She did not fear to climb the cliffs for hawks nor fear the pain of falling—she loved the forest and the cliffs best, not the tame, plowed fields—and so she would not fear to love, nor the pain of weeping.

  And on the day she told Fritha to turn the loom so she could see what she had wrought, she only sighed. She had known what the picture would be: in a garden bright with flowers the unicorn lay on his side, eyes closed, head pillowed on a woman’s skirt. The woman’s hands tenderly held the great head with its single shining horn, and she was bowed over the beast so deeply that one could see only the top of her head and the waterfall of silver-gilt hair mingling with the pure white of the unicorn’s lustrous mane. The beast might have been asleep; there was no mark or wound on the glossy hide—but Audris’s heavy heart could find no comfort in that false hope.

  Then her eyes caught something else, a subtle shadow… When she “saw” it, her glance flew away from the picture, and she stared out the window, fighting cold waves of terror. The shadow lay across the flower beds, one arm outstretched toward the bent form of the woman.

  One part of Audris marveled at her own skill in depicting so subtle an image by the use of darker hues for the flowers, leaves, and grasses where the shadow fell. Another part of her shuddered with horror, fearing that Death had shown himself again in her work. Before she could bring her eyes back to her tapestry Audris had to remind herself fiercely that hiding from the truth is always more dangerous than knowing it. More careful inspection revealed nothing more than she had seen when the shadow first caught her eye. There was no clue as to who, or what, darkened the bright garden.

  Nonetheless, Audris was comforted by her study of the image. To her, there seemed to be a kind of tenderness in the way the shadow hand reached out. There was no sign of the pointing, accusing finger of the Deaths shown in most memento mori. And then she remembered Father Anselm saying, “Death is always kinder than life, for God and His Mother are infinitely merciful and will pardon any sin sincerely repented. It is life that is unforgiving and makes us pay dearly for our mistakes.”

  True enough, Audris thought, almost smiling. Did not the priests say there was no love, except for God, no marrying nor giving in marriage in heaven? Without human love, there could be little pain—and many fewer mistakes. All the while, Audris’s eyes were fixed on her work, and suddenly she shook her head. True, the shadow might be that of Death, but she did not believe it. The tapestries that warned were never subtle. Death stood out plain and clear, showing his scythe and his fleshless grin. A sense she had felt before, that she was misreading her last two pieces, grew more insistent.

  “Take it from the loom, Fritha,” she said calmly, “and hang it next to the third piece. And lay a new warp on the loom. It is time to do something for my uncle.”

  The new work, a gay harvest scene, took shape quickly under Audris’s skilled fingers. October was a quiet month for her, though a busy time for Eadyth and Oliver. Ale was brewed in October and the slaughtering of cattle and hogs with the concomitant salting and smoking of the meat begun, though that would not reach its height until all the grazing in the stubble fields was gone. Audris took no part in these activities, and Eadyth had long since given up trying to teach her. Now, Audris rather regretted that, for the harvest tapestry was soon finished and weaving left her too much time for thinking. She craved activities that would keep her head as busy as her hands and tire her so much that she would drop asleep as soon as the need for her attention was gone.

  Thus, although it was rather early in the season, Audris summoned the falconer and his boys and went out to take the hawks she had marked. She explained the early trapping by saying that she feared a turning of the weather, which had been so fine for several weeks—everyone else was saying the same, so her remarks were harmless—but her reason was that she expected Morel any day, and each moment that was not fully filled was becoming a torment.

  Although she knew it was unwise to set times because limits of days always made waiting harder, Audris had counted the days and leagues from Jedburgh to Jarrow and, assuming the same rate of travel, calculated when Hugh would arrive in York. Judging by his impatience, she guessed he would leave York at once for Durham to seek traces of his mother. She hoped fervently he would find some information, for she feared if he did not, he would go to the king in Normandy for lack of some more fruitful action.

  Audris did not want Hugh to go so far from her. She knew her desire to keep him in England—and in the north of England—was selfish and perhaps even stupid. After all, the tapestries showed the unicorn threatening Jernaeve and also dead in Jernaeve’s garden. Perhaps the best solution for them all was for Hugh to go far away. But still Audris could not bear the thought of his being so unreachable.

  Thus, Audris was more than willing to give the training of the young hawks over to the falconer when Morel came into the mews. The news in Hugh’s long letter nearly stunned her. Actually she had had as little expectation as Hugh of his finding any trace of his family, and she had far less hope than he that he would obtain a heritage through service to the king. What she had feared was that he would be hurt or killed, not that he might appear in a few weeks’ time demanding her as a wife. Oliver would never agree, Audris feared, not even if Hugh offered to take her to Ruthsson and make no demand on Jernaeve. She had let herself dream a little when Hugh had first made that offer, because she wanted an easy solution so much—and because she had had so little hope that Hugh would succeed.

  Audris knew her uncle’s pride. From his point of view, she and Jernaeve were worth more than Hugh, and it would be useless to say she wished to marry Hugh rather than any other man. Oliver would consider such a desire a form of madness—or sin. Her uncle would laugh at her, insisting that if she wished to marry, she had suitors of great power and large property and that he would not waste her on a powerless young knight with one poor manor. And Hugh would not accept that. He would—Audris’s eyes flew to the third panel, and she felt she understood it at last. It was Uncle Oliver whom she had always thought of as most closely one with Jernaeve. It was not the keep
but her uncle that Hugh threatened. The tapestry was not a foretelling, but a mirror of her fear, as she had long suspected.

  In the flood of anxieties that beset Audris, that was an island of relief. At least she was no witch. And in the light of that ray of reason, the last panel was not a threatening prediction but a natural result of her own anxiety. Unfortunately, it offered no assurance either. Her eyes went back to the letter she still held and flicked down the sheet to the end. For Hugh to fight for Ruthsson so that he could present himself as a suitor was useless, Audris knew. She would write and warn him… But he was not fighting for her alone; there was his own livelihood and his uncle to consider.

  Partly because of the tone of easy confidence in Hugh’s letter and partly because of her recent rejection of the tapestry showing the unicorn dead, Audris did not consider the actual trial by combat. She simply accepted that Hugh would win his battle and be unscathed. Her mind leapt forward to the next step and pictured Hugh asking for her and being rejected. Hugh’s reaction might take many forms, but whether he used reason or rage, the result would remain the same. He might even challenge her uncle, but there was no danger to Oliver in that; her uncle would just laugh.

  That would not be the end. A small thrill of mixed pleasure and sadness passed through Audris. Whatever her uncle said, Hugh would not give up. The third panel might not be foretelling, but it depicted Hugh’s nature well. He would fight for what he wanted—and for what he believed she wanted. But what could he do? And as the question formed, the answer came. Hugh would take his complaint to the king, and he would not need to travel to Normandy to do it.

  Only two days before they had had another letter from Bruno, warning them that King Stephen would soon come back to England. The king had appointed William de Roumare, earl of Lincoln, and others as justiciars to govern Normandy, and Stephen himself, the scribe had written under Bruno’s direction, would be sailing for England by the end of November. Bruno hoped that David would not be so literal in his interpretation of keeping the truce until Stephen was back in England as to attack the moment he had news of Stephen’s arrival. Probably the difficulties of waging war in winter would cause the Scots to hold off the start of hostilities. But Bruno had felt Oliver should be warned, just in case David decided to ignore the onset of winter to obtain the advantage of a surprise attack when Stephen was not ready to oppose him.

  Audris could not be certain that Stephen would favor Hugh’s petition, but she knew her uncle had a reputation of regarding his own interests before those of any king. In any case, Hugh’s assertion that Audris now did wish to marry and that her uncle was forbidding her her natural right would cause trouble. And if she were summoned and the question put to her whether she wished to be married… Audris shuddered. No matter what she said, she would be doing mortal hurt either to the man she desired or to the man who had given her her life.

  Somehow she must explain to Hugh that he must not ask for her. But the thought of the pain she would cause him—and before a desperate battle… Audris looked up at the last panel of her work. Only a mirror of her fear? But the fear had a real cause. Again she read the portion of Hugh’s letter that dealt with the trial by combat. For the first time she realized how soon the battle would be and realized, too, that Lord Ruthsson had not been able to obtain a champion to fight for him. Hugh might die—or even if he were not killed in the battle, he might be sore wounded and die from lack of good care. For once no pictures formed in Audris’s mind. The thoughts came as words, and there was a frightening sense of a black and empty place somewhere behind her eyes. And then that place slowly filled with an image of Morel riding away, but not alone. Behind him Audris saw herself on her own mare and Fritha on her mule.

  Audris drew a deep breath and smiled. She would go to Morpeth! How simple a solution to her immediate problems; she could be with Hugh before the battle so that if the very worst came to pass, at least she could have added a few precious hours of joy to her memories—and she could have tried again to conceive his child. If he were wounded, she would be there to attend him. And, in the best case, where Hugh conquered without hurt to himself, she could explain why he must not ask for her in marriage.

  Arguments began to form in Audris’s mind, but then she shook her head. There would be time enough to consider what she would say to Hugh when she was with him. First she must get to Morpeth. Leaving Jernaeve would be no trouble. Though she did not often travel far, she did occasionally go to Durham or some other market town to buy special yarn for her weaving or fine fabrics for her gowns. Moreover, this was a good time to say she wished to go, for it was in winter that she spent most time at her loom, and just now, she hoped, her uncle would be too busy to offer to accompany her himself.

  That hope was fulfilled. After Oliver had come in from one of the southerly farms, where he had been overseeing the culling of cattle, and settled by the fire in the hall, Audris brought down the harvest tapestry. Oliver was delighted. This was the kind of work a merchant would trade for gladly, and Audris had produced it at just the right time. Jernaeve needed salt, and in the light of the news Bruno had sent, sword blades and metal ingots for new war-machine parts and arrowheads would not come amiss. Oliver had thought he would need to pay in silver because, with the threat of the Scots war, he could not barter away surplus grain or meat—if Jernaeve were besieged, they would need the food themselves—but now the woven picture would pay for all.

  “You are a good girl, Audris,” Oliver said. “It is a pretty piece. I will send word to the merchant—”

  “I will carry your message myself, uncle,” Audris interrupted. “I need new yarns and especially strong linen for my warp, and this is an idle time for me.” She thought of the young hawks she should be training and blushed, but did not take back what she had said.

  Oliver frowned, and Audris’s heart leapt into her throat. If her uncle forbade her, what would she do? She could go anyway, of course, but she knew Oliver would scour the countryside for her, and there would certainly be men who knew her at Morpeth to send word back to Jernaeve.

  “You wish to go now?” Oliver was not actually asking, Audris realized. The question was part of his process of thought. “I cannot go with you now,” he added.

  “I know that, uncle,” Audris assured him. “But the weather is fine in this season, and it will be pleasant to visit the different mercers and give me something to do while you and Aunt Eadyth are so busy. With the extra work that the preparation for war gives you, it will be winter, I fear, before you can spare time for me.”

  Oliver nodded, although his frown did not clear. What Audris said was true enough. When the harvest was in and stored and the meat salted and smoked, he would turn to building new engines to defend the walls and to increasing their stocks of arms. “Where do you wish to go?” he asked.

  Audris blushed again, and her voice shook slightly as she said, “To Newcastle first, uncle. But if I cannot find what I want, I might go farther.”

  The frown grew in intensity on Oliver’s face. His first impulse when he heard the uncertainty in her voice and saw her blush was to say he would send Eadyth with her if she was afraid to go alone. But he could not spare Eadyth to go with the child now, and then it occurred to him that Audris was not a child. Women were not good for much, it was true, but Eadyth had borne several children and managed a keep when she was much younger than Audris. If he and Eadyth should be swept away by a plague, what would Audris do? Oliver wondered if perhaps he had oversheltered Audris. It would be best for her to go alone. She would be close enough in Newcastle, or even in Durham, for him to ride over in a few hours and disentangle her from any difficulty. She was shrewd enough in trading, he knew, and could be trusted not to give more than true worth for anything she acquired.

  “Very well,” Oliver said. “I will send five men with you, and if any trouble should arise, you can send for me, and I will come. You have nothing to fear, Audris, there is no n
eed to weep.”

  “I am not afraid,” she replied, which was the truth since the tears were of relief and, a little, of gratitude mixed with irritation. Oliver’s voice was harsh and his words brusque, but Audris was beginning to realize that it was not only as a symbol of Jernaeve that she was dear to him. It was a most unwelcome perception, binding her even more straitly to her decision that her love for Hugh must not be allowed to hurt her uncle.

  “Good girl,” Oliver approved. He did not believe her denial, but he knew that true courage was the art of mastering fear; not to feel fear was only foolhardiness. “And when do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow. No. I will need time to make ready. The day after tomorrow.”

  “Make ready what?” Oliver asked.

  “Sheets for my bed, a clean pillow or two, and suchlike,” Audris replied. “I would not care to sleep in someone else’s dirt.”

  Her voice was steadier; she was finding less difficulty in bringing out the half-truths, comforting herself with the belief that she was doing no one harm by speaking them. And she was not lying. She did intend to bring sheets and pillows as well as the extra clothing and salves and other medications that the bed linens would be used to hide.

  Oliver tchk’d with indulgent amusement and laughed at her for becoming a fine lady, and Audris protested indignantly that her aunt always carried their own bed linens whenever they traveled, at which Oliver shook his head—for he had never noticed. But he soon tired of the subject and asked about the hawks. Leaning back out of the light so that Oliver should not see her unease, Audris said that the falconer had them well in hand.