A Tapestry of Dreams

by Roberta Gellis

  At the angle where the great wall met the lower wall, Oliver saw a man descending. With another wordless roar of near-insane fury, he pressed forward, reaching the stair just as the other, who was looking back over his shoulder, was about to set foot on the last step. “Coward!” Oliver bellowed, and seized him and pitched him over stair and platform. Oliver heard him screaming as he fell—and still screaming as he finally drew his sword and climbed upward.

  “Fight!” Oliver screamed. “Fight! For I will, and there is no entry into Jernaeve keep without me.”

  Chapter 26

  Hugh benefited in much the same way as Audris from the horrors he had seen. He was not nearly as sickened or drained, of course, but he was sufficiently angered to save him any regrets at parting from his wife. She was as safe as it was possible to be in the midst of a war. Jernaeve itself was impregnable, and Hugh was certain that it was stocked with supplies for many months. Long before that, the Scots would be driven from Northumbria—and even if it took longer than he expected, Hugh knew that whoever else starved in Jernaeve, Audris would be fed while there was one crust of bread or one rind of cheese left.

  They never did catch up with the troop whose path they had crossed on Dere Street, and neither Hugh nor the men with him regretted that, for as they rode south they came upon a number of smaller raiding parties on whom they vented their rage. All knew they were accomplishing more by salvaging something on the isolated farms they saved from utter destruction than they could have by attacking a troop far too large to be fought by six men. Nor, after the first few encounters, did they look for trouble, skirting widely any towns or large villages where they might expect a concentration of enemies. They had taken only one packhorse with them, lightly loaded with food and blankets, and they stopped only to fight when it was necessary or to rest the horses. South of Raby keep they found no more signs of the Scots, and they went east to the Roman road and followed it to Allerton and then east again, across the moors and through a pass Hugh knew in the hills, to Helmsley.

  They came to Helmsley, soaked and exhausted, just before the final downpour that ended the rain. Sir Walter’s keep was closed tight but not under attack, and Hugh and his men were readily admitted, only to learn that Sir Walter was not there. Never had Hugh had such a welcome from his master’s relations. He was warmed and fed and cosseted and begged fondly to remain for as long as he liked. At first he assumed it was because he was now known to have a heritage of his own, but later he realized Helmsley was very thin of men. They had gone with their master—and that meant an army was being gathered for a major battle. Yet when he asked where Sir Walter had gone, he was given only evasive answers, and when he insisted he must follow his master, he was virtually ordered to stay, on the grounds that Sir Walter would expect him to defend Helmsley.

  Long practice in holding his tongue among these people kept Hugh silent. He probably could not have spoken anyway, he was so choked with rage at the selfishness of those who should love Sir Walter even better than he. Yet to add a tiny measure of surety to their own safety—which was at present not even under threat, and might never be threatened if the Scots were defeated—they would deprive Sir Walter of a strong and devoted protector and leave him with two half-taught boys to defend his back. Hugh would have left that night, but he could not ask it of his men and horses when York, which was the only place he could think of where he might find news of Sir Walter, was almost ten leagues away.

  His initial silence raised hopes that were dashed when he said he was leaving, causing bitter recriminations, including angry promises to tell Sir Walter of his rudeness and insubordination. Hugh listened and then burst out laughing, remembering the anguish such words had caused him in the past and realizing how little they meant to him now. The threats and insults were, in fact, now a blessing, causing his heart to fill with warmth and a deep happiness that he had found his place in life at last. The acceptance and love he had found in his uncle and Audris had fulfilled him, and that fulfillment could never be lost, no matter what happened afterward from the sad chances of mortality.

  At York, Hugh bade his men take what rest they could and feed and water the horses. He expected to travel on as soon as he saw Thurstan and discovered Sir Walter’s whereabouts or, if that was impossible, King Stephen’s. However, only a few minutes after he had found a secretary who knew him and sent him to ask for a few minutes of Thurstan’s time, Sir Walter himself came hurrying across the guest’s hall where Hugh was waiting, to embrace him hard enough to wring a protest from him.

  “You are well come!” Sir Walter growled with tears in his eyes. “God be thanked! God be thanked you are here.”

  “What is wrong?” Hugh asked, breathless with sudden fear for his foster father—and a little from the air’s being squeezed out of his lungs.

  “Nothing!” Sir Walter exclaimed. Then he laughed and added, “That cannot be the truth, as you know. There is a great deal wrong, but my heart is much the lighter for seeing you, Hugh. Thurstan and I feared you had been caught by the Scots.”

  Hugh sighed with relief. “Then Thurstan is well?”

  Sir Walter sighed also, but sadly. “I would not say he is well—but come with me. He will be much the better for seeing you with his own eyes and hearing what has befallen you. He speaks great praise of your wife, enough so that I find a great curiosity in myself to meet her. Is she safe?”

  “In Jernaeve,” Hugh replied, matching Sir Walter’s stride as they left the hall and walked toward the archbishop’s house. “It was not under attack when I left her there, and even if they come, the Scots will not soon open old Iron Fist.”

  “Nor will they have much longer to try to open it,” Sir Walter said grimly.

  “Is the king coming with an army?” Hugh asked eagerly.

  “No, Stephen is enmeshed in a host of uprisings in the south,” Sir Walter said, but Hugh noted that he did not look angry or disappointed, and his voice was quite cheerful as he continued. “There was a rumor that Robert of Gloucester was sailing for Bristol, and at once William Lovel closed Castle Cary, Paganel at Ludlow keep, William de Mohun in Dunster, Robert de Nichole in Wareham, Eustace Fitz-John in Melton, and William Fitz-Alan in Shrewsbury all cried defiance.”

  “But then—”

  Sir Walter put a heavy hand on Hugh’s shoulder and stopped him in the porch of the archbishop’s house. “We shall do very well without the king,” he said in the low grumble that was as soft as his voice could get. “Stephen is too easily swayed to mercy—and at the wrong times. I have heard that great ill has been done in Northumbria, and this is no time to stop with the work half done and make peace by giving away castles—or whole shires. I swore to Stephen, and I will not be forsworn. But also, it is our duty to defend ourselves and hold back the Scots.” Sir Walter nodded sharply. “And that is better than to be forever fighting in the south in quarrels that mean little to us.”

  “If we are strong enough,” Hugh said, “I can ask for nothing better.”

  Sir Walter pushed open the door and gestured to Hugh to go through. “We must be strong enough. Thurstan will preach this as a holy war, and men will answer.” And then he raised his voice still more and called, “Here he is, my lord archbishop, hale and hearty. I have not asked him a single question, the sooner to bring him to you.”

  Several men standing before the archbishop’s chair parted, and Hugh hurried through to kneel and kiss Thurstan’s ring and then his hand. “It is good to see you, my son,” the archbishop said softly. “I feared for you, feared you would be overrun—your lands are so far north, and there was, in the end, so little warning.” Then he swept his gaze around the other men and smiled. “You must pardon me. This is my fosterling, and even in the midst of great affairs, no matter that I should know better, my heart still cleaves to him.”

  “No pardon is needed for that.” Hugh looked up and recognized William, earl of Albemarle as the speaker. Th
e earl smiled. “So sweet a flaw, which reminds us that you are human, my lord, can only make us the more obedient and admiring. After all, a blessed saint is by nature above us. You come there by your own struggle.”

  “And I will not stay long so elevated,” Thurstan remarked with a chuckle, gesturing Hugh to rise, “if you tempt me with flattery.”

  Hugh began to sidle out of the forefront, but Gilbert de Lacy put out a hand to stop him. “You are from Northumbria?”

  “Yes, my lord. Ruthsson, my uncle’s estate, is west and north of Morpeth.”

  “It was taken?” a third man, William Peperel of Nottingham, asked in a sympathetic voice.

  “Not when I left, and I have hopes not at all,” Hugh replied. “We are very isolated, and there are no roads from the north passing by Ruthsson.”

  “You felt it was too dangerous to stay?” De Lacy’s voice was too neutral.

  Sir Walter growled, “Do not be a fool, Gilbert, or Hugh will bite off your head.”

  De Lacy made a gesture of negation. “No offense, Walter. I know your man. I was not questioning his courage but the reasons for his leaving his land.”

  “If you are talking about the havoc the Scots are wreaking, I did not know of it when I left Ruthsson—and only one day before they flooded over Belsay, there was no news of their coming at Morpeth.”

  “How could that be?” de Lacy asked.

  Hugh shrugged. “De Merley himself was not in the keep the night my wife and I spent there, but if he knew, I am sure he would have left word with his steward. I think perhaps de Merley had no friends in David’s court who would send warning because he had been so recently put into Morpeth by King Stephen.”

  Sir Walter laughed, but with a wry twist to his lips. “Very likely. Stephen put de Merley in because the previous castellan had too many friends among the Scots and yielded his trust a little too readily when called on to do so by David. The same might be true of Alnwick and the other royal strongholds.”

  “They were taken by surprise, you are saying.” De Lacy nodded. “But even so—”

  “It is idle to speculate on why,” Peperel put in. “What I want to know is whether what we have heard of wanton destruction is true.”

  “Yes—and wanton is the word,” Hugh said. “There is a senseless rage in what is being done. We have fought back and forth over these lands with the Scots for many years, and I have never seen the like—or, rather, never seen so much of it; there are always a few troops or a few men that go too far, but this… It is natural enough that they kill the yeomen who try to defend their farms, but to pursue the women and small children into the woods and torture them? Worse yet, I saw cattle burned in the barns and slain and left lying. There is no sense in that. The beasts should have been driven off to be sold or to feed the army.”

  “Where did you see this?” Albemarle wanted to know.

  “From Heugh keep west to Dere Street and, mayhap, half a mile or even a mile west of Dere Street and south to the great wall,” Hugh replied. “My wife, my son, and I were at Heugh keep when we heard the Scots were on the march. Since it was closer than Ruthsson, and the strongest place I know, I took my wife and son to Jernaeve. But south of Jernaeve I avoided the roads. Still we came on three farms where we dealt with small parties raiding or… I do not know what to call such wasteful destruction. South of Raby there were no signs of the Scots.”

  “Belike they have stopped to chew up whatever they could not swallow whole,” de Lacy remarked angrily.

  “You mean they will besiege and try to take those keeps and manors that have not yielded or been overrun before they come farther south?” Sir Walter mused, half to himself. “But they are likely to starve first if what Hugh said—and others reported, too—is widespread.” He shook his head and said louder, “No, I do not think they will stop long. It might be that they will assault Newcastle and Durham when the different parts of the army come together, but I think they have so scoured the north that they will be driven south—and I fear the richer the land, the worse the rape of it will be.”

  “It is true that a madness afflicts them,” Thurstan said. “They have slain priests on the very altars of their churches, and as if that blasphemy was not enough, they have cut the heads of Christ from the crucifixes and mounted the heads of the slain priests in their place. I cannot believe this is King David’s doing.” His voice shook. “I cannot believe it.”

  William of Albemarle’s eyes narrowed. “It is entirely possible that David is as horrified as you, my lord,” he remarked. “But whether it is by his will or because he has not the power to restrain these men, I think we are all in agreement that the Scots must be driven out.”

  “Will King Stephen send help?” de Lacy asked. “I know he cannot come himself, but—”

  “No,” Sir Walter interrupted. “On the other hand, he will ask no levy of us to help in putting down the rebels in the south, so…”

  “So we come out ahead,” Peperel stated flatly. “We defend our own lands. We pay no scutage. And we are not beholden. Yes, that is all very well, but can we drive out the Scots without help?”

  “God will be our help and our support,” Thurstan cried, struggling to his feet, his eyes alight. “I will make for you a Standard of such Grace that all men who love and fear God will flock together to fight under it, and those who oppose it will be stricken and blasted.”

  “No,” Hugh whispered, catching at Thurstan’s elbow to support him. But when the old man turned his head to smile thanks at him and he saw the light and glory in his foster father’s face, he swallowed his protest and instead prayed, “Oh, God, give him strength,” for one does not deny a man the right to glorification, no matter the cost.

  The cost was high. Thurstan gathered the banners of Saint Peter of York, Saint John of Beverley, and Saint Wilfred of Ripon, and he fasted and scourged himself clean while he prayed over them and blessed them together with a silver pyx, which he had ordered made and consecrated, clean and new, to hold the body of Christ. Then he had brought a ship’s mast, which was also blessed, and had the pyx mounted atop it and the banners fixed to it and the whole set into a cart so it could be moved with the army as a rallying point. And for each blessing he scourged himself and fasted.

  Nor did Thurstan forget in the passion of prayer more practical matters. He sent out his bishops and his deacons and even his canons to every town and village and to every church and chapel, and those who had the right, preached, and told the priests to preach each Sunday after they had gone on, of the evil the Scots were doing and of the destruction they had wrought. They bade them preach, too, of how useless it was to think that any hold might stand against the horde alone, and that the only hope that remained was to join with those the archbishop had blessed and consecrated as angels of protection and vengeance and stand together to drive off the minions of the devil.

  So a host gathered north of York, and Sir Walter lent Hugh to the archbishop to winnow out those who knew something of arms and had some weapon with which to fight. He set those to teach small groups whatever they could. There were others set to the same task, but still Hugh walked and questioned and explained from the bare dawn of each day until it was too dark to see at all.

  Sometimes his spirit was exalted by the faith of those who had gathered and who knelt with passionate devotion to be blessed when Thurstan insisted on being carried through the camp. But at other times he was shaken with rage, knowing that these who hastened to answer the call in their simple belief could be little more than lambs for the slaughter, bodies to crowd and shout and die, distracting the enemy so that the mailed knights would have time and space to strike. And the pitiful knowledge drove him to try harder to teach them to defend themselves, to weave themselves shields of withies, if they could get no better, and to sharpen and fire-harden sticks to hold off a swordsman, which would give them a chance to swing their shorter, curved scythes.
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  He grew gaunt and worn, often forgetting to eat during the day and too tired to eat at night. Morel would bring food and follow him about with it or stand over him and shake him awake, or he might have starved; Morel was growing desperate, for he had not forgotten Audris’s command that he bring her news of it if Hugh were hurt or sick. He would have gone to Jernaeve, but he knew there was no way he could reach the Lady or bring her out to her man.

  News had come with stragglers that the lower walls had been overrun and Scots from mountain areas were making ready to climb the cliff and assault the keep itself. Even so, Morel was not worried about those in Jernaeve. As long as a strong leader held it, all threats except starvation were vain. The men in old Iron Fist would brush off those who tried to assault it as a man brushed off flies. Besides, the Lady was there, and if the men could not save it, she would; it was her place, after all.

  Morel was far more worried about himself. The Lady was kind, but he was afraid she would curse him if he did not fulfill her trust. He looked at Hugh, who had only managed to swallow half a bowl of stew and was now sleeping, but very uneasily, tossing and muttering and gesturing. Morel could not make out whether he was still trying to teach those fools to fight and save themselves or whether he was dreaming of going to the relief of Jernaeve. Morel shook his head.