He was sorry for the louts who had answered the archbishop’s call—but their fate was in God’s hands—and he was worried about his farm, which might well be in ruins, and about his sons and grandson and even about Mary, but he did not let it spoil his pleasure in food or sleep. He snorted with a mixture of exasperation and affection—only fine gentlemen had the liberty to indulge themselves in a ruinous sympathy over what could not be helped. Then anger drew another snort—and his master’s misplaced agony of mind would ruin him, too! He glanced once again at Hugh’s haggard face, then gritted his teeth. He had to do something. The Lady had dared much to have this one man. Kind or not, she would not soon forgive the one charged with his well-doing if ill befell him.
***
Oliver was dead! Audris stood weeping above the torn body, her bloody hands still stretched toward it as if to stanch wounds that were too wide, too deep for closing. She realized he had been dead for some time, but she had refused to believe it, ignoring the priest who was giving the last rites, still working frantically to close the gaping holes, telling herself he could not be dead. He had come into the keep on his feet—she had seen that with her own eyes. He had walked as much as ten steps before pitching forward and falling. If he could walk, she insisted, he could be saved. Now she could lie to herself no longer. Eadyth, sobbing hoarsely, had finally pulled her away from the body by force and screamed, “Can you bring back the dead, witch?”
“Not dead! Not dead!” Audris had cried, but having been forced away from her determined concentration on the one wound she was sewing, she saw the blood was only lying in pools, not pulsing or welling out—and she saw her uncle’s face, and she knew. “Uncle,” she sobbed, “uncle. You saved me, why could I not save you?”
“He cannot save any of us now,” Eadyth wailed. “The Scots will kill us all.”
“Scots?” Audris echoed, her sobs checking, grief washed away in a flood of terror. “Where? In the keep?”
“I do not know,” Eadyth wept, shivering, “but who will keep them out if Oliver is gone?”
Audris fled from the chamber, down the stairs, and out into the great hall. The word “Scots” had wakened in her visions of what she had seen on the journey between Heugh and Jernaeve, and all she could think of was getting to Eric to provide her baby with a merciful death. She was halfway across the great hall before she realized that there was no screaming, no fighting. In fact, all activity had stopped, as it always did in Jernaeve, when she appeared. It was that cessation of sound and movement that caught her attention and checked her panic.
Later she understood that it was her appearance—her gown, her hands, even her face streaked and splotched with blood, for she had unconsciously wiped away her tears with her stained hands—that had momentarily paralyzed everyone, even the strangers in the hall. Just then, the sudden silence was simply right and familiar; it calmed her fear, and she stopped running just opposite the huge hearth and faced the crowd.
She felt the tense expectancy and knew for what they waited. “Sir Oliver is dead,” she said, into a silence so deep that her soft, grief-choked voice carried easily through the hall. “My—”
“Then I am senior here,” a coarse voice interrupted, “and I say we send down a herald and make terms—”
He had come forward as he spoke, and Audris was so surprised at being interrupted that her response was slow. But when she heard what he said, terror seized her again. What she had seen convinced her that one could not make terms with the Scots; surely the women and children could not fight and would have yielded. The vision of impaled babes and mutilated women rose instantly in her mind.
“Take him!” she shrieked. “He is one of them, crept in with our own.”
And before he could protest or draw his sword to defend himself, the menservants had leapt on the man and dragged him down. He roared with rage, shouting for help, but Audris was on him, her eating knife at his throat, hissing that one more shout would be his last. He stared up at her blood-streaked face in disbelief and horror.
“I am not a Scot,” he whimpered.
“He is not,” another man said, coming near. “How dare you, you slut of a woman—”
“I am threatened,” Audris shrieked. “Call in my men-at-arms.”
But some menservants had run for the steward as soon as Audris cried out that the man who wanted to yield was a Scot, and Eadmer was already entering the hall with a crowd of men, swords drawn and crossbows cocked, behind him. The crossbowmen ranged out along the walls from the door where they had entered; the swordsmen pressed forward. The servants not engaged with the man Audris was accusing fled to the protection of the walls between the crossbowmen. Suddenly the center of the hall was empty, except for the group around Audris, Eadmer and his swordsmen, and five knights who had taken shelter in Jernaeve, one of whom had his hand on his sword hilt and one leg drawn back to kick Audris. He removed his hand very carefully, holding both arms away from his body, and stepped down on the leg he had drawn back, edging slowly away from Audris while she rose to her feet to face the steward.
“I meant no threat, my lady,” the knight said softly.
Eadmer was staring at Audris, his face as pale as parchment. “Sir Oliver—” he faltered.
“Dead,” she answered, her eyes filling with tears, “but there is no time now to mourn,” she told him, choking back a sob. “This filth on the floor is a Scot.”
“No, I am not,” he protested, more strongly now that the knife was not at his throat.
“Then he is a spy for them or an agent,” Audris insisted. “He was about to order Jernaeve be yielded.”
Eadmer blinked. He seemed stunned. “Order? But Sir Oliver—” he began, then shook his head. “Yielded?” he repeated.
“No,” three of the men protested.
“It is only reasonable—” the man who had nearly kicked Audris began.
She glared at him, and his voice faltered into silence, an expression of horrified revelation coming into his face. Audris laughed briefly and bitterly. “Yes,” she said, “I am Audris of Jernaeve. You once demanded me in marriage and threatened that you would appeal to the king about my uncle’s unwillingness to give up my wardship, but you did not take the trouble to look at me well enough to know me again.”
“I heard you were gone from Jernaeve.” He shrugged. “You cannot blame me for not knowing you, covered with blood as you are.”
“My uncle’s blood,” Audris said bitterly. “My beloved uncle, who held Jernaeve for me all the years of my life and died to preserve it for me. And you would give it away, give it away while his blood is hardly dry in his wounds, give it away before we are even threatened!”
“Not threatened?” He sneered. “Only an ignorant woman could say that. We have been driven off the wall at the first assault. We have had huge losses—huge. We have lost over three-quarters of our men, dead, wounded, or prisoner in the lower bailey. There is an enormous army pitted against us. Is that not threat enough? If we yield at once, we can get good terms.”
“What threat is an army, no matter how great, down below?” Audris returned his sneer, her voice high and contemptuous. “How will they come up? Up the road? Three at a time they will make prime targets for my bowmen. How many do you think can stand below the walls? Is there room there to raise up scaling ladders? Is there room to swing a ram? What say you, archers? Are you afraid of men who must walk our road three at a time and then stand beneath our walls?”
The men around the perimeter of the hall, who had begun to look worried over the knight’s analysis, now shouted their confidence.
“Or do you think they will crawl up the cliff?” Audris went on, managing to appear as if she were looking down on her adversary although she was a head shorter. “Creep on ropes up the knuckles of old Iron Fist? These sniveling cowards”—her eyes moved from the standing man to the one still held by the servants—“s
eem to be afraid even to fight men with both hands clinging to their ropes and weary from climbing. Say, swordsmen, are you like them, or will you dare to go out the postern and cut down such dangerous enemies?”
The swordsmen roared with laughter. It was true that very few men could hold that cliff against a whole army, because no matter how large the army, only a small number could climb at a time.
“I know Jernaeve cannot be broken,” Audris cried, “unless it be by treachery from within!”
Suddenly a touch of color came into Eadmer’s face. “Do you—do you have a seeing, Lady Audris?” he whispered.
Audris saw nothing except the impalement of her son and her own torture and rape by the lowest filth of the troops attacking them if the Scots were allowed into Jernaeve. In the past she had either ignored or done her best to explain away her “seeings.” Now the idea was a notion she seized eagerly.
“Yes,” she cried. “Yes! I have seen that we will be safe in Jernaeve. I do not see how long we must wait, for there is no time in pictures, but I see the lower bailey empty of our enemies, and the coming of our allies.”
A cheer went up that almost deafened her. She had not known that so loud a sound of joy could be wrung from so few throats—and for so foolish a reason. When she had reminded them of what they must all know was the truth—that Jernaeve was virtually impregnable—their response had been no more than a show of courage. But when she lied, playing on their silly belief in her “seeings,” they were convinced. Let it be, she thought; the important thing is that they defend the keep with good spirit. And while the idea passed through her mind, her eyes saw the bowman lowering their weapons and the servants relaxing their grip on the man they had pulled down, and she realized that the fools had leapt from a debilitating fear to an overconfidence that was even more dangerous.
“No!” Audris exclaimed. “Do not lower your bows. Keep good hold on that traitor, and seize that other one also. There is a shadow in my picture, a shadow showing the opening of Jernaeve from within. I do not know whether it be these or others who creep silently up the cliff or up the road to find a way in to open the gates to their friends. Jernaeve cannot be taken by battle, but it can be given away by treachery.”
“Then what must we do, my lady?” Eadmer asked. “Must we slay all those we do not know and who cannot bring known witnesses to go bail for them? Some came to us for succor from afar.”
Audris shuddered. “No! God forbid! Let us not make ourselves as evil and bloody as those who attack us. Only be sure that those who guard the walls are our trusted men and that they keep good watch for spies in the night. And set a double guard of trusty men by each gate and postern so they cannot be easily overwhelmed.” She hesitated, trying to remember anything else Hugh might have mentioned to her when he talked of the experiences of his life, but no other precautions came to mind, and she could only add, “And do not rest only on my poor woman’s knowledge, but do all else that seems to you best, Eadmer, to make us secure from within.”
“And these men?” he asked.
“They desired to make terms with the Scots,” she said, her lips thinning. “Well and good, I will not stand in their way. Take them and put them out—and let them make what terms they will.”
The two cried out in protest, but their words were lost in the laughter of the men-at-arms, who thought that a very good joke. Even as the laughter died, however, cries of warning drifted down from the walls. The unbelievable was taking place. Summerville, who must have heard that Sir Oliver was mortally wounded or already dead, was seizing the chance that those within would be leaderless and panic-stricken and was trying an assault on Jernaeve keep.
Chapter 27
Three weeks after Hugh had left Audris in Jernaeve, Sir Walter returned to York with a tail of knights and men-at-arms gleaned from the East Riding of Yorkshire and from Lincolnshire. William Peperel and Gilbert de Lacy had arrived with similar tails, one in the early afternoon and the other in the evening, the day before, and the earl of Albemarle sent a man ahead to report that he would be a day late because of trouble with his supply train but that thirty knights and their meinies had answered his call to arms. On the same day, plagued by details of quartering and distribution, Sir Walter reminded himself that Hugh could take care of all such matters and sent a messenger to recall Hugh to his service.
Hugh did not know whether he felt like weeping with relief at being ordered to give up a hopeless task or with frustration because the men he was training were far from ready. Had Sir Walter been in his quarters, he might have protested his change of assignment, but Sir Walter was called away to a meeting with the other leaders of the army before Hugh could be found.
Then, in the rush and confusion of final preparations to move the army, they managed to miss actually seeing each other for the next two days, but Hugh did see Thurstan. He had heard that Thurstan had been “convinced” not to come north with the army, but to delegate his role to the bishop of Durham. That frightened Hugh so much, because he could only believe that the archbishop must be on his deathbed, that he dropped what he was doing and rushed to the archiepiscopal palace to seek out an aide who knew him well enough to tell him the truth.
Instead of simply giving him news of Thurstan’s health, however, the aide almost fell on Hugh’s neck and kissed him. He did not go quite so far, though, merely crying, “Hugh! What a fool I am not to have thought to summon you. How glad I am you came! I will just tell the archbishop you are here. He is at leisure.”
“How ill is he?” Hugh asked unsteadily. “Is he much worse?”
“No, he is not worse,” the deacon replied. “God be thanked, I think he is a little stronger, but he is not resting easily because he still thinks it wrong to leave this work he began half done. If you can only convince him that it is not for the sake of his comfort but for the good of the cause that he must remain in York, he would regain his strength faster.”
Hugh’s face lit with relief, flushing slightly with joy and with embarrassment. “I will do my best,” he said, “but Thurstan—”
The deacon waved his hand in a gesture of acknowledgment and hurried through an anteroom and then through tall doors into Thurstan’s bedchamber. In a few minutes he came out again and gestured for Hugh to follow, and a minute after that Hugh was kneeling by the archbishop’s bed kissing his frail hand and then laying his cheek against it.
“What is it, my son?” Thurstan asked. “Why do you come from your duty now? Is something wrong?”
Hugh kissed the hand again, lifted his head to look at his foster father, and saw with relief that the deacon had spoken the truth. The pasty gray pallor was gone from Thurstan’s skin, and though his eyes were still sunken and ringed with bruised-looking skin, they were no longer dim and glazed. He laughed with tears on his cheeks and said, “No, nothing is wrong with me.”
As he said the words, however, fear squeezed Hugh’s heart, for he remembered that Sir William de Summerville had broken Jernaeve’s outer defenses and was assaulting the keep. But there was nothing Thurstan could do about that, and it would be useless to mention it. Hugh reminded himself, as he had over and over during the past few weeks, that Sir Oliver would keep Audris safe and that Jernaeve could not be taken by assault while Oliver held it. Once again all he could do was try to close the fear out of his mind.
“Then what brings you, my son?” Thurstan insisted.
“To say farewell, for you know the army starts north tomorrow, to ask for your blessing, and”—Hugh paused, then grinned impertinently—“to say how glad I am that you have decided to stay in York, although I must admit when I first heard it I was almost frightened out of my wits. I was sure you must be on your deathbed. I could not imagine that anything except the final extremity could bring you to so sensible a decision.”
“Dreadful boy,” the archbishop said, chuckling and shaking his finger at Hugh. “You are not supposed to dispense wi
th me so easily. You are supposed to ‘regret’ that I do not feel strong enough to accompany the army.” He shifted restlessly in the bed, and the amusement died out of his face. “My bishops constrained me to this decision. It is their opinion that my tenure as archbishop is so necessary and important, I must not risk it even to lead this holy war to avenge the blasphemies and despites done the Church. And it is true that with a new king whose faith is not very strong, worse might befall the Church through an ill-considered appointment to the archbishopric than through the depredations of war. Still—”
He stopped and looked at Hugh, who was shaking his head energetically. “I was not thinking of the Church’s welfare,” Hugh admitted frankly.
Thurstan’s lips twisted. “Oh, do you think like Albemarle and Peperel—and even Walter, who should know me better—that I would try to command the army? I know I am no soldier, and neither am I inclined to wish for or believe in miracles that make an Alexander of a priest who knows nothing of war.”
He made an impatient gesture, and Hugh seized his hand and kissed it again, laughing. “Dear Father, of course I did not expect that you would be overtaken by a desire to don armor and wave a sword—and neither, I am sure, could Sir Walter have conceived so silly a notion.”
“I did not mean that, and you are only saying it to make me laugh,” Thurstan acknowledged wryly, “but I think I would have been a help—not by saying fight in this place rather than that or on this day rather than that—but in lifting up the hearts of the men, exhorting them to courage and reminding them of the evil the invaders have done. Yet Sir Walter and the others—like you—were glad when I told them I would not go.” Thurstan stopped abruptly and bowed his head. “My pride.” He sighed. “My cursed pride.”
When Thurstan began to talk of pride, scourgings followed. Hugh restrained a shudder. “Father!” he protested. “Forgive me, but you are misreading a lack of faith for a lack of desire for your support.”
A Tapestry of Dreams Page 47
