A Tapestry of Dreams

by Roberta Gellis

  Personally, Hugh was sorry to stop. He did not feel well—he was already hot and thirsty with fever—but he suspected he would feel far worse the next morning. And he was right. He had eaten what he could, but that was little, and, although he dropped asleep as soon as he had quenched his thirst, he did not sleep well. He woke in misery each time he moved, and whatever position he took hurt him.

  By morning his head was pounding, and although he did not look, he was sure his wounds were inflamed. Nonetheless, he choked down a little bread and drank—that very willingly—three or four cups of watered wine. When Morel brought his armor, now cleaned and gleaming with oil, though Morel had no way to mend the broken rings on back and shoulder, Hugh groaned aloud with anticipation of the pain it would cost him to don it. It was too dangerous, however, to ride without it. By now the defeated Scots might have gathered into groups large enough to present a serious challenge.

  Once mounted and moving about an hour after sunup, Hugh felt better, but as the heat increased so did his misery, for he felt as if he were burning, and the sweat that poured out of him stung his wounds. He almost prayed for rain, until he remembered that rain would make mud. Even Dere Street had patches where the stones had been uprooted or washed away, and those patches could become bogs.

  They stopped to rest men and horses about an hour before noon. Hugh remembered that clearly, remembered drinking and drinking and feeling that he could never quench his thirst, but after that his memories became hazy. Perhaps they stopped once, perhaps twice more; he was not sure of anything until suddenly he was conscious of a tearing agony and realized that Morel was pulling off his armor. Then he found himself shivering so hard his teeth rattled, and knifings of pain pierced his back and shoulder as the tremors tore at the stitches in the wounds.

  It was dark, and he was propped up against his saddle in his tent with Morel trying to force some hot wine between his teeth. As soon as he could unclench them, he drank what was offered and let Morel ease him down. He must have slept on and off afterward; he remembered throwing off the blankets, then crying out with pain as he groped for them later when he began to shake with cold again.

  In the morning Hugh found himself almost clearheaded. There was a singing in his ears, and his back and shoulder were very painful, but he was rational enough to ask Morel how far they had come the previous day and to rejoice when he heard they were, in Morel’s judgment, not much more than seven leagues from Jernaeve. He was also rational enough to be surprised that Morel said nothing when he could not eat at all. Later, he remembered they must have passed an abbey along the way, and he wondered why Morel had not tried to drag him in for treatment. He puzzled at that from time to time as he rode—it was better than thinking about the pain each step Rufus took cost him—and he began to laugh and also to understand how muddled his mind was when he finally realized that Jernaeve was Morel’s home, too. Of course the man was eager to get there and learn whether anything was left of his farm and his family.

  As the day passed, Hugh often wished he had not solved that little puzzle so easily. He remained conscious and aware, alternately burning and freezing, his body racked with pain and his mind with fear for Audris and Eric. The dull misery of the previous day began to seem like a restful haven, and he had to struggle constantly against two opposing and equally irrational desires—to insist that the men be driven faster so they could arrive sooner, and to stop altogether so he need not know the worst, if the worst had befallen. But at last, just when Hugh was beginning to worry about how much longer he could control the impulses to shout out crazy orders, they came to the bridge south of Corbridge and turned west toward Hexham without going near the town. Although they had not seen any organized group of the enemy, Corbridge might still be in the hands of the Scots.

  “Go ahead,” Hugh said to Morel, “and see if the abbey is taken. If not, ask the monks what they know of Jernaeve.”

  Hugh was afraid to go himself, afraid that between his fear of learning that Audris was lost to him and the pain that gnawed at him, he might yield to a brother that offered him the oblivion of drugged sleep. But the news that Morel brought back was no help at all. The only Scots in the abbey were wounded men who had staggered in begging for shelter and sanctuary. They were no threat and knew nothing.

  The abbey itself had not suffered more than the minor damage of carelessness and filth, although it had lost all its stores and most of its cattle and sheep. The monks could tell Morel no more, for they had fled in terror, carrying what they could, when raiding parties came south from the siege of Jernaeve. Then on 20 August a lay brother who had hidden in the village told them that he had seen a large army of Scots marching south in great haste. Only then had the brothers dared to return to their church and buildings.

  To save himself from going mad as they turned north to cover the last few miles to Jernaeve, Hugh mulled over the news Morel had brought. Had the army that went south been the same that had attacked Jernaeve, or was the keep still besieged? No, the siege must be lifted, one way or another, Hugh thought, or foragers would still be coming to the abbey. So the army that went south must have come from Jernaeve, but if so, had they abandoned the siege in response to an urgent summons from King David—or had they somehow found a way into the inner keep and left some men to hold it while the others went, as they thought, to complete the conquest of Durham and Yorkshire. Hugh shook with fear and fever. He could not believe Jernaeve could be taken, could not believe it, and yet would the Scots dare leave such a prize, such a strong point blocking one of the main roads between their realm and the territory they hoped to conquer?

  The last ideas went round and round in his head until the words made no sense and Hugh was back to clinging to his saddle, his chin on his chest, his eyes fixed unseeingly on Rufus’s mane. Then Morel cried out, and Hugh looked up, knowing that the sounds he had been hearing were not in his head but were the river. The sun was low in the west, and Jernaeve’s cliff was a threatening black mystery, only the tops of the walls and the bulge of the south tower gilded by the light. Instinctively, Hugh’s eyes went to Audris’s window, but it was blank and black, the heavy shutter closed. An icy chill washed over him. With the siege lifted, the window should be open. And no challenge rang down; Hugh strained his eyes, but he could not see any movement on the wall. Frantic, he gestured for the troop to move on, shouted for them to run. They reached the ford—and a hail of quarrels arced out from the walls at them. Hugh sat watching, frozen in despair. The impossible had happened. Jernaeve had fallen.

  Chapter 29

  In the last light of the summer evening, Hugh rode alone up the long winding road from the lower bailey toward the keep. The saner part of his mind expected a hail of crossbow bolts to finish him, but another part was full of grim rejoicing. The shock of learning that Jernaeve was in enemy hands some two hours earlier seemed to have steadied his mind and numbed his physical pain. Despite the shower of arrows, he and Sir Walter’s men had crossed the ford and entered the lower bailey, where Hugh stared around at the ruins.

  He should have been horrified, for it was obvious that most of the wreckage had not been caused in the attack and was mere wanton destruction, but what struck Hugh most forcibly was a sense of familiarity. All during the discussion he had had with the captain about what was best to do, that familiarity nagged at him—for each time he had visited, Jernaeve’s lower bailey was in the most flourishing condition—until he remembered with an almost physical shock that he had seen the bailey in ruins in Audris’s tapestry.

  From that moment a terrible kind of joy seized him. There was, of course, no indication in the tapestry of who had destroyed the bailey; the unicorn was standing among the ruins, and he and Audris had assumed it was the unicorn that had caused them—but that assumption might well have been wrong. All that was unmistakable was the unicorn’s rage and threatening attitude toward Jernaeve. But if Jernaeve were filled with enemies, that attitude was perfec
tly reasonable. The more he thought about it, the firmer grew Hugh’s conviction that he must get into the keep. Audris must be a prisoner there, and if she was not—Hugh shuddered and then stiffened to control himself. She must be there; in the last tapestry she was in the garden with the dead unicorn. Hugh sighed, remembering the peace in that last picture. Once in, he was sure he would somehow find a way to open Jernaeve to Sir Walter’s men before he died.

  Burning though he was with fever, Hugh was not so much out of his head as to mention the tapestry or the wild conclusions he had drawn from his memory of it to the captain. What he had proposed was that he go alone and try to parley with whoever was holding Jernaeve. Possibly they had not yet heard of the defeat King David had suffered at Allerton. With that news, he might be able to arrange some terms on which they would yield the keep.

  The captain was doubtful, but aside from warning Hugh that the Scots were barbaric enough to shoot him even while he called for a truce, he thought it worth a chance—since he also was convinced that the Scots were stupid wild men who could be easily cheated. Of course, the captain had no idea how sick Hugh was, and Morel, who did know, had not uttered a single word since the flight of crossbow bolts had come at them. He was paralyzed with disbelief, so shaken was his world at the idea that the Lady could not protect Jernaeve.

  Thus, Hugh started up the road, fully armed but without his sword or any other weapon. When no bolts had flown at him at the halfway mark, he called out that he desired a truce to come higher and speak to whoever held Jernaeve keep. He stopped there and waited, and after what seemed like a long time but had to be only a few minutes because it grew no darker, a voice called back that he might come. Something stirred in Hugh’s mind, something to do with the fact that the voice spoke in fluent, cultured French, but he could not think about that. He started up on the road again, thinking only of reasons that would get him inside Jernaeve.

  “Who are you?” the voice from the wall called down when he reached the last turning in the road.

  “Hugh of Ruthsson,” he called back.

  There was a brief silence, and Hugh wondered if it had been a mistake to tell the truth. Would he be shot out of hand? Hugh started to lift his shield, but the voice came again, high and shocked.

  “Take off your helmet—and say again who you are.”

  Take off his helmet? The better to kill him? Still, what choice did he have? Painfully, he lifted his hand and pushed off the helmet, not even trying to keep it from falling to the ground. With teeth gritted over the agony of pulling the stitches of the suppurating wound in his shoulder, he undid the fastening of his hood and pushed that back.

  “Hugh of Ruthsson.”

  He tried to shout so that he could be heard, but his voice was just a croak. The numbness to pain that hope and high excitement had granted him had ended, and it seemed that the agony had returned a hundredfold in revenge for the hours it had been held at bay. He was aware that it was growing dark too suddenly and felt himself swaying in the saddle. And then he thought he heard a woman scream his name—no, it was the screech of the portcullis rising. He made a last desperate effort and kicked feebly at Rufus to start him forward, clinging to his seat in the saddle with the last remnant of consciousness. And there were hands holding him, helping him down, and—and Audris’s voice. He blinked, and for one instant saw her face. It disappeared in the growing blackness, but he could still feel, and there were lips on his.

  ***

  For a long time after that, days and nights were little more than black and white bars in which Hugh had horrible nightmares of tearing down Jernaeve or of being tortured in its dungeons. Later, the black and white bars stretched out into days and nights again. The horrors receded, leaving only a dim discomfort. Hugh became aware of pain, of being lifted or washed or of having food or drink or some horrible, bitter potion pushed past his lips, but mostly he floated in contentment, for each time he managed to open his eyes for a moment Audris was there, smiling down at him. And, at last, when he forced his lids open, they stayed open.

  “Audris?” he whispered. “Are we prisoners?”

  “No, beloved,” she said. “It was all a mistake, dearling, all a mistake. Jernaeve was never taken. We thought you were the Scots returning. Never mind that now, heart of my heart. Eric and I are safe, and you are safe. Rest.”

  He was going to say that he had been doing nothing but rest for a long time, but somehow his eyes were closing again. He did sleep, but when he woke, this time to a room softly candlelit, he was ravenously hungry, and his first words were, “What is there to eat?” And Audris, who was sitting by the bed, laughed like a bird singing.

  Almost as soon as the words were out, Fritha came running from the small hearth, carrying a bowl. Hugh intended to ask a great many questions, but he found it strangely exhausting to be lifted and propped against pillows and to swallow what was put into his mouth, although it was delicious. He knew there were important things to say, but somehow his mind would only fix on silly things like how strong Fritha was, to have been able to lift him, and his intense desire to see Eric.

  Still, he barely managed to stay awake long enough to admire his son, who gurgled happily at him in spite of being suddenly wakened, and he fell asleep before he had quite finished saying, “You were right, Audris, he does have a sweet temper.”

  The next day, he did manage to ask questions, and all the news was good—so good that he felt uneasy. But he was too tired, even after hearing only good news, to probe for what he felt might lie under it. After all, he knew he could do nothing, even if everything Audris had told him was a pack of lies designed to calm him. It was better to try to believe what she said, to eat hugely—he seemed to be constantly hungry whenever he was awake—and to spend whatever time he was not eating or sleeping that day idly playing with Eric, who wriggled and waved his hands and feet in delight at being free in the big bed beside his father, and watching Audris work at her loom, which Fritha turned so that he could watch the picture grow—a happy scene of a hunting party setting out.

  The uneasiness stayed with him, however, and he must have slept restlessly and had bad dreams—although he did not remember them—for soon after he had broken his fast in the morning, Audris brought his uncle to see him.

  “You were so very ill,” Audris said, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought…” Her voice failed, and she shook herself and laughed at past fear. “I thought you might die, so I sent for Uncle Ralph.”

  “I told her there was no danger,” Ralph said, smiling, although his own eyes looked suspiciously wet. “I knew that anyone who survived a battle with Lionel Heugh was not going to succumb to pricks from Scottish lances. But I must say I am very glad that Audris no longer needs the support of my strong spirit.”

  “Strong spirit,” Audris interrupted, wrinkling her nose. “He wept more than I.” But she put her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder lovingly. “Still, it was true I needed him.”

  Ralph pretended to look down his nose at her in disdain, but he was hugging her tight, and then he laughed suddenly, kissed the top of her head, and let her go. “Well, whatever the reasons, I am glad you are all but well again. If I do not go back to Ruthsson immediately, nine-tenths of the lush crops you worked so hard to get into the ground will disappear into private hoards.”

  “Then Ruthsson is safe?” Hugh asked, stretching a hand to his uncle and drawing him close to kiss.

  “There are advantages to being buried in uttermost Thule,” Ralph said, first clinging to Hugh for a moment and then straightening and producing an indifferent shrug. “No one came near us.” And seeing Hugh still frowning, he added, “I swear it, on my own soul—and if you think I would not mind adding a sin to my already substantial burden, I will swear it on the soul of King Henry, on whom you know I would lay no sin.”

  Hugh smiled at that and admitted, “I believe you.”

&nbs
p; “Trewick has had some damage, although it was not burnt out like Belsay. One of the raiding parties breached its defenses, but there were enough men to drive them off before they put torches to the place. And Heugh is safe, too.” Ralph shook his head in wonder. “I never thought I would set foot willingly inside those walls, but Audris wrote that Lionel was dead and our Louis was holding the place and asked me to discover, if I could, whether it had been taken. That Louis is a good man. He took in the yeomen who managed to escape the Scots and gave them weapons. He told me the Scots that attacked while you were there never came back and no other group large enough to be dangerous challenged them. Only a few raiding parties tried to threaten him, but Heugh was more than strong enough to hold them off, so he did not yield it.”

  “I am glad of it,” Hugh said. “It is a fine keep, and no matter to whom it belongs, I would not like to see it despoiled.”

  Hugh started to ask another question, but Ralph shook his head. “That is enough, Hugh. You needed to be assured that all is well—and truly, all is well. For the rest, you know I care very little. So long as he does us no despite, King David is as welcome to me as King Stephen—perhaps a little more welcome. The Scots are gone from Northumbria and the people are picking up the pieces of their lives. There is nothing you can do now except rest, so that you will be ready to act when you must.”