A Tapestry of Dreams (14 page)

Hugh was so relieved at the renewed lilt in her voice, which he took to mean she had dismissed his mention of love, or at least applied it only to his foster father, that he finished writing in a hurry and told her the tale of his early divergence from Thurstan on the matter of his future.

“He loved me, truly like a son, and wanted the best for me, but to his mind, the best was a holy life. Alas, I was not fit for it. No matter how he pleaded or reasoned with me, I was forever running from my lessons to the men-at-arms. Not that I minded the lessons, but my longing for arms was so strong.”

“Like my desire to climb for hawks.” Audris nodded understanding.

“I made swords from sticks tied together,” Hugh went on, his eyes staring off into the distance in remembrance. “And, worst of all, I tried to use the farthings Thurstan gave me to make offerings in the church to bribe the men-at-arms to teach me to fight. They would not take the coins, of course, being men of Thurstan’s own retinue, and they even told me how wrong I was to wish for a hard, ugly, sinful life instead of one of peace and prayer.” He shrugged and smiled. “I wept for my sin—but I did not change my desire. I think what convinced Thurstan at last was that when I confessed the sin and promised to sin no more and made the offerings, the prayers I uttered with them were for permission to learn to be a knight.”

Audris nodded again, for she had similar, if less momentous, stories to tell. But more important than the memories evoked was the sense of kinship both felt, owing to the strongest influence in the youth of each coming from men of deep faith and deep wisdom. The difference in Thurstan’s and Anselm’s conditions—Thurstan’s high office and worldly pomp and Anselm’s rustic isolation and innocent simplicity—had burdened Thurstan with guilt and washed Anselm nearly free of all sense of sin. These attitudes had affected Hugh and Audris, particularly as their experience had mirrored to a great extent that of their mentors, but the devotion of each to the respective foster father and tutor was a strong bond between them.

Through the day, they found other bonds. Each loved animals and was fascinated by the habits of wild creatures. Audris knew most about birds, Hugh about the beasts of the chase and those that preyed on them. And both loved the harsh northern countryside. True, Audris had never seen the south, but she rightly assumed it was all much like the lush river valleys of the Tyne and its tributaries, which Hugh confirmed, and she found such tame countryside dull.

They had ridden west from Hexham, where all the lands that were not abbey lands owed allegiance to Jernaeve, and they could have stopped at several manors and been more than welcome. Instead they chose the rugged hills. For dinner, Hugh brought down two hares with his bow, and Audris dug wild carrots, horseradish, iris roots, and parsnip from the hard ground. They cooked these in an oven of hot stones covered with embers on the open ground in front of a cave—or niche—just large enough to keep the wind off them while the horses grazed on the brittle dead grass of the hillside. The hares were winter-lean, the roots tough and woody, but Audris and Hugh both felt they had never eaten so well.

Only once did they touch, when their hands came together by accident in sharing out the food. Hugh’s reaction was so strong and so immediate that he could not restrain a gasp. That brought Audris’s eyes to his face before he could mask his expression or turn away. The mingled pain and passion mirrored there were so vivid that the image remained as if branded on her mind, even though she looked away in the next instant. At the time, she only felt a shock at intruding on emotions so powerful and private, and she hastened to make some light remark behind which they could both hide.

It was only the next day, after Audris woke—rather late, for she and Hugh and her aunt and uncle had stayed in the hall long after the evening meal, first playing a foolish game and then talking of the doubts Hugh felt about the lenient treaty Stephen had made with King David—that she associated the passion and pain with herself.

She had been lying abed thinking of all that had happened since she had seen the unicorn shield below her tower. One by one she looked back at the events of the past two days. The memories as usual appeared as moving pictures in her mind, and somehow from her first sight of him to her last, when she glanced over her shoulder on her way to her chamber in the tower and saw him watching her go, every event revolved around Hugh Licorne.

The last image of him lingered. There had been no particular expression on his face then, but the line of his body and the turn of his head showed the restraint of his desire to follow her. And unbidden, the tormented image she had seen on the hillside replaced the controlled face in the hall. Audris leapt out of bed, dressed as quickly as she could, and ran down, but it was too late. Hugh Licorne had left at first light to follow his master.

She was filled with a sense of loss, but when thought replaced emotion, she realized that she had not the least idea what she would—or could—have said to him. It would have been very wrong to beg him to stay, for he owed fealty to Sir Walter and had duties. Nor, Audris realized, could she even invite him to return to Jernaeve. It would be more cruel than kind, for she could offer no hope his desire could be fulfilled. Even if she could somehow convince her uncle that Hugh would make a suitable husband—which she knew to be impossible—her marriage would mean the expulsion of her aunt and uncle from Jernaeve, and she had vowed she would never allow that to happen.

Throughout the days that followed, as the unicorn tapestry was completed, the image of Hugh’s face rose up in Audris’s mind to trouble her peace. She thought often of writing to him—a messenger need only find Sir Walter, and Hugh would be near—but she knew it would be foolish, for it would only remind him of a passion that could not be gratified. Another trouble beset her. She found she could not bring the picture of the unicorn to her uncle for sale or even pack it away out of sight. Against her will, for it, too, broke her peace, she had to hang it in her chamber. Nor was the inability to let go of the tapestry because she identified the unicorn with Hugh. She needed no reminder of Hugh, whose strange face and haunting passion bred a constant restlessness in her. She could not part with the tapestry because she knew the work was not complete—but no new images on any subject came to mind. Did that mean she would—or must—see Hugh before she could weave again?

***

At last spring came. Winter wheat thrust tender shoots through the dark earth, glazing the fields in a delicate haze of pale green; buds swelled on the tips of branches. Audris fled Jernaeve, saying she wished to keep watch on the nests of the falcons so that she could take a few of the young once they were fledged, but also because she hoped to leave her trouble behind her. Mostly she did, except when she saw the mating play of the beasts and birds—and she was never free of it, for each came into heat and rut in its own season.

The generation of young had never disturbed her before, but when in spring she saw a stallion cover a mare or in late summer a ram mount a ewe, Audris had to turn away, for the sight woke strange sensations—a dull, oddly exciting ache in her groin, intensified by a pulsing tickle that swelled and moistened her nether lips. Once while she sat as still as an image at the edge of a forest clearing watching a young sparrow hawk tear its first kill, a buck caught the doe he was pursuing there. Caught by surprise, Audris could not tear her eyes away, and when she saw him plunge and plunge again, both animals crying aloud in their mating, the sensation between her thighs grew so intense that she almost touched herself. But a fear came over her when her hand slipped under her skirt, and she could not even try. Had she done so as a child and been punished or threatened? Audris could not remember, but whatever had happened was effective; it blocked that path to relief.

From then on, she was more careful and watched the hawks where there was no chance she would intrude on the matings of other beasts. Even so she could never escape completely. The doings of the birds in the spring affected her differently. Their love play was more alien and did not arouse her physically, but it was also intermingled with building a place to rear their young. Especially when she knew the pair she was watching mated for life, a longing stirred in Audris for someone of her own, a person to whom she could belong as he would belong to her—but whether her body responded or only her heart, the face that haunted her desire was always Hugh’s.

Still, such moments of acute distress were brief. There was always so much to do in spring, summer, and autumn: the herbs and flowers used for spices, treats, and medicaments were also Audris’s responsibility, and it was under her direction that plants were moved or pruned, the seeds of the annuals planted, and the gathering done. The gardeners worshiped her, for when she put her finger in the earth and said, “Set seed this deep and no deeper, and cover them so,” those plants grew. And when she felt the dry twigs of the perennials and said, “Cut here,” the new growth on the bushes was lush. They did not call her witch because only good came from her touching—and because the eldest of them remembered that Father Anselm had done before as Audris did now.

Between one task and another there was little time for idle dreaming about unicorns. Moreover, through the spring, summer, and autumn that followed, there was more food for thought than usual. Bruno sent a regular stream of news, which Sir Oliver encouraged by paying the cost of the messengers. So far it seemed that Sir Oliver had chosen well when he decided to welcome King Stephen and have Audris do him homage. Most of the kingdom appeared to feel the same, for when Stephen turned south and held his Easter court in London, almost all the great nobles and bishops of England and Normandy were in attendance, even Robert of Gloucester, Matilda’s half brother and most determined supporter.

Only one problem marred Bruno’s satisfaction. As Hugh had feared, Ranulf, earl of Chester, was furious over Stephen’s promise of lands Chester claimed to King David; the earl left the court in a rage. And when Stephen seated David’s son, Henry of Huntington, at his right hand, the archbishop of Canterbury, who felt that place to be rightfully his, took offense and also departed. These events were all the excuse David needed. He insisted his son had been insulted by the English and called him home.

It was easier to deal with the few men who resisted outright, such as Baldwin de Redvers. Even Baldwin offered to do homage to Stephen after he saw that few others clung to Matilda’s cause—but by then it was too late. The king decided that a lesson must be administered and refused to grant him the same favors he had granted those who came at his first summoning. Nor did Stephen mouth idle threats. Bruno sent a triumphant message describing how Redvers, who was castellan of the royal castle at Exeter, had intended to capture the city. But the people of the city favored Stephen and sent him a warning of what Redvers planned, so the king was able to bring his army into Exeter and besiege Redvers in the keep itself.

Not long after, however, the news grew a shade less satisfying. Bruno’s next message bore a note of caution. Some who had sworn had not done so with clean hearts, he warned. During the siege of Exeter, the besieged garrison had been reinforced—and those responsible for preventing such a thing offered only lame excuses. Gloucester and others, Bruno feared, had connived in the plot. Now and then Bruno mentioned Hugh, who was also with the king, leading a troop of Walter Espec’s men. Hugh had been knighted, and rightfully, Bruno reported, for he was a daring devil, strong as a bull, always in the forefront of any raid or beating back any sortie from the keep. Audris did not ask for any repetition of the facts about Hugh. She did not need repetition. Every mention of him seemed to sink into her soul and warm her body.

Then there was a long silence, and Audris began to fear that Bruno had been hurt. But she did not fear for Hugh; the unicorn could only be slain when trapped and held by the maiden. But Audris was thinking seriously of demanding that a new messenger be sent simply to determine whether her brother was well, when news of the fall of Exeter keep arrived.

Oddly, there was little triumph in this message. The wells had failed, and the besieged, seeing that their time had run out and only the choice of yielding the keep or dying in it remained, sent a deputation out to beg for permission to leave Exeter. This Stephen at first refused, even when Redvers’s wife came out barefoot, with loose hair, weeping bitterly to beg mercy. But then Gloucester and his followers began to talk to the king, and suddenly Stephen changed his mind and not only gave permission for the garrison to depart without punishment or even swearing not to take up arms against him, but to take with them their possessions and to adhere to any lord they wished.

“What?” Sir Oliver said when he heard the final piece of information. “Tell me again.”

The messenger repeated what he had said.

“The king is very kind,” Audris said, but she sounded uncertain.

Sir Oliver glared at her. “Unless there is some matter Bruno does not know and thus has not passed on, I would say the king is a fool. Either he should have accepted the first offer they made, or he should have insisted on harsher terms, no matter what Gloucester promised or threatened. What he did almost cries aloud that the cause of the rebels is honorable. Rebellion
must
be punished. Only an honorable difference of opinion may be compounded by honorable terms of submission.”

Audris remembered Hugh telling her that Sir Walter feared Stephen was the kind who would charge at once but, if halted and urged to think, would lose faith in himself and fail to chance a final confrontation. She had said, laughing, that to her that sounded like being reasonable, and Hugh had frowned and answered that if the king’s actions were a result of reason, the nation would be most fortunate. But while he spoke he shook his head, making it clear that he feared it was not reasonableness that formed the basis of King Stephen’s decisions.

Sir Oliver’s concern, of course, was that King David, hearing of the events at Exeter, with even greater emphasis on how easy it was to escape retribution from King Stephen and remembering how much he had profited from his last incursion into England, might decide to take another bite out of the north. Fortunately, that did not happen, and the truce with the Scots seemed to be holding. There was some raiding, but that was common in any year, and the perpetrators were clearly small outlaw parties that had no sanction or support from King David.