A Tapestry of Dreams (42 page)

“That accursed woman,” he snarled, “whatever she does—for good or ill—turns to ill. Oh, I knew about the men leaving. I hoped
you
would not need to know.”

As he spoke, a flicker of movement caught Audris’s eye. It was a manservant, trying to inch closer to hear what Hugh was saying. He was carrying a large platter, and when Audris’s head turned toward him and caught him in what he feared was wrong, he held the platter up as if to hide behind it. But Audris’s picture-prone imagination saw the round metal as a shield. For an instant she was frozen with fear, leaping to the conclusion that the enemy was already within; in the next instant she saw reality—a servant holding a platter—as if superimposed on her fear, and her mind bound the two together into a hope.

“Hugh,” she gasped, “the menservants! If there is an armory here, can you not dress them in some pretense of armor and let them walk or stand on the walls? At least it would
appear
to the Scots that there were men enough to defend Heugh.”

He had started to shake his head when she mentioned the menservants. In Sir Walter’s keeps the servants fought when necessary, not with swords and bows, which took many years of practice, but by helping push away scaling ladders or dropping stones, boiling oil, or excrement on the enemy. Hugh had thought these men too cowed to help even in such simple ways, but by the time Audris had finished what she was saying, he was grinning.

“You are a prize beyond diamonds,” he cried, flinging his arms around her and hugging her so tight in his enthusiasm that she squeaked as her ribs gave. “That much they
will
do, for I can set the men-at-arms to watch that they do not run away.” His eyes narrowed. “And I can set them to cocking extra crossbows, too, so that the bowmen we have can run along on the wall behind them, firing as they go, which will make it seem we have many bowmen. Audris, you may have saved us all.”

He kissed her hard and then rushed away, leaving Audris smiling despite the gravity of their situation. And she was busy enough herself in the next few hours to drive out fear. When she turned to go up to the women’s floor again, she found Lady Maud in the doorway to the stairs, staring at Hugh’s retreating back. She did not respond to Audris’s questions until he had disappeared, and then she only wanted to know when they were leaving. Audris had to insist quite sharply on obtaining the medications for the wounded man. Then Maud offered again to care for him, but Audris, now realizing that Maud was half dazed from the draft she had taken, ignored her and told the maid what she needed. Despite Audris’s urging Maud to go to bed, she accompanied her down into the bailey, standing by Audris as she spoke gently to the wounded messenger, looked at his hurt, and assured him he would recover easily.

She seemed amazed when Audris herself cut the shortbow bolt out of the man, sewed him up, and plastered the wound with an ointment of powdered betony, lemon balm, and the juice of houseleek. Maud kept protesting about something, but Audris did not listen. She was thinking about the limited power of the shortbow. A crossbow bolt would have broken the messenger’s rib and pierced his chest, in which case he might well have died on the road before he could warn them, and they would have been taken by surprise, like Belsay, and overpowered. Instead the arrow had been deflected along the rib and done no more harm than tunneling under the skin. Audris smiled and said a few more comforting words, much comforted herself. Surely the messenger’s arrival and her vision of the servants dressed as men-at-arms was for the purpose of saving them.

Patting her patient once more, she rose, barely in time to steady Lady Maud, who was wavering on her feet. Audris realized that Maud was almost completely under the drugs; her eyes were glazed, and her mind seemed to have fixed on the danger from the Scots, for she was insisting that Hugh, whom she called Kenorn, “flee and save himself.” Audris patiently explained, several times, that it was not possible to flee Heugh with the Scots less than two leagues away. They were as likely, she pointed out, to run right into the enemy as to escape them.

When raising her voice and even shaking Maud made no impression, Audris realized she would not be able to pierce the drug-induced fixation. Maud had to be put to bed, where, hopefully, she would sleep until she became more rational, but when Audris caught one of Hugh’s men-at-arms, who had entered the barracks to pick up a few old helmets that had been left, and asked him to support Maud, she screamed and shrank away in terror. Audris was troubled by Maud’s reaction, fearing she had given the older woman too large a dose of thornapple. As a result, she hesitated to order the man to seize Maud—and at that moment Fritha came down the steps from the keep with a bellowing Eric in her arms.

As Audris took over her starving son, hurriedly undoing her gown to thrust a nipple into his mouth, she explained Maud’s delirious confusion and the remedy. Fritha nodded and half carried, half propelled Maud into the keep and into bed, where, regardless of her protests, she fell asleep almost immediately.

Quieting Maud removed Audris’s principal distraction, and by the time Eric was fed and content, fear was creeping into Audris, but she soon found another distraction. She began to wonder if she should do something about the evening meal. She had eaten little of her dinner in Trewick because she was worried about Hugh. Had every male, including the cooks, bakers, and their boys, been herded up on the walls? Audris had not the faintest idea
what
to do. She knew no more about cooking than a bird, but she set out indomitably to determine what Heugh keep could provide to eat.

At the landing of the stair to the bailey, Audris stopped and stared. She had heard some noise as she passed the windows of the hall, strangely empty now that the menservants were all gone, but the thick walls had kept out the volume of sound. Women, children, and animals milled about, crying, calling, lowing, bleating. For a moment, Audris was stunned, and then she realized these must be the wives and children of the serfs, yeomen, and artisans who worked in the small village and on the demesne and the nearby farms. The scene was one of utter chaos, and Audris suffered a spasm of utter panic. She knew that her aunt would have been down among them bringing immediate calm and order and that it was her duty to try—but how? And before she could steel herself to descend into that milling mass and try to exert her authority, the lookout atop the keep tower uttered a long hail.

“They come, my lord! The Scots come!”

Hugh uttered a single furious obscenity when he heard the lookout’s call. A whole litany of expletives formed in his mind, but he wasted no more time after that first word; he had better uses for his mouth—which were to bellow “Go!” at the messengers ready to stop any more folk from coming to the castle and bid them hide in the woods if they could and, as soon as the messengers were over the drawbridge, to give the order to raise it.

He had hoped for more time, hoped that the Scots would be too busy at Belsay to come on to Heugh before night fell. He had also hoped, of course, that the huntsmen and foresters would return with the news that the attack on Trewick and Belsay had only been a raid and that the raiders had taken their loot and run north. But Hugh had never really believed that. He had known from the beginning that King David intended to attack England again. Even so, he had been too busy on his isolated estate and too happy with his wife and new son to attend much to events in the south, because he had not feared much for Ruthsson. The barren, forested hills, the fordless river, the lack of roads from the north, all made it unlikely that Ruthsson would be attacked merely because it was on the way to somewhere more important. Nor was it likely that an army headed south would retrace its route to assault a small, isolated keep. That would be left for cleanup work after a major victory, and Hugh did not expect the Scots to win a major victory.

On a jaunt to Morpeth, however, Ralph had heard that Robert, earl of Gloucester, had revoked his fealty to King Stephen. That was after the Scots had come—although they did not come near Ruthsson—and had been driven back by King Stephen’s army. Hugh had had patrols out all spring, but he was not at all surprised when they found nothing. It was annoying that no information about the Scots could be obtained from Morpeth on his own or his uncle’s journeys there, but de Merley was Stephen’s man, not a local baron, and he probably had no friends among King David’s men who would be willing to pass news.

What had convinced Hugh there was no danger, even after he learned that David was besieging Norham, was that Sir Walter had not sent a messenger. It was largely because Hugh had not received any warnings from his old master that he assumed King David would not embark on a major invasion until Robert of Gloucester arrived in England and embroiled King Stephen in a serious war in the south so that he could not again bring an army to protect the northern shires.

Still, as soon as the wounded man from Trewick cried out that the Scots were attacking, Hugh had been almost certain that it was no casual raid, that King David had tired of waiting for Gloucester and decided to move on his own, hoping Stephen would be busy enough taking first one rebel keep and then another in England’s southwest to ignore the trouble in the north until it was too late. The hail from the guard tower changed “almost certain” to absolute certainty that the attackers were part of a war party. The only question that remained was how large a part. Hugh ran up into the gate tower and watched them come.

By his order the men on the wall were silent. Hugh thought it the best way to avoid the accident of a servant’s crying out something that would give away how undermanned they were. But as the attackers streamed around the flank of the wall, Odard, who was guarding bridge, gates, and tower, muttered softly, “This is no army. It is a rabble. And there cannot be more than a hundred of them. Let us go out and give them a lesson.”

If Odard had not spoken, Hugh might have said the same thing as a first reaction to the kilted warriors with their long, matted hair hanging below hide helmets, their ragged, odd, many-colored cloaks wound around tattered leather jerkins, who poured into the open fields around Heugh in total disorder, shouting threats or curses—since Hugh could not understand the language, he had no idea which. Partly because Odard’s remarks had given him time to think, Hugh shook his head.

“How did they get into Belsay?” he asked. The question had been at the back of his mind ever since he had got his men set on the walls and had time to think. Belsay was like Wark, an old-style wooden keep, but even so, its outer wall should not have been overrun so easily. “Is it not likely,” he went on, watching the disorderly mass wantonly trample down the sprouting grain and set fire to a shed, “that they came there as they have come here, offering themselves as a temptation. Are there more coming quietly around on the wooded side of the hill? In any case, that rabble out there can do us no harm. Let us wait until morning. Meanwhile, as soon as it is too dark for them to see, train the mangonels on their campfires.”

Odard had been frowning a little as Hugh spoke. He seemed surprised at Hugh’s caution, but the final sentence cleared his brow, and he chuckled. “Aye, my lord. That will lesson them just as well as a charge.”

“Perhaps,” Hugh replied dryly, his instincts having been fortified by being put into words. Then he remembered that he would soon have to leave Heugh—if it were possible to leave—and he felt he should try to explain to Odard why he was cautious. “Bid our men be silent and listen closely when the charge of the mangonel strikes. If there are cries, well and good, but I have a feeling the closer campfires will be only decoys—to tempt us out by making us feel we can strike the unprepared men in the dark while they eat or sleep. Then, while we are attacking, the Scots will try to get inside our walls.”

“You make them out to be very clever, my lord,” Odard said, his voice neutral.

Plainly he did not agree, but Heugh custom did not permit open rejection or even questioning by the tone of voice of a lord’s statement. Hugh chuckled. “Better I credit them with too much deviousness than that they enter Heugh because I am too simple. I ask myself, too, why they came here after a day’s fighting and looting, just as the light is failing, rather than settling into camp to enjoy the women they have taken, the food and wine…”

Odard’s expression changed to surprise and then anger. Clearly Hugh’s last remark had got home to him and finally convinced him there was danger of a trap. He had fought in Sir Lionel’s service, and it was true that one settled down to enjoy the fruits of victory—unless there was danger of a counterattack or a surprise on the enemy was planned. He promptly assured Hugh with more enthusiasm than he had shown previously that he would strictly obey his orders and make sure his men kept a careful lookout for a night attack.

Hugh nodded, thanked him, and went out on the wall to warn Louis. Odard’s casual statement had given Hugh a chill. He leaned forward through a crenel, staring out at the disorderly mass of men making rude gestures and shouting what were now obviously taunts. Hugh had been assuming that the main force of the Scots army was attacking the great castles along the coast, as usual. But what if David had decided to take the interior first, giving himself the advantage of surprise? The whole army would pour down over Heugh to get at Prudhoe and Jernaeve.

An arrow arced upward toward the wall, but Hugh did not draw back. The shortbow was useless against men on the walls. There were tight groups of men among the swirling mass of Scots nearest the edge of the dry moat. Another arrow and then several more followed the first, all fired by men who were part of the running, shouting groups. Hugh heard a man not far from him snort and then mutter an insulting remark. Since Hugh had forbidden vocal reply or firing back, all the man-at-arms could do was stand fully and boldly in the crenel opening to show his contempt for the Scottish weapons. For a few minutes more the hopeless volleys were fired, accomplishing nothing except the loss of numerous arrows in the dry moat and drawing more of Hugh’s men to lean into the crenels and make rude gestures. Stupid Scots, Hugh thought—then realizing how ill that thought sat with all his other assumptions about their clever trickery, suddenly drew back himself and shouted for his men to clear the open parts of the wall.

Just as he shouted, the Scots who had been doing the shooting dropped down, and fifteen or twenty swift messengers of death buzzed upward from very small ballistae or very large crossbows. Several shrieks of pain echoed from around the wall, and Hugh strode down the walkway, silently cursing himself for stupidity while he cursed his men aloud for the same sin. They were more fortunate than they deserved, for only one man-at-arms had been hurt. The other injuries had been to servants, emboldened beyond good sense, who had imitated what the supposedly more knowledgeable men-at-arms were doing, and one yeoman’s son who had more courage than brains.

More taunts came up from the Scots, but Hugh loudly threatened to break the legs of any man who replied again either by voice or gesture and then prop him up so he could fight anyway. Not that the clear crenels stopped the Scots from shooting. Arrows flew into them or over the walls as fast as the weapons—whatever they were—could be loaded, only now they carried flaming pitch to start fires, or rags soaked in feces and vomit to spread sickness. Hugh sent a servant to the inner bailey to bring down ten or twelve of the stronger women to douse any fire that began and then to gather and burn the filthy rags. His voice was calm and indifferent, but he was sick with hopelessness inside. Fire was a reasonable weapon in the short run, but disease was only useful in terms of weeks or months, which meant a siege, which meant a large army. And if they could waste arrows like that, did it not mean that the full army with supply wagons was nearby?

Hugh leaned back against a merlon and stared across the bailey toward the drawbridge to the inner keep, unwilling for the moment to turn around and look at what the enemy was doing. He saw without making much sense of it a whole procession of women, many more than the dozen he had asked for, coming over the drawbridge with several small carts drawn by asses. That seemed very peculiar; he could not imagine what use asses and carts could be for dousing fires or burning filth, but his mind was not on minor details like that. He was facing the horrible question of whether he dared resist at all once the full army arrived. If he had been alone, the question would never have entered his mind—but there were Audris and Eric. Hugh was aware of a terrible hollow sensation inside himself.

Suddenly a smell, a mouth-watering, delicious smell smote his nostrils. Hugh jerked erect, feverishly sought a stair, and almost fell down it in his haste to get to the nearest little cart, which he could now see was carrying a large caldron full of steaming stew. Simultaneously the explanation for the hollow sensation he felt leapt into his mind. It was not because the Scots were about to attack Heugh; it was because the ravings of that accursed woman had so distracted him that he had missed dinner.

Once his belly was full, Hugh found that the military situation took on an entirely different aspect. In the past the Scots had seldom bothered with sieges. It was true that David’s Norman and Anglo-Norman noblemen would most likely be far more conventional in warfare, but the kilted barbarians outside of Heugh could not belong to any of David’s polished gentlemen. These were the men of the wild tribes of the north, called by some Picts of Galloway and of Lothian by others. They were not noted for patience—or for getting along well with the more southerly men of David’s realm.

Hugh checked that train of thought. This was no time for overconfidence. He climbed to the wall again and went slowly all the way around, straining his eyes to see into the trees in the failing light. He could make out nothing; if there were more troops hidden there, they were either well back or very quiet. But the rain of arrows had virtually stopped, and the Scots were noisily building campfires, seemingly totally ignoring the possibility of missiles launched from the keep. Hugh considered ordering a mangonel to be loaded, but he suspected that one or more of those seemingly indifferent men were watching the walls with close attention to cry warning if a stone flew in their direction. If they were really stupid and unaware, aiming the mangonels at the campfires after dark would have a far greater effect.

In fact, Hugh’s suspicions proved to be correct. The stone balls flew; some, aimed remarkably well, fell right into the campfires, scattering them far and wide—but only a single cry went up into the night. Hugh shrugged. Some poor servant who had been set to keeping the fires alight had been caught, but the troops were no doubt well back. He had the mangonels trained on the farthest fires, but the machines were small and the range was too great. When those stones fell, far short, they got a reaction—jeers and laughter. From then on, Hugh saved his stones and the efforts of the men.

On a second round of the wall, Hugh chose men to take the first watch and bade the others sleep. He did not dare let anyone off the wall. They would have to sleep as best they could where they were, in case a surprise attack at night was attempted. And three times there was a rushing about, a calling and clanging that brought every man near the gate tower on Heugh’s walls tensely wide awake.

With each abortive alert, Hugh cursed the Scots wearily, wondering if they knew how thin of manpower Heugh was and were trying to wear the defenders down. But there was another reason for deliberate repeated alarms, and the fourth time, while the calling and clangor went on, on the far side of the dry moat near the gate tower, the invaders quietly put ladders up on the rear walls that faced most closely the woods to the north.

One advantage of being severely undermanned was that the men who guarded Heugh’s walls were nervous and more alert than they would have been with a full complement of men-at-arms on call for defense. An ill-placed ladder swayed and scraped; a man gasped in fear of falling, and Hugh’s men were calling the alarm. Even so, it was a near thing. Men had to come from a distance around the walls, and knowing the attack at the rear might only be a feint, Hugh dared not empty the rest of the walls of men. He came himself and called the men-at-arms, leaving the less experienced yeomen on guard, and everyone there fought—even the servants poked, prodded, and whacked with their clubs, rusty swords, and boar spears at the men on the ladders.

They drove them off at last, at the cost of two men-at-arms injured and four servants killed. Hugh thought they had killed or severely injured six or seven Scots, not counting the ones who had been hurt when the ladders were cast down. He praised the men—they had fought well—but he knew that their losses, though fewer, were a disaster, whereas those of the Scots were a minor nuisance.