A Tapestry of Dreams (45 page)

“Yes,” Oliver pointed out dryly, “but they can keep coming through long after you are exhausted.”

“Unless Summerville has orders to bring his army south and he does not want to suffer losses or delay,” one of the more hopeful knights suggested.

“If he fears losses or delay, he will not come through that breach at all, but leave the Tyne, turn east along the wall, and then go south on Dere Street,” Oliver answered. “He must know that road has been cleared of resistance.”

“And if that is his intention, had we not better stay quiet behind these walls?” another, less sanguine man asked. “If we attack, might that not draw down a vengeance on our host he might otherwise have been spared?”

Since Oliver was almost certain that Jernaeve would be attacked no matter what the dispossessed knights did, his lips twisted wryly at the “consideration for his welfare,” which, he suspected, was a good part simple cowardice. That man would bear watching; despair could spread like a pestilence. But even from such as he, Oliver did not need to fear treachery. Most of the men had probably kept their lands the first time David had brought an army through Northumbria by swearing fealty to Matilda, but their current fury showed clearly that they had not been offered any choice this time. Whether the decision was David’s or Summerville’s own, now the intent was plainly to conquer Northumbria and make the conquest permanent by replacing the current holders with David’s men. They would all fight, because fighting was the only hope they had of recovering their lands.

While they argued, Oliver considered their numbers, adding in the yeomen who had decided to take refuge in the keep. There were more than enough men to defend the lower walls—if Summerville was not prepared to take huge losses. If, on the other hand, Summerville threw his whole army against them, attacking on all sides simultaneously, it would not take many assaults to win a bridgehead on a mile and a half of wall. And once a safe passage was held, the rest would flood in. Fifty men would make no difference; probably even a hundred would make no difference. Moreover, there were far too many men to defend old Iron Fist itself. If they were driven out of the lower bailey and up into the keep, they would the sooner be starved out.

“Three men and their troops,” Oliver said quietly, after slamming the hilt of his sword against a convenient metal buckler for silence—the argument between those who wished to attack and those who felt a passive course was best had been growing heated. “That is what I think can be safely spared from the defense of Jernaeve for guarding the breach and attempting to drive Summerville’s troops along the wall to Dere Street. Will you cast lots among those who desire to try to drive Summerville east to Dere Street?”

It was a bitter irony of fate that they did not have time to cast lots. As they were arguing about the method to use—agreement even on that seeming impossible—one of the men Oliver had sent west of the river to hide atop the great wall and watch rushed in to report that the vanguard of Summerville’s army was less than a league from the breach. Oliver hit the buckler again and, when relative silence had fallen and all eyes were on him, pointed to three men who had been among the most vociferous of those who wished to hold the breach.

“You three,” he ordered, “take your men and go. Remember, we will not open the north gate to take you in again, no matter how hard-pressed you are. If we can, we will open the south gate, the one here near the river, where the bank is narrowest and fewest can attempt to rush the gate and keep it open—but I do not promise it. If we cannot take you back into Jernaeve, ford the river and ride south to Devil’s Water. My son Oliver will shelter you there.”

Shouts broke out—approval, protest, questions—and Oliver let out a roar that brought silence again. “I am master in Jernaeve. You came to me for refuge. While there was no threat, I was willing to listen. Now I command, and you obey without question or argument. If you cannot, go!”

In a sense it was a dangerous gambit. Each of the men was accustomed to being master himself, to giving orders, not taking them; in fact, more battles had been lost because leaders could not control their vassals than for any other reason. However, Oliver had two strong supports for his claim to mastership: the common sense of most of the men, who recognized the danger of anarchy and Oliver’s right, and the knowledge that old Iron Fist, the last refuge in the keep itself, was closed as tight against them as against the enemy. The upper walls were held by Oliver’s own men-at-arms under the command of his steward of many years, Eadmer, and all knew he would not permit
anyone
to enter unless Sir Oliver led them in.

An angry cry or two dwindled into silence as those who uttered them realized they had little support. Oliver noted who had made the protests, but he did not comment. His next remarks concerned which men should hold what posts along the wall. Without making obvious what he was doing, he set the protesters in among those he knew best and trusted most, and those he had marked as least willing to fight, he ordered to the northernmost wall, the great wall itself.

His reasons were simple: the great wall was higher and thicker than the east and west walls, and there was no way down from it, except by rough, ladderlike stairs at each corner where it met the lower walls. For those reasons, it was the least likely to be attacked; thus, it was best to have the weakest there; moreover, the north wall was farthest from the keep, so the other defenders would have more warning if the Scots did make a successful assault on it.

All hurried to their posts, but for a time it seemed Oliver’s conviction that Jernaeve would be a main target was wrong. Some troops did engage the men holding the breach, but most of the army hurried east along the north side of the great wall as if they were headed for the route south along Dere Street and would leave Jernaeve unmolested behind them. Insensibly, as the day passed, most of the men began to relax. True, the assaults against those holding the breach, which had been intermittent at first, were becoming more violent, but many blamed Oliver’s stubbornness and the bitterness of those fighting there for that. Most no longer associated the desire to pass the breach with an intention of attacking Jernaeve. After all, early in the day between assaults, the Scots had called to be allowed to pass, saying they would do no harm to those who had fought them and would permit them to reenter Jernaeve in peace.

All knew, of course, that passing meant freedom to raid the lands south of Jernaeve—and it was that, the men thought, which Oliver wished to prevent. So, as the shadows grew longer and the breach was forced—those who had held it being driven back down the bank of the river—many who watched felt a bitter sense of satisfaction. Had not their lands already been lost to them while Oliver’s were still untouched?

Some did not even order their bowmen to fire on the Scots when the bank between the river and the wall narrowed enough to bring them within arrowshot, to hold them back so that the weary defenders could be got in safely. But for all his hard words, Oliver did not desert them. He came out of the south gate himself, leading fresh men who were filled with rage and eager to strike some blows at those who had driven them from their homes. The charge drove the attackers back almost to the breach, so that the eighteen men—all that remained of the seventy-two who had gone out in the morning—could be taken in. Then, while the attackers were regrouping, believing that a new and equally stubborn force was pitted against them, Oliver led his men back inside Jernaeve.

By then the light was failing. Those by the north end of the wall, where the river was more than half a mile away, noted that men—none could say how many—began to come through the breach, but they stayed well away from Jernaeve’s wall. None passed down along the narrowing strip of land between the river and Jernaeve while it was light enough to see, and if they passed at night, they did so very silently. It would not be very strange for the Scots to pass by night, because that would save them from being targets for missiles from Jernaeve when they had to be close to the walls in the yards-wide area near the ford and while they were crossing the river. The men on Jernaeve’s walls had the whole next day to argue about whether the Scots had passed or not. They were glad of the subject, because it had begun to rain before dawn and they were wet and miserable as well as bored. There was no shelter on the walls, and all were growing resentful at being kept there under arms, feeling, as they did, that all danger had passed.

Even Oliver had begun to wonder. He himself would have judged from the behavior of Summerville’s troops that his army was hurrying south to join King David. Yet Summerville was clever; Oliver did not trust him—and Audris had said there was little time. Oliver paced the walls and saw no more than the others saw. Summerville
might
be under orders strict enough to make him pass Jernaeve without a challenge—but Audris…

Shaking his head angrily, Oliver told himself he was a fool to give so much weight to her words when they were most likely spoken in fear and ignorance, but somehow he could not change the orders he had given—nor could he, filled as he was by doubt, enforce them. He distrusted himself all the more because he felt unwell. He had twice been wounded lightly in the charge he had led—a slash on the left thigh and a cut from an arrow that had not really penetrated on the shoulder. The wounds were nothing, but he had had an urgent desire to ask Audris to tend them—which was ridiculous, for he had suffered far worse and healed well without her help.

The long day passed, and still the rain fell. An hour before the evening meal, Oliver had resolved he would send messengers to tell all except a few guards to come down and take what shelter they could find. Many, he knew, had already done so. But he stood mute, watching the servants load wagons with bread and cheese and ale and start along the walls to deliver the food. He could have sent the message with them, he thought dully, and the men—those who were faithful—could have eaten as dry as those who were faithless. They would sleep dry, though, he resolved. Those who had done their duty would be relieved by the men who had abandoned their posts without permission. He would ride along the wall himself as soon as the meal was over. Those who had come down could sleep in the wet.

Had the rain stopped, Oliver might have yielded to his sense of foreboding, no matter how foolish it seemed, and changed his mind again. But as dusk fell, the skies opened in a new deluge. Thus, Oliver did as he had decided—but he could not sleep himself, and his heart was heavy as lead inside his chest. Sometime before midnight, he gave up trying, roused a groom to saddle his horse, and rode north to see if the weaker men had abandoned the wall altogether. The rain had finally stopped—the downpour at dusk seemingly having emptied the skies—but the air was full of a mist so deceptive that Oliver found his horse wandering off the well-known road. He would never have known it, except that the squelch of his stallion’s hooves as they pulled out of the muddy road stopped when he got into a field.

Oliver cursed softly. The mist seemed to muffle sound, too. He should have been challenged as he rode, but he had not been. Were all the guards asleep? He called out and received a reassuring response, but the relief he felt did not last long. Soon his mouth was dry, and his heart pounded. Never in his life had Oliver been so frightened—and there was nothing to fear, nothing.

The shouts of warning cut through the miasma of terror like cries of salvation instead of threats of disaster. He responded at once, kicking his destrier into a dangerous canter and bellowing, “Up! Up! The Scots are at the walls!” And although he was well aware of how perilous the situation was, he was no longer sick at heart. The threat he had felt was real, no product of a superstitious and disordered mind. He had
known
Summerville desired Jernaeve and known he was a crafty opponent.

All along as he passed he heard men calling out, saw torches flame into life, saw some running eagerly to the stairs to mount to the wooden rampart—and noted a few holding back. A bitter, grim smile twisted his mouth. This time the cowards would find no safety on the ground. There was a blackness ahead, somehow more solid than the dark broken by the haloed yellow spots of the torches. Oliver slowed his mount’s pace, knowing he had come to the great wall in the north. He had intended to turn right and ride completely around the wall, but when he drew breath to shout his warning again, he heard a voice cry “Quarter!” That drew a roar of rage from Oliver, and he flung himself from his horse and ran for the steps, pushing others out of his way but bellowing for them to follow.

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.”

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. The 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.