First Thurstan reminded David that King Stephen had been generous to him when he could have pursued him with a great army and ravaged Scotland. David had been willing to acknowledge that Stephen had the right, as England’s king, to cede Doncaster and Carlisle, for David had accepted the keeps from Stephen when he signed the truce. Since he was so troubled that his honor would be smirched by keeping the truce, would he return the keeps? Stephen trusted David, Thurstan pointed out. Was not David his wife’s uncle and thus bound to him in blood? Was it honorable to violate Stephen’s trust? Could there be greater dishonor, the archbishop asked caustically, if David restrained his ardor for Matilda’s cause than if he broke a truce made in good faith and attacked a kingdom when its defender was absent in Normandy? For the first time in the fortnight the discussions had lasted, David looked uncomfortable and truly unhappy.
The meeting the king called with his barons the next day was stormy and bitter, and the passions outlasted the end of the conference. The arguments continued in the alehouses long after the decision was made, so that Hugh, sitting in a shadowy corner, had the news before it was carried officially to Thurstan. David would not attack that spring. In fact, he would keep the truce until he could break it with honor when Stephen returned to England.
Some men shouting and banging their leather cups on the tables felt it utterly foolish to let a fine point of honor take precedence over a strong military advantage. Others, and they were in the majority, sided with the king. Even this group was divided over the reasons for accepting David’s decision. The proud northern thanes, although they had little use or respect for any agreement made outside their own group and discounted the truce, were insulted by the notion that they feared Stephen or his army. It would give them greater satisfaction to wait until the king of England returned and then defeat him. Hugh was more interested in the argument put forward by a quieter group, the French and Norman men who had been granted Scottish lands by David. They had supported the king’s decision because they believed the situation in England would worsen.
Ranulf de Soules, lord of Liddesdale, said he was sure open rebellion would break out in support of Matilda as soon as Stephen was back in England. Not only would the English king be unable to bring his army to help the northern shires, Robert Avenel added, nodding agreement to de Soules’s remarks, but Stephen might call away such men as Walter Espec, who would otherwise be capable of organizing a dangerous defense with or without Stephen’s help.
Put together with what he had seen during the siege of Exeter—the way Robert of Gloucester had slyly aided the rebels—Hugh could not discount what they said. He knew that Thurstan’s hope in getting David to delay his invasion was that once Stephen came back he would be able to negotiate a stable peace. That did not seem very likely, considering the attitude of David’s barons; not once had Hugh heard a man suggest that peace would be better than war.
Even so, Hugh’s predominant emotion on hearing of David’s decision was joy. It meant that there was nothing more Thurstan could do here and after a day or two of oath-taking and ceremonial farewells, they would be on their way… home. The word surprised Hugh as it came into his mind. It occurred to him that he had never used it before. Although he had lived so long with Sir Walter, Helmsley had never become his home. Was he thinking of Jernaeve? No, not Jernaeve. Audris. Hugh smiled, relishing the sharp pang of longing. Where Audris was, that was home.
Chapter 15
Hugh had suffered the most in their first parting, when he thought his desire for Audris was hopeless. Now it was Audris’s turn. Despair lay heavy on her—not so much because of their parting, although she began to bleed only three days after he left and knew she had not conceived the child she desired, but because of the compulsion she felt to weave. She denied it as much as she could, busying herself with her duties in the garden and going into the woods and onto the cliffs to visit the nests she had marked, where she watched for the young to hatch. Then, when the old birds were off hunting, she would feed the new hatchlings to make them less shy of her.
She tried to write to Hugh also, knowing her uncle and aunt would not ask what she wrote—they never did. Oddly, both would ask her to read a letter or a message to them and even write one in return if the chaplain was not available, but when Audris read or wrote to please herself, Oliver and Eadyth would look aside as if taking book or quill in hand for such a purpose were indecent.
A shadow of a smile touched her lips as she remembered the reaction, but it did not linger. Usually when Oliver and Eadyth pretended not to see her, Audris had to turn her face and stifle giggles to hide her amusement. Surely if writing was decent for holy men and women, it could not be wrong for anyone—and Father Anselm, who was very holy, had said there was no wrong in it and taught her. But the laughter would not come, for her spirit sank ever deeper in despair.
Audris had thought she would find relief in writing to Hugh, in “talking together while parted,” but she found she had nothing to say. The pleasure that Hugh had in describing his daily activities could not serve for Audris. A woman’s daily round was, to an outsider, dull and repetitive, however interesting and fulfilling (or painful and frustrating) to her. Audris could not believe Hugh would be interested in the height reached by the seedlings in the garden or what decisions had been made about the later plantings. No doubt he would be interested in the hawks’ progress, but she feared to write about that lest he worry about her climbing. She would climb whether he worried or not, but why be cruel and bring it to his mind? Perhaps he would forget. Worst of all, she had no interest in relating these matters. Nor could she mention the picture that was forcing her to weave it thread by thread. All she wanted to do was fill her page with “Take care, my love, take care.”
She need not have feared Oliver and Eadyth’s notice. Her uncle and aunt were totally involved in their desperate efforts to ready Jernaeve for the war they feared was coming. Their conversation was reserved for each other and concerned with what had been stored, what could be expected in the keep for storage within the next few days, how much space there was still to be filled, how many mouths there would be to feed in the lower keep when the serfs and yeomen were called in to defend it, and how many in the upper keep.
There was no panic; Jernaeve had withstood many attacks and several sieges during the time Oliver and Eadyth had held it, but neither had any attention to spare for any outside subject. For them it was enough that Audris was there, engaged in her usual occupations. They did not wonder why her trilling laugh was stilled and her merry mischief ended. Audris was grateful for their indifference.
Because they did not ask anxious questions, she could force herself to take her meals in the great hall instead of in her tower, where her loom summoned her, silently, seductively.
Still, when it rained hard and the light failed and her uncle and aunt dragged their weary bones to bed, the loom was there, waiting for her, and the picture she blocked from her mind formed inexorably under her hands. She would not look at it. She would not let herself “see” it, but she could not always avoid Fritha’s eyes, and there was trouble in them. Fritha’s duties took her to the back of the loom where the picture was clear—Audris could only be glad the girl was mute and that there were no hand signs for what she might have said if she could.
There was no source of comfort. When she left Hugh, Audris had been soothed by the knowledge that she would see him again, that she could call to her mind images of their pleasure together. Even that failed her. During their first separation, she had feared for Bruno but never for Hugh, although she knew he took part in the fighting. She had never consciously thought of the legend of the unicorn and the maiden at that time, but she had a buried conviction that the unicorn could not be harmed until he was trapped by the maiden. Now every memory of him brought terror with it because she was no longer a maiden.
She called herself a fool; Hugh was a man, not an enchanted beast. She had summon
ed no hunters to kill or capture him while she held him. If she were to be concerned with the legend, she should fear that the unicorn would reject her because of her lost virginity—but she never feared that. Knowing it was against all reason, she felt she had trapped Hugh, that their coupling, which she had urged on him, had stripped him of his invulnerability, and that the destruction of her maidenhead implied the destruction of the unicorn.
The most acute agony eased when Morel came with his first message, two days after Thurstan had settled at Roxburgh. He carried a letter for Sir Oliver—Hugh had decided after some thought that it might be a good notion to ingratiate himself with Audris’s uncle by sending him information directly—and to Demoiselle Audris, Morel said, he brought special thanks for her company and entertainment, which his master had asked him to deliver in person. Sir Oliver nodded with little interest and said he believed Audris was in the garden, where Morel found her and gave his real message: there was a large packet waiting for her in the care of his daughter-by-marriage. Audris could send Fritha for it at anytime.
He told her, too, how happy he was in his service to Sir Hugh and thanked her with tears in his eyes for finding him so perfect a master. It was a relief to Audris to hear that Hugh was in excellent health and spirits and that there was no danger at all of any fighting. Under other circumstances, a quick tourney or other, more casual contests in arms might have been arranged for the amusement of David’s noblemen, but the Church disapproved of that kind of battle play, and in deference to Thurstan’s presence, no fighting at all was permitted. It was not reasonable to be relieved, for there were many ways to die that did not entail violence, but Audris only feared the sword and lance.
Hugh’s letter to Sir Oliver, which Audris read aloud to her uncle, described how kindly Thurstan had been received and the extraordinary effort David had made to please the archbishop—in all matters except the most important. Hugh offered little hope that Thurstan’s mission would be even partly successful—his letter having been written and sent a week before the archbishop began to harp on the dishonor of a sneak attack. Oliver growled over David’s intransigence, but not with real anger. He had not expected Thurstan to be able to deflect the king from his purpose and was grateful for the extra weeks to prepare.
There was a kind of comfort for Audris in Oliver’s curt nod of approval and his comment, “He has eyes and ears, that Hugh,” as she handed back the parchment. Audris found even more comfort in the long, long private letter she received, which detailed the day-by-day events of the journey and recounted Hugh’s amused comments about the different men who had accompanied David. She laughed and wept as she read, leaning on the wall by the window for light, for she truly heard every word in Hugh’s voice and could imagine the glint of his brilliant eyes as he wrote.
She went herself to Morel’s house late in the day to give him her letter for Hugh and a verbal apology for sending so little in return when she had received so much. It was pleasant to see the change in the household. Before they noticed her approach, Audris saw Morel seated on a stool, leaning back against the wall beside the front door as he worked in a contented manner on some item she could not see. His daughter-by-marriage, Mary, stood beside him, smiling down at him and talking. He turned his head to smile at her in turn, saw Audris, jumped to his feet, and bowed.
“I have brought my answer,” Audris said, holding out her letter.
Morel looked down at his hands, which were covered with grease, and nudged Mary forward. She bowed and came toward Audris, raising a hand wrapped in the cloth that protected her skirt so that her hands would not soil the parchment. The raised cloth showed her swelling belly. So that was why she was not out in the fields with the men, Audris thought, and most likely that was also the reason she wanted to be rid of the horse. Perhaps she feared that Morel would stint her child to feed the animal. Audris smiled and thanked her, and when the woman timidly reached out to touch her skirt, she did not pull it away, even though she disapproved of being touched for luck, like some talisman.
Instead she sighed and said, “You tell the midwife that if she has need of me for your birthing, she should send a messenger to Jernaeve and I will come.” Then, before either Morel or Mary could thank her, she asked again about the possibility of violence at Roxburgh.
“There be some loud talk between the men,” Morel replied. “Them Scots strut like cocks on a dunghill and crow like cocks too, but my master’s troop, they be old at the work and steady—and he be bidding them hold their hands and their tongues or he be keeping them housebound. It could be a few have black eyes and twisted noses—on both sides—but King David, he be just as firm there be no quarrels, so the knives stay in the belts.”
“And among the knights?” Audris asked anxiously.
“Ah, there be no trouble there. They all talk low and sweet. The king’s own eye be on them—and they think they be having chance enough to drink Northumbrian blood in a week or two.”
“Thank God for that,” Audris said, thinking only of the double reassurance that Hugh would not be involved in any fighting.
Morel, however, assumed she had referred to his final sentence, and he smiled grimly. The Demoiselle loved them all—he knew that—and she would not thank God for the Scots doing them any harm. Thus, the Demoiselle meant that they would beat the Scots and gain an advantage over them. Sometimes she was hard to understand when she gave advice or warning, but this time he was sure what she meant. He looked up past Audris’s head to where one could just make out Jernaeve’s bulk, rearing up against the sky, the west face lit with hazy reddish light. His lips twisted.
“They be like to drink deep here, Demoiselle—cold river water and hot oil. Old Iron Fist be a good lesson to a cock that crows too loud and far from home.”
“Yes, Jernaeve is safe, very safe.”
Audris was not certain why Morel had said what he did, but it came home to her that it was true. Jernaeve was safe. If Hugh were in Jernaeve… With the thought, the compulsion to weave washed over her in a flood so strong that she started to turn her mare’s head before she knew her hands had responded. This time she did not fight it; she let the mare carry her away, for the end of Morel’s sentence had come back to her like an echo. In a week or two, he had said. The Scots believed they would invade in a week or two, and there was nothing in either of Hugh’s letters that made their belief unlikely. Was that why she had felt so driven to weave this picture? With a sob of fear, Audris kicked her mare into a gallop. Perhaps the danger to Hugh was in Jernaeve, and if she did not have the work done in time, the unicorn would die for lack of warning.
But that was nonsense! Her tapestries were not real foretelling, as a prophet foretold. Father Anselm had explained to her how what she noticed while she watched the birds and beasts and what he had taught her about God and nature came together to make the pictures she “saw” and then wove. It could not be foretelling; only witches could foretell. But the people, all the people, believed she was a witch. Audris shuddered with terror. Father Anselm loved her. Had he lied to her—to everyone—to protect her? “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.” Those were the words in Exodus. Had Father Anselm loved her enough to damn his own soul?
It was a horrible notion, but it calmed Audris, and she slowed her mount’s headlong gallop. Possibly Father Anselm had loved her enough to lie for her sake, but he was a truly good, truly holy man, and he would not have loved her if she were evil. And her tapestries had never brought evil, so why should it matter if they were foretellings? She touched the mare with her heel to speed her pace just a trifle.
I am a fool, Audris thought. Father Anselm told me it was a gift—a special gift—and that I must use it as it comes. Because Hugh is dear to me, I have forgotten all I ever learned. I know that hiding from the truth cannot help, cannot change the future. That will come, as the flood and the drought came. The thing itself cannot be stopped, but the worst results can often be ave
rted with care if one has warning.
Over the next few days, as she finished the work on her loom, Audris often repeated to herself what she had thought on that ride home. She needed whatever comfort she could draw from memories of her beloved teacher, for the sense of doom still hung over her. Audris had hoped that when she no longer struggled against the impulse to weave, she would feel pleasantly detached, simply satisfied with a task she loved, as she always had in the past—even when she wove the pictures that showed Death. But this time her heaviness of heart would not lift, and when at last she bade Fritha turn the loom so she could see the work, she had to clasp her hands and bite her lips to keep them from trembling with fear.
Still, she cried out with horror at what she saw, blinking to clear the tears from her eyes so she could look again and find she had seen wrong. But the image remained. The unicorn was there, grown huge and wild, showing the terrible and fierce part of his nature rather than his enchanted gentleness with the maiden. The beast filled almost the whole tapestry, neck arched, head down as if he were about to thrust his horn through Jernaeve keep to split and break it while his cloven hooves shone silver among the blackened crops and ruined buildings of the lower bailey.
“No, he would not,” Audris whispered, but the tears ran down her face, for she knew the fierceness was part of Hugh. She had felt it in him all that week, burning under his tenderness, felt the hot eagerness to fight his way to greatness, to destroy anything that blocked the path to her. That was what desire for her had wakened in him! She stood appalled, then shuddered and turned away, sobbing, “Take it down, Fritha! Take it down and hide it away.”
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