“But you see Hugh came to no harm,” Audris coaxed. “So you did no harm. And you were only a child yourself.”
Maud did not seem to hear her. Her eyes were fixed ahead, blind, and she rocked a little back and forth. “I was punished for my evil,” she whispered. “How I was punished! My children died—all of them. Some were born dead, some lived a few days, some lived a year or two to wring my heart the harder before they were swept away. But I could not repent, for if a child had lived, I wished Heugh to belong to my child. But none lived. My children died. All of them.”
“Oh, my God.” Audris sighed, weeping too. “Oh, no, no. Oh, do not put that burden on Hugh’s life. It cannot be his fault—”
“Hugh’s fault!” Maud seemed to wake from her trance of grief. “No! The fault was mine!” She stared at Audris, at the tears running down her face, reached out and touched her wet cheek with a timid finger. “You weep for me? Yet it was your husband I prayed would die.”
“But he did not die,” Audris cried, sniffling.
“No, I did not,” Hugh said, sitting up suddenly.
Audris gasped, and Maud twisted around desperately, trying to rise. Hugh caught her and held her as gently as he could.
“Aunt Maud,” he said softly. “Do not run away. Only let me say one thing to you, and then, if you wish, you need never look on me again. I wish to offer you an explanation for my father’s behavior. If he looked like me, as all say he did, then he was an ugly man. I know it, and he must have known it. Even though Margaret Ruthsson came to love him, I do not think that it entered his mind that, young as you were and with no reason to favor him above other men, you would come to care for him. I have done much as he did with young girls of Sir Walter’s family. Try to forgive him. I hope you can, because I would value an aunt who could love me.”
Maud was crying helplessly, but she was not trying to escape Hugh’s hold, and he drew her closer, leaning across Audris, who wriggled out from between them, rising and stepping backward over the bench. She came around to the other side and knelt so she could also embrace the weeping woman.
“You can confess now,” she murmured, “and free your soul of this burden. You have done penance enough.”
Her eyes met Hugh’s, and he nodded slightly so she saw he understood what she meant. “In a while, when I am stronger,” he said softly, “we will go to York to see my father in God. Thurstan, who is archbishop of York, raised me. God moves in His own ways to mend the ill that men do to each other, and my life has been better than most men’s. Thurstan will shrive you, and we will find my father’s grave and consecrate the ground, and Thurstan will pray for his soul. Come, aunt, you have wept enough for the mistake of a child. Come, be comforted.”
Eventually Maud’s dreadful sobs quieted, and Hugh and Audris helped her rise and half carried her back into the keep and into her chamber. She clung pathetically to Hugh, and he remained with her while Audris found Eadyth and explained and then mixed a soothing potion. It was nearly time for the evening meal before Maud was willing to release Hugh’s hand and turned to Eadyth, who waved Hugh and Audris away.
“My poor dearling,” Audris said when they were out of the chamber, pulling Hugh’s head down and kissing him. “I never meant to put you through such torture.”
He shook his head. “It was not so bad,” he said thoughtfully as he walked to Oliver’s great chair by the hearth and sank down into it. He waited while Audris got a stool and settled beside him, leaning on his knees. “I am sorry for Aunt Maud,” he went on, “but I think she will be better now that she has told us and we have accepted it. Or even if she is not”—he smiled wryly at Audris—“she will no longer haunt my dreams, because I understand.”
“Heugh is yours,” Audris said. “Did you hear that much?”
“Yes, and I am glad of it,” Hugh admitted, smiling again. “At first I did not want it, but that, I think, was because of the shock Maud gave me. It is a fine place.”
“I think so too,” Audris agreed. “And it is conveniently close to Jernaeve.” She saw Hugh’s face tighten and put a gentle hand on his, which had clenched into a fist. “Soul of my soul, listen to me,” she pleaded. “You are no danger to Jernaeve. You have been no danger to Jernaeve since you discovered who you were. We have had sign after sign of it. Remember when the unicorn shield was broken in the combat with Sir Lionel? I knew then, but I should have realized earlier, when you came back to me after we had coupled. A unicorn can only come to a virgin maid, but you came back to me. Hugh, the unicorn is dead—or, rather, there never was a unicorn.”
“I do not know,” he said uncertainly.
“I know.” She laughed up at him softly. “Oh, Hugh, did you not recognize that scene in the garden? You stretched out with your head in my lap and Maud telling us that your name is not Licorne but Heugh.”
He frowned. “Of course my name is Hugh. What are you talking about, Audris?”
She laughed louder. “Oh, dear, how can I say it so you will understand? You are Hugh Heugh, or Hugh de Heugh. Your poor, poor mother was trying to tell Thurstan your name, yes, but not your Christian name—what good would that be? She must have known she was dying—and she struggled so, but Thurstan could not understand.”
“Good merciful God,” Hugh breathed. “She must have been trying to say ‘tell Kenorn’ or perhaps to give my grandfather’s name, Lionel—and my father’s, Kenorn, and it came out li-corne. But it was God that stopped her tongue. Do you realize that, Audris? If Thurstan had understood her and had sent me to Heugh, I would not have lived a week. If the old man had not killed me, Lionel would have arranged it.”
Audris shivered. “There are not many Olivers and Eadyths in this world, I fear.” But she blinked back her tears and smiled. “And, perhaps, dearling, the unicorn was meant to pique my curiosity to bring us together?”
This time Hugh laughed. “I am sure of it, dear heart, for without God’s direct intervention—or, more likely Blessed Mary’s, for the Mother always did like a merry jest—it is not possible that a woman like you would look at a man like me.”
Audris cocked her head to one side. “I am not sure,” she said as if seriously considering Hugh’s statement. “Just now with your face still white as a bone and that color hair, I admit you are shocking, but”—she levered herself up by leaning on his knees and kissed his prominent nose—“there are some fine, upstanding features about you—” Balancing on one hand, she slid the other between his legs.
“Hush, you lewd slut,” Hugh whispered, putting both arms around her and crushing her to his chest, then dumping her firmly back on her stool. “We are supposed to be considering what to do about Heugh. There may be a contest for possession with the girl heir’s guardian. I am not much worried, with Thurstan, the abbess, Maud, and the servants to speak for me, but I think I heard Maud say there was proof of the marriage in a ‘safe place.’ I wonder where. It was not with my mother’s possessions.”
“I think I know,” Audris said. “Margaret must have sent it to her sister—what was her name?”
“Ursula,” Hugh replied, surprised at recalling the name and then realizing that everything about that letter had branded itself deeply into his memory. “At least, she had taken the name Sister Ursula—no, Ralph called her Ursula too. But the convent was not named.”
“Ralph will know that,” Audris assured him, “and marriage lines will have been kept.”
Hugh nodded. “I think you are right. You are a clever minx. I will write to Ralph tomorrow. Hmm, remind me to send someone for Morel. I gave him leave last week to help his sons restore their house. He said they only had to rethatch, that the place had not been burnt to the ground.”
“And the family was safe inside Jernaeve,” Audris remarked with satisfaction. “They even saved their cow and most of the hens—and with what Morel has earned, they will be able to buy feed and grain and seed, and not have to e
at the animals and be left with nothing. They were among the most fortunate.”
But Hugh’s mind was on his own affairs, and he paid little attention to the fate of Morel’s family. “I will go to the convent when I have an answer from Ralph—if it is not too far. And then to York, before the weather gets too bad.” He frowned. “We will be traveling much of the autumn, it seems, but—”
“But first,” Audris said quietly and rather sadly, because she was afraid that she had failed and Hugh was talking around the problem that really troubled him, “we must decide what to do about Jernaeve.”
To her surprise, Hugh settled himself more firmly in the great chair of state. “We will live here,” he said. “I will find a good man to hold Ruthsson for me and another to hold Heugh. Jernaeve is different. Jernaeve cannot be left in other hands. It would be too hard to pry out a treacherous castellan.”
“Hugh?” Audris’s question was tremulous with hope.
He smiled down at her. “In that last tapestry—the one that shows the unicorn dead—there is a man’s shadow stretching out a hand to you. I hated that picture, until I saw the shadow. I did not know why that shadow comforted me—but now I know. I am the shadow. A man. Audris, only a man, holding out my hand to lead you away from a beautiful dream. Do you regret the tapestry of dreams?”
“No!” Audris cried, her whole face alight with joy. “No. I was a silly girl when I dreamed of the unicorn. I am a woman now.”
Author’s Note
For the sake of those readers familiar with the history of the twelfth century, I would like to make a comment on some puzzling aspects of the Scottish invasion of 1138. Contemporary sources tend to treat this invasion as a single extended episode, stretching from the end of 1137 through August of 1138. The chronicles of the twelfth century, however, seem quite clear in describing two separate invasions: the first began soon after King Stephen returned to England from Normandy in late November 1137 and ended when King David’s army was driven back into Scotland by King Stephen’s counterattack; the second began in the late spring of 1138 and terminated in late August when the Scots were defeated at the bloody battle of the Standard.
During one of these invasions, some of the separated contingents of the Scottish army committed atrocities that horrified even the well-hardened chroniclers. In general, medieval chronicles refer to the killing, burning, raping, and looting common to medieval warfare as “ravaging” and drop the subject. In this case they were explicit and appalled.
The fact that the medieval chroniclers described in detail the atrocities committed is in itself unusual and marks the excesses of the invasion of 1138 as exceptional. Barrow (in Kingship and Unity: Scotland 1000–1306, University of Toronto Press, 1981, pp. 37–39), who has written extensively on Scottish history, defends the Scots by accusing the English chroniclers of “hysterical… exaggeration;” but I must point out that no such horrors are described for the invasion of 1136 or for other invasions. As a result, I feel I must accept the fact that the behavior of some of the Scottish troops and commanders was beyond the bounds of what was considered acceptable even in the brutal period I am describing.
One more remark and I will leave this subject. Different chronicles place the atrocities clearly in one or the other invasion. Roger of Wendover states that the excesses took place during the winter invasion; Henry of Huntington places them in the summer. I have chosen to use Huntington’s chronicle mainly for geographical reasons: Huntington is in Yorkshire (whereas Wendover is about forty miles northeast of London), close to the events, and a local chronicler is more likely to be accurate. For example, only Henry of Huntington mentions King Stephen’s excursion into the northern shires to drive out the Scots in 1136, but there is ample documentary evidence of other kinds to confirm the accuracy of this record. Nonetheless, for the sake of simplicity, I have chosen hardly to mention the invasion in the winter of 1137–1138.
I wish to conclude this note with a request to any readers better conversant than I with Scottish history who may have an answer to (or even a strong opinion about) why the invasion of 1138 was different from many that preceded it and many that followed. I would be grateful to all who would write to me to give their explanation or state their opinions. I would also be glad to learn of any errors I have made, either in history or in continuity or logic. For that matter, if any reader should simply wish to write to express an opinion about my work in general, I would be delighted to hear from him or her. I even promise to answer each letter—although my current correspondents would warn those who do write that it takes weeks, sometimes months, before I find time to reply. For those who would like to take the plunge, I can be reached directly at [email protected].
RLG
About the Author
Roberta Gellis is the bestselling author of over twenty-five novels with over one million copies sold. New York Times bestseller John Jakes has called her a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent; Publishers Weekly has termed her a master of the medieval historical. Her many awards include The Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur, several RT Book Reviews book awards and also the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana.
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