A Tapestry of Dreams Page 15

  The pursuivant nodded. There was nothing special in Sir Oliver’s face or voice, but Stephen’s pursuivant understood the purpose of his tale. What was more, he had looked up at old Iron Fist from the ford and traveled up the steep winding track into Jernaeve keep. He knew what it would cost to take such a place by force and decided that a mark or two or a few more men were not worth setting in Sir Oliver’s mind the notion that his master might ask too much once his grip on Normandy was reestablished and all rebellion quenched. And Sir Oliver was content because his conscience was clear. He was not cheating the king. Those five devils, so discontent and rebellious on the land, would doubtless make good soldiers.

  There was, however, little enough else to make Sir Oliver content. Within weeks after Stephen had sailed for France, reports began to come to his ears about a gathering of men and arms in Scotland. Sir Oliver cursed long and loud, but without much real spirit. Licorne had predicted a renewal of the war, and Sir Oliver had feared his reasons were good. Now Oliver was only expressing his frustration at the time of year. Spring was the worst time to withstand a siege. The stores of winter were used up, and nothing could be added to fill the storerooms until the first harvest. The sheep and cattle were breeding and could not be slaughtered without disaster. Nor could they be brought in and sheltered behind the walls, because there was nothing to feed them. Nonetheless, Sir Oliver sent warnings to the shepherds and the cowherds to keep the animals on the lower pastures so that they could be driven in. If the Scots came, they could feed the livestock on the new growing wheat within the walls—until the people inside the keep had to eat the sheep and cattle themselves.

  Chapter 9

  The year that had passed had been harder for Hugh than for Audris. Oddly, this was because Sir Walter loved Hugh, who had filled his master’s need for someone to instruct and care for at a time when his life seemed to have been emptied. Thus, Sir Walter noticed Hugh’s strong attraction to Demoiselle Audris of Jernaeve. He never thought for a moment that any result could come of that attraction. Nothing he could give Hugh without infringing on the rights of his blood ties could make Hugh a suitable match for Audris, and Sir Walter never wavered in his conviction that his sisters’ sons must be his heirs. But he did wish to ease his lovesick fosterling and sought distractions for him. The first was to take Hugh with him to the Easter court in London instead of leaving him behind to oversee his bailiffs and stewards on smaller estates, as he usually did. The great city, he was sure, could distract even a man on his deathbed. But in London, appearances counted far more than they did in Yorkshire, where everyone knew Hugh, so Sir Walter had Hugh outfitted in fine garments, a new furred cloak, and dyed leather boots and shoes.

  In a sense Sir Walter was successful. Hugh had been to London before, but only when he was young enough so that every moment he was not serving his master was strictly supervised by some other responsible adult. Now all but a few hours a day were free, and he roved the busy streets. Most fascinating were the docks where ships came, seemingly, from the far reaches of the earth. The crews showed every color of hair and skin from the yellow and white of the men of the northern seas through browns of every shade to a startling black man who spoke a strange gibberish that no one could understand. The precious stuffs they brought in exchange for English wool and tin were unloaded on the wharves, but they were too well sheathed in boxes and bales to be examined. For that one had to walk the Strand, where stalls stood before rich warehouses, displaying a feast for the eyes of goods as common as woolen stockings and as rare as a unicorn’s horn.

  Hugh gaped at that. It was a fantastic and beautiful thing, pure ivory, long, slender, and straight, but with a spiral twist from base to sharp point. He thought for a minute of sending it to Audris, but when he heard the price, he knew the horn to be as far beyond his reach as the Demoiselle herself. Later, he was glad the horn had been so costly. It would have been wrong to remind her of him if she had forgotten. That thought hurt, and Hugh hurried on to his second rationalization, the hope that Audris would not wish to think of a dead unicorn.

  Those thoughts only came to Hugh later, however. On the Strand even a sharp disappointment could not hold one’s attention long. Not only one’s eyes but every sense was assaulted. Odors came in waves as one passed along: the sweet, greasy scent of wool, the tang of fish, the welcoming, musty smell of beer. And at every moment a new cry dragged one’s head from right to left, forward and back. Boatmen shouted from the river; eel wives offered baskets with their odd wailing but musical call. Hugh loved the Strand and never tired of it, because it was never the same no matter how often he came.

  He only wore his fine clothing to the Strand once. The rich velvet tunic and high horseman’s boots brought him bows and obsequious smiles, which he was fortunate in being able to measure because some of Sir Walter’s minor servants treated him to the same false honors. The handsome clothing also brought doubly high prices, which he would not have known except that a passing cart splattered him with foul sewage before he could decide which item he wanted. It was far more important to hurry back to his quarters and try to save his boots and tunic than to buy a trinket, and when he returned a few days later in his old woolen clothes, he was offered the same items at half the cost.

  Unfortunately, high prices were not the only problems Sir Walter’s generosity brought him. More than once he had been mistaken for someone of wealth and influence. Then, when his state was discovered—for he refused to say he was Walter Espec’s favorite—he would often be angrily rejected, and once he was crudely insulted. The rejections did not hurt Hugh—much—for he knew what value to place on the friendship of the lickspittles who hung on the rich, but they reminded him of his empty future.

  Another complication was added when Sir Walter came upon him the time insult was offered. Hugh’s lips were drawn back in a snarl, and his muscles, tense with rage, bunched under his elegant tunic. The insulter sneered at him, enjoying what he thought was impotent fury, for he did not know Hugh. But before Hugh could strike, Sir Walter’s hand fell on his shoulder, and the man confronting him choked and backed away—he knew Sir Walter and the power he wielded. Hugh swung around, his eyes blazing.

  “Enough,” Sir Walter said firmly. Then, sensing Hugh’s instinctive response to his tone of command, he added, “On Friday the king will give the accolade to five candidates for knighthood. I will ask him to add your name to the list, and he will be glad to do it.”

  “But—”

  “But me no buts,” Sir Walter snapped. “If you had struck that fool, you would have made trouble for me. That he deserved it is not the point. As long as you are my squire, I am responsible for you—and you are too old for that, Hugh.”

  The statement woke an immediate response in Hugh. He realized suddenly that he desired to be a knight. He was too old—and too strong in both body and will—to be a squire any longer. Four years earlier, when he had first made the decision not to change his status, there had still been something in him, despite his size and strength, that shrank from being called a man. But it was no longer true. When had that changed, Hugh wondered. And as if in answer to his question, a melange of memories of Audris filled his mind. He called himself a fool. Knighthood would bring him no closer to Audris; he knew that well. Nonetheless, his desire to be knighted remained. Nor did the way Sir Walter phrased his remarks arouse any sense of guilt in Hugh. In fact, he smiled wryly at his master.

  “How does it come about that it is always to save you trouble that I receive favors?” he asked.

  Sir Walter struck him a fond blow on the head that might have stunned another. Hugh merely rocked with it and blinked. He was accustomed.

  “It will save us both trouble,” Sir Walter growled. “Being knighted will not stop such filth from annoying you, but you will have the right to challenge, and silencing one will silence them all.”

  Hugh nodded grim satisfaction. “I will have to find one willing to tak
e my challenge,” he remarked dryly.

  Sir Walter laughed. “They do not know you here. Some fool will think your size would make you slow.”

  Hugh never needed to issue a challenge; having been knighted so publicly by the king was evidence enough that Hugh had connections to match his garments and saved him that kind of trouble. It was only after Sir Walter had returned to his own keep, Helmsley, that the dark side of becoming Sir Hugh showed itself. Seemingly tales of the new, rich garments and the knighting by the king had worked their way to the ears of Sir Walter’s sisters and renewed all their fears of Hugh’s influence. Even his recommendation that John de Bussey be made castellan of Wark was turned against him. He had done it, he was told by Lady de Bussey not long after their return to Helmsley in the early summer, only to be rid of John so that he could bind his aging master still closer.

  “That was not my reason,” Hugh protested hopelessly. “But if you do not believe me, I beg you to tell Sir Walter to send me away.”

  “You are as subtle as a snake,” the lady hissed. “But I am not such a fool as to try to pull the scales from my poor brother’s eyes by force. Do you think I do not know how good and pure his heart is? I know well why you bid me vilify you. That will only make him cling more closely to you and think me cruel and spiteful.”

  “It is not true!” Hugh cried desperately. “I love him. I cannot leave him without any reason. That would hurt him. Find me a good reason, and I will go.”

  But that was not what the fearful sisters wanted. They wanted Hugh to expose his “true nature,” for example by complaining of their insults and cruelty to Sir Walter. The sisters felt that if Hugh left while on good terms with Sir Walter, the young man’s absence might be more dangerous than his presence, for their brother would then miss and long for Hugh.

  Fortunately, Hugh did not know that. He believed that if he went away from Helmsley their animosity against him would be ended, and he sought desperately for an excuse to leave. But it was Sir Walter who sent him away, to the siege at Exeter—not to please his sisters but for reasons of his own.

  While Audris fled to the hills and worked in Jernaeve’s garden, Hugh fought at Exeter as the leader of his own troop. A senior vassal was in charge of the entire contingent, but Sir Walter wanted Hugh to have a chance to put into effect, all on his own, what he had been doing for several years with Sir Walter’s authority behind him.

  In a personal sense, Hugh enjoyed himself greatly. He was spectacularly successful in the few sorties and raids that enlivened the dull weeks of the siege, and it soon became clear that Hugh was a natural battle leader. Sir Walter relished his chief vassal’s reports of Hugh’s all-around success and laughed heartily at his fosterling’s much more casual and often jocular recounting of his doings. Other passages in Hugh’s long, detailed letters were not at all amusing. They related the same events that Bruno had described for Sir Oliver, but often in darker terms. Less blinded by loyalty and gratitude to Stephen, Hugh saw the disaffection of Robert of Gloucester and his adherents less as an affront to the king and more as a political danger. He was thus more shocked by Stephen’s ill-judged mercy.

  Sir Walter was more ambivalent than Hugh in his reaction to these events. He had become aware during the time he had spent with the king that Stephen was persuadable, but this facet of his character had advantages as well as drawbacks. He was not overjoyed to learn that the homage of Robert of Gloucester was a clean patch over a festering sore—but he had suspected that all along—and if the king were busy watching the barons of the southwest, he would have less time to pry and poke in the north. Sir Walter’s greatest concern was that any rebellion be contained in one place at a time and not be allowed to flood the entire kingdom. Thus, when Stephen followed Redvers to the Isle of Wight, Sir Walter allowed his levy of men to go with the king, but when they returned, having failed to take Redvers, he summoned his contingent home.

  The entire family was gathered in Helmsley to celebrate the time of Christ’s birth and the Epiphany. To most it was a period of great joy, but it was a time of penance to Hugh. Although Sir Walter was not so unaware of his family’s jealousy as Hugh thought, he could not completely refrain from praising his protégé for his fine performance in Exeter; after all, it was he who had trained Hugh, and it was to his credit that Hugh had done so well. The result, naturally, was more nips and snaps and threats and lectures whenever any of the family caught Hugh alone. Thus, Hugh almost wept when Sir Walter decided to pay scutage rather than send men with the king to Normandy.

  “But I would like to go,” he said, trying to keep the desperation he felt out of his voice, “and I cannot see why you should have to pay—”

  “I do not think I will be paying, and I believe I will need you here,” Sir Walter replied. “My friends in the Scottish court tell me that although efforts are made to suppress them, rumors are about that King David is only waiting until the ships carry Stephen away before the Scots gather men for war. You will have fighting enough here, I fear.”

  Hugh was distracted from his own troubles. War was an enjoyable exercise… but only when fought on the lands of others. He had little taste for seeing his master’s yeomen killed or injured and their farms burnt and stock stolen.

  “Do we need to wait to be overrun?” Hugh asked.

  “Are you suggesting that I break the truce with King David?” Sir Walter countered.

  “No, my lord,” Hugh replied, “but you could send warning to the other barons not to strip themselves of men and even to gather more—”

  “That I have done already,” Sir Walter said, and shook a finger at him. “Are you trying to teach your grandfather to suck eggs?”

  Hugh laughed. “If I am canny, it is your teaching that has made me so. But you did not let me finish, my lord. What I wished to add was that King David must be told we are ready.”

  “If I have friends in his court, do you think he has no news gatherers in the north?”

  “Of course he has,” Hugh agreed, “but it is one thing to pick up rumors from a central place like the court and another to gather a word here and there. David will certainly have heard of King Stephen’s request for men, and some will send men to save the scutage. He will also expect to hear that there is a readying for defense against his coming. What he may not understand is that it is not just this and that man preparing himself alone. If he is told that the north will unite to form an army—”

  “By my soul, you have an idea!” Sir Walter exclaimed. “But will he believe it?”

  “If he is told by a man whose word he would not question, he would believe,” Hugh suggested. In the back of his mind he wondered whether Sir Walter himself would go to speak to King David and take him or, even better, send him as a messenger on his own.

  Sir Walter stared at him so intently for a while that Hugh’s hopes rose, but then he shook his head, “I cannot go myself,” he said slowly. “I must call the lords together to explain. I do not really doubt their agreement, but the understanding must be firm before any envoy reaches David. Nor can I get agreement first and then go to Scotland. If David’s army is summoned and on its way, it may be too late to stop them.”

  “A messenger from you—” Hugh began.

  “No, to send a messenger is useless,” Sir Walter said instantly. “A messenger cannot discuss anything. And a messenger might make David suspicious. Would he not wonder if we were using the device to gain time? No, someone respected must go, a man who David will believe can give his word and bind other men with it. And it would not do to use a man who will lose his temper… hmmm.”

  “This is a matter of peace, not of war,” Hugh said. “Could you not ask the archbishop for help? Perhaps he would send one of his bishops.”

  Sir Walter nodded. “You have it, Hugh. It was what I was thinking myself. You go to Thurstan and explain our fears to him. I will send out messages to the sheriffs and some others to g
ather opinions.”

  Hugh was doubly delighted. Not only would he be able to get away from Helmsley, where he felt spies watched him even after Sir Walter’s family had left, but he would see Thurstan. He had not visited his father in God for some time—in fact, not since he had started for Wark the previous year, and there had been a three-year hiatus in his relatively frequent visits before that. As Sir Walter gave him more responsibility, Hugh had less free time although he had more freedom, and he found it more difficult to fit his visits into Thurstan’s busy schedule. The time had simply slipped away, and there had never been any sense of absence, because if they saw each other less, they wrote to each other more.

  When Sir Walter had gone south the preceding year in response to the news that Stephen had arrived in England to claim the crown, Hugh had found he had little to do. So on his way to collect Wark’s dues, he had stopped at York to visit Archbishop Thurstan. In the back of his mind, he was considering asking Thurstan’s advice about his increasing problems with Sir Walter’s family, but all thoughts of himself flew out of his head when he first saw and embraced the old man in greeting. Suddenly, as he held Thurstan’s frail body in his arms, he realized how aged, how worn the archbishop had become. It was inconceivable to Hugh that he should add to Thurstan’s problems even so small a weight as his own discomfort.

  Of course, it was one thing to make the decision, another entirely to prevent Thurstan from sensing that something was amiss. In his preoccupation with the old man’s physical fragility, Hugh had failed to notice that Thurstan’s eyes were as bright as ever, and Hugh was assailed by searching questions as soon as he disclaimed any special reason for his visit. He had mostly managed to evade giving any answer he thought would worry Thurstan, but the archbishop heard enough to be sure Hugh’s troubles were not of the soul. Believing implicitly that worldly problems could trouble but not truly harm the child he loved, Thurstan forbore to question further.