A Tapestry of Dreams Page 16

  Nonetheless, Hugh had taken fright and knew that he could not hide his worries for long. Then his desire for Audris added to his dissatisfaction. It was easier to avoid burdening Thurstan by staying away from him and writing cheerful letters. The only trouble with staying away was that Hugh soon began to wonder whether his foster father was giving him a taste of his own medicine. Could Thurstan’s assurances to Hugh’s inquiries about his health be as false as Hugh’s own cheerfulness?

  Thus, Hugh was overjoyed at this new opportunity Sir Walter offered to make a visit with much serious news to discuss. Hugh was certain his real concern about the possibility of a Scottish invasion would mask any personal problems and permit him to spend some time with the father who had kissed and cuddled him when he was a baby and who, he greatly feared, must die before long. He wrote as soon as he was certain he understood clearly what Sir Walter wanted him to say—not always identical with what he might have said if left to himself—making clear in his letter that his request for time was one of business, although it would give him private joy. The answer arrived speedily, saying that Hugh must come at once, before preparations for the celebration of Easter absorbed all Thurstan’s time and attention.

  Remembering the fasting and penances that Thurstan invariably inflicted on himself before this saddest and most joyful of holy periods, Hugh was on the road that very afternoon. He was terrified that, frail as he already was, Thurstan might not survive, and when he was shown into the archbishop’s quarters, he flung himself to his knees and kissed Thurstan’s hands with a passion that made the old man free himself so that he could take hold of Hugh’s face and lift it.

  “My child, my dear child, what is wrong?” Thurstan asked anxiously. “There is no sin so great that God’s love cannot forgive the truly repentant.”

  There were tears in Hugh’s remarkable eyes, and his fear showed as he stared into the lined face and hollowed eyes that examined him so tenderly. He shook his head, as much as he could without disturbing the hands that cupped his face.

  “Father, dearest and most beloved father, I have no sin on my soul so great that I fear God will abandon me,” Hugh replied, knowing that he must explain or he would only create more anxiety. Then he covered Thurstan’s hands with his own and bent his head so he could kiss the archbishop’s palms. “I—I fear to lose you,” he whispered.

  Thurstan laughed, a hearty chuckle that was soothing to Hugh because there was nothing of an old man’s cackle or wheeze in it. He extracted his hands from Hugh’s hold again, and this time used one to ruffle his foster son’s bright hair. “You cannot lose me,” he said. “Do you think I will be less real to you after I am dead? I assure you it is not so. I will be more real. And do you think I will care for you and pray for you less?” A frown crossed his face. “There are those who say the soul loses all earthly care, but I agree only insofar as I believe all evil passion to be driven out. As Christ loved us on earth, so He loves us in heaven. He did not abandon us when He became one with His Father. Why then should I abandon you, as dear as you are to me?”

  “I do not fear you will abandon me when you are in heaven, but I want you here where I can talk to you,” Hugh said slightly sulkily.

  Thurstan pulled Hugh closer and kissed his forehead. “So you can wheedle me into approving what you well know a pure soul would resist?” He chuckled again.

  Despite his fear Hugh could not help but laugh too. “Father, whatever you think, you will never convince me that your soul will be purer in heaven than it is now.”

  Hugh was about to add a plea that Thurstan consider his age and abate his stern penances, although he knew such a plea to be hopeless, but suddenly a much better idea occurred to him. He knew that Thurstan believed in the separation of worldly and spiritual matters, according to Christ’s dictum that what pertained to Caesar should be rendered unto him. Perhaps the presentation of the threat from the Scots would make him feel he had to save his strength for political action.

  “But it was not only my personal fear for you that overset me,” Hugh continued. “It was because I believe your entire see will need you in the flesh. Sir Walter fears King David will not abide by the truce once King Stephen leaves England, and then perhaps you alone may be a shield for all northern England. So I pray you, Father, to have a care to your strength and well-being.”

  Thurstan sat back in his chair, gestured Hugh to rise, and pointed at a stool. “So,” he said, when Hugh had brought the stool close and seated himself, “what reason has Sir Walter for his suspicions?” And when he had heard Hugh out, he sighed. “David is a good man, but strong temptations beset him—his oath to Matilda, his wife’s desire to hold what was once her father’s earldom, the constant urging of his hungry nobles… I can see that the rumors might be based on truth. Well, the first thing is to be sure. I will send to the bishop of Saint Andrews, whom I consecrated, and ask him whether David will swear to him to keep the truce.”

  “And if he will not?” Hugh asked.

  “I do not expect he will,” Thurstan said wryly, “even if his present intention is to abide by the truce. Kings have become wary of making promises to bishops, some of whom do not take political realities into consideration. However, I will be able to discern much from Saint Andrews’s answer, and I assure you I will do my uttermost to keep the peace. As to how, I have no answer for you this moment. I must think what would be best and pray for guidance.”

  Anytime Thurstan said he would pray for something, Hugh became nervous, but as the days passed and the archbishop continued to eat regularly and look no more tired or frail, Hugh began to feel his ploy had been successful. In his prime, Thurstan had loved politics; he had been the late King Henry’s favorite negotiator; even after he had fallen into disfavor with the king, Henry summoned him whenever he had a particularly difficult piece of bargaining to conduct. And within the Church the archbishop had been no less contentious, fighting for the preeminence of York over the Scottish bishoprics and for equality with Canterbury in England. As he grew older, his joy in the battle for worldly honors faded, and he began to sieve each situation more carefully with regard to its true value. Still, Hugh had hoped his foster father would consider holding off the carnage of war sufficiently important to merit his attention, and he had.

  Hugh was not told what reply the bishop of Saint Andrews sent; apparently the answer had included a request that it be kept in confidence, but Hugh was assured that Thurstan’s interest had not wavered, because Easter came and went without any sign that the archbishop was mortifying his flesh in any excessive manner.

  When that crucial period had passed, Hugh rode back to Helmsley to learn from Sir Walter how his campaign was progressing. He had few doubts that Sir Walter would be successful, since the northern barons were accustomed to following his lead, but he felt it would be good to have definite information if Thurstan asked, and it was only twenty-four miles from York to Helmsley. Hugh always treasured the certainty that it was not only Sir Walter’s good character and the loss of his son but Thurstan’s own need to see Hugh often that made him decide to send the child he had raised to Sir Walter for fostering.

  While Hugh was at Helmsley, the news came that Stephen had left for Normandy in the third week of March. A few days later, a letter from Thurstan arrived asking Hugh to come again and dine with him in private the following week. The statement that Thurstan wished to speak to Hugh alone caused some consternation because both Hugh and Sir Walter thought the archbishop would wish to coordinate his efforts with Sir Walter’s if he intended to convince King David to abide by the truce. But Hugh discovered as soon as their affectionate greetings were over that the request for privacy had only a peripheral connection with Scottish affairs.

  Thurstan signed for Hugh to serve himself from the Lenten fare: three tureens of fish stew and a dozen platters of variously prepared vegetables, fish, cheeses, and eggs the servants had been told to leave on the table. Thursta
n took minuscule portions of two dishes onto his own golden plate, added four spoonsful of stew to a marvelous bowl, pure white and as thin as an eggshell, and said without preamble, “How necessary are you to Sir Walter, my son?”

  “Not—” Hugh began, then stopped as he reconsidered his strong impulse to say that he was not necessary at all. The question Thurstan asked of course implied that he had some task in mind for Hugh that would take him away from Sir Walter, but Hugh dared not simply grab at an excuse for release. “It depends,” he went on, “on the circumstances. On a battlefield, I am still necessary—and will be for a year or two more. Sir Walter’s squires are not yet strong enough to guard him as well as I would like, and Sir Walter is not as young as he was. But for other things…” Hugh shrugged. “Now that Sir Walter is no longer attending King Stephen’s court and has time to oversee his lands, anyone could do the tasks he gives to me.”

  Thurstan nodded and smiled. “You have become a man, Hugh, and such a man as is a joy and a blessing to those who love him.”

  He paused, watching Hugh’s face. The young man had made a denying gesture with the hand that was reaching for a second helping of baked pike stuffed with chestnuts and shaken his head in amused denial, but he had smiled—a singularly sweet smile, Thurstan thought, for so strong a face. And over all and under all, the old man sensed sadness, a sadness that had grown stronger since he had first marked it a year before.

  Thurstan believed that man was God’s instrument to bring about good on earth. His fasting, scourging, and praying were purely personal, penance for his own evil thoughts and deeds. He did not scourge himself or pray in the expectation that God would intervene directly in the affairs of men by sending angels or miracles. And, although he had let his knowledge of Hugh’s unhappiness lie fallow for a year, that was because he hoped it was some small problem that would work itself out. Thurstan did not believe that unnecessary misery was beneficial to the soul. Now he wanted to finish this business as quickly as possible and get on to what he hoped would give the dear child of his heart relief.

  “Well, then,” the archbishop said briskly, “from what you say, I would do Sir Walter no harm if I asked that you come into service with me for a time?”

  “No harm at all!” Hugh exclaimed, his eyes lighting with eagerness and relief. Then, realizing such eagerness was not completely compatible with satisfaction in his present situation and that he did not want Thurstan to know he was not happy, he looked anxious, and to cover that, said, “So long as I will be free to fight at his back if the Scots make war.”

  “I hope to convince David to keep the truce,” Thurstan replied, bending his head over his bowl and lifting a spoonful of stew to his mouth.

  He was greatly surprised and disturbed. It had never occurred to him that Hugh’s unhappiness was connected with his service to Sir Walter. He had assumed that it was Hugh’s condition as a foundling that was haunting him. As a result, he had sought a parchment on which he had written out, a few days after Hugh had come into his keeping, every detail he could remember about that event and everything he had been able to discover in an admittedly brief investigation of it.

  For years Thurstan had regretted not carrying his investigation further, but at the time he had felt he must keep his schedule of visitation, and he was sure he would be able to return to Durham very soon and pursue the facts at leisure. In that he had been mistaken. First he was so busy with his newly granted archbishopric that weeks and months flew by without his noticing them; then his troubles with Canterbury had begun, and he had been forced to write to the pope to plead his case. Success in the pleading had only brought King Henry’s rage down on him and driven him into exile for years. By the time he was able to return to Durham to ask questions about Hugh’s birth and mother, he was certain no one in the convent would remember her because the abbess had died and many of the sisters were no longer at that convent. He was so busy, too, bringing order to his archdiocese after his long absence that more years had passed—and then it was too late.

  Oddly, Hugh had never asked any questions about his ancestry. He had accepted the fact that he was not Thurstan’s son because, though sons were common enough to priests either through concubines or even wives, Hugh knew Thurstan would never lie. He had seemed satisfied, as a child, to be loved as a fosterling, and Thurstan had hesitated to damage the child’s peace by intruding a subject he avoided either out of indifference or out of fear. Now it appeared that Hugh’s parentage was not the problem at all.

  “But if I am not successful with David,” Thurstan continued, his mind still busy with whether or not to raise a subject that seemed not to be troubling Hugh, “you will be free to do your duty to Sir Walter.”

  “Then I am sure my service to you will do no harm.” Hugh smiled broadly. “In fact, good will come of it. The boys will take over much of what I have been doing of late, and it is time for them to have more responsibility.”

  Thurstan, who had taken and swallowed another spoonful of stew, lifted his head. “Why are you so eager to flee Sir Walter’s service that you do not even ask why an aged and peaceful man of the Church needs a knight?”

  The question took Hugh completely by surprise, and he exclaimed, “I am not eager to leave Sir Walter!” Then, under the kind but piercing scrutiny of Thurstan’s eyes, he flushed. “That is true, or nearly true, Father. I love Sir Walter and he me—and that is the source of trouble.” And having said that much, Hugh realized he had better go on and describe the whole situation. He was able to do so with a clear conscience because Thurstan’s request for his service would solve the problem, and there would be nothing more for his foster father to worry about.

  But when he was finished with the tale of the fears and jealousies of Sir Walter’s relatives and his own fear of hurting Sir Walter by telling him or leaving him without a good reason, Thurstan shook his head. “Such foolishness, Hugh. Why did you not tell me this sooner?”

  Hugh laughed. “Because I did not know that an aged and peaceful prelate of the Church would have need for a man of war. What is that need, Father?”

  “I will come to it in time, my son, but first I wish to clear away this private matter. I am old, but not yet grown foolish with it—I hope—and it is plain enough that you did not speak to save me any worry over you. Do you still believe you succeeded in that?”

  Mildly chagrined, Hugh answered, “No, Father.”

  “Self-deception in worldly matters, especially when meant as a kindness, is no sin, but it can cause unnecessary pain. Your trouble with Sir Walter’s family is not all that hurts you, my son.”

  “No, Father,” Hugh admitted with a sigh, “but it seems useless to me to speak of the other matter.” Then he smiled. “Oh, no. I will give your answer to that before you say it. I have heard it often enough. ‘The more minds that consider a problem, the better the chance that it will be solved. And if they all pray, too, guidance may be granted.’ But it would take a miracle, not guidance, to solve my problem, and I am no saint to look for divine intervention, especially in this, since I am in the wrong. I have looked too high, Father, and seen a woman I desire who is far, far beyond me.”

  All the time he had listened to Hugh describe the jealousy of Sir Walter’s relatives, Thurstan had been also mentally debating whether to introduce the subject of Hugh’s ancestry. Now he asked, “Because you may be a bastard?”

  “May be?” Hugh repeated. “But I thought my mother sought shelter with the sisters at Durham because she had been cast out by her own people. And I assumed from that she had ado with a—a man not fit for her station.”

  “Hugh! Who told you this tale?” Thurstan looked shocked.

  “Indeed, I do not know, Father,” Hugh replied. “I… it seems I knew it always. Could my mother—”

  “You were not a day old when your mother laid you in Saint George’s arms in Durham church.” Thurstan cut him off sharply. “And she died n
ot half an hour later. She told you nothing—and me not much—your name, only that, really. ‘Hugh,’ she said, over and over, then ‘Take care of him,’ which I promised gladly, and then ‘Yourself, yourself.’ I tried to explain, but she could not understand and only wept and said ‘Yourself,’ so I promised again.”

  “And you have surely kept that promise,” Hugh said, impulsively rising and embracing his foster father.

  Thurstan raised his head and kissed Hugh, but then sighed. “I have loved you always, so it is no merit in me to have cared for you. Indeed, I have wondered sometimes if what I felt when I lifted you from the carving and carried you in my arms out of the church—I let you suck my finger while I sought a wet nurse for you… Hugh! That silly woman!”

  “My nurse? I can scarcely remember her.”

  “But it must have been she who made up that tale. Perhaps I told her your mother was a lady to ensure close and good care for you, and—yes, I remember now, she asked if you would be taken from her or if she would go with you when your father came. I must have said I did not know who your father was—”

  “And she added the most likely story to those few words of yours.” But Hugh was smiling when he spoke, and he kissed Thurstan again and added, “Do not look so distressed, Father, I beg you. No harm was done. It is best to believe the worst, and it saved me from dreaming false dreams and putting on airs.”

  Thurstan shook his head slowly. “You do not understand, Hugh. I may have done you a great wrong, a great wrong.”

  “You have done me only good,” Hugh insisted fiercely.

  Thurstan only shook his head again, thinking back. “I told myself that I had no time to seek your father or even more particulars about your mother, but I fear that was not my real reason. Did I not in my secret heart wish to keep you for myself? What ill could have befallen if I were a day or two late in finishing my visitations? Yet the next day I flew from Durham, carrying you with me—”